Heavy Hitters: The Electronic Artists Every Knife Party Fan Should Have on Rotation Right Now
Let's be honest — if you've been riding with Knife Party for any length of time, your standards are probably pretty high. You're used to drops that feel like a physical event, synth design that sounds like it was engineered by people with a grudge, and a live energy that makes festival main stages feel like they were built specifically for this moment.
Finding other artists that scratch that same itch isn't always easy. The electronic music landscape is massive, and a lot of what gets labeled "bass music" or "festival EDM" doesn't come close to the particular combination of aggression, craft, and raw impact that KP delivers.
So we did the work. Here's your rotation-ready guide to artists who genuinely get what Knife Party gets — organized by how they connect to the KP universe.
Chase & Status — The UK Architects
Why they belong here: Before Knife Party was Knife Party, Rob Swire and Gareth McGrillen were in Pendulum — a drum and bass act that shared a sonic world with Chase & Status. The UK duo of Saul Milton and Will Kennard have been building heavy, bass-forward electronic music since the mid-2000s, and their approach to fusing live instrumentation with aggressive electronic production is genuinely unmatched.
Where to start: Blind Faith (featuring Tinie Tempah) is the gateway drug — massive, emotionally charged, and built on a bassline that hits like a freight train. Then dig into More Than Alot and the No More Idols album for the full picture.
The KP connection: Both acts understand that heavy music can also be emotionally complex. Neither one is just noise — there's architecture here.
Excision — The Canadian Sledgehammer
Why they belong here: If you've ever been in a crowd when a Knife Party drop hits and thought "I need more of this in my life," Excision is your answer. Jeff Abel's project is arguably the most physically intense live electronic experience in North America right now. His production targets the same mid-bass aggression that KP pioneered, but pushed to an almost absurd extreme.
Where to start: Throwin' Elbows is the classic entry point. Codename X and The Paradox are both essential albums that show the full range — from pure sonic assault to surprisingly intricate sound design.
The KP connection: The shared DNA is in the approach to bass as a weapon. Both acts treat sub-bass and mid-bass as primary compositional elements, not just support frequencies.
Noisia — The Dutch Masterclass
Why they belong here: If Knife Party represents the aggressive, festival-facing end of electronic music craft, Noisia represents the technical peak of what that craft can become. The Dutch trio (now officially disbanded, but their catalog is permanent) were obsessives about sound design in a way that mirrors KP's own attention to detail.
Where to start: Split the Atom is the obvious classic. Outer Edges is their most ambitious work and the one that will genuinely make you rethink what electronic production is capable of.
The KP connection: Both acts approach sound design as a discipline, not an afterthought. Noisia just takes it to a more clinical extreme.
RL Grime — The American Bridge
Why they belong here: RL Grime occupies a fascinating middle ground between the trap world and the festival bass world that Knife Party helped define. His production style borrows from both, and his approach to drop architecture — building tension through layered complexity and releasing it with a precisely designed sonic payload — is as close to the KP method as anyone in the American scene gets.
Where to start: Scythe is the track that put him on the map, and it still sounds enormous. The VOID and NOVA albums are both essential, and his Halloween mix series is genuinely one of the best annual traditions in electronic music.
The KP connection: RL Grime is essentially working the American translation of what Knife Party established — festival-ready aggression with real compositional intelligence underneath.
Skrillex — The Obvious One (For Good Reason)
Yes, Skrillex is on this list. Not because it's the easy pick, but because pretending there's no meaningful connection would be dishonest. Sonny Moore and the Knife Party guys were building the same scene simultaneously, playing the same stages, and pushing the same sonic boundaries. The influence ran in multiple directions.
Where to start: If you somehow haven't gone deep on the classic era, Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites and Bangarang are still as good as they were when they dropped. But the more interesting recent work is the Quest for Fire and Don't Get Too Close albums, which show a producer who's still genuinely experimenting.
The KP connection: Shared DNA in the aggressive synth design era, and a mutual commitment to treating electronic music as a serious artistic project rather than just content production.
Black Tiger Sex Machine — The Live Energy Benchmark
Why they belong here: The Canadian trio BTSM doesn't always get the mainstream coverage they deserve, but if you care about the live experience component of electronic music — which, if you're a Knife Party fan, you almost certainly do — these guys are essential. Their combination of heavy bass production and theatrical live performance is one of the most compelling things happening in the North American scene.
Where to start: Operator and Children of the Night are strong entry points. Their live sets, if you can catch them, are a genuine event.
The KP connection: The understanding that electronic music is a physical, communal experience — not just something you listen to, but something that happens to you.
Zomboy — The UK Aggression Export
Why they belong here: Josh Mellody's Zomboy project sits squarely in the aggressive bass music lane that Knife Party helped establish, with a particular focus on the kind of gnarly, distorted mid-bass design that KP fans will recognize immediately. He's been criminally underrated in the US for years.
Where to start: Here to Stay and Outbreak are both strong albums. Reboot is the one that really shows the full scope of his sound design capabilities.
The KP connection: Direct stylistic overlap in bass design philosophy, with a similar commitment to making drops feel like actual physical events.
This list isn't exhaustive — the KP-adjacent universe is bigger than any single article can cover. But these are the acts that consistently deliver the combination of technical craft, bass-forward aggression, and genuine artistic ambition that makes Knife Party worth caring about in the first place.
Drop these into your rotation. Your speakers will thank you. Or they won't, because you pushed them too hard. Either way, no regrets.