Sound Advice: Big Gigantic

Join Big Gigantic on Sound Advice, the weekly interview series covering artists’ journeys and their creative process. In this episode, we discuss their new album ‘Fluorescence,’ live show, collaborations, community work and more.
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Welcome to Sound Advice, the series spotlighting artists’ creative process and their SoundCloud journey. We’ll get the inside knowledge straight from the source on how musicians, producers and creatives are leaning into everything SoundCloud offers to elevate their sound, get heard and catapult their careers. Sound Advice is now available in audio format on the SoundCloud Stories profile.

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On this episode of Sound Advice, we’re headed to Colorado to speak to one of the biggest acts at the crossroads between live electronic music and the jam band scene. Dominic Lalli and Jeremy Salken from Big Gigantic join us to speak about their musical journey, which began during the MySpace era. Lalli, a classically trained saxophone player, started making electronic beats, and asked Salken to add some live drums. Now, over 20 years later, they’re headlining some of the biggest festivals in the United States, and are regarded for their distinctive sound that blends funk, electro and psychedelica with big, wobbly bass. 

In this exclusive interview, Big Gigantic talk about their creative process and the ideas and challenges of crafting their new album ‘Fluorescence,’ with its themes of love, positivity and high energy. The duo also talks about how they take their studio sounds to the live stage, and the importance of fan interaction and building community through SoundCloud. They also highlight the importance of collaboration and innovation in the scene, both through music production and in giving back to the community by volunteering and raising money for various causes.

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LISTEN TO THE AUDIO EPISODE OF SOUND ADVICE FEATURING BIG GIGANTIC

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LISTEN TO ‘FLUORESCENCE’ BY BIG GIGANTIC

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Things We Talked About In This Episode of Sound Advice

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Big Gigantic’s Roots in Colorado and the Jam Band Influence On Their Live Dance Sound

• We begin our conversation with Big Gigantic by going all the way back to the beginning of the project. Lalli and Salken met when they were college roommates, and sparked a connection through music. After getting into the Denver electronic music scene, the classically trained saxophonist Lalli got his first laptop and started making beats. Salken, the drummer, joined in on the fun and Big Gigantic was born.
• Looking back on this time, the duo say that Denver’s underground electronic scene was what inspired them to get started with Big Gigantic, which became a way to blend playing their own live instruments with a new, evolving style. 
• Big Gigantic has been in Colorado for almost 20 years, and the state’s music scene has deeply influenced the duo’s sound. We get into more detail about the jam band scene in cities like Boulder, how electronic and bass music came to prominence there, and how the two scenes interconnect. 
• With fellow live acts like Pretty Lights, major venues like Red Rocks and an influx of creatives from across the US, the area has cultivated a thriving music scene. Big Gigantic explains how its culture — one where artists play collaborative shows at mountain-side house parties, bars and other DIY spaces — helps nurture a flourishing, experimental and open-minded music community.
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How Big Gigantic Uses SoundCloud to Stay Independent, Be Creative and Connect With Fans and Collaborators Alike

• One way in which the Colorado jam band scene has influenced Big Gigantic is in how they put together their annual Winter Chill Mix series, available on their SoundCloud profile. Now in its 10th year, the series harkens back to the jam band tradition of trading and uploading recordings of live performances online, as a way to spread the music and interact with fans. 
• Big Gigantic gets into the motives behind the series, explaining how it helps them to keep up their artistic momentum between tours and albums, showcase different sides of their musical tastes and thank fans for sticking with them for all these years. 
• The series has been uploaded to SoundCloud every year, and it’s a relationship that’s grown in importance for Big Gigantic. SoundCloud is now used daily by the duo. As they explain it, there’s “no other place” online where they can be this “musically free” and engage directly with their community of fans and collaborators. 
• One of their favorite ways to engage with their fanbase on SoundCloud is by reading the comments that listeners post on their tracks. Seeing this live feedback from their fans is an energizing experience, sharing how it is reminiscent of their early days on forums and message boards. The group notes how they see their SoundCloud as the most direct way to share and talk about their music online today. 
• When Big Gigantic is in the midst of making music, they use SoundCloud every day to work on their tracks. By using features like private tracks and private playlists to organize their demos, share ideas within potential collaborators and prepare tracklist orders for their albums, the pair can keep all of their ideas and developments all in one place. For their DJing, SoundCloud plays a role, too. Lalli shares how much of his independent musical discovery happens on SoundCloud, where he finds unique edits for their DJ sets. 
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Big Gigantic on Their New Album ‘Fluorescence’ and Making Euphoric Live Electronic Music

