This is Flume

Harley Edward Streten is known professionally as Flume. He is an Australian record producer, music programmer and DJ. In his 2019 tour he introduces his new album Hi This is Flume (Mixtape). He released this album on March 20, 2019. Flume creatively puts different sounds together which you normally think should not be combined. He further bridges the gap between art and music.

On Tuesday night August 6^th, Flume brought his talent as a musician and artist to Red Rocks. The title of the concert was Flume and Friends. The crowd consisted of a mix between high school and college aged kids ready to be absorbed into the night with Flume’s mesmerizing, lyric less, and yet full of sounds perfectly mixed and blended to satisfy everyone’s eardrums. The first opener, U.K rapper Slowthai set the mood before Flume started his performance. As expected, all of his songs were rap. His songs were hard to understand as the instruments were too overpowering.

After Slowthai, another rapper, JPEGMAFIA came to the stage. Being for the first time in Red Rocks, as well as my first EDM concert, I had never seen a performer lose control as a result of all of their energy, especially at a much larger venue. Moments into the second song he jumps into the crowd while rapping, and makes his way through the crowd where he lingers for a long time before deciding to return back to the stage for more rap songs that eventually develop into screams. At some point he lays down on the stage as if to catch his breath, gazing into the sky, lost in his own world. After what felt like two hours of rap music, the crowd began to get anxious for Flume to begin. Everyone was in their own bubble of friends having conversations and taking pictures, waiting for flume.

Finally, the lights were out and everyone stood to welcome Flume. The stage light up, presenting a completely different set up. The stage had multiple stations of electronic instruments. In the middle was a large white rug in which later he would lay down, completely spread out, as abstract objects and lights floated over him in the screen. Flume began by spray painting on a large piece of paper. Pretty colors of pink and blue came out in large amounts from the can as he carefully worked on his poster. After a few more minutes, flume held his finished work to the audience that said “Hi This is Flume.” The crowd screamed and cheered as Flume began by playing the song “Sleepless.” This is one is more of an instrumental piece that contains a lot of chill upbeat tunes that put the crowd to dance (including myself and I don’t dance). LED lights invaded the amphitheater and danced in beautiful arrays that lit up the night sky. He did play multiple songs from other albums too and not just on his newer album. “Sleepless,” was in an album that he released in 2012 titled Flume.

After “Sleepless,” Vera Blue stepped into the stage to sing the popular party song “Never Be Like You” and the crowd danced and sang along the whole time. Another popular song he played was “Say It (feat. Tove Lo)“. However, he didn’t play the full song like I thought he would. Instead he played the beginning of it and then morphed it into a completely new song, and the transition worked out perfectly. Another interesting song he played was “Spring” which is in his new album. This one stood out to me in particular because its very abstract and it has sounds that normally I wouldn’t find very satisfying but rather annoying. However, he was able to combine them perfectly into a piece that is enjoyable in an unexplainable way.

The last song I remember him playing was “You & Me” which is another instrumental song with pieces of lyrics here and there singing “Its gonna be you and me, gonna be everything you ever dreamed.” This was a much mellower song and a perfect way to finish his performance. Overall, Flume’s performance was unexpected and well thought out. Much of it was left to the audience’s interpretation. To me there was a lot of metaphorical connections between his music and art. The overlap between his art and music was beautifully presented.