Rainbow Brain

Even as the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the EDM touring circuit for much of 2020-21, Grant “GRiZ” Kwiecinski never stopped partying. He simply moved his venue of choice from the festival stage to inside his head. The Michigan-born/Colorado-based DJ and producer conceived his seventh album, Rainbow Brain, as a euphoric antidote to the lockdown blues, blending his delirious brand of dubstep with a kaleidoscopic palette of classic rave sounds, glitch-hop, reggae, psychedelic rock, and old-school funky workouts that make great use of his famed sax skills. In contrast to 2019’s star-studded Ride Waves—whose guest list included Snoop Dogg, Wiz Khalifa, and Bootsy Collins—Rainbow Brain showcases GRiZ’s immediate circle of friends, projecting a spirit of community that’s reflected in the hippie-inspired imagery and philosophies that are splattered all over the record like tie-dye.

“Rainbow Brain is about making your own vibe,” he tells Apple Music. “Because it was made during a time where I didn't have the outlet of playing music for people, I just made my own little dance party out of this album. In a time of deep-rooted sadness, anxiety, and loss of purpose, I wanted to write a bunch of bass music that just made me feel really good. I just wanted to check out of reality and enjoy getting deep into myself.” Rainbow Brain’s epic 23-track trip comprises several instrumental interludes that serve to unify its wild stylistic deviations into a cohesive whole; here, GRiZ highlights some of the key stops along the journey to the center of his mind.

“Astro Funk”
“I intentionally wanted to lead off with something that felt like a party, just to give you a break from the worry and all the bullshit—like, let's just dive into this James Brown 3000 vibe.”

“Burn Up the Floor” (feat. Jantsen)
“I've been a fan of Jantsen for a really long time. He's a Colorado native; I'm an import from Michigan. I actually had an idea for us a long time ago and we were both hype on it, but it just didn't happen. After I got vaccinated, we had a moment to meet in person and we took what we had created over emails and were like, 'Fuck that—this sucks!' So we came up with a brand-new song that just destroyed what we had made in the past. The fact that we were both able to be together and resonate in space together was the ticket that really took this song where it is now, and I'm so fucking happy for that.”

“Tie-Dye Sky”
“I love old rave music—that piano-loop idea. So I was taking that idea but then doing it with breakbeats and giving it this drum 'n' bass feel underneath this happy piano thing. It's very retro-feeling but very forward-thinking. I was really obsessed with mixing up those different ideas.”

“Rainbow Brain” (feat. Probcause & Chrishira Perrier)
“This is rooted in me listening to Jurassic 5 and A Tribe Called Quest. I met Chrishira in New Orleans, and she sang on some of my songs onRide Waves. And Probcause is somebody that I connected with so deeply and so effortlessly and energetically. Then the two of them became besties after all the touring we did together. This song has that intermingled battle-rap energy, with these collaborative voices finishing each other's ideas, but then laced with the sound of dubstep that I really fell in love with at the precipice of my career [in the late 2000s], when there was a real counterculture around with dubstep, before it was really being seen on big stages around America.”

“Daily Routine” (feat. Big Gigantic & Probcause)
“This is a throwback to me always loving glitch-hop music and midtempo sounds. It's a sound that I feel like doesn't get as much love as other kinds of genres of electronic dance music. That comes from Prefuse 73 and stuff like that, so I guess this is my interpretation of it. Doing broke-beat music with big bass sounds has definitely been a bread-and-butter thing for GRiZ for a long time, and this is just another evolution of that.”

“548 MAC ave”
“548 MAC Ave. is a place at Michigan State University, and it's been a long time coming that I give it some credit. It's a co-op called Montie House, and it's one of the first places—if not the first—where I DJed my music live for people. The co-op was basically like a sorority, but there were guys and girls living there. They were hippies and were really into expressing themselves in a very authentic way. And so this was the place where I first kissed a boy and came into my own sexuality, and there were cross-dressing parties, and it was so fucking out there, and so important to me. So the sound of this song is what I was playing at the time, with just one strobe light in the basement and 60 sweaty kids just going fucking crazy.”

“Another World”
“The original vocals on this are from a band called the Psychedelic Porn Crumpets and their song ‘Van Gogh & Gone,’ which was used in this snowboard video that I saw. I draw a lot of my musical inspirations and musical identity from songs in snowboard videos and skateboard videos. I immediately heard their song and paused the movie and went to my studio and I made the first half of this song so fast. Eventually, we cleared [the sample] and talked with the band and they were super stoked about it.”

“The Echo Tree”
“I thought of ending the record with 'Another World,' but it felt like there needed to be one more thing in there. IDM music is a really big influence for me, and I wanted to make a lo-fi future-bass tune. There's a musical trope within this song that happens in the middle of the album on the 'R O Y G B i V' interlude. I guess there's a million different ways to do things, and this is just how the album ended. It's like letting the closing movie credits roll over your fucking brain.”