Micetro

Andrew Sweet, 24, spent his last eight months out of work a little differently. He was making trap music.

“It was awesome because I got to work on music all day…really learn a lot and do all the things I wished I could do when I was working,” he said.

Under the stage name Micetro, the University of Massachusetts graduate has performed around Boston at popular nightclubs such as Prime, Rise and the Middle East. In June, he was one of more than 100 artists to perform at the Camp Coldbrook Music and Arts Festival in Barre.

Recently, his newest song, “ACTION” was No. 1 on trapmusic.net, a site that aims to feature “the best producers and DJs in the world,” according to its blog.

Sweet thinks that the song’s popularity – over 30,000 plays on soundcloud.com – is due to its unique style and slower tempo.

“It’s around 94 (beats per minute) as opposed to the usual 140 BPM which is kind of the ‘normal’ trap tempo,” he said.

Today’s trap music falls under the ever-growing umbrella of electronic dance music, and is characterized by ominous 808 bass, rattling high hats and synthesizers. As trap’s visibility rises with songs like “Harlem Shake” and DJs like Flosstradamus, Sweet believes that the genre has morphed.

“What people call trap music isn’t actually trap music,” he said. “Because (the original) trap music is more like, down south kind of drug-dealer music.” The “trap” refers to the location or occurrence of a drug deal, and trap music stems from southern hip-hop artists like Three 6 Mafia.

In Sweet’s trap, which is of the party-starting electro-dance flavor, he likes to incorporate panning – movement of sound between speakers – and “wood-blocky” textures that bounce back and forth.

“It just gives it more of an ear-candy effect, especially if you listen to it on headphones,” he said.

For equipment, Sweet uses an Akai MTK 49 Keyboard, his MacBook Pro laptop, Reason 7 software and occasionally Logic Pro.

Originally a hip-hop fan, Sweet started producing beats for his rapper friends as a freshman at Franklin Pierce University. When he transferred to UMass his sophomore year, he stopped producing, but met a lot of people in the EDM scene. All his friends became DJs.

“UMass had a huge effect on the music I listened to, you know, more than anything,” he said. “Because that’s really what spurred my interest in it.”

After graduation, Sweet stayed in touch with many Boston-based UMass friends who helped him book shows.

“I feel like the connections you make at UMass are very strong,” he said. “Transferring to UMass was honestly the best decision I’ve ever made.”

Sweet believes that UMass helped him find a day job.

Although he still had three credits left when he walked at graduation in 2011, he had found a full-time job as a health insurance auditor and decided to strike while the iron was hot. Sweet didn’t end up graduating until this year, receiving a degree in communications.

At the end of July, he found another job as a health insurance auditor with a company called HMS Holdings. Now as his music is gaining recognition, Sweet must also juggle a full-time job, leaving him a lot less time for music. What was once three hours a day has dwindled to about an hour, if he’s not too tired. He has dreams of becoming a full-time DJ and touring places like Florida and California, where trap is more popular. But for now, he appreciates the security of a day job and strives to do his best in both aspects of his life.

“It’s important for me to be successful at whatever I do, whether it’s work or music,” he said. - The Massachusetts Daily Collegian (Amherst, MA)

There’s an inherent menace at the heart of the electronic music sub-genre of trap. It makes sense when you consider its origins in the early 2000s, as a soundtrack to a certain style of drug-game hip-hop culture in the South — encroaching paranoia is part of the job description.

But while trap’s crossover into the electronic music world over the past couple of years, and the attendant larger audiences that have come with it, have nudged the sound into a more anodyne direction, the basic underpinnings still resonate in its resulting hybrid manifestations, even if the end result makes for an unlikely party soundtrack. Consider for evidence the recent “Basic Instincts” EP, from a relatively new but promising Boston producer, Andrew Sweet, a.k.a. Micetro.

Sweet, 24, originally from Holden, and now of Allston, was recently showcasing his originals and a series of similarly evocative selections at All Asia on a rain-soaked night. For all of the ominous bass, gun-cocking percussion, air-raid siren effects, and sinister, horror-film synths of tracks like “Juke Widdit” and “Everyday,” there’s an undeniable dance imperative that resonated from the skittering high-hats and bass-heavy 808 drums.

Micetro will perform at the Middle East on Wednesday supporting UK dubstep standout Zomboy.

“There is a darker element to my music,” Sweet explained a few days before. “I like to make people feel something, as opposed to just keeping it to the bare minimum clichés.”

Sweet has been producing music since he was 18, when he was a student at UMass Amherst making hip-hop beats for his friends to rhyme over. “I self-taught with everything,” he said. “I always loved music, and it all just came kind of naturally to me. The more I worked at it, the more I realize, ‘I think I might have knack for this and I think I could really take it somewhere.’ ”

Aside from those upcoming notable gigs — as well as recent stints at Rise and Prime — the first exposure for that hard work came with last month’s release of the “Basic Instincts” EP. He’s also been scoring commercials for a handful of national ad campaigns, working for photographer and director JJ Miller who said he “was blown away by his talent,” in an e-mail. He’ll have two other tracks on national campaigns as well.

As for Micetro’s own work, a forthcoming single “Same Mistakes” will be out next month on a trap compilation on Freakstep Records in Atlanta. “Same Mistakes” is a more introspective, deep take on trap, which shows just how much room there is to move around within the genre. An earlier single, “Cake,” marries the touchstones of trap with the up-tempo, ascendant synths of progressive house.

