Mr. Carmack

Honolulu-based producer Aaron Carmack (aka Mr. Carmack) is a promising up-and-comer within the still-budding, bass-heavy, pseudo subgenre known as trap music. For the uninitiated, trap music, at its core, is Southern street rap, but it’s taken on a whole new meaning in the post–Harlem Shake world. The genre’s early innovators were Atlanta-based hip-hop producers and rappers like TI, Young Jeezy, and Gucci Mane. Modern trap’s torchbearers hail from as far as Glasgow, utilizing the genre’s “gutter” sound as a means to sonically carpet-bomb dance floors rather than as a vessel to communicate the issues faced by those “in the trap.” Thus, a divide exists within the world of trap, or within the worlds of hip-hop and dance, depending on how you look at it. Carmack is primarily a dance producer — more playful than sinister and willing to experiment with tone and mood as much as tempo, and his Birth Control/Hopscotch single remains his biggest release to date, thanks to Diplo’s Mad Decent Records. Both songs are emblematic of the trap-as-dance movement (most notably due to their carnivorous bass). But it’s not Carmack’s beats that make his music more enjoyable than his contemporaries. It’s his willingness to lend a unique personality to the equation. Mr. Carmack plays Velvet Jones Thursday, February 13, at 9 p.m.. Call (805) 965-8676 or visit velvet-jones.com for info.