Primitive plodding creatures and an environmental catastrophe that wiped them from the face of the earth: not topics that usually loom over enjoyment of spit-shined synth hooks and gleeful twists on dance-pop. However, that's exactly the case with Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs, the willfully weird professional name of Oxford-born producer Orlando Higginbottom. More manageably abbreviated as T.E.E.D., the 29-year-old Higginbottom's reputation for electronic eccentricity has grown in the last year following releases on Crosstown Rebels and Joe Goddard's Greco-Roman labels, a remix of Lady Gaga's "Marry The Night," and the appearance of his single "Garden" in a commercial for Nokia.

Despite the crowd-pleasing nature of T.E.E.D's appealing tunes, which draw from all manners of thickly-produced dance music with a smattering of ornate flourishes, the name Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs was actually chosen to drive away uninterested, interloping listeners. A name so absurd, Higginbottom has figured, is a poke in the eye for the music industry, a name that could never be sold as hip. Within the world of dance music, though, a series of high-profile remixes have garnered T.E.E.D. even more attention, with contributions from the likes of Soul Clap, Jamie Jones, and John Talabot teasing out an undercurrent of romantic resignation and paranoia to thrilling effect. Both Jones' remix of "Trouble" and Talabot's treatment of "Tapes-N-Money," (dubbed a "Ritual Reconstruction") latch onto repetitions of the word "lies," Talabot's vocal loops in particular smearing into a gorgeous, claustrophobic soundscape of sighs.

Ahead of the opening night of his U.S. tour, T.E.E.D. spoke to Sound of the City about the remix he's most proud of, hating the sound of his own voice, and why he'll never touch hundreds of his unfinished tracks again.

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Ahron Foster

Ital performs at Warsaw as part of the Bunker party on Friday.

The Unsound Festival, which place tonight through Sunday around New York, is defined by a belief in the thrills to be found in experimental eclecticism. The first New York edition of the festival (which originated in Krakow) took place in 2010 and has yet to disappoint, with one-of-a-kind programming and performances that split the difference between sit-down solemnity and spine-cracking propulsion.

In addition to musical performances, Unsound LABS will host a series of free talks exploring topics varying from vinyl mastering with dub techno legend Pole to the history of Miami bass music. For those looking to plunge into the festival's blissful unpredictability, SOTC has rounded up a selection of Unsound musical events, one for each day.

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@MDNA2012/Twitpic

Madonna at Ultra over the weekend.

Ultra Music Festival pummeled Miami's Bayfront Park last weekend, motivating innumerable fist pumps over thirty hours of music, but it was the brief speech by a 53-year-old woman wearing a shirt emblazoned with the letters "MDNA" that has prompted disbelief within parts of the electronic dance music community. That woman is Madonna, who as part of the scorched earth roll-out for her new album MDNA introduced headliner Avicii and incited the overwhelmingly young attendees with the question: "How many people in this crowd have seen Molly?"

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Springy electric-socket hair, dark droopy eyes—Kieran Hebden looks like a man who has spent untold time tinkering in front of a glowing computer screen late into the night. The depth of his production work as Four Tet, however, belies the physical man-hours necessary for such precision. Every shuffle and stab unwinds easily, and even the most uncontrollably ecstatic vocal samples float unbothered over the clamor. A marked sense of restraint characterizes his productions, with any bombastic intent cloaked in some sort of undermining subtlety. "Pyramid," the outstanding original track Hebden included in the FabricLive mix he released last year, might have featured an exhilarating jumble of claves and the garbled stuttering of a spurned lover, but it also included two minutes of drum-less ambience, a calming blanket momentarily warming the dance floor.

Four Tet is a terrifyingly adept electronic producer, but it's not like he has ceased to make human contact, preferring to coo at floppy disks and converse in binary. On the contrary, he is an in-demand remixer who has lent his talents to artists as varied as the XX and Tinariwen and collaborated with Burial and Thom Yorke. Lately, he performed as part of psychedelic dance wizard Dan Snaith's Caribou Vibration Ensemble, unleashing analog synthesizer mayhem on unsuspecting crowds. This Saturday, Four Tet will perform at the long-running Mister Saturday Night party with residents Justin Carter and Eamon Harkin. Hebden was relaxed as he spoke about playing Herbie Hancock records at Low End Theory, the rhythmic lessons he took from Steve Reid, and why he avoids digital listening.

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Swedish House Mafia w/A-Trak, Jacques Lu Cont
Madison Square Garden
Friday, December 18

Better than: Sitting around and becoming convinced audio of a microwave breaking is actually a leaked Daft Punk track.

Swedish House Mafia sold out Madison Square Garden in nine minutes for Friday night's mammoth "One Night Stand." Impressive enough, but if the deafening crowd response was an indication, the trio of Steve Angello, Sebastian Ingrosso, and Axwell could have filled the space three times over. Playing MSG is a coronation for any group, but Angello sounded like he was celebrating on behalf of a worldwide electronic music family when he said early on, "We've come a long way. We put a nightclub in Madison Square Garden!" The merchandise for sale was just as inclusive, emphasizing the singularity and historical significance of a DJ group filling MSG. (One t-shirt slogan: "We Came. We Raved. We Loved.")

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