Arriving after months of anticipation and a string of acclaimed singles including “EVEREST” featuring Alina Pash, “MONA LISA” with Mr. Carmack, and “Candy Flipping” featuring Alina Pash, Jack Blom, and NERVE, the project serves as one of What So Not's most personal and conceptually ambitious bodies of work to date.
Across the EP, What So Not both revisits and reimagines the sense of discovery, experimentation, and community that defined the formative years of internet-era trap music while filtering those influences through more than a decade of artistic growth.
This is more than a simple nostalgia play - it's a multifaceted era designed to bring the music community together through intimate, real-life experiences and an authentic creative vision.
The result is a project that feels both deeply nostalgic and entirely contemporary - balancing cinematic songwriting, forward-thinking production, heavy bass experimentation, and personal collaboration moments into a cohesive yet unpredictable project.
Each release has revealed a different side of that journey. “EVEREST” explored themes of healing, unity, and transcendence through Alina Pash's powerful vocal performance. “MONA LISA” reunited What So Not with longtime bass music innovator Mr. Carmack for a bass-powered reflection on excess and self-destruction. Meanwhile, “Candy Flipping” pushed deeper into introspection, examining ego, duality, and self-perception through a layered dialogue between NERVE and Alina Pash.
Taken together, the songs form a broader story - one that mirrors What So Not's own artistic trajectory. Rather than attempting to recreate the past, the EP seeks to recapture the feeling of possibility and connection that made the 2010s era of electronic music culture so transformative.
The project also arrives amid What So Not's intimate I SAW A TRAP DJ AND IT CHANGED MY BIO CHEMISTRY North American tour, a limited-capacity run designed to bring the music back into smaller rooms and more direct connection with fans. The tour reflects the same philosophy driving the EP itself: prioritizing community, experimentation, and shared experience over spectacle alone.
Long regarded as one of the defining producers behind the rise of cinematic trap and future bass, What So Not has spent the past decade continually evolving beyond genre boundaries. From collaborations with Skrillex, RL Grime, Oliver Tree, Killer Mike, Toto, and Daniel Johns to acclaimed projects including Divide & Conquer (2016), Not All The Beautiful Things (2018), Anomaly (2022), and The Quiet That Hurts (2025), his catalog has consistently pushed electronic music toward new creative territory.
With I SAW A TRAP DJ AND IT CHANGED MY BIO CHEMISTRY, What So Not delivers a project that feels less like a return and more like a recalibration - a reminder of the transformative power of music, community, and creative curiosity, viewed through the lens of an artist who helped shape the culture.
Tracklist
“Candy Flipping” (w/ Jack Blom, Nerve, Alina Pash)
“Mona Lisa” (w/ Mr. Carmack, Benni Ola)
“Everest” (w/ Alina Pash)
“Wires and Webs” (w/ Jack Blom, Elohim, Christian Patey)
“Trash” (w/ Losco, Michael Christmas, Caliph)
“Don't Wanna Leave Yet” (w/ Alina Pash)
Artist Quote
“For a long time I found myself running away from a sound I helped create...Doubt, evolution, inspiration or lack thereof, it's a journey a lot of us go through as artists. There's a layer of sadness to that, but also so much beauty & growth :)
In my journey to always do the 'next' thing, I think I neglected 'my' thing... but this brings me to a pivotal moment in my life and music career (right now) where I see a path that looks back to build forward...
Do you remember the first time you heard Rustie, Flying Lotus, "Original Don (Flosstradamus Remix)," Mr. Carmack? From the Harlem Shake to DJ Snake, this scene changed what a nightclub sounded like, global radio & even how the Billboard charts registered success.
Trading the rap verses for synth hooks, chipmunk vocal licks & wonky melodic progressions, we simultaneously crafted our own form here in Australia—changing the sound of nightlife, radio, the internet & soon the world took notice, sending us to every corner of the globe.
'Trap', 'beats music', 'future bass', whatever the label, I remember how it changed me, rattled my core. It was no longer pop radio vocals & 'songs', it was a vibration in-between scales, a revolt against the normal. While my path grew away from the niche, to mainstages, having to compete with the multimillion dollar pop acts certainly did some good—forcing me to sing, perform drums, synths, & implement amazing friends like Trevin into my band on guitar & legends like Daniel Johns performing iconic rock anthems like 'Freak'.
But here I am... 2026, amplified, hungry, inspired. With all the tools of DnB, analog exploration & rhythm from around the globe, re-captivated, like the rest of the world, by this 2016 energy. I feel like I'm finally writing the music everybody wants from me, but on my own terms, on my own time, with the tools of a lifetime chasing 'what's next'.” – What So Not
