Taska Black (Alumni)
Alumni:
Management, label & publishing
Born and based in Antwerp, Belgium, Taska Black is the artistic vision of songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Joachim Gorrebeeck, who’s quickly established himself as one of the most exciting new artists in the dance music ranks on the strength of his forward-thinking, genre-defying sound. While fresh on the scene, producing and releasing music as Taska Black for only four years, the newcomer has already evolved his project outside of dance with exciting new forays into the pop music sphere. Hailed as a “visionary producer” by Live Nation’s Ones to Watch channel and certified by Billboard Dance in their Ones to Watch series, who called him a fierce talent, Taska Black today stands as one of the fastest-rising artists in the worldwide electronic scene and a growing international talent thanks to his patented sound—an electrifying blend of warm melodies, sweeping harmonies, cinematic sounds, romantic synths, pop sensibilities, and anthemic vocals.
A child prodigy, Taska got an immediate start in music, picking up the violin at the tender age of 4 and later the piano at age 7. While he was initially reluctant to it—“I hated it because violin wasn’t really the coolest instrument to play,” says the artist—his early classical training instilled in him the fundamentals of music: structure, rhythm, texture. He later expanded his musical tastes and began to consume a healthy diet of seminal rock bands, notably Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nirvana, Limp Bizkit, and AC/DC. From there, his interest grew into electronic music – where he got his start in music production – before settling into contemporary pop music.
Taska first caught the attention of tastemaker and bitbird label founder San Holo in 2016. Taska released his breakthrough single “Leave Me” on bitbird, which topped the Hype Machine charts upon release and today counts +6 million streams across all platforms collectively. That success has led to a string of successful releases from Taska Black starting with: “Dreaming” (+6MM/Spotify, bitbird) with singer Nevve,“Running Away” (+18MM/Spotify, Heroic), a collaboration with bitbird labelmates DROELOE featuring Dutch duo CUT_; “Sandpaper” (+6MM/Spotify, Heroic), featuring frequent collaborator Ayelle which was quickly followed by yet another collaboration between the duo “In Your Eyes” (+8MM/Spotify, Seeking Blue); and “Right Here, Right Now” (+10MM/Spotify, Columbia Records), his first-ever collaboration with San Holo. 2018 also saw Taska release “Forever” (+2.5MM/Spotify) on Martin Garrix’s buzzing STMPD RCRDS; Garrix himself later named “Forever” as his favorite song of the year in his DJ Mag profile when he topped the magazine’s industry-leading Top 100 DJs list.
At the tail end of 2018, Taska Black released his groundbreaking debut EP, Minds, via his home label, bitbird. As the next progression in the Taska Black sound, Minds was an intimate journey inspired by the producer’s skyrocketing rise in 2018 – a triumphant yet tumultuous period anchored by his breakout success as well as a series of personal health problems that came along with it. Always on a mission to innovate, the five-track EP saw the producer pushing his sound to new heights, implementing an evolved sense of songwriting and production while tackling his inner-demons on record for the first time ever.
“A lot of things happened for me in 2018,” says Taska Black about the inspiration behind Minds. “I had just dropped out of college to work as Taska Black full time, and I started touring internationally going into 2018. I dove in headfirst, but I didn’t realize that your mind and your body become limited when it comes to creativity and stress. I had to meet deadlines and expectations. I started stressing about my first shows and going overseas for the first time. All that heaped up, and I started experiencing panic attacks, weird physical unexplainable issues. It took me a long time before I realized that it really was because of all the stress, and I had to ease my mind. Minds was a way for me to write about everything I’d been experiencing. I wanted to describe what was going on in my head and speak about how I realized that everything is gonna be OK in the end. It’s about how I accepted that everything is what it is, but also about how people shouldn’t rush their lives by thinking about the future only. I wanted to describe my feelings through Minds, but also give support to people struggling with the same issues. Knowing that millions of people are also struggling with these kinds of problems is a big help—at least it was for me.”
Collectively, Minds marked a pivotal shift in Taska Black’s sound, a move away from the darker, experimental-leaning bass of his early days toward pop-friendly sounds with mass appeal. Lead single “Losing Our Minds” perfectly conveys this heartfelt balance: A bed of organic sounds and guitars floats over ethereal electronic beats as vocalist Nevve sings about taking a minute to live in the moment and appreciate that “life is a masterpiece.” The song, dubbed a Future Sound track on SiriusXM channel Diplo’s Revolution for an entire week, has since amassed +4.5 million streams on Spotify alone.
Never one to conform, Taska’s ever-expanding sound marries a classical essence, via highly emotional instrumentation and layers of complex sound design, with contemporary electronic beats with mature pop sensibilities for a truly unique sound that shatters the wall between pop musician and DJ.
2019 saw Taska Black continue to develop the nuances in his pop sound with the release of powerful love ballad “Backwards Love” (1.5MM/Spotify, bitbird). The record featured Ultra-signed vocalist TRACE which was premiered via Billboard who described it as a “bold-yet-alluring sing-along.” The release also featured a live session video, a tradition started with “In Your Eyes”, that once again demonstrated Taska’s musical ability outside of the studio and his knack for beautifully transforming powerful records into fragile, stripped-down, and emotive versions of themselves.
An in-demand performer, Taska Black is known for his atmospheric sets and lively performances, which have taken him across major venues and festivals around the world. He supported San Holo on his album1 world tour, including treks across North America in fall 2018 and Europe through winter 2019 before a return to North America in the spring. On the festival front, he made his North American debut at the nationally acclaimed Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival and performed at Lollapalooza Paris, both times going b2b with DROELOE in summer 2018. He since followed that up with solo jaunts at Splash House and Paradiso Festival before embarking on his debut headline ‘Blacklist Tour’ fall 2019 with sold-out stops in San Francisco, Denver, and more leading into a busy festival season in 2020 with confirmed stops at Hangout Music Festival and a return to Bonnaroo as a solo performer already on the books.
With a full-on pivot towards pop production paving a new path in his artistic journey, Taska Black enters 2020 with a refreshed aesthetic and a new, matured sound: his own unique flavor of pop that’s fueled by polished electronics, drama-filled instrumentation, and a curiosity for sonic innovation. He will continue to challenge listeners and expand the possibilities of where pop music can go in the hands of a visionary like Taska Black.