Kaskade at Sundance

Kaskade and Jason Bentley by Mark Leibowitz

For Kaskade (aka Ryan Raddon), coming to Sundance is like coming home. The house DJ/producer went to The University of Utah in Salt Lake City, so he joked with Jason Bentley that it’s like “returning to Zion”.

He’s in town to support his first work as a score composer, for the documentary “Under the Electric Sky“, which chronicles the 2013 Electric Daisy Carnival in Las Vegas. It premiered at a midnight showing over the weekend.

Jason, who acted as the music supervisor and musical director for the film, brought him into the fold for the score, inspired by the remix he did for Tron Legacy: Reconfigured (he remixed Daft Punk’s track “Rinzler”).

Kaskade’s said he was nervous at first because he didn’t really understand the process, but was eager to try it. He’s been around EDM culture for a long time, so it was a fitting first start.

The biggest lesson he learned: when composing for himself, he tries to write music that is from the heart but, as a film composer, your priority needs to be creating music that makes the movie the best thing it can be.

The Grammy-nominated EDM artist stopped by KCRW’s studio home at the Acura Prism in Park City for a guest DJ set from the balcony overlooking Main Street to help kick off the weekend’s festivities! (see above)

RR