Julian Gray.
@dunbadn
When asked to describe his sound in three words, Julian Gray chose “grounded, melodic and playful.” Sure, they’re good adjectives and describe his music well, but they’re more than that.
They’re words that fit who Gray is. Not just who he is as a producer but who he genuinely is outside of his profession. He’s easy to speak with and down-to-earth. His presence is calming—kind of like how you feel around somebody you’ve known for years, even if you’ve just met them. You can tell there’s also a fun side to him, as he’s animated in how he talks. He’s the type of person who is easy to get along with. Gray, much like his music, connects with people and has a sense of charisma.
Gray is known for his rare blend of progressive house, melodic techno and trance—a style his fans have named “progresso.” This signature sound has landed him in the crates of esteemed imprints, such as Anjunabeats, Enhanced Music, Monstercat and Blackhole. The first label he released on was deadmau5’s famed label, mau5trap. The legendary artist discovered Gray when he was just a teenager, showing how Gray has been producing music that pushes the scene forward for years.
On Wednesday, February 26, Gray exemplified his forward-thinking approach with his new single, “Dawn,” from his forthcoming album dubbed Contrast.
On the record, audiophiles can hear celestial and gentle percussion, thumping bass, hypnotic synths, Gray’s own vocals, a buildup that crescendos into a drop that sparks pure elation, symphonic sounds and more.
“[‘Dawn’ is] one of the first new songs I wrote when conceptualizing the album and one of the first times I’ve sung on a song since my last mau5trap EP in 2020,” Gray says. “It was written during a time when I was spending a lot of time at clubs and after-hour events, so I tried to write a love letter to nightlife and the electronic community here in LA. It was written to reflect the beauty of the contrast between the healing silence and stillness inherent to the night and the intensity of the music of an after-hours rave.”
Julian Gray performing ‘Contrast’ live.
@dunbadn
The song is the last single dropping before Gray’s debut album, Contrast, is released on March 5. The LP explores numerous soundscapes, such as airy sonic atmospheres, enchanting tunes, pounding and driving bass, percolating sounds, groove-inducing beats and captivating singing. According to Gray, there were a few facets of inspiration for the album.
The first was what he calls a “return to form.” He says he was in a state last year where he was chasing labels and dropping music he was still proud of, but he felt they were “factory-made” because he was pumping out music “just to fulfill an algorithmic need.” To help him reset creatively, he did a writing camp with some of his friends in the desert for a few days. The focus of the writing camp wasn’t related to his music project as it was more of a “no strings attached music excursion.” The outing made him realign and question, “Am I really enjoying what I’m doing?” This experience allowed the sonic innovator to find a sound that embodies who he is. Thus, Contrast was born.
“[My] sound, I think, at this stage in my life, is a very pure reflection of who I am as a musician,” Gray says. “I’m really trying to lean into my voice alone and ignoring external factors. That’s the sound I’m really trying to push right now—the truest form of my musical spirit.”
Visually, the LP was inspired by a trip to The Broad art museum in Los Angeles. While exploring the museum, an artwork by Ellsworth Kelly named “Green Blue Red” caught his eye. He says the painting was part of an exhibition that uses contrasting colors that are opposed in every way—from saturation to contrast, hue and luminosity. When viewing the artwork, the colors vibrate and create an optical illusion. The tastemaker says this led him down a “rabbit hole” of classic ‘60s and ‘70s psychedelic art that uses a similar technique, allowing for a captivating visual effect. Not only is the art direction for Contrast informed by this experience, but he says it also inspired the music because his goal was to intentionally create “intensely dynamic, super small and then super big orchestrated passages and then big, bodacious EDM drops.”
“When I initially saw [the artwork], it caught my eye in the room because of how it made me feel,” Gray says. “It was that [discomfort] of the two colors that just didn’t really mesh together that made it stand out in a room. I thought how cool would it be to bring that feeling. It’s almost uncanny how the colors don’t blend together. How could I bring that into something of my own creativity?”
The album cover for “Contrast.”
Julian Gray
With the album comes a new audio/visual live experience, which Gray created almost entirely by himself. When he was a teenager, the sound designer started his career as a YouTuber, where he is known as Julian Gray Media. He created the channel in 2011 to teach DJing and music production, which he is still predominantly known to do to this day. The channel later evolved into him teaching show design and light/visual synchronization videos—something few creators were doing at the time. He learned these skills through manuals and watching online videos, which now, many years later, were foundational in developing Contrast’s live show visual production.
Gray also runs a creative agency during the day, offering services such as design, motion graphics, stage design, web design, video, creative directing and digital media. Such skills add to his toolbox, making him even more equipped to conceptualize the new audio/visual live experience almost all on his own.
The show features a screen in front of him and one behind him. This allows him to have maximum contrast where he can have something flash in front of him and then have it flash behind him during moments of the show—representing the album’s artwork even more.
“I’m a whole multimedia artist, and I try to reflect that in my music and DJ sets. When I’m playing a DJ set, I’m probably one of a few musicians at my scale who is doing fully synchronized time-coded visuals to my music,” Gray says. “I’ve always had this importance of the multimedia experience for my live sets—whether it’s a live set or DJ set. I like to think of music as a bigger experience than just the music or the set alone. It’s a communal experience. It’s something that you can remember, and the best shows, I think, are shows that fall into that category.”
Contrast is the most ambitious project to date for the sonic storyteller. What makes it most impressive, though, is how it stays true to who he is beyond his music persona: grounded, melodic and playful.
