TEED

British producer, DJ, and songwriter Orlando Higginbottom selected the name Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs precisely because it resisted placement inside any narrow, short-lived genre that might fade once trends shifted. His sound likewise resists strict categorization, though it centers on melodic, club-ready dance-pop built from playful synth layers and earnest vocal delivery. Influences range across Chicago house, U.K. garage, funk, indie pop, and additional styles, all of which informed his first album, the widely praised Trouble, issued in 2012. Subsequent production credits include work for Banks, Mark Ronson, and SG Lewis, while joint efforts encompass the 2020 Grammy-nominated “Heartbreak” with Bonobo, further tracks with Porter Robinson, and several solo EPs ahead of his second full-length, the equally wide-ranging When the Lights Go, released in 2022.

He is the son of Professor Edward Higginbottom, the distinguished choral conductor, organist, and one-time director of the Choir of New College, Oxford. As a boy he contributed vocals to several of the choir’s recordings and studied at the Junior Royal Academy of Music in London. Electronic music captured his interest during his teenage years, prompting him to upload early track demos to MySpace in 2007. He later joined the roster of Greco-Roman, the label co-founded by Joe Goddard of Hot Chip, and issued his debut EP, All in One Sixty Dancehalls, in 2009. The follow-up, All in Two Sixty Dancehalls, arrived in 2010 and contained the breakthrough single “Garden,” which drew notice from BBC Radio 1.

Before moving to Polydor, he released one more Greco-Roman EP, Household Goods; the new label then reissued “Garden” as an independent single in 2011. Higginbottom also took part in the Damon Albarn-curated DRC Music project, producing and co-writing several pieces for the Warp album Kinshasa One Two. Trouble, his first long-player, reached the U.K. album chart’s Top 40 in 2012, with Casablanca managing its American release. He established the Nice Age imprint and began issuing material through it, including the mixed double-CD Get Lost VI for Crosstown Rebels in 2013. That year also saw the single “Lion, the Lion” with Eats Everything, while further collaborations arrived via “Without You” with Dillon Francis on Mad Decent and “Feels Like” with Anna Lunoe in 2014. He handled several tracks on Banks’ debut album Goddess that same year and contributed to recordings by Mark Ronson and Boys Noize.

Following a four-year break from original releases, he resurfaced in 2018 with Nice Age singles such as “Body Move” and “Energy Fantasy.” Production and songwriting duties extended to Kelsey Lu, Shura, and SG Lewis, among them the track “Impact” featuring Robyn and Channel Tres. An ambient solo EP, I Can Hear the Birds, appeared in 2020, followed by additional breakbeat-house collaborations with Bonobo, including the Grammy-nominated “Heartbreak” and “6000 Ft.” He co-produced Porter Robinson’s 2021 single “Unfold,” issued the vocal-focused EP The Distance later that year, and, in September 2022, delivered the 17-track album When the Lights Go on Nice Age.