One of many remarkable talents to settle into the Australia electronic music movement, Dan Dixon, more notoriously recognized by his audio profile AVANCE, has laid the preliminary groundwork for a breakaway career with releases through veteran labels such as Never Say Die: Black Label, Quality Goods Records and TWONK since he first poked his face onto the scene nearly 4 years ago.
While my initial attention was drawn in the infancy of the project with a slapping remix of Kendrick Lamar’s ‘Maad City’ and a brilliant interpretation of ‘Lotus Eater’ by Mura Masa, Dixon’s ability to expand on his earlier releases, further refining his sound to develop a signature vibe is what really distinguishes his style from the masses.
Demonstrated in more recent releases such as ‘Sinister’ and ‘Revenge’, the range AVANCE possesses allows him to fluctuate effortlessly between a riveting, production-heavy trap style and bass-clad collaborations, utilizing hip-hop vocals as a way to weave his personal influence into each track.
Hot off the press, AVANCE’s latest ‘OVERTHROWN’ voyages deep into uncharted waters with massive walls of reverberating bass and tightly-wound production, while veteran beat breaks and innovative fills give the track a sensational cadence.
We had the chance to link with Dixon briefly to discuss his latest release as well as the abundance of talent Australia. Be sure to check out ‘OVERTHROWN’ as you read through the interview below, and make sure to grab the free download of the tune here.
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Residing in Perth, a lot of talented trap producers live right in your backyard. How has this influenced your path as an artist as well as your sound, more specifically?
I actually just made the jump to Sydney, but living in Perth there is huge bass community more than Trap itself and this benefited me by introducing heavy bass sounds into my production, let’s see what Sydney does to me.
The bass and trap music scene is as fertile as ever, who are some exciting names local to Australia that have caught your attention?
There is so much creativity and talent coming out of Australia and I am proud to be a part of the scene. I could name many artists that stand out to me but Leotrix, Heimanu, Loca, Calibr & Silva are just some of the artists I am excited to see flourish this year.
A number of your songs utilize rap samples or present a new take on currently trending hip-hop tracks. Can you share a bit about your background with hip-hop and how the genre has helped shape your own production style?
I grew up with hip hop music, it was the very first genre of music I produced. Going on to learn as many genres as possible and now have my own crafted sound which I cannot even describe, but I will always have my hip hop roots. I also produce hip hop instrumentals under my newly created alias RoseFall.
In what ways is ‘Overthrown’ diverse from your previous releases and in what ways does it preserve your trademark style?
I generally like to create all new sounds when I start a track so that the releases are always as fresh as possible, but I decided with this track to throw in many sounds from previous releases for a bit of fun, Overthrown is very much making a statement in many ways. This track holds strongly to my trademark 110bpm style I created early 2017.
Imagine an ice cream parlor hits your line and wants to have ‘Overthrown’ as a flavor served in their shop. What type of scoop are we lookin’ at here?
You’d be getting a nice big scoop of bitterness.
You tweeted earlier this Fall teasing, not one, but TWO EPs that you were sitting on awaiting a release date. Any news to share on when we might expect to hear these release?
I am sitting now on over 30 unreleased singles, collaborations and remixes. I have no exact release dates as I am in no rush but you will see lots from me this year.
From your social media, it looks like you remain pretty active in the local Australia scene attending a number of shows and festivals even beyond the ones you are booked at. What is the best live set you’ve witnessed to-date, and what about it made it so special?
I always like to go support my artist friends and of course I enjoy music events overall, my personal favorite live performance to date was actually not a DJ but a rapper, Denzel Curry performed at Origin Fields 2018 and stole the show with his incredibly energetic performance and eye-catching visuals, he then went on to perform a tribute to XXXTENTACION which put the cherry on top for me.
