Written by Jillian Love
As the electric current continues to surge through Salt Lake City and we all excitedly count down the final days until we are reunited on Energi Field for the fifth year, we also anticipate the return of one of EDM’s biggest breakthrough names to Salt Lake City–Slushii.
A short two years ago, Julian Scanlan worked at Best Buy by day, and by night produced dubstep tracks under the name DJ Swoon. His love for EDM began at a young 13 years old when he first heard Skrillex’s remix of “In for the Kill” By La Roux. It was then that Scanlan, who had struggled with Aspergers his whole life, found a way to express and communicate the feelings that he had never been able to before. After posting an unauthorized remix as DJ Swoon on SoundCloud that violated their terms of service, his account was deleted, costing him the 8,000 followers he had and leaving him devastated. A friend encouraged a deflated Scanlan to seize the opportunity and start over fresh.
Scanlan took his advice and Slushii was born in June of 2015.
In two years time our blue-haired, hockey jersey wearing friend has rapidly gained recognition for his high-voltage, dubstep and trap remixes of acts like Marshmello and The Chainsmokers as well as his self-released album Brain Freeze and as of August 4, 2017, his freshman album Out of Light. Slushii’s first live show under his new identity was played on July 30, 2016, at Hard Summer in LA and since then he has played massive shows like EDC Las Vegas, Tomorrowland, and Ultra Music Festival. We can also find him working with and palling around with some of our other favorite artists such as Ookay, Marshmello, Jauz, and Skrillex.
Salt Lake City had the pleasure of seeing Slushii live last year on August 4, 2016, at the Twilight Concert Series as the opener for Diplo, and it was nothing short of incredible. We all got down to his feel-good trance synths, trap drums, and dubstep drops and danced around to “So Long” together in Pioneer Park. After that night I was sold, and I was a newly self-proclaimed member of “#Slushiigang”. With Das Energi just a short week away we will welcome back Slushii for the second time to hit us in the feels again as he tears it up at the Temple of Boom–and Salt Lake couldn’t be more pumped to have him!
Das Energi tickets still available HERE!
