Dominic Lalli and Jeremy Salken are Big Gigantic.If you go• What: Big Gigantic featuring Manic Focus and Modern Measure• When: 9 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 18• Where: Track 29, 1400 Market St.• Admission: $22 in advance, $25 day of show• Phone: 423-521-2929• Website: track29.co• Artist website: biggigantic.netDiscography• 2009: "Fire It Up" / "Wide Awake"• 2010: "A Place Behind the Moon"• 2012: "Nocturnal"• 2014: "The Night Is Young"Quote"I love it. I've been a not-working-that-much jazz saxophonist, and I will take this over that. I'd rather be working than not." - Big Gigantic's Dominic Lalli, on the band's busy touring scheduleDownloadSince its inception, Big Gigantic has offered all of its music to fans as free downloads. To check out fourth release, "The Night Is Young," or any previous album, visit www.biggigantic.net/music1.
As a university-trained jazz saxophonist living in New York City, Dominic Lalli experienced his fair share of living hand to mouthpiece and scrambling to find gigs.
As one half of Colorado-based electronic/jazz dance duo Big Gigantic, however, the tables have turned. In the middle of a touring schedule that's taken him all over the world this year, he's just as pressed finding a moment to spare.
"We're pretty much always working on the Big Gigantic thing, for sure," Lalli says of himself and his partner, drummer Jeremy Salken. "Since I started this project, it's always been that way pretty much.
"I love it. I'd rather be working than not."
The dates Salken and Lalli have played this year have been the definition of high-profile, especially for artists in the house/electronic dance music scene. In addition to back-to-back sell-out shows at Denver's Red Rocks Amphitheatre and a featured spot during the Superjam at Bonnaroo, the pair kicked off their fall bus tour with a sold-out date supporting Bassnectar at Madison Square Garden.
On Saturday, Oct. 18, they'll headline Track 29, which they last played in 2013. After months of being on the road making the rounds at festivals, Lalli says club dates such as the one at Track 29 offer a chance for him and Salken to take some risks and change things up.
"It's a different approach," he says. "When you play a festival, you get an hour or - if you're headlining - an hour and a half. That's cool, but it's not a ton of time, so you have to squeeze in everything you want to do.
"We get more of a chance to open up more and do more of what we want to do and kinda stretch things a little bit during the club tours."
Big Gigantic's music defies the stereotypical view of electronic music as a genre defined by laptops and mixing boards. Although Lalli is always adding to his bag of sampling tricks as the group's producer, the band's sound is largely distinguished by his and Salken's use of instrumental improvisation in concert with the electronic elements.
Since 2009, Lalli says he has made great strides in his production skills, and he's always attempting to keep Big Gigantic's music current with developments on the EDM scene.
Despite the refinement to the band's approach, he says, Big Gigantic's signature blend of flesh-and-blood with machine remains fundamentally the same.
"Things have definitely changed here and there with a lot of stuff, but I feel like the core - the core, core, core idea - is still there," he says. "It's just gotten a lot better."
Contact Casey Phillips at cphillips@timesfree press.com or 423-757-6205. Follow him on Twitter at @PhillipsCTFP.