ODESZA Talk Conquering Indie-tronica upon Their HARD Debut

ODESZA seemed to pop out of nowhere when their My Friends Never Die EP premiered on THUMP at the tail end of 2013. Their sound is undeniable: feelsy electronic music made with a distinctly indie perspective, all colorful melodies and pop sensibilities swathed with a knack for songwriting that isn't often found in dance music.

The Seattle duo's In Return LP, released last month, has cemented their place as an important voice in stateside electronic music, and they're capping it off by closing out the 7up Stage at HARD's Day of the Dead this weekend.

Their two-year ride to the top wasn't as effortless as it may seem, though. "I definitely feel like we were in the underground world for a bit," says the duo's Harrison Mills. "When we were first starting, we basically played the closest thing to electronic music that was happening in Seattle. It's just slowly building here – it's still growing…On our second tour, we were the 1st of 3 with Emancipator. He's a super awesome guy, really humble. He really took us under his wing. We got to ride on this tour bus and stuff which was really amazing."

Whereas many acts spend years struggling to define themselves within genre boundaries, ODESZA have always embraced their divergent collection of influences. They list Animal Collective, Radiohead, and Bonobo as major influences and their beats often have a hip hop pace to them, but they're making dance music. Ish.

Harrison explains, "We like to be producers but we also like usually to write stuff. A lot of dudes know how to make it sound good and make it hit, but we like to do it all and be very involved in the songwriting process."

That diversity translates to the live setting as well. "We change it up a lot for our live shows," says Mills. "We work songs of ours to be a little more dance-floor friendly, but I don't think we try to like use that in a gimmicky way. We really love dance music too – so we try to incorporate things that make it more fun for people who know their scene."

The response to their sophomore LP has been immense – They've managed to capture the energy of all the scenes they pull from without compromising any of the stuff that makes it real. "We kinda made it a little different from the other ones so we didn't really know what to expect and how people would like it but so far everything's been really positive," says the duo's Clayton Knight.

This weekend will mark ODESZA's first outing at a HARD event, and they've been handed the honor of closing out the 7up Stage. "We're really excited to be a part of such an amazing lineup," says Harrison. "It just seems like it's massive, probably one of the biggest parties in LA that you can be a part of. HARD day of the dead and HARD summer are both massive events and the lineups are always crazy so it seems like also – the people that are talent-buying for it– really know what they're doing each year."

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They're playing the 7up Stage at DOTD at 9:55pm on Saturday: