Did we tease you just a little bit with that quick release of Figure’s tour dates? Are you wondering what does this “artist resident” thing every month mean for you ninjas? Let me break it down for you real quick:
Every month TheMusicNinja will be featuring a talented artist/group to be our “resident” for a whole month, yes a whole freakin month they get to share just a bit of themselves with you wonderful readers and music junkies. The month will go as follows:
Week 1 – Artist Introduction – This post will introduce the artist to you all. A quick bio and news of their upcoming shows is the perfect thing to get your toes twinkling for the next week.
Week 2 – Artist Interview – This post will be more of a non-traditional interview. We are TMN are kind of a funny bunch and we’d like our interview to be more lighthearted with a few entertaining facts to really let everyone get a good insight into the artist’s personality.
Week 3 – Artist Exclusive Minimix/Cover/Track – This post will feature some exclusive music. For Producers and DJ’s it could be a minimix or a mashup. For bands/vocalists it will be a fun cover, or an unreleased b-side or something to that effect.
Week 4 – The artist is going to let us in on what music they are jamming to at the moment and share some of their favorite tracks for our ears to enjoy along.
So there you have it! We are super excited for some of the amazing artists who have already signed up. It’s like a little surprise present every beginning of the month, perfect.
About Figure
With all that said, we were stoked to have Figure release his tour dates to us to begin our write-up and now we would like to introduce the man behind the dirty bass drops, Mr. Josh Gard.
Gard is a Midwest boy hailing from Indiana (which he is very proud of his of; as all Midwesterners should be…call me biased I hail from Chicago). He has a long history in music and like many artists of his genre he began in electric house music before shifting to more dubstep and bass music. While he still works a lot with electric music, he gets noticed for his dirty tracks with body dropping bass.
Gard has worked alongside many of the best in music industry such as Diplo, Tommy Lee, Flux Pavilion, and Excision to name just a few. His music has been ranked high on countless charts and he is praised by other artists and fans alike for his captivating live performances. I can account for that, seeing him in Denver was nothing short of unbelievable. With his undeniable stage presence, Gard is a must see for his long list of fans. And he, being a huge fan of horror, decided to produce his Monster series which is a production of his true loves. The series exemplifies just how much talent Gard has and gives his audience an inside to him as a musician.
That is another thing to love about Gard, he supports his supporters by supplying his latest productions for free and his guest lift at shows is reserved for fans in need. He is very close with his family and fans, a tribute that can be hard to find sometimes in the music world. But it is these things that make Gard an amazing artist and an amazing person with a big future that is already blowing up this year. Whether it is large festivals such as EDC, Starscape, The Bounce or small venues in cities all over the world, Gard, aka Figure, is an artist to watch and admire. Plus, he has one of the most knockout tennis shoe collections this writer has ever seen. Big props Figure, big props.
His early work
2009 & 2010
Early in his career, Figure focused primarily on bass driven music. After a couple of originals and remixes, His IN & OUT OF BROOKLYN EP released in 2009 combined bouncier elements of dance music with the emerging wobble of dubstep, catering to the underground scene. Not everything was hard and heavy as we know Figure today, releasing a couple “THRASH BASS” tracks like “Dirty Damage” and then taking on a lot of dubstep influences with “Torture” and “Phantom” back in 2010.
His two track EP THE DOSES / WAR FAIR coming out early 2010 felt like Figure was finally coming out of his shell and aggressively owning up to his own sound. Both tracks rendered hip/hop vocals that added a powerful new dynamic to his music, with a cleaner and focused electro house production. As he kept experimenting with other genres, the level of polish in his work soon became apparent.
Since the very start, there was always a level of darkness that while not necessarily “evil” did hint at low and creepy melodies, to which he has fully accepted as part of his style today. The Death of Joshua EP, with the self titled track had a self-admitting ‘halloween vibe” to it, and just before Halloween, Figure released the track for free on his soundcloud. Another example of his true commitment to please his fans. More “horror” themed tracks soon appeared, “Phantom” being one of them.
2011
Shamefully, it wasn’t until 2011 that The Music Ninja came to find Figure’s music, and at the time, it was really hard to miss. Release, after release after release, Figure provided an array of quality remixes next to the likes of Lazy Rich, Calvertron, Bart B More, Tommie Sunshine, Zeds Dead, The Killabits, Oblivion. We first posted “The Monsters Revenge (Original Mix)”, a jaw-rattling track with well placed movie samples, and glitchy/choppy electro sound that echoed Feed Me and a little bit of Skrillex. That track alone made us an instant fan.
But of course, as we were growing as music bloggers, we always had a soft spot for nostalgic remixes and leave it to Figure to scratch that itch. The infamous ‘Wonderwall’ was now rendered into a drumstep concoction that we just couldn’t stop listening. Though now it does feel a bit dated, it remains one of our most favored remixes of all time.
2011 was also the home of “Monsters of Drumstep”, a bass pounding release that that fused together Drum&Bass with Dubstep and heavily layered with samples of horror movies. “Monsters of Drumstep” would soon become a series with Volumes 2 and 3 following months after.
And some experimentation with moombahton was also in order…
Hip/Hop Remixes
Not to mention the countless of Hip/hop influenced tracks and remixes, most notably his of “Gobstopper” by XV & Wiz Khalifa that came to existence early 2012.
2012 and Present
With one of the best years behind him, Figure took things up 11 notches in 2012. Full of confidence, maturity and experience, he was dedicated to make this year the biggest yet. And truly succeeded.
Exciting new collaborations soon emerged with his remix of Borgore’s “Shay” gathering well over 100,000 plays on his soundcloud, just a few plays behind his original single “Dominate” released a few weeks before. The trend of sampling movies quotes soon continued with the devastatingly melodic single “God Slay The Fiend”, once again given out completely for free with the endearing message:
But through all its in your face bass, we all got to see a much calmer side of him with his “reliefstep” remix of “Lifeline”
Yet, a year isn’t really a year without Figure releasing another Monsters compilation. Volume 3 was released during Halloween time (obviously) and it included collabs with Tommy Lee and Bare as well as remixes from the likes of J.Rabbit, Oscillator Z, Alex Sin, Dr. Ozi, and Phrenik. You can listen to the full set here.
Now our beloved Figure will embark on an epic journey of sound and bass, as he launches the Adventures in Time and Space Tour tour traveling across Europe and the United States to not only play music, but most importantly, please his hard earned fans.
