It is inevitable and it happens to everyone. Daft Punk’s new bag is now full of holes.  Paul Oakenfold, a former ideas factory, has long been reduced to shoplifting second hand Euro-cheese rhythms to plaster his corny cockney choruses to; and the heresy that is David Guetta? Lost to mindless celebrity swilling awfulness that makes you want to board your ears up.

For anybody under 20 with an ear for four to the floor rhythms and the power and freedom of the dance floor, these are the laughable companions to the bloated rock monsters also stalking the stadium arenas of the world.

Despite this, dance music has allegedly taken over the world, so who are the new heroes? Well luckily for the sanity of the scene there is a new breed of dance producer who values integrity over auto tune and art over cash.

The head of the pack is 26-year-old English wünderkid Orlando Higginbottom, the artist more commonly known as Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs (TEED). The dynamic producer combines the best genres of contemporary dance (hip hop, house techno, electro, and breaks) together in a live show that features stage diving, pyrotechnics, and of course, oversized luminous dinosaur costumes.

Son of an Oxford University Don, Higginbottom originally came to dance music via the unlikely route of classical. “I was originally really into the classics my dad would play round the house,” begins the young electro wizard.

“I had heard dance music on the radio and stuff, but it didn’t really impress me. In fact I thought a lot of it was shit. But the first time I got interested was when I heard jungle music that led to me to explore and buy records and stuff.”“I had heard dance music on the radio and stuff, but it didn’t really impress me. In fact I thought a lot of it was shit.”

TEED’s current output is a far cry from a bad-boy raga rave, so what came next? “When I got to [being] a teenager and I had been listening to drum and bass for ages, I suddenly realised just how shit most of it was. This project is in a way a reaction to the seriousness of those scenes. There is always some horrible little corner of the club scene where people take the whole thing far, far too seriously.”

Does he care to name and shame anyone? “Of course not!”

The British producer’s live performances are legendary, take his last Sydney show for example, where stage diving support act Flume came off worst from an encounter with a bouncer – landing himself in hospital. “He’s OK, I messaged him the other day and I think he’s back at work!”

Injured producers aside, the explosion of dance music is moving away from clubs and into the stadium and arenas. When asked if he agrees that the spirit of clubbing is being lost to the festival circuit, Higginbottoms replies: “No I don’t think so, previously it used to be a very UK thing but now there’s a huge audience in America, in Australia, and so on.”

“The truth is,” he continues, “that so many more people are now getting into electronic music [that] the potential audience is just so much bigger for all of us.”

“At the end of the day it’s about entertainment, and I’m not going to criticise these big arena guys,” he reasons; “because then I’m guilty of taking myself too seriously and then what do I have to offer?”“What I’m trying to do with TEED is… offer some originality and quirkiness to the scene. We play in dinosaur costumes for gods sake!”

Headed down under for a string of festival dates over Christmas and New Years, TEED is no stranger to our shores, having played a number of live shows earlier in the year, and he appreciates the scene down under.

“It’s an interesting place, partly because when I first got there everybody was talking about this thing called ‘beats’. Then played me instrumental hip hop and trip hop,” says Higginbottom.

“Now that was weird as it’s the last type of music that could possibly be popular again in the UK at the moment, which was interesting to see how different that was. But the same time there are still people dancing to the same shit they dance to in the UK, so there is an amazing connection.”

While he appreciates the similarities, he admits he’s aiming to do something a little different. “What I’m trying to do with TEED is get away from that a little bit and offer some originality and quirkiness to the scene. We play in dinosaur costumes for gods sake! I don’t want to be part of a scene where kids in Tokyo and New York, London, and Sydney are all dancing to an identical beat.”

So what is next for the man most likely to be at the forefront of a new grass roots sound in the genre? “ Well I’ll be over in Australia soon, thank god. I’m really looking forward to seeing some sunshine and taking some time to relax… Then next year? Well I know where I’ll be but I don’t know what the music I’ll be making will sound like.”

So without dooming his career forever, Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs is the refreshing sound of somebody who can make dance music interesting again for a whole new generation, creating success based on the original spirit of acid house rather than fickle corporate dollars.

Trouble is out now through Polydor, read the Tone Deaf review here. TEED plays Southbound (details here) and the Falls Festival at New Year’s, details here; as well as two headline shows in Melbourne and Brisbane. Full dates and details below.

Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs Australian Tour

Saturday, 29 December 2012 Corner Hotel [18+] | Melbourne
Tix: $35+ BF PRESALE
Tickets available from Corner Box Office – www.cornerhotel.com – 03 9427 9198

Thursday, 3 January 2013 | Oh Hello [18+] | Brisbane
Tix: $35+BF PRESALE 
Tickets available from Moshtix – www.moshtix.com.au – 1300 438 849

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