HILLS

A side project that took over

HILLS did not begin as a career plan. Speaking to Beatportal in March 2025, the pair traced the partnership back to the death of a mutual friend, which pulled an old circle of friends back into the same room and, eventually, into the same studio. One of them has described sneaking into Banana Split Sundays in Los Angeles at sixteen, which places at least part of the duo's listening education in the city's daytime house parties rather than in a conservatoire.

The decision to build a separate identity came from the material itself. Tommy told Newsweek in August 2025 that they had been writing a run of darker, groove-led records and concluded the obvious thing: "We just started making these new songs and were like, oh, these are cool." The music did not fit what they were already putting out, so it got its own name and its own path forward.

The working method is unglamorous and, by their own account, relentless. The two live in different cities and send demos back and forth several times a day, which they say lets them separate the two or three usable ideas from the twenty that are not. The EDM Identity interview published on 25 March 2025 has them describing a shared sense of direction precise enough that neither has to argue the case for a track.

A debut year measured in Beatport positions

The first HILLS single, "The Booth", reached number 11 on Beatport and picked up placement on large Spotify playlists. The second was an official remix for The Chainsmokers, which began life unsolicited and gained enough traction that the artists' management asked for it to be released properly. From there the labels arrived quickly: Lee Foss's Repopulate Mars took them on first, and the duo have been direct about the debt, naming Repopulate Mars as the first imprint to back the idea.

"Rack City", a bass-heavy rework of the Tyga record, came out on Repopulate Mars in early 2025. The breakout was "Coolin", signed to FISHER's Catch & Release and sitting at number 6 on Beatport when Newsweek spoke to them. "Talk to Me" followed on Gorgon City's REALM in March 2025. "Afterparty", also via Catch & Release, climbed to number 2 overall on Beatport.

The number that did the most for their standing came from a remix rather than an original. Their reworking of Playboi Carti's "Evil Jordan" finished 2025 as the most-played track of the year on 1001Tracklists, meaning it was in more DJs' sets than anything else released that year. By the end of that first twelve months all nine HILLS singles had charted inside Beatport's top ten, and the pair placed 71st in the 1001Tracklists producer rankings — a debut-year position usually occupied by acts several albums deep.

Hooks they write themselves

The HILLS method is narrower than most of their peers', and deliberately so. "We pride ourselves on simplicity," they told Beatportal. "We write all our own vocals, and tech house, at its core, is about a hook and a groove." That explains the shape of the catalogue: short, vocal-forward records built around one idea repeated until it lodges, