Australian producer Pretence started DJing in 2015 and producing in 2017.
"It was around in 2019 where I got my first ever track played at a music festival called Nocturnal Wonderland by Drezo," he says. "It was at this very moment I realized that it was possible."
The artist says that, a few years ago, he would’ve described his sound as bass house, dark bass house, or dark house.
"But lately," he says, "I’ve been experimenting with breaks, hard techno, and bass music. At this point, the best way to describe it is simply dark electronic music."
His latest release is "Dragon."
"Right before I took the leap and left Australia to move to Canada, I filmed a DJ set called Pretence Presents: Exile - a way to give Canada a preview of what to expect when they see me live," he says. "In the set, I played an unreleased 140 BPM techno/psytrance track - my first ever attempt at that style - and posted a clip to Instagram."
"The next day, I got a follow and message request from none other than I Hate Models, one of the biggest names in hard techno, asking me to send him the track. I was stunned. I made a video about it, and not long after, the queen of techno herself, Sara Landry, commented on another video of mine on tiktok calling it a banger. And then to top it all off.. Rezz, the very artist who inspired me to start making music in the first place, followed me on Instagram. I was honestly speechless."
"A few days later, I sent her some demos on IG - and that led to Dragon getting signed to one of my dream labels: Hypnovizion."
As for gear: "Back in Australia, I mainly used a pair of KRK studio monitors and an AKAI keyboard for writing melodies. These days, I keep it pretty minimal - just my MacBook Pro, Beyerdynamic DT 700 PRO X headphones, and Ableton. That’s my full setup."
Looking ahead, Pretence has plenty planned for the coming months.
"I’ve got a lot of new music lined up following Dragon," he says. "I’m also planning to start teasing my John Summit remix, which has been going off in my sets lately. On the live side, my next show is in Toronto on September 26th at Geary Warehouse, where I’ll be playing a 3-hour set - really looking forward to that one."
