Coachella Band Preview: Petit Biscuit

Hey! Hi! What’s up?! Coachella is this weekend!!! I’m not next level hyped or anything (<——— That’s a lie.) Last year I was pretty excited about Kungs playing Coachella. He was a slightly known, slightly up and coming electronic artist. This year I have similar feelings about Petit Biscuit, who is similar to Kungs in other ways as well. Both are French electronic DJ’s. Both are also pretty young. Kungs was 20 when he played Coachella last year. Petit Biscuit is a mere 18 years old.

Petit Biscuit is the DJ name for France’s Mehdi Benjelloun. He released his hit single “Sunset Lover” in 2015 when he was only 15 years old. Since then, the single has close to 285 million streams on Spotify and SoundCloud combined. Benjelloun played instruments growing up like the cello, piano, and guitar, but took interest in playing electronic music because of the variety of sounds he could create. He recently graduated high school and started university, but decided to take a leave to pursue his musical success.

His music style is a combination of electronic music genres. Spotify describes his music as being ambient, techno, and house. His background in classical instruments and his interest in electronic music allows him to express himself through the crossing of different genres.Vocal chops, which are fragmented vowels that act as melodic or percussive pseudo-vocal elements, are a big part of his style. His music reminds me of a combination of Odesza and Flume put together.

I first discovered Petit Biscuit while I was analyzing this year’s Coachella lineup. I never heard of him before that. As I was going through the lineup in January, I listened to his tracks and was pretty surprised by what I heard. I really liked it. Initially I had been listening to a lot of Odesza so I kind of got that vibe from the song “Sunset Lover”. Then after reading an interview with Petit Biscuit, where he described Flume as being influential to him as an artist, I was able to see that reflected in his music as well.

Coachella 2018 will mark his first major festival appearance. Petit Biscuit plays on Friday (Edit: He plays Sunday. Gotta fact check myself. Sorry about that!), much like Kungs did last year. Also like Kungs, I’m guessing he’ll play an earlier set at the Sahara Tent. If Sahara is your shit or you have an appreciation for electronic music at all, I highly recommend going to his set. He could be the next big thing in electronic music. I know you have zero time to listen to anything but here’s a few songs you should turn on if you plan on seeing him:

1. Sunset Lover
2. Memories
3. Alone
4. Waterfall
5. Problems

As for me, I’m headed out to California tomorrow to work my second Coachella and be there for the third time. I didn’t think I would be back again, but after some positive peer pressure I decided to make it happen. I’m stoked and I hope I get to see some of these acts I’ve previewed the last 3 months. It should be amazing regardless. Happy Coachella and I’ll see you all on the polo fields!

Coachella Band Preview: Kungs

Another week down, 11 more to go. It doesn’t feel like it at the end of January, but Coachella will be here before you know it. That’s why it’s time to preview another band performing in Indio this year. Like last week though, this week’s preview doesn’t feature a band (maybe I should change the name on these previews). It’s an electronic artist named Kungs.

Kungs is a French DJ whose real name is Valentin Brunel. He’s also only 20 years old (and freshly 20 might I add because his birthday was in December)! He grew up interested and involved in music with influences from his parents especially his dad who introduced him to rock n’ roll as well as other genres. By the age of 17, he began writing his own material and posting it to the internet. His remixes of Bob Marley’s “Jammin'” and Lost Frequencies’ “Are You With Me” as well as his Lana Del Rey “West Coast” cover ft. Molly have several million views on SoundCloud and Youtube. What turned into his breakthrough hit was released almost a year ago. It’s called “This Girl”, which he remixed. It was originally a 2009 song by Australian funk band Cookin’ On 3 Burners. It turned into a massive hit worldwide and paved the way for Kungs and his debut album Layers. The album was just released on November 4th.

Kungs electronic style is mostly house music. His particular style blends different genres of music together, which is what he aimed for on his debut album. I listened to the album a few weeks ago right before the Coachella lineup dropped and each song brings a different vibe. Besides “This Girl”, two of my favorites are “Don’t You Know” ft. Jamie N Commons and “Melody” ft. Luke Pritchard of The Kooks. I feel like both of those songs blend house with rock and indie rock, which might be why I like them so much. The album is so good that I actually took a little break while writing this to buy it online. So worth it. It’s that good.

I first heard Kungs via Instagram. A girl I follow posted a video with “This Girl” playing in the background. I didn’t take an interest in the song and it was kind of just “background music” for me. A few weeks later I found myself stuck with part of the song in my head and I couldn’t figure out where I knew the song from. It took me about a day before I realized it was the song from that Instagram video. Then about 2 weeks after that I stopped to visit my cousins before heading to the NWSL Semifinal. At dinner on the night I visited, my cousin started telling me about a song he was currently addicted to. It was, of course, “This Girl”. I didn’t recognize the song title or artist when he told me the name (cause I actually didn’t know who the artist was or what the song was called from that Instagram video), but once he played it I realized what I was listening to. The following week I added the song to my workout playlist and to my iTunes too. I was hooked on it ever since. Like I said I listened to Kungs’ debut album a few weeks ago and loved what I heard. I can’t wait to have the album in my grasp. Until then, I plan on doing some serious listening on Spotify.

Along with Coachella, Kungs is booked to play Europe’s biggest electronic music festival, Tomorrowland. I highly recommend seeing him play Coachella this year more than any other artist or band I preview. He’s already blowing up and there’s no doubt if he continues making solid music he’ll just get bigger. He’s not a highly billed artist at Coachella this year either and in my opinion there’s something special about seeing a band or artist before they reach headlining status. That’s not to say he won’t be given a spot later in the day. The kid has already opened for David Guetta on tour so I wouldn’t put it past him. He plays Friday. Here’s what you should know if you plan on seeing him (and you should!):

1. This Girl ( vs. Cookin’ On 3 Burners)
2. Melody (ft. Luke Pritchard)
3. Don’t You Know (ft. Jamie N Commons)
4. Crazy Enough (ft. Richard Judge)
5. Are You With Me (Kungs Remix)
6. I Feel So Bad (ft. Ephemerals)

Honestly, just listen to Layers and you should be good.