Violinist/producer Josh Teed releases mystical, bass-heavy debut album, ‘Emergent’

Josh Teed is a multi-instrumentalist, DJ, and producer whose sound encompasses multiple styles and genres. During his live sets, he plays violin, Didgeridoo, and an analogue synthesizer over diverse blend of heavy, melodic bass. Teed throws this live instrumentation together to create a decisively EDM-centric sound across all his productions. He recently performed at the inaugural edition of Quasar Festival — which made it onto CE‘s Top Breakout Festivals of 2019 — where Teed also got our attention.

Teed’s past projects include the 3-track Desert Bloom EP on Aspire Higher, released toward the latter end of 2019, along with multiple singles, features, collaborations, and mixes. Now the New Hampshire native releases his debut studio full-length with the aptly-titled Emergent LP. On the 8-track project, Teed recorded violin, synthesizer, keys, guitar, and several different percussions. The result is an eclectic, worldly sound that borders on ever genre from bass, glitch, new-age, ambient, and more.

“This project is the culmination of hundreds of hours of work, and I can’t believe I finally get to share it with you guys,” says Teed on the release. “So much love for everyone involved in the creative process. The artists I got to collab with, the man Kapha Music for mastering the whole project.”

It’s a sound that we at CE have come to refer to as “conscious bass music,” or music that is at once intelligent, thought-provoking, and mind-altering while being meditative, experimental, and future-forward. From the beautifully ambient title track, “Emergent,” and the psychedelic space of “Expanse” to the eclectic temperatures and dub-heavy drops of “Defect,” Josh Teed’s debut work impresses, alleviates, and excites the senses.

As far as the collaborative records on the album are concerned, Teed says he recorded the first half of the songs, with his collaborators attending to the second halves, before he went back in and added own twist into those portions. Whether it’s the expansive track, “Apogee” with NatLo, the worldly dub track, “Sidewinder with Siska, or the acoustic-heavy “Naja” with Peace Sine, these are songs that take listeners through many different moods and scenes.

What Teed has managed to construct on Emergent is a lush, mystifying landscape that takes listeners on a back-and-forth sonic journey between the body and the mind, the natural world and the technologic, and the soft laden and the heavy-hitting. This is one album that listeners will have on repeat for turning up, tuning out, relaxation, or deep focus.