Zeds Dead

Zeds Dead perfectly exemplify EDM’s mischievously hybrid spirit. Mixing hip-hop, jungle, house, bass and more, the Toronto duo’s music is a beaker teeming with unexpected compounds. The duo of DC (Dylan Mamid) and Hooks (Zachary Rapp-Rovan) got their start making hip-hop as Mass Productions in 2004. Then, in 2009, they borrowed a withering line from Quentin Tarantino’s 1994 film Pulp Fiction (“Zed’s dead, baby.”) and pivoted to a more electronic sound, specializing in a lean, mean fusion of electro-house, breaks and dubstep on labels like Diplo’s Mad Decent and Steve Aoki’s Dim Mak. Over the next few years, Zeds Dead were so busy smashing festival stages and collaborating with artists like Omar LinX, Oliver Heldens and LOUDPVCK—that they didn’t get around to releasing their debut LP until 2016. But Northern Lights showed just how far they were capable of pushing their sound, with features from electro-poppers Dragonette, Clipse’s Pusha T and even Weezer’s Rivers Cuomo rounding out winsome dance-rock (“Stardust,” featuring Twin Shadow), unsparing dubstep (“Already Done,” featuring Ghetts), and euphoric melodic bass (the Diplo collaboration “Blame”, featuring Elliphant). The EDM world changed considerably in the second half of the 2010s, with big-room styles softening and slowing, but Zeds Dead stayed true to their hard-hitting signature on cuts like 2019’s serrated “Shake”, with Jauz, and 2020’s PEEKABOO collab “POWA”, a throwback to classic dubstep in all its face-melting menace. But 2021’s Catching Z’s, part of a long-running series of chill-out mixtapes, proved that cosy vibes come just as naturally.