Santa Barbara, CA · melodic-dubstep · trance

Seven Lions

3 upcoming festivals ↓

Melodic dubstep with a trance heart — soaring vocal tops over drops that still hit hard underneath, Ophelia-label worldbuilding included.

Jeff Montalvo, who performs as Seven Lions, was born in Santa Barbara, California, in 1987 and started making music at seven years old after his father brought home a Macintosh and a keyboard. He played drums in metal and punk bands through his teens before a college friend handed him a Tiësto CD, turning his attention toward trance.

He attended his first rave in 2007 and began releasing music as Seven Lions around 2010, taking the name from a character in Gene Wolfe's fantasy novel Latro in the Mist. An early unofficial remix of Florence and the Machine's 'Cosmic Love' was picked up by Moshi Moshi Records for the single's official release.

His remix of Above & Beyond's 'You Got to Go' won the label's remix competition, sitting at No. 2 on Beatport's dubstep chart before its 2011 release on Anjunabeats, and set the template: dubstep's weight paired with trance's builds and soaring vocal tops. The EP Days to Come followed in 2012, named one of Vibe Magazine's top electronic albums of the year and reaching No. 10 on Billboard's Dance/Electronic Albums chart.

Worlds Apart charted at No. 76 on the Billboard 200, and its track 'Don't Leave,' with Ellie Goulding, made the UK Singles Chart in 2014, the same year he was nominated for DJ Times' America's Best DJ. He has released mainly through EPs rather than full albums, and in 2018 founded Ophelia Records, which puts out dubstep, psytrance, drum and bass and other melodic bass acts.

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