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Peekaboo

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Los Angeles producer at the murkier end of bass music — slow, cavernous dubstep engineered for large rigs and small rooms alike.

Peekaboo is the alias of Matthew Austin Lucas, born in 1995 into a musical family; his father played trumpet professionally for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and Lucas himself learned trumpet and guitar as a child. Hearing Skrillex's 'Kill Everybody' as a high school freshman pushed him toward producing electronic music, starting out in progressive house rather than the heavier style he later became known for.

He studied audio engineering for horror films at Western Michigan University before dropping out and moving to Los Angeles in 2017. His self-released debut EP, Revenge, included the track 'Wobbly,' which caught the attention of producer Bassnectar, who played it at his own festival sets and later brought Lucas in to co-write 'Disrupt the System' for one of his albums.

Peekaboo's tracks are built from sparse, low-frequency sound design: hollowed-out sub-bass, metallic percussion and long stretches of space between hits, a slower and more restrained approach than the dense, high-energy dubstep common elsewhere. He became widely known through 'Babatunde,' a collaboration with G-Rex whose stripped-back arrangement became a reference point for the style.

His 2018 EP Imposters was released through Wakaan, the label run by fellow producer Liquid Stranger, and his sixth EP, Wrecking Ball, debuted at number ten on Billboard's Dance/Electronic Album Sales chart the following year. He has released through several labels associated with the American bass underground, and his DJ sets favour the same weight and restraint as his records.

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