* En anglais uniquement
Chiefly a dance act with uplifting material built for and tested at festivals such as Coachella, Lollapalooza, and Bonnaroo,
Big Gigantic mix programming with live instrumentation and take a similar approach with genres and collaborators. Not strictly EDM by definition, the Boulder-birthed, Denver-based duo draw from house and dubstep, as well as jazz, funk, and modern hip-hop, incorporating the latter with the greatest frequency. They debuted in 2009 and five years later scored their first charting release with
The Night Is Young, an album highlighted by the ecstatic and dizzying title song, featuring
Cherub. Brighter Future,
Big Gigantic's next LP, almost topped Billboard's dance/electronic chart in 2016 with a boost from the
Logic and
Rozes collaboration "All of Me."
Big Gigantic have gone on to release their sixth and seventh albums, 2020's
Free Your Mind and 2022's Brighter Future 2.
Dominic Lalli and Jeremy Salken met while performing in and around Boulder and became roommates.
Big Gigantic was born during the MySpace era when Lalli, who earned a master's degree from the Manhattan School of Music (he studied saxophone with
David Liebman and
Bob Mintzer) was making music on his computer, and asked Salken, a drummer since the age of three, to augment his productions. Naming their partnership
Big Gigantic, they debuted with the full-length Fire It Up and quickly followed it with the Wide Awake EP. These titles, self-released in 2009, were rooted primarily in dubstep and left-field hip-hop, with Lalli's saxophone occasionally acting as the lead instrument. After
A Place Behind the Moon and Nocturnal were issued respectively in 2010 and 2012, Lalli and Salken widened their scope in 2014 with
The Night Is Young, teaming with the duo
Cherub on the title track -- their first to feature vocals in a prominent role.
The success of
The Night Is Young -- it hit number ten on Billboard's Top Dance/Electronic Albums chart -- encouraged Lalli and Salken to continue working with vocalists. Almost all of the songs on their 2016 follow-up, Brighter Future, featured either a singer or rapper, and most of this supporting cast was high in profile. Two of the LP's singles hit the Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart: "The Little Things," fronted by
Angela McCluskey, and "All of Me," featuring a hook from
Rozes and a guest verse from
Logic. Also boasting appearances from
Waka Flocka Flame,
Pell,
Naaz, and the returning
Cherub, Brighter Future consequently reached number two on the dance/electronic chart. Brighter Future Remixed and a deluxe edition of Brighter Future followed in 2017, the same year Lalli and Salken were featured on
Steve Aoki and
Bad Royale's "$4,000,000."
A handful of
Big Gigantic singles were issued in 2018 and 2019, and led to the 2020 arrival of
Free Your Mind, a comparatively breezy set of songs led by "Friends," a collaboration with
Ashe that quickly exceeded ten million streams. In 2021, the duo issued an EP, Leisure Season, Vol. 1, and prepared the release of Brighter Future 2, beginning in early 2022 with preview tracks featuring
GRiZ,
Kota the Friend,
Aloe Blacc, and jointly
Vic Mensa and
Mick Jenkins. ~ Andy Kellman