Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs

British producer, DJ, and songwriter Orlando Higginbottom selected the name Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs precisely because it resisted attachment to any narrow, short-lived genre that might fade once trends shifted. His output resists easy categorization yet centers on melodic, club-focused dance-pop built around lively synth layers and direct vocals. Influences ranging across Chicago house, U.K. garage, funk, indie pop, and additional styles shaped his first album, the widely praised Trouble, issued in 2012. Subsequent studio contributions supported Banks, Mark Ronson, and SG Lewis, while joint tracks included the 2020 Grammy-nominated “Heartbreak” with Bonobo plus material with Porter Robinson; a pair of solo EPs preceded the equally wide-ranging second album When the Lights Go, released in 2022.

Orlando Higginbottom 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 child 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 attention during his teenage years, prompting him to upload early track demos to MySpace beginning in 2007. He later joined the roster of Greco-Roman, the label co-founded by Joe Goddard of Hot Chip, and issued his first EP, All in One Sixty Dancehalls, in 2009. Its follow-up, All in Two Sixty Dancehalls, arrived in 2010 and featured the breakthrough single “Garden,” which drew notice from BBC Radio 1.

Another Greco-Roman EP, Household Goods, preceded his move to Polydor, which reissued “Garden” as an independent single in 2011. Higginbottom also took part in the Damon Albarn-curated DRC Music endeavor, producing and co-writing several pieces for the Warp release Kinshasa One Two. His debut full-length Trouble surfaced in 2012 and reached the Top 40 of the U.K. album charts, with Casablanca managing its American edition. He established Nice Age and began issuing material on the imprint. In 2013 TEED delivered the mixed double-CD Get Lost VI via Crosstown Rebels, and the Eats Everything collaboration “Lion, the Lion” appeared as a single. Further joint releases encompassed the Mad Decent track “Without You” with Dillon Francis and the 2014 single “Feels Like” with Anna Lunoe. He handled production on multiple cuts from Banks’ 2014 debut Goddess and contributed to album tracks by Mark Ronson and Boys Noize.

Following a four-year break from original releases, TEED resurfaced in 2018 with several Nice Age singles such as “Body Move” and “Energy Fantasy.” He produced or co-wrote material for Kelsey Lu, Shura, and SG Lewis, including the track “Impact” that features Robyn and Channel Tres. An ambient solo EP titled I Can Hear the Birds arrived in 2020, and additional work with Bonobo yielded breakbeat house pieces including the Grammy-nominated “Heartbreak” and “6000 Ft.” TEED co-produced Porter Robinson’s 2021 single “Unfold,” issued the vocal-centric EP The Distance later that year, and then unveiled his second album, the first in a decade. The seventeen-track set When the Lights Go came out on Nice Age in September 2022.