Here at Conscious Electronic, we love all things bass — breakbeat, downtempo, left-field, experimental, dubstep in all its forms, you name it. As the underground bass movement has begun its full ascendancy in the US, we’ve been keeping a finger on the pulse of up-and-coming bass artists the country over. As such, CE’s Rising Bass Spotlight seeks to shine a light onto the rising producers who’re honing their craft, galvanizing their movements, and attuning eyes, ears, heads, and bodies into all things low end.

For many in the bass music underground, Tripzy Leary creates a unique low-end freeform that stuns and consistently delights. The Vancouver-based artist comes from a new wave of deep bass conduits who’ve been taking over North America throughout the past couple of years. A highly introspective and exploratory sound, with psychedelic touches and melting twists and turns, Tripzy Leary’s signature stamp is designed to get listeners lost in one’s own nueral hallways. Now Tripzy Leary is primed for his next sonic storyline, Project: Rainbow, out today on his very own label alongside graphic artist Chris Sh1elds, Cyberdelics.

For all intents and purposes, Tripzy Leary is the musical alias of Quentyn Kermeen. But as far as intentional metaphors go, Tripzy Leary isn’t entirely human being per se. He’s an alien of a higher species, who seeded DNA on planet Earth billions of years ago, and who has returned to protect the DNA and prepare it for metamorphosis and space migration. Whereas Tripzy represents a “lyrical humanistic dude,” Leary is the “Alien Bass Frequency Generator.” Part real and part imaginary, Tripzy Leary represents two sides of the same coin.

Whereas Kermeen’s past projects like Space Migration documented an evacuation from a terraformed earth, his recent quarantine-inspired EP, dubbed Generation Z, explores evolution, metamorphosis, and melding the characters of Tripzy and Leary into one ephemeral unit.

Interestingly, Gen Z was philosophically guided by Timothy Leary’s theories on meta- morphosis and how the psychedelic movement influenced rapid technological advancement. Now comes the point at which fans seem to find themselves in the Canadian alien’s newest sonic excavation is somewhere along the visible light spectrum. Or, ROYGBIV. Wherever that may be.

On Project: Rainbow, Tripzy Leary began pulling back the curtain on his newest EP one track at a time—every Friday throughout December and into the new year, to be exact. With December releases like “Vibrations” and “Orange Sky,” the first teasers from the project, Tripzy Leary moves through sound (and color) with effortless ease and grace.

Tripzy Leary - Orange Sky

With the additions of “Yello” and “Green Stuff,” which both feel like continuations of each other in terms of their sound design and placement on the visible light spectrum, Kermeen moves to raise the vibrational frequencies of his listeners. All the while, the EP manages to stay grounded well within the stylistic terrain of low-tempo bass: slow and solemn, low moving and mellow, ooey and gooey, and at times, even edging toward downtempo.

Tripzy Leary - Yello

Anyone who is even remotely familiar with Kermeen’s music knows that there is always a deeper meaning running beneath his psychedelic listening journeys. Thematically, Tripzy Leary’s newest short player explores the light/color spectrum as he channels the vibrations of healing throughout the EP’s seven selections. Timely, to say the least; but also wildly auspicious and intellectual, Project: Rainbow presents a beautiful remedy to the perils of pandemic life. True art in response to a quarantined reality, in other words.

The EP’s more recent releases mark a progression into newer sonic territories for Tripzy Leary. Whereas “Magenta” presents itself as a blissful downtempo number, “Rainbows” is quite the opposite in terms of its edgy, fast-paced construction. It’s almost as if Tripzy and Leary were looking at each other here inter-dimensionally through a looking glass reflection or portal way mirror of sorts.

Then lastly comes the EP’s final track, “Violet Space,” a spaceship ride through interdimensional textures, spacey synths, and heavy wubs. Almost hypnotic in its appeal, the track is meant to activate the third eye chakra to take the listener into realms unknown.

Tripzy Leary - Violet Space

Tripzy Leary wraps up the project perfectly in a press release:

Whether it was growing up inspired by the many acts of Shambhala, where he spent six years working hospitality and being exposed to cutting-edge bass music, or curating Cyberdelic New Year, presented by CouchFam, Tripzy Leary has already proven himself an “industry go-getter” on the one hand. On the other, Kermeen’s own musical output is as relentlessly-paced as it is visionary, statement-making art. Project: Rainbow is testament to this fact, which is why it is long-overdue that Tripzy Leary be included as a feature of CE‘s Rising Bass Spotlight.