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There’s a fine line between traditional, experimental bass music (often categorized by the 140 BPM tempo), and downtempo bass music. It’s a line that Super Future (the WAKAAN/SSKWAN artist responsible for recent bangers like “Bassline” with Wreckno and “SUPERMASSIVE” with SuperAve.) knows well.

But Super Future’s downtempo material doesn’t always have the sort of ambient aesthetic that niche is known for — despite the slow, pulsing tempo, much of Super Future’s downtempo tracks are still high-energy.

He’s been perfecting the downtempo live experience since his inaugural sunrise set at Sound Haven in 2021. Since then, he’s performed dozens of downtempo sets, usually accompanying the sunrise at festivals like Electric Forest. But, for the first time in his career, Super Future is bringing the downtempo experience on tour as part of his two-set “Augmented Duality” live show, debuting at Denver’s Cervantes Masterpiece Ballroom this Thursday.

What should fans expect from this new, duel-set experience? MP3 MAG sat down with Super Future to find out. Read our exclusive interview, below.

READ: Super Future on Finding the Flow State & Healing Through Music

The last time we chatted at the WAKAAN Festival in 2022, you had a lot to say about duality — both in music, and the human experience in a broad sense. Can you talk about what duality means to you, and how duality has played a role in shaping this upcoming tour?

I really want the Augmented Duality Tour to be focused on “balance” — which is what I think life is all about. The human experience a multi-faceted one, and I never understood why anyone wouldn’t want more than one side to anything in life. But that’s also the Gemini in me, I crave variety.

That’s why the Yin Yang imagery is all over this tour. It’s a perfect symbol for how I see my music project: two sides to make an even bigger whole. But my Yin Yang here is made fire because both sides of me have the same FIRE  to it. I want everyone going home feeling absolutely rocked by intense, high energy, but also feeling more whole by ALSO experiencing the deep, powerful, emotional music. It’s about being made whole.

Can you describe your creative process and ethos when you’re creating a Downtempo set for the upcoming Augmented Duality tour? What is the sort of experience you want your audience to come away with after a downtempo set?

I want to people to feel like they’re falling into some new feeling that they never want to leave.

That starts with trying to tap into the way I feel when putting a string of these emotive tracks together. Putting a downtempo set together feels like letting the power behind each crazy deep track take people completely. That’s how I tend to process emotions while I write a song or a set in this realm of sound. So my hope is that I can be one of the pioneers in bringing that to a prime-time show experience. I need it. I feel like most of us need it, too.

The other truth that I want people to know is that, when it comes to downtempo music, I have my own flavor, and it includes all the same experimentation and power as my experimental bass. It’s far from ambient.

And what about the experimental bass sets?

I’m really happy that I’m able to include this part too because the novelty of my downtempo set can’t be realized the same way without the cathartic and powerful sound of the bass and trap a lot of us love the most.

This time it’s setting the stage for people to feel equal and opposing energies (which I fucking love), while also playing all of my harder material that I’m also leveling up each year. This isn’t the novel part of the Augmented Duality experience, but it sure won’t be overlooked. That’s one of the best parts, you’re getting the top shelf Super Future experimental bass set you would have usually paid for just as much as you’re getting a new double show. And we didn’t raise prices for that either… this time haha!

Traditionally, downtempo bass music and the heavier experimental bass sounds don’t necessarily go hand-and-hand — but for the Augmented Duality tour, you’re bringing these two genres together for a cohesive, single-night experience. What spawned this idea originally?

Liquid Stranger showed me indirectly that it could be done, and that we should be trying to give people more balance.

I’d had these songs in the back of my catalog that I didn’t really have a plan for until I saw him unveil SSKWAN music label, another important force with a similar mission musically and the counterpoint to the more famous WAKAAN. I’ve always loved everything he stood for but this is what really earned him my respect artistically.

