Rising Arp: Up To Speed With The Rave-Ready Turbocharged Techno Of JumbogoatXXL

This rising techno producer found his footing in hip-hop (Credit: Courtesy of JumbogoatXXL)

A music producer’s journey is often one of growth, dipping toes in various waters to pinpoint a sound that sinks in. For JumbogoatXXL, he found his techno calling following a flickering stint in hip-hop where he’d adopted the alias, jimmy_thegoat. It’s hardly an unnatural evolution if you think about it, once you consider the history of electronic music and its shared elements with hip-hop. Discovering the nexus at a young age, JumbogoatXXL is now embracing the epiphany, and he’s on his way to becoming a stirring force in the electronic community.

Self-taught on GarageBand when he was 14 like many bedroom producers, JumbogoatXXL would go on to compose hip-hop and pop tracks for other artists in 2020. But it was in the heat and vigour of Singapore’s post-pandemic party zeitgeist when the burgeoning beatsmith started to be enamoured with techno and electronica. Inspired by everything from hard groove techno to the amorphous sounds of Skrillex, he siphoned from the surge of newfound inspiration and channelled it into a recent barrage of productions that hardly sound unpolished or uninitiated. His tracks are packed with context, engineered for an ongoing age of techno that feeds off harder and faster demands.

You’ll catch onto this instantly in his latest single, “Timezone Techno 2003”. Inspired by the manic sounds of an arcade, the feisty track is layered with boss mode synths, twisted vocal samples and a turbocharged tempo that’ll have you tapping your foot like a Time Crisis game. According to him, it’s an ode to his shameless adoration for ’90s Japanese ParaPara music and Dance Dance Revolution, but he aggrandises such influences with a modern sheen that’s radiant and rave-ready.

“Timezone Techno 2003” chases after his three-track EP titled Biggest Goat, which flaunts an assortment of tracks that proves he’s more stallion than one-trick pony. “Migraine” is yet another darting projectile with sampled vocal blabber that bounces around your head, echoing across with cavernous kicks and zappy synth lines. But it’s not all carnage in his JumbogoatXXL’s repertoire. “Forgiveness” proves this by throwing a curveball with its anatomy, evolving from speedy ghetto-armed techno to a saccharine second act positively bursting with glossy Prydz-like melodies. These tracks were originally intended to show the fledgling producer’s new foray into techno. But if this is the level they’re already on, one can expect even loftier achievements in this artist’s nascent yet accelerating rise.