ILLENIUM

Big feelings demand a canvas to match, and Illenium’s melodic EDM provides just that, turning cutting-edge sound design into wall-to-wall emotion. Born Nicholas Miller in 1990, the San Francisco native started producing in 2008 and moved to Denver in 2013, just as a new strain of Rocky Mountain chill was taking off. His very earliest releases fell under the sway of trap and dubstep, but by 2015’s “I’ll Be Your Reason”, for Skrillex’s Nest label, he had hit upon a more sensitive aesthetic, pairing wistful processed vocals with twinkling synths and bassy rhythms as nimble as they were heavy. On his debut album, 2016’s Ashes, Illenium leaned into his sentimental instincts, tapping smooth-voiced singers to lend bright, yearning toplines to shuffling hip-hop beats and gently growling low-end. He amped up his sound on 2017’s Awake and 2019’s Ascend, doling out bigger drops and more euphoric vistas, though the occasional unplugged mix—like an acoustic version of the Gryffin collab “Feel Good”, featuring Daya—proved that his musical ideas easily transcend their electronic tools. Miller’s versatility has set him up for collaborations and remixes from across the electronic spectrum: Trance mainstay Tiësto, melodic EDM upstart Alan Walker, hardstyle icon Headhunterz and even blink-182’s Travis Barker have all used Illenium’s songs as jumping-off points for their own respective styles, while Miller has proved his pop mettle on remixes of Marshmello and Halsey. But musical styles are secondary to emotion, he says. “I go into so many genres,” Miller told Apple Music. “I have a ton of my favourite sounds that I’ve collected over the past five years, and I’m just trying to write the best songs with those sounds.”