Sounding Off: Plugged in Down Under

Tom Stell, aka Golden Features, is threatening to ruin the dearly held stereotypes we have about Australia.

Before his four-track EP was released on SoundCloud and garnered 10000 plays in its first 72 hours, we thought of Australia as the home of the world's most diabolical rugby team rather than the source of brilliant music.

"I put my first EP up for free. Then a local radio DJ played a couple of my tracks and it all went from there," he said in a telephone interview this week.

When he started producing music four years ago, Stell walked the well-worn path of making what he calls "big-room" Electronic Dance Music (EDM).

"I started to lose interest. I think the problem was that I would come on for a set [in a club] and it was the same stuff the guy before me played and the same stuff the guy after me would play," the-24-year-old said.

So he created a Jason Voorhees-esque masked alter ego with an unusual sound - Golden Features.

"The mask is a way of switching from Tom to the character, and the character is me but with everything magnified. So if I'm angry, the mask brings it closer to rage. It's fun because you end up making more emotive music as a result," he said.

Golden Features' brand of EDM is calmer and darker than a lot of its sugar-fuelled counterparts. "The whole idea was to create something a little softer as opposed to more go-crazy-on-the-weekend kind of stuff."

Despite his growing reputation for something thoroughly un-Australian, there may yet be hope for our stereotypes. By his own account Stell is a terrible rugby player, much like some of the Wallabies, and this is a fact that proud South Africans can laud over him should he pay us a visit.

• Download the EP for free at www. soundcloud.com/golden-features