Slushii

Julian Scanlan didn’t start out as the mysterious bass-music guy behind a slushy-drink logo. He was grinding first as “DJ Swoon,” and when that project fizzled out he wiped the slate and rebuilt himself from zero as Slushii. That reset ended up being the best career move he ever made. A playful, helium-voiced remix of Kaskade’s “Disarm You” started turning heads, and his flip of Zedd and Selena Gomez’s “I Want You to Know” is basically the moment Slushii became a real thing. Skrillex cosigned him early, and JAUZ, Brillz, and Marshmello — all under the same Red Light Management umbrella — started passing his name around. By February 2016 he had a management deal to match the buzz.

If you know the Slushii sound, you know it’s not subtle: future bass built on pitched-up vocal chops, giddy trance synth stacks, and trap drums that snap into full dubstep drops without warning. His 2016 Brain Freeze EP set the tone, and his 2017 debut album Out of Light turned him into one of the genre’s most recognizable names — glossy melodies with real teeth underneath. He kept the momentum going through his Dream EP series and a string of collabs that read like a bass-music who’s-who: Marshmello on “Twinbow,” Steve Aoki on “One True Love,” Sofia Reyes on “Never Let You Go,” plus records with Tokyo Machine and Kaivon.

Beyond the Drops

A few years back, Slushii went all in on a passion project years in the making — a new Monstercat album built alongside a full original anime series, with each episode designed to sync up with a song. Lead single “Turn It Up” marked his return to the label and gave fans the first taste of the audiovisual world he was building, one that pulls straight from his love of anime and video games.

He’s also been quietly running a second act under the alias Sapientdream, a more ambient, spiritual-leaning project that racked up over 168 million streams in 2023 alone — proof there’s a lot more going on in his head than just festival drops. Back under the Slushii name, he dropped “It’s Not Over (Till It’s Over)” in February 2025, a rollercoaster of a track that swings from soft, delicate vocals to huge sound-design moments. He’s said the next chapter is pulling inspiration from Dance Dance Revolution, anime, and gaming culture, with plenty of big projects reportedly on the way. Nearly a decade in, Slushii is still doing what he’s always done best: reinventing himself before anyone else can define him.