I felt like I saw the signs clearly when I watched him surprise everyone with that at the first Wakaan Fest in 2019, and then the label was just there waiting for me. It’s not the first downtempo focused music label, but the entirety of WAKAAN/SSKWAN was the same Yin/Yang beautiful dichotomy that resonated with the same mission I had. It empowered me creatively and spiritually.

My “Equilibria” EP and “Satori” single on that label were two very powerful manifestations that had virtually everything go right for me and my project. It was one of those moments when things just seem to unfold with ease on the path to your goals, like there is something spiritually and cosmically correct happening. It all just amplified my mission to create both styles.

I won’t lie, it can be twice as hard to have a bipolar music project, but for anyone that’s been following my project long enough to see it, the whole thing is starting to warp beautifully into a whole new unified sound and I’m loving that.

The Super Future downtempo sets originally spawned from your sunrise sets at festivals. How has your approach to downtempo evolved since your first sunrise set at Sound Haven in 2021?

The thing is, they really have not changed much. For good reason too — I distinctly remember how people in the crowd were just moving differently and looking at me differently than what I was used to when playing a more bass-heavy type of set. At first I thought I was doing something very wrong and weird. The look on people’s faces was more of an awe-stricken and wide-eyed look. It kinda worried me, but afterward while meeting with those people in the crowds they were actually just moved by something they hadn’t felt before.

Someone described those sets as “more artistic,” and that stuck with me — that’s how I describe it now too.

It’s such a fulfilling and powerful feeling for people to tell you, “whatever you just did there, I don’t know what it was, but keep going.” I’ve gotten that sort of response consistently from my downtempo and sunrise sets, and I’ve had the mentality of “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it.” So, I decided to keep that same formula from day one, and bring that to Electric Forest at the RV camps. Now people almost expect it to happen every year, and it just might. I’m so grateful for that too. 

I wanna talk about your show at Cervantes in Denver on Thursday — this will be the first official “Augmented Duality (2 Sets)” show, combining downtempo and experimental bass into one cohesive experience. Why did you choose Denver to debut this new format?

Denver and I have an understanding musically. It’s not hard to see that Denver is the epicenter for some of the most novel and forward-thinking electronic music — and I always come correct with sounds I don’t think other cities’ crowds can handle. No matter how weird I get, Denver can always hang. They just get my sound, I guess.

I’m not alone thinking that —  so many of my peers see it in Denver too. I’m always trying to reward the cities that fuck with me the most and let them know I appreciate it. That’s why I started doing my SS Series (Sonic Significance) limited merch for cities that do this and consistently sell out my shows. It costs a lot of money and time to do things like that , but if my fans help fill my cup I’m gonna reciprocate with special things and experiences to fill theirs too.

The other thing I should mention about the two sets is that most people are expecting the downtempo set to be in the beginning of the night, because the expected energy shift across the night is the chill stuff to start the night and so on. But that’s the thing that’s unexpected and different about my show. This downtempo is not that chill. It’s actually the last set and the main event, and they’ll get it soon. 

If you had to pick one quintessential song for a Super Future downtempo set, and one song for a Super Future experimental bass set, what would those songs be, and why?

• Downtempo Super Future: There’s this new track I’m gonna debut in Denver called “The Way It Feels” and that one is just a masterpiece to me. The tension in that song is so sexy. And there are way more uplifting tracks like from my ‘Equilibria” EP on SSKWAN that are super powerful, but my favorite downtempo music has to have some mystique and tension amidst the beauty.
• Experimental Bass Super Future: If we’re talking real experimental, I think my track “Chromatose” with MeSo is in a super unique experimental lane all on it’s own. “Signal” with Wreckno may be another example but in a more sassy fun variety. But ahh all the new unreleased stuff I’m sharing on this tour might blow these all out of the water!

Just for fun, let’s add one that shows something split right down the middle, because that shows what’s right at the center of it all… that would be “Haunted”. So far that’s the perfect song to exemplify both sides of my musical nature in one piece. I do a lot of fun and sassy, cheeky flips and collaborations meant for just a good fucking time, but my art runs so much deeper. This song shows it.

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