Taylor Torrence sat down with us at EDC Las Vegas this year to discuss what led him to pivot from trance to techno and so much more.
Somewhere along the lines, Taylor Torrence changed.
The Fresno-born, Los Angeles-based DJ and producer first broke through thanks to the saccharine 2020 trance anthem “If We Say Goodbye” featuring Natalie Major. But his big room techno fare of late is a far cry from what put him on the map four years ago.
The contrast is especially stark when you compare his debut DJ set at EDC Las Vegas in 2022 to the one he delivered during the festival’s 2024 edition. After the latter — which he’s said was his favorite set to date — he sat down with us to discuss how the shift in his style came about.
Watch the full interview with Taylor Torrence on YouTube, and read on for highlights from our conversation.
“It’s completely different,” he said of his EDC 2024 set. “Not even the same stage, still in some way related to trance, but a completely different style — I would say, the opposite end of the spectrum within that genre umbrella.”
This raises a fair point. As far as he’s come, Taylor still seems to sit somewhere between the worlds of trance and techno. It’s evident in “Ignition,” the track he released on Revealed Recordings earlier in May.
Taylor explained, “I think what I’m trying to do with my music overall is the low end, the drums are techno-inspired, but the synths have that big reverb, trance, massive sound that Armada Music had done in the 2010s, and that you even heard through Anjunabeats at one point.”
“I still have that essence of my prior sound, but the low end of the track feels much more techno-inspired,” he continues. “And combining those two things has been interesting. It’s been fun.”
Is Taylor Torrence simply adapting to the turning tides of the dance music industry? Perhaps, but that’s not how he tells the story.
I was making Anjunabeats-inspired progressive vocal trance. 128 BPM, 130 BPM, female vocal trance, right? Emotionally impactful stuff. At that point, I think that spoke to the type of person that I was at the time. Maybe it was the pandemic. I don’t know what the mechanism of action was, but I developed as a person over the past few years — my assertiveness, my backbone, my boundaries, everything. And with that change and that personal development, I found that what I wanted to make and listen to changed.
Taylor Torrence
Taylor’s new direction takes cues from artists like Will Sparks and Hardwell, both of whom have pivoted to big room or cinematic techno in recent years. This is perhaps most evident in his March single “Feed Me Pills” via Rave Room Recordings, which features his wife, Kristin Torrence. It currently has over 370,000 Spotify plays, nearly four times what “If We Say Goodbye” has racked up, and in a fraction of the time.
I couldn’t help but press Taylor on this: Is he simply going after low-hanging fruit, or do the edgy themes of “Feed Me Pills” come from an authentic place?
He maintains that they do. “Not recently, right?” he clarified. “I mean, I’ve gone to law school. I practice as a lawyer. Those life experiences have definitely made me feel I have a certain responsibility. But, you know, I have some life experience in the pill-feeding part of the world.”
And why stop at techno? Surely, there must be other styles of dance music that strike Taylor’s fancy. There are, he says — but he makes a strong case for staying in his newfound lane.
“I love drum and bass. I still like progressive trance. I still like what Yotto and Lane 8 do as a listener. But what I’m making right now is really working for me,” Taylor explained.
I personally feel that if up-and-coming producers do too many things, it can take away their momentum in a particular direction. Even though I would love to make a drum and bass track, or something that’s a bit more like peak-time, Drumcode-style techno, I found this niche that I’m having fun with. I feel that if I can have the discipline to stay on that as long as it’s working, then I can generate more momentum and more forward velocity toward where I’m going right now.
Taylor Torrence
To his point, it is working for him. Taylor had previously traveled the US alongside the trance duo Tritonal, but his next chapter will see him pick up tour dates abroad. While he has yet to formally announce them, he made it clear during our conversation that this bold step forward lies on his horizon.
Suffice it to say, change isn’t always a bad thing. Taylor Torrence, for one, is wearing his personal growth well, continuing to find ways to move the needle by expressing it through his music.