It’s important to push the boundaries, Sweet said, especially with a style that has become “very supersaturated this past year.”

To that end he's working with another local producer, Harry Dunkley, a.k.a. Choppa Dunks.

“We want to make a trap EP, but we want to put our own twist on it so that it stands out from other trap producers,” Dunkley said. “I think his stuff really stands out because like myself, Micetro is into producing and listening to different types of music, which really shows in his tracks. I think that's what is needed to get recognized these days.”

In other words, pushing trap outside of the trap.

“Modern trap isn’t really what trap was anymore,” Sweet said. “It’s now essentially a sub-genre of electronic dance music, it’s no longer necessarily about hustling as much as it is about feeling the vibe the beats give off.”

“People are sort of tying together all these sub-genres of electronic dance music now, whether it be progressive house and trap, or electro and trap,” he says. “Not all house music listeners are going to be into the real old-school style of trap, but when you bring it together with something they’re familiar with, they really love it.”
- The Boston Globe

I’m a little late to the punch on this EP by local producer Micetro, but I’m glad I discovered it while in the midst of putting together a write-up for another event he happens to be playing at! Micetro is part of an ever-growing rank of up-and-comers, brought up on a healthy diet of hip hop, who are now dabbling with the sounds of trap and other styles that test the threshold of the subwoofer.

His “Basic Instincts” EP is a free download and perfectly illustrates his style and influence. “Juke Widdit” flirts with the rhythmic inconsistencies of footwork, while “Everyday” is precise in its rhythm and focuses on the interplay between the rapid-fire vocal edits and percussive snapbacks. And then there’s “They Like It”, the slowest, most melodic and emotionally charged of the three. A perfect set-closer to wind things down.

Considering this is just one of several releases from Micetro just this year alone, it may be worth your while to keep on top of the other projects he surely has going on by following him on Soundcloud! - Beantown Boogiedown

There’s an inherent menace at the heart of the electronic music sub-genre of trap. It makes sense when you consider its origins in the early 2000s, as a soundtrack to a certain style of drug-game hip-hop culture in the South — encroaching paranoia is part of the job description.

But while trap’s crossover into the electronic music world over the past couple of years, and the attendant larger audiences that have come with it, have nudged the sound into a more anodyne direction, the basic underpinnings still resonate in its resulting hybrid manifestations, even if the end result makes for an unlikely party soundtrack. Consider for evidence the recent “Basic Instincts” EP, from a relatively new but promising Boston producer, Andrew Sweet, a.k.a. Micetro.

Sweet, 24, originally from Holden, and now of Allston, was recently showcasing his originals and a series of similarly evocative selections at All Asia on a rain-soaked night. For all of the ominous bass, gun-cocking percussion, air-raid siren effects, and sinister, horror-film synths of tracks like “Juke Widdit” and “Everyday,” there’s an undeniable dance imperative that resonated from the skittering high-hats and bass-heavy 808 drums.

Micetro will perform at the Middle East on Wednesday supporting UK dubstep standout Zomboy.

“There is a darker element to my music,” Sweet explained a few days before. “I like to make people feel something, as opposed to just keeping it to the bare minimum clichés.”

Sweet has been producing music since he was 18, when he was a student at UMass Amherst making hip-hop beats for his friends to rhyme over. “I self-taught with everything,” he said. “I always loved music, and it all just came kind of naturally to me. The more I worked at it, the more I realize, ‘I think I might have knack for this and I think I could really take it somewhere.’ ”

Aside from those upcoming notable gigs — as well as recent stints at Rise and Prime — the first exposure for that hard work came with last month’s release of the “Basic Instincts” EP. He’s also been scoring commercials for a handful of national ad campaigns, working for photographer and director JJ Miller who said he “was blown away by his talent,” in an e-mail. He’ll have two other tracks on national campaigns as well.

As for Micetro’s own work, a forthcoming single “Same Mistakes” will be out next month on a trap compilation on Freakstep Records in Atlanta. “Same Mistakes” is a more introspective, deep take on trap, which shows just how much room there is to move around within the genre. An earlier single, “Cake,” marries the touchstones of trap with the up-tempo, ascendant synths of progressive house.

It’s important to push the boundaries, Sweet said, especially with a style that has become “very supersaturated this past year.”

To that end he's working with another local producer, Harry Dunkley, a.k.a. Choppa Dunks.

“We want to make a trap EP, but we want to put our own twist on it so that it stands out from other trap producers,” Dunkley said. “I think his stuff really stands out because like myself, Micetro is into producing and listening to different types of music, which really shows in his tracks. I think that's what is needed to get recognized these days.”

In other words, pushing trap outside of the trap.

“Modern trap isn’t really what trap was anymore,” Sweet said. “It’s now essentially a sub-genre of electronic dance music, it’s no longer necessarily about hustling as much as it is about feeling the vibe the beats give off.”

“People are sort of tying together all these sub-genres of electronic dance music now, whether it be progressive house and trap, or electro and trap,” he says. “Not all house music listeners are going to be into the real old-school style of trap, but when you bring it together with something they’re familiar with, they really love it.”
- The Boston Globe