Timmy Trumpet

Timmy Trumpet knows how to cut through the din. Since the EDM boom of the early 2010s, the Australian DJ and horn player has been standing astride the decks at some of the world’s biggest festivals, mouthpiece to his lips, blasting brassy leads over songs that mix elements of big-room progressive house, hardstyle, trance and electro-pop. Born Timothy Jude Smith in Sydney, Australia, in 1982, Timmy started releasing his own productions in 2009 on labels like Monstercat, Casablanca and Doorn, favoring a wriggly sound in keeping with the style known as Melbourne Bounce. Before long, he was a mainstay on Dutch heavyweight Spinnin’ Records, where he collaborated with Carnage, MAKJ and KSHMR; he’s also laid down his characteristic riffs on records with Steve Aoki and Hardwell. But the artist’s signature is the untraditional way he plays his namesake instrument. Rather than the pure, unadulterated sound of the trumpet itself, he favours processed blasts and synthetic textures—flipping a Balkan melody into needling supersaws on “Tarantino” or meting out shiny stabs on the Vengaboys collab “Up & Down”. The thread running through virtually all of his productions—even joint efforts with artists, like R3HAB, that often lean toward EDM’s melodic side—is his boundless energy. Dangling elastic toplines over spring-loaded beats, Timmy Trumpet offers a vision of EDM at its giddiest.