New Artist Spotlight: NTFRMHRE [Video]

Philly-based pop trap artist NTFRMHRE has an interesting sound on the first single off his forthcoming debut EP. “Somebody Like You” features a vocalist who seems to be a little tone deaf, and the trap beat in the track can be a little unsatisfying, but somehow this song is still highly danceable and works as a decent piece of EDM. What is this brand new EDM artist’s angle, aside from having a general disdain for vowels, one might wonder?

Derrick Surragh adapted his nearly vowel-less moniker for the NTFRMHRE project this year, but he is already known in the Philadelphia EDM scene, and he’s also classically trained in some capacity as he works in drum line composition for the Philadelphia Eagles. This might explain his sort of different composition style with “Somebody Like You”, which has more of a pop feel and a beginning and an end to it than many pop EDM tracks like it.

The biggest issue on “Somebody Like You” from an EDM standpoint is the seeming lack of a drop in this song. It’s a sort of snare-heavy beat from the more hip hop trap tradition in the sense that it’s minimal and the bass stays constant rather than breaking and dropping. Instead the crescendo comes through the vocal chorus. It’s thus a little difficult to classify, and the fact that the vocals are flat in relationship to the track make this piece even more of a head-scratcher.

“Somebody Like You” is by no means a bad song, and its corresponding video is a beautiful love story with sweeping camera angles and heartfelt sentiment. Trying to classify and figure out where NTFRMHRE was going with this track, however, is still a little blurred. It will be interesting to see once the full EP comes out if this EDM-adjacent artist leans more pop or perfects the art of the drop. NTFRMHRE’s debut EP, 4th Dimension, will release early this summer.