FLUME DROP THE GAME FREE
FLUME DROP THE GAME CRACK

On the 2019 mixtape Hi This Is Flume, he dusted off his most experimental beats yet while linking up with slowthai, SOPHIE, and JPEGMAFIA. His twisted trap drums and spacious atmospheres proved the perfect foil for vocalists like Vic Mensa, Tove Lo, and Little Dragon, leading to production work for Lorde and Vince Staples. With 2016’s Skin, he showed his growth with trickier beats and more innovative sound-sculpting, without forgetting about the importance of a perfect hook (exhibit A: “Never Be Like You,” with a swoon-worthy topline from the Toronto singer kai). Those head-nodding beats and hazy effects quickly became staples on chill playlists, but Flume was already lining up his next wave. The sedate vibe was the flip side of EDM’s peak-time energy, but his slippery synths and ribbon-like vocal edits showed kinship with dubstep a sound many would soon call “future bass” was born. The following year, his self-titled debut album established the outline of his nascent sound, pairing spring-loaded drum programming with dreamily chopped-up samples. A decade later, the deliriously laidback vibe of his debut single, “Sleepless,” got him signed to Australia’s Future Classic.

FLUME DROP THE GAME CRACK

In a way, it did crack a code: To see music’s inner workings laid bare came as a revelation to young Streten.

FLUME DROP THE GAME FREE

The free gift wasn’t a secret decoder ring, but a CD with rudimentary production software. Streten got his start making music when he was 10 or 11, when his dad bought him a box of cereal. In the process, he helped pioneer a whole new dimension of chill. In the early 2010s, just as main-stage EDM was pushing tempos and decibels into the red, Flume-aka Harley Streten, born in 1991-went in the opposite direction, delving into hip-hop beats and airy synths. Australia is a long way from electronic music’s principal hubs, but don’t tell Flume: When he was just 20 years old, the Sydney producer leveraged his easygoing surfer attitude into single-handedly changing the course of electronic music’s evolution.

Flume drop the game