Walden

The title “musical prodigy” is often reserved for a child or young person having extraordinary musical talent or ability – we call him Walden.

Not old enough to enter the venues where his music was on high rotation, remixes of Cobra Starship’s smash hit “You Make Me Feel” (Fueled By Ramen/Decaydence), Zoe Badwi’s “Accidents Happen” (Neon Records) and Rebecca & Fiona’s “Luminary Ones” (Neon Records) were played and swiftly garnered acclaim for the now 18-year old Sydney native.  It’s no surprise that artists like Estelle, Mika, Marina and the Diamonds and Paper Crows lined up for mixes.

Walden’s debut EP “Brightness” is a twisted blend of styles and sounds; the title track, best described as soaring piano-driven progressive house, received an unheard-of double feature on Pete Tong’s BBC Radio 1 show in the UK, drawing support from international heavyweights Afrojack, Ian Carey, Michael Woods, Morgan Page, Roger Sanchez, Tiesto and Tommy Trash to name a few.

If not for a school field trip to Sydney’s Powerhouse technology museum, none of this story might have transpired. During the visit, Walden and his classmates were given a demo of the audio workstation software Acid Pro, and the 12-year-old was immediately hooked. Without proper musical training, he picked up a copy of the program and set on a mission to experiment with every possible sample and loop he could get his hands on to start concocting tunes. This musical output varied wildly, veering from ambient one moment, to techno the next, and on to jazz the moment after that. But when he was 13, Walden discovered the Clubland compilation series, and his path into dance music was assured.

After brief flirtations with happy hardcore, hard trance and electro, his sound emerged – a dash of Avicii, a pinch of Deadmau5, and a heavy helping of Wolfgang Gartner, but more importantly that intangible thing that makes an artist stand out… originality. Walden’s sound most closely resembles, well, Walden.

Before long, Walden had created himself a profile on ReverbNation and within a couple of weeks, Big Beat Records, the dance label of music industry royalty Atlantic Records had discovered him and instantly snapped him up.