With so much new music floating around the interwebs, sometimes it’s hard to dig a little deeper and find out more about a promising artist.
That’s why The Profile is breaking it down for you. The Pitch takes care of the nitty gritty factual bits, The Plot serves as a Q & A with the artist, and The Plug is where you can go for more.
The Pitch
DEER is Tom Hitchcock, a Melbourne-based producer whose musical trajectory began on his laptop, evolving to DJ sets at the club and directing him straight back to where he started – in his bedroom, making club tracks on his laptop. He remains committed to feel good 808 samples, pitched up vocals and squeaky sounds most recently defined as the forefront of good taste by artists like Cashmere Cat.
The young producer has been bounding his way through the fields of Melbourne, from turning it up at the inaugural Paradise Music Festival to opening for The Underachievers and supporting a veritable plethora of international artists inclusive of Djemba Djemba, Trippy Turtle, DJ Hoodboi and Ryan Hemsworth.
DEER was given the nod of approval from Mishka NYC, who premiered tracks from his ‘Love Hearts’ EP via their esteemed ‘Keep Watch’ mix series which has showcased artists such as Skream and DJ Sliink. DEER’s Love Hearts EP is now available in its entirety thanks to Pilerats Records.
The Plot
Hometown: “Seddon, Melbourne, Australia. Growing up in the western suburbs of Melbourne skating was a big part of my younger years as a lot of my friends were into it. Listening to soundtracks from different skate videos definitely made me appreciate a diverse range of music.”
Genre: “Multi-tempo emotional bass music”
Influences: “Recently I’ve been listening to a lot of light-hearted rap music like Yung Lean, Denzel Curry, Drake, Chance The Rapper, Kanye West but also RnB stuff like R. Kelly and Justin Bieber. I also get a lot of inspiration from electronic producers as well like James Blake, Jai Paul, Cashmere Cat, Wave Racer and Ryan Hemsworth.
I like how different their production style is from others and that’s what makes them stand out. I listen to a lot of stuff, so I really hope that my future releases reflect that.”
First song you ever wrote: “The first song I wrote on my computer was called Melodically, which was on my Soundcloud ages ago. I made it after watching a tutorial on how to make synths using operator on Ableton and manipulating them with the LFO. It’s pretty basic and only goes for like a minute.”
Favourite local act: “The homies from friendships (Nic and Misha) hold it down pretty tight. They’re always fun to hang out with and their live shows are amazing.”
Favourite local venue: “Rod Laver Arena. Britney Spears, if you ever read this: please hit me up to play on your next tour down here.”
Dream collaboration: “I would love to work on a track with Kanye West about Kim Kardashian’s ass. It would be so sexy.”
Dream rider: “25 kg of popcorn chicken and a whole watermelon. Because I would love to one day throw chicken at people whilst playing a live set, and I love watermelon.”
Best gig you’ve ever been to: “In 2011 SebastiAn played at Parklife just after his album Total dropped.
He played this totalitarian DJ set with these dictatorial visuals and massive flags that dropped down half way through the set that said SebastiAn for president. Everything contrasted so well with the emotionless smoking SebastiAn who played on this tall black podium occasionally raising his fist to the sky. It was one of the first DJ sets that I saw someone mix in tracks with different tempos effortlessly using loops and timely reverbed breaks.
The set was 100% French electronic and was one of the best shows I’ve ever seen.”
Venue Or Festival you’d love to play: “Obviously SXSW or Coachella would be amazing, but realistically – I just want to play anywhere that people can appreciate my music and get turnt up.”
The Plug
DEER will be playing at the New Era x Mad Decent Party (Official Carbon Festival show) which is free event at Boney on Saturday March 29th, and alongside DJ Sliink and Dirty South Joe on April 4th at Laundry Bar, Melbourne.
To stay in the loop you can follow DEER on Soundcloud and Facebook.
The Love Hearts EP is now available as a free download via Pilerats Records.
