Syracuse University is no stranger to the electronic dance music scene, with popular artists as varied as Avicii and Calvin Harris taking the stage in the past few years. But SU rarely offers the chance to hear its own students perform EDM together on one mixtape.

Enter Electro Cuse Vol. 2.

Marshall Street Records, a student-run record label offered as a class in the Bandier Program for Music and the Entertainment Industries, produced Electro Cuse Vol. 1 last year, a compilation of electronic-based music created by SU students. After much anticipation, Electro Cuse Vol. 2 dropped on Sunday.

“Submissions are open to anybody, current or former SU students,” said Dan Annibale, a senior in the Bandier Program and general manager of Marshall Street Records. “This year we had two alumni submissions and the rest were all current students.”

Electro Cuse Vol. 2 features nine tracks by various artists, making it a mixtape in the truest sense of the word: a compilation of many artists with different styles. The genre’s die-hard fans will appreciate the heavier EDM with no vocals, like “All Aboard” by Binyamin. More low-key tracks, like “Shooting Star” by N8 ST9, might appeal to those who are newer to the EDM scene.

The mixtape is only available for streaming and free download online at its website, electrocuse.com. As of right now, Marshall Street Records has no plans of selling a physical copy of the mixtape. Annibale said the reason for putting the Electro Cuse mixtape together is to promote unknown artists, so the label does not sell the music.

But Marshall Street Records does sell merchandise — Electro Cuse tanks and long-sleeved shirts — to pay for the costs they incur. The shirts were sold at the mixtape release party on Saturday at D.J.’s On The Hill, and are available at the SU Bookstore. The event featured performances by four artists on the album. Marshall Street Records representatives gave away free drink koozies and the chance to sip on specially made “Electro Cuse Juice.”

The idea for the Electro Cuse mixtapes originally came about last spring, when Joe Papoutsis, a senior in the Bandier Program who is spending a semester in Los Angeles, was general manager of Marshall Street Records.

“Me and a small group of people, we came up with the idea,” Papoutsis said. “We saw the EDM scene kind of exploding and just felt like there should be some kind outlet for Syracuse EDM producers to get heard by the general SU population.”

When it comes to choosing which tracks will make it on the mixtapes, both Papoutsis and Annibale said it was based on a general consensus. The employees of Marshall Street Records voted for their favorite submissions based on the sound quality of the tracks, but mainly on whether they enjoyed listening to it.

For Annibale, the most important aspect of the music on Electro Cuse is that it was created solely by SU students.

Said Annibale: “The styles are so different and yet they’re all birthed right in Syracuse. Everyone that makes the music has been a student or is a student here, so they all have kind of the same influences on them. And you can hear it, I think, if you really play close attention to the music that’s made.”

Published on November 6, 2012 at 1:04 am

Contact Avery: avhartma@syr.edu | @averyhartmans