Nostalgix

The climate of the dance music scene is changing. More women and those identifying as females are taking over the charts and lineups. Historically, house music was dominated by men, who are also behind some of the most significant events and labels. However, Nostalgix doesn’t let that bother her as she keeps a laser focus on dominating her own space within house music. Since bursting onto the electronic music scene in 2017, Nostalgix has seen a rapid rise. Born in Iran, Nostalgix spent her first eight years there until her parents decided to move to Vancouver, Canada. “My parents wanted to move from Iran to Canada because they had two girls," she says. "They always tell me if they had two boys, ‘we would have just stayed in Iran because they would have been fine. But because we had two girls they wanted to move to Canada to give you girls a chance to be what you want in your life .’” That support truly meant everything to her and guided her to remain assertive in her decision to pursue music full-time. A self-proclaimed DIY type, she taught herself the basics of DJing after seeing the legendary Hardwell at a rave in Vancouver. Rarely do we see an artist who can command crowds at some of the largest festivals and sell out club events regularly in such a short amount of time. But Nostalgix does just that. “I go up there and I do me. I just put my best foot forward and I don’t think about gender or anything because I could easily outshine a guy any day of the week.” That confidence guided her trajectory towards signing with esteemed labels like Confession, Night Bass, Thrive, Insomniac, Dim Mak, and UKF. In addition, her unparalleled skills as a producer have put her behind the boards collaborating with the likes of Dr. Fresch and AC Slater. “It’s honestly the strangest and [most] full circle feeling ever. But I just feel very grateful to get to work with people that I looked up to when I was just starting out. I remember seeing Zed’s Dead, I remember seeing Dr. Fresch from the crowd. And now to get to be peers with them, and to have them support my music and make music with them. It makes me feel very proud that within a four-year span, that could become possible.” It's no accident that the self-starter floats in the orbit of her role models. In the span of time it takes many producers to sign their first record of note, she's carved out a clearly defined lane and continues to take on challenges with a DIY spirit emblematic of the dance music's origins. “I can figure anything out myself, even right now I’m going through a phase in my career where I’m doing a lot of new things for the very first time. And I’m always like, 'you know what I’ll figure it out. I'll do it myself. I don’t need anybody else and I’m gonna do this thing.'” She took that go-getter spirit and learned music production, even joining an artist development program to help hone her skills and further her education. “I taught myself most things for the first part of my career and then i joined an artist development program back in 2018 called Cosmic Academy. I learned a lot about the technical side of things and how to really run a project. To make music, as much as it’s a creative thing, you have to really have the technical side down to understand how to produce a record. To understand what actually sounds good, how to mix something, to actually get it to translate to the people listening to it.“ Her music is translating to the dancefloor. She's garnered over five million streams across her growing catalog, been featured on the cover of popular Spotify playlists, and earned a coveted spot as one of the top 100 bass house artists on Beatport. One of her most poignant success stories is her flourishing relationship with fellow Candian artists Zeds Dead. She debuted on their label Deadbeats in 2021 with her Black Mirror EP, written at the height of the pandemic. Like most people, the pandemic hit Nostalgix hard. The world began to shut down just as things took off for her. The weight of the pandemic was truly reflected in that EP and featured a darker, grimier sound than her typically fun and energetic tracks. “When I was writing Black Mirror, it was right when Covid had started and I had just gotten my US Visa. I was about to come to the US to do my first shows and move out here. And I was so excited about it," she recalls. "And then everything was just getting canceled before my eyes and I felt everything that I had worked for was disappearing." She says that weeks spent alone in front of her computer put her in a darker headspace. "When I was writing that EP, that’s where I was at, hence Black Mirror. It was just a very interesting time.” Her sophomore Deadbeats release, titled “Heat Rush,” is a melodic, bass-heavy track that features the ethereal vocals of Dyer. An homage to hope and emotion, “Heat Rush” honors the euphoria that can accompany love. “That’s been one of my favorite songs that I’ve been wanting to release for such a long time. It was the last song that I produced when I [was] still living in Vancouver, so it was kind of the era that I was just sitting in the studio producing and all up in my feels. I really wanted to make an emotional song based on what I was feeling. And I found this amazing vocalist Dyer. I hit her up and the song came to be." Its release marks the end of an era for the young artist. “Heat Rush was kind of at the end when the world was actually coming back. There was light at the end of the tunnel, there was actually hope. You know it’s a bit more of a euphoric and emotional song," she says. " There is love out there, there’s beauty out there and euphoria, all that, all that beauty exists. “