Au5

Austin Collins (born September 18, 1992), better known as Au5, is an American electronic musician from New Jersey.

Au5's music encompasses a range of electronic genres such as dubstep, house, trance, drum and bass, drumstep and ambient, and he is known for fusing the characteristics of trance and dubstep in his music.

Au5 is best known for his releases on Canadian label Monstercat, some of which have received millions of views on YouTube.

Collins began producing trance music at age 15, around 2008.

Au5's debut release was the self-released ten-track album Minimality in September 2010, which featured both electronic and acoustic styles such as trance, ambient, acid jazz and piano.

This was followed by the self-released eight-track album Anchus Definy in June 2011, which was the first release to feature dubstep.

Au5's label releases began in 2012, and after winning a Seven Lions remix contest in January 2013, he joined Monstercat.

Au5 had several successful releases on the label, such as "Halcyon", with American producer Fractal, "Snowblind", featuring Tasha Baxter, and "Crossroad", featuring Danyka Nadeau.

"Halcyon" and "Snowblind" reached number one on Beatport's dubstep charts.

In May 2012, Au5 released his first EP, Iconoclast, on Atom Recordings, which consisted of five dubstep tracks.

He subsequently released a dubstep VIP of "The Seahorse" from Anchus Definy and an original dubstep track titled "Iteration" on Excision's label Rottun Recordings in June 2012.

After one year in college, Collins dropped out around late 2012 to pursue the Au5 project.

In November 2012, Au5 and American producer BT released the house track "Partysaurus Overflow".

The track was inspired by BT's house track "Partysaurus Rex", which was featured on the 2012 Toy Story Toons short of the same name.

In January 2013, Au5 and Brazilian duo I.Y.F.F.E. won a 2012 remix contest held by Seven Lions for their drumstep remix of his dubstep track "Days To Come".

The remix was released on Skrillex's label Owsla.

Au5 described this in April 2013 as one of several turning points in his music career.

In February 2013, Au5 joined Canadian label Monstercat and released the electro house track "Sweet" with Icelandic producer Auratic and I.Y.F.F.E. In May, Au5 and Fractal released "Halcyon", a drumstep track, which reached number one on Beatport's dubstep chart.

In July, Au5 collaborated with BT and English musician Aqualung on BT's house track "Surrounded", from the album A Song Across Wires.

Au5 and Fractal also made a dubstep remix of "Surrounded".

The tracks were released on Dutch label Armada Music.

In August, Au5 released his first EP on Monstercat, Blossom, featuring two tracks, "Blossom" (dubstep) and "Moonland" (drum and bass/drumstep).

In December, he released the four-track Secret Weapon EP with Fractal.

The Au5 and BT version would later be included on the 2014 Walt Disney Records compilation album Dconstructed.

In March 2014, Au5 released the progressive house track "Follow You", featuring Danyka Nadeau, which was followed up by a remix EP in July, featuring remixes by Ducked Ape, Fractal, Rootkit, Virtual Riot and Volant as well as a VIP.

In August, Au5 released the dubstep track "Snowblind", featuring Tasha Baxter, which reached number one on Beatport's dubstep chart a week later.

, the track had over 11 million views on Monstercat's official YouTube channel.

Au5 also performed at South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas, in 2015.

Au5 departed Monstercat in late 2015.

He later toured with Swedish producer Liquid Stranger and Israeli duo Infected Mushroom and performed at Motion Notion festival in British Columbia, Canada, in 2016.

He also made two releases on British label NoCopyrightSounds, "Lush", with American duo Last Heroes featuring Holly Drummond, and "Closer", featuring Danyka Nadeau.

Au5 returned to Monstercat in 2018 with the single "The Journey", featuring Australian musician Trove.

Au5 has released a total of five long plays (LPs), most notably "Divinorum" in 2019.

Au5 has collaborated with various artists including BT, Crystal Skies, Fractal, Mr. Bill, Last Heroes and Seven Lions, among others.

Dancing Astronaut described him as a "meticulous producer" with a "unique, complex brand of melodic dubstep and surrounding genres".

Born in New Jersey, Collins was exposed to music at an early age and began weekly classical piano lessons at age four.

Collins's first experience with music software was Easy Beat by Ergonis Software, a multitrack MIDI sequencer for Mac, which he used at age eight to sequence out random music ideas.

At age 11, he obtained a new Mac with GarageBand, which furthered his music production interest.

At age 13, he began learning bass guitar and digital music production on Logic Pro.

He later played in several rock and metal bands.