Golden Features Details

Since the genres inception, producing under a mysterious moniker has yielded some of the greatest intrigue in dance music. It elevates the curiosity of fans to explore whether they know this act already, is it a fresh new producer, or who is behind the mask? All three of these questions were no more captivating than with ‘overnight sensation’ (AdamNotEve) and ‘next big thing in Australian dance music’ (Pulse) Golden Features whose name made its entrance to the flourishing scene in breakneck speed. With a ‘killer’ (Pilerats) EP like nothing people had heard before and an electric word of mouth, this masked producer knocked many for six – but the hype that followed few could foresee.

It was only at the tale end of February 2014 that Golden Features arrived into the thriving music world of Australia when Triple J host Lewi Mckirdy dropped the four-track EP on his Friday lunchtime show. Swiftly after the first play, fans anticipation for the Australian artist went in to a frenzied excitement for an EP that was brimming with originality and teeming with brooding touches to create this now inimitable wall of sound. 50 thousand plays in 2 weeks, turned in to 300 thousand in 3 months, which quickly turned into over a million in 6months on his soundcloud, a figure that still rises rapidly today.

This huge amount of plays and sprawling buzz opened up interest amongst tastemakers, top media, and even EDM stars like Porter Robinson who shared the same feelings of all others that listened, announcing ‘that shit was awesome’ of the self titled EP. This lead to an official remix of Porter Robinsons’ “Years Of War” which was very positively received by blogs and public, reaching over 300k plays in only a couple of days.

What started out as a few minutes slot on Triple J was quickening no end for Golden Features, and what seemed like a blink of an eye the name was being featured in InTheMix as one of their Top 25 producers, MTV Australia as a top artist to watch and an exclusive piece in the national Times newspaper in South Africa. Hysteria was now filtering in to other territories, as Golden Features was sustaining interest that the anonymity brought – riding on his incredible music alone.

Reaching boiling point and media attention ever growing in to other parts of the World, Golden Features made the huge decision to reveal his secret identity. Wanting the music to take in all the focus and not the curiosity, Golden Features announced he was long time producer and Sydney native Tom Stell, exclusively to THUMP.

As the full EP sat in the iTunes electronic top 10 releases for months on end, lead track on the EP “Tell Me” enjoyed high rotation on Triple J and overall, the 25th highest played track of the year, there was no wonder why he was nominated as the top 5 breakthrough artists in Australia of 2014.

The future for Golden Features looks immensely solid as we expect his follow up second EP to be released early 2015 through one of the leading labels, Warner Music.