The twelve new tracks from Dominic Lalli and Jeremy Salken take what the two have done best since 2008 — the hypnotic live drums of Salken, Lalli’s silky sax skills — and sprinkle in some fresh dynamics, including jam-laced bass and sun-kissed vocals, courtesy of several collaborators.
As Lalli sees it, it’s a project imbued with the carefree spirit of festival culture and boundless energy entwined in dance music.
“I think one of the themes that we always roll with is a positive, healing, loving output that you feel with our music. We try to tie that into all of our music,” he says. “People taking that from the album would be great. I would love that. We just spread the good vibes with the music, pass it to all of your friends and just enjoy it. That’s why we’re here to put those vibes out there and provide people with something they can relate to musically and sonically and lyrically and just enjoy it. Let it be the soundtrack to your life, the soundtrack to the summer.”
The four previously released singles are harbingers of that, and Big Gigantic is always spreading the love by teaming up with artists from across genres. For example, “Journey” is rooted in a reggae-inspired beat and vocals that Lalli tapped Cali musician DENM to bring to life, as well as Belgian dubstep duo Ganja White Night.
“It was a demo that I had written a while ago and been looking for a vocalist to sing on it," Lalli says. "Once I got DENM and had that on the song, I was like, ‘This feels like Ganja White Night is the perfect act to really collab and take this song to the next level.’”
The Boulder EDM vets of Jeremy Salken and Dominic Lalli know how to write infectious grooves.
Courtesy Stephanie Parsley Photography
“I thought Prob would be great for that song. He came over and we made that song in a day in the studio,” Lalli says.
As the producer behind Big G, Lalli is open to working with anyone, as the project’s output over the past seventeen years has long proved, in finding what’s best for the song. “It all happens in a different way,” he explains. “Sometimes you make something, like ‘Rain’ with NEIMY. I had the song, and then we were like, ‘She’s so dope. We’d love to have her on something to center the song.’ Then there’s ‘Sweetest Sacrifice.’ It was a demo Parson James sent us, I took the vocals and rearranged it." (Bryn Christopher of British group I See MONSTAS also contributed to the track.)
“So there are lots of different ways. A lot of trial and error,” Lalli continues, adding he guesstimates he created a cache of 100 songs to pull from while working on Fluorescence, the follow-up to 2022 record Brighter Future 2. “There’s a lot of ‘no.’ A lot of stuff that doesn’t work or doesn’t happen, but you keep throwing the darts at the board and hoping something sticks.”
It’s safe to say Big Gigantic, a Colorado EDM institution at this point, will be sticking around for the foreseeable future.
“It’s pretty incredible that we’ve been able to do this for as long as we’ve had. I remember being younger and Phish was doing their twenty-year anniversary. That was a huge thing,” Salken says. “It’s like, ‘Woah, we’re almost around as long as they were.’ Thinking about that and being a kid and wrapping my head around that and how cool that is that this scene has developed, and we’ve been a part of that story the whole time.”
With the release out, Big G is now preparing for festival season and a proper tour, after the duo’s Bonnaroo main-stage set slated for Sunday, June 15, was cancelled, along with the rest of the fest, due to severe weather. A big one is Rowdytown 13 at Red Rocks on Saturday, September 27. Salken and Lalli are looking forward to that one and express their appreciation for the hometown fanbase and EDM community.
“It’s really cool that people still love us and we’re able to keep doing this when it just started as a dream in Boulder,” Salken shares.
The future is looking bright. “Everything ebbs and flows and goes at the pace it’s going to go at, but you just never know what can happen at any point,” he concludes. “It’s fun to see what’s happened in our scene and how it’s grown in the last seventeen years and where it’s going to go in the next seventeen.”
Fluorescence is available on all streaming platforms.
