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Favorite ThisTop 10 EDM Collectives of 2015

Published: November 30, 2015

By: Pedro Acosta

2015 has been the year of the collective. While major labels reiterated how out-of-touch and low-impact they are on the broader electronic music scene, small little artist collectives from the US, Europe, and Australia continued to churn out gold, launch careers, and hammer the final nail into the coffin of the old industry standards where gatekeepers decided who was in and who was out, and there were limited ways to find new, incredible tunes.

While the blurry gray line between indie labels and collectives is certainly getting fuzzier everyday, we chose to stick to those groups who identify as collectives. These are artists who tour together, work together, and share iconography and goals. Whether they're headed by big artists and even bigger personalities, or really are just a ragtag group of nobodies who join hands and flip off the man, we shone our spotlight on some super talented crews and their breakout hits (if we could narrow it down to just one). So enjoy our list of Top 10 Collectives from the electronic music space in 2015.

Hah--not so fast... because it's 2015, we're giving you 5 extra spots for each of our end-of-year lists. So you'll really be getting the Top 15 of '15 with each of these fun annual round-ups. Enjoy 50% more list on the house. Think of it as your Cyber Monday bonus.

15. Le Chau Collective (Montréal)

“A collective of Montreal-based composers” made up of Billboard, Demy, A.C, Realmind, Clipz, Wilfredo, and June Nawakii. These guys bring the good vibes with an ambient hybrid between Tycho and Daft Punk. Their Chapitre 2 was featured on Nest HQ.

14. Lethe (International)

This up and coming collective draws their talent from all over the world with their artists hailing from places like Bristol, Sweden, and Massachusetts. The artists within the collective are HVRXLD, Haven, glo, vassh, ofdream, Craset, and ajgor. All of their tracks carry an intense amount of emotion or even darkness, creating an atmospheric sound that yanks the listener into the world of Lethe.

13. Roseville Music Group (USA)

The brainchild of !illmind, the Roseville Music Group has evolved into an inspiring music community with releases from London’s Bigg Kid, Nick Pacoli, ENTRSTELLAR. This quote from Claude Debussy can be seen on their page, "Works of art make rules; rules do not make works of art."

12. Wu-xi (Australia)

“Wu-xi (無戲 or woo.zee) is a collection of trap and heavy experimental music producers based within Australia, although extending to the farthest reaches of europe, wu-xi is founded on an aim to bring light to a huge underground trap community and extend that to listeners.”

11. PLAY (International)

This mysteriously musical collective contains artists like Misogi, Fifty Grand, Drew The Architect, Smitty The BG, and more. All of the PLAY artists released an intricate 16-track compilation in Fall 2015 that shows how eclectic this group really is. They titled it Volume 1, which hopefully indicates there will be more to come.


Tags: Deep HouseDubstepElectronicaGlitchHip HopTrap