• In June 2025, Big Gigantic released their ninth studio album, ‘Fluorescence.’ The conversation moves to the duo’s creative process. Here, they share how the album taps into Denver’s electronic bass scene, and allows for the duo to elevate their live performance techniques. Getting into specifics, Lalli talks about the kinds of synthesizers they liked to use and the dance music inspirations for the album.
• After two decades of writing, recording and performing live, cross-genre dance music, Big Gigantic has made collaboration a huge part of their workflow. It’s a way of opening doors challenging themselves creatively. Here, they talk about one of their favorite collaborations to date: “Highway,” with ProbCause, which features on ‘Fluorescence.’
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Building Community, Working With Non-Profits and Giving Back Through Music

• On ‘Fluorescence,’ Big Gigantic lean harder into their running theme of optimism for the future and spreading positivity through music. These experiences come back to them from fans — who the duo fondly liken in conversation to the fanbase for Grateful Dead, the “Deadheads” — and from the duo out into wider society.
• Ever since Big Gigantic began in Colorado, they’ve been thinking about how to give back to the community that has been so supportive of their music, and see through the positivity of their music in their daily loves. Here, the duo tell the story about how they started working with Conscious Alliance, a non-profit organization that provides food to Native American reservations throughout the United States, and Youth On Record, which gives kids in Denver access to free music lessons if they’re not available during school hours. 
• As artists, they’ve been using their resources to bring music fans and these initiatives together: for every ticket that Big Gigantic sells for their shows, they donate $1 to these organizations. 
• When it comes to lending advice to other artists about working with non-profits, Salken explains that the best way to start is to contact local organizations that spark an interest directly, and offer your help. He says, from there, you can become more sure of which ways of working, donating and volunteering work best for you. Inspired by these collaborations, Big Gigantic formed their own non-profit A Big Gigantic Difference Foundation. 
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The Making of Their Gold Record “All of Me” and What’s Next For Big Gigantic

• As seasoned collaborators, Big Gigantic have worked with a vast array of artists — from rappers like Waka Flocka Flame and Vic Mensa, to soul singers like Aloe Blacc and dance acts like GRiZ. Here, the duo reflect on some of their favorite collaborations to date, including “All of Me” with the rapper Logic and vocalist Rozes. There’s also a big, gigantic congratulations due — “All of Me” recently went Gold in the United States, marking another career milestone for the duo.
• Now that ‘Fluorescence’ is out and Big Gigantic are preparing for more summertime live performances, the duo wonder: What’s next? A dream collaboration for them would be with The Colorado Symphony. Having previously worked with the Denver-based orchestra — when between 10 and 15 of their tracks were arranged for a live orchestral performance — the duo shares that they’d love to bring the players into the studio to record those arrangements for a future release.

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Links and Extras 

Follow Big Gigantic’s journey on SoundCloud.
Press play on Big Gigantic’s 2024 album, ‘Fluorescence.’
Find out more about Big Gigantic tour dates and tickets here.
Hit play on Big Gigantic’s collaboration with ProbCause, titled “Highway.”
Go back to where it all began with Big Gigantic’s first-ever track, “Lucid Dreams.”
Find out more about Big Gigantic’s non-profit organization, A Big Gigantic Difference Foundation, as well as Youth On Record and Conscious Alliance.
Explore some of Big Gigantic’s wide-ranging influences, including Skrillex, Bonobo, STS9 and Pretty Lights, to name a few.
Listen to the Desert Road Trip playlist on SoundCloud.
Never miss an episode and follow the official Sound Advice playlist on SoundCloud.

Getting The Most Out of SoundCloud

Learn more about using DMs to connect with fellow artists and potential collaborators.
Learn more about how to make a custom playlist on SoundCloud.
Learn more about unlimited uploads, available with an Artist Pro subscription.
Learn more unlocking access to unlimited distribution, available with Artist Pro.
Learn more about getting heard with SoundCloud’s updated algorithm, available to Artist and Artist Pro subscribers.

To discover additional features a SoundCloud Artist or Artist Pro subscription offers, visit here. To catch up on past installments of Sound Advice and make sure you don’t miss out on future episodes, visit here.

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_{CREDITS: Host: Vivian Host, Executive Producer: Mike Spinella, Producer: KC Orcutt, Audio Engineer: David “Dibs” Shackney, Coordinator: Trevor McGee, Editorial Associate: Lauren Martin}