WHY “BIGGER THAN US” IS SET TO ALIGN SOUND, SPIRIT & SPACE AT FREQUENCIES LA
There’s a moment in the Transcend video, sand whipping across the screen, silhouettes dissolving into sunset pixels, where time stops. You’re not in a desert. You’re in a memory you haven’t had yet. The beat doesn’t just drop, it exhales. That’s the kind of emotional sleight of hand BIGGER THAN US pulls off with ease. One part sonic ritual, one part cinematic seance, BTU isn’t just another name in the LA electronic scene, they’re the shift. The threshold. The breath before the leap.
Born from the mind-meld of Marieme, the Senegalese-born, genre-erasing vocalist with a voice that’s both balm and blade, and Stephan Jacobs (aka BOSA), a veteran LA producer who’s spent years pushing the edges of electronic music into tribal, ambient, and multi-sensory terrain, BTU is a collaboration with gravity. But this isn’t just singer + producer. This is alchemy. They don’t just blend. They collapse boundaries: voice into texture, rhythm into emotion, presence into projection.
When you listen to BTU’s debut EP, The Beginning, what hits isn’t just the sound design or the writing, it’s the scale. These tracks feel like they were meant to be heard through cathedral speakers or floating in zero gravity. Lose Control seduces with a minimal, aching build before cracking open into a voice that feels ancient and future at once. Do It Again rides synth pulses that mimic heartbeat and breath. Transcend is both mantra and missile, the kind of track that deserves to be played under eclipse skies or in the center of an immersive dome.
Live, BTU becomes something else entirely. This isn’t a DJ set. This is experiential architecture. At past shows — including stages at Coachella, immersive galleries, and now FREQUENCIES in Downtown LA, the duo transforms space with digital avatars, massive-scale visuals, reactive lighting, and visuals choreographed to Marieme’s movements. Their performances often begin in near-stillness, as if inviting the crowd to actually listen, then ascend in tension and light. It’s performance as revelation — where the boundaries between audience and artist dissolve into shared vibration.
Behind the scenes, their process is meticulously chaotic. Marieme writes like she’s channeling more than composing. She’s less interested in pop conventions than in spells, lyrics that vibrate intention. Stephan is the architect, using Ableton like clay, building rhythms that breathe. Their studios are equal parts vocal booth, projection lab, and sound experiment chamber. At any moment, you might find a VJ team dialing in particles, or Marieme testing an avatar movement inside Unreal Engine. It’s less about music production and more about dimensional storytelling.
What makes BTU essential right now isn’t just their sound or tech. It’s their intention. In a time where spectacle often outweighs soul, they insist on both. They want to move your body and rupture your emotional grid. They aren’t chasing algorithms, they’re writing to the edges of human possibility. They are what happens when music becomes a ritual again. When sound dares to mean something.
As they prepare to step into the center of FREQUENCIES, alongside visionaries like Hailuo MiniMax, ESCAPE.ai, FutureEyes, Machine Cinema, and Sky Portal X, BTU stands poised to be the connective tissue. The gravitational core around which light, image, sound, and self can orbit. Their set will not be a set. It will be an invocation.
And if you let it, it just might change how you experience sound all together.
ARTIST LINKS
BTU Website
BIGGER THAN US
Marieme
Stephan Jacobs / BOSA
