Ending the year with over thirty-one million Youtube video views, Sage the Gemini's debut single "Gas Petal" featuring rapper/producer IamSu has been one of the more popular songs to take cues from bass, trap, minimal, and pseudo-goth contemporary music trends.  While personally not one of my favorite records of the year, it's catchiness is undeniable; a fitting addition to the somehow-still relevant trend of "twerking" music.

Looking ahead towards the new year, I see music trends in bass and minimal continuing to drive the worlds of hip-hop and electronic music together, with artists like YAYAYI pioneering their own unique connections between genres.  Relatively unknown, and with literally incomprehensible Bandcamp and Soundcloud accounts, Korea-based artist YAYAYI, seemingly the head of collective Water Sports (H20$$$Sports$$$), takes the worlds of chopped-and-screwed and vaporwave and combines them into truly unique creations,culminating perhaps in his "Gas Petal" remix.

Nothing short of crazy, YAYAYI (stylized \/ /\ \/ /\ \/ III) uses classic chop-and-screw techniques of pitch and tempo bending, while flipping some nice string chords under the lyrics to create a totally new sound.  At about the 2:15 mark, the song takes an even stranger turn; slowing down, getting deeper, and even switching lyrics to Chris Brown's chorus on Sean Kingston's Beat It.  That, and a whole bunch more wavvy, experimental effects make this song feel like more of a codeine trip than anything.  The last minute of the song focuses on a warbled synth solo that makes Yeezus look like it broke artistic ground in a sandbox, and honestly might be too much for some listeners.  Still, for whatever weird reason, I love this song, and more importantly I think that the sounds used in this remix will provide some sort of groundwork for music in 2014 and beyond.

-Ian

TL;DR:  really weird "Gas Petal" remix.  I mean super weird.  Still very much worth a listen if you want to be ahead of the curve.  For everyone else, check out Salva's remix.