When Subtronics performed at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival for the first time last weekend, the 33-year-old Philadelphia native had an overflowing crowd waiting for him.
Vocalist Inéz joined the DJ during his April 12 set, and the duo performed the live debut of single “Eyes Cut Deeper.” The performance also featured appearances by rapper Destroy Lonely and singer-songwriter Oliver Tree, who performed unreleased tracks. The performance marked a new era for the electronic music producer, who has evolved from his roots in bass and high-intensity dubstep to embrace a more expansive and melodic sound.
But Subtronics, aka Jesse Kardon, isn’t abandoning his roots or losing his edge. He described this stage of his music career as an “expansion” when speaking to The Desert Sun in the Coachella press tent before his Weekend 2 performance on Sunday, April 19.
“As an artist, I’m always interested in what I haven’t done before, and I’ve been making art for so long now that it kind of just keeps on expanding outward,“ Kardon said. “I always want to do the next thing. This is definitely more of a reflection of where my current interests are, being a little bit more grown up and a little more of a show, leaning more into vocalists and having live performances to make it more diverse.”
Before his Sunday performance, he said there would be surprises, swaps, new material and classic songs he didn’t get to perform during Weekend 1.
“It’s funny, I’m used to playing lengthier sets, so it was difficult to shrink it down to 60 minutes,“ Kardon said. “The only way I was able to cut a few of those songs was telling myself that I’ll bring them back for Weekend 2. There’s such a large team of brilliant people that have worked so hard for so long on dialing every single millisecond, every single millimeter to the perfect degree. And they all just work so hard that I don’t want to … (be a) kid with a sandcastle, knock it over and tell them to restart.”
Since he began his career in 2013, Kardon went from the electronic underground to performing at international electronic music festivals such as Tomorrowland, Outside Lands and Electric Daisy Carnival Las Vegas. He has also sold out arenas, and performed at The Sphere in Las Vegas in 2025. Kardon described the journey as “surreal.”
“We’ve been doing arena shows for four years now and it will never wear off,“ he said. “I say all the time, whenever we’re walking into some massive arena as respectfully as I can, ‘What the f—k are we doing here?’ I think it’s the passion of the fans and the dance music community that sticks together.”
So, will the songs he performed with Destroy Lonely and Oliver Tree during Weekend 1 ever be released?
“I really don’t know, I fly by the seat of my pants, and I made those songs days before premiering them,” Kardon said. ”I hope to release those other songs. It would be very cool. Nothing is concretely in stone yet, but we’re all really happy with how those songs sound. I’m interested in finishing them up and getting them out.”
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Subtronics opens up about the DJ’s new era during Coachella Weekend 2
Reporting by Brian Blueskye, Palm Springs Desert Sun / Palm Springs Desert Sun
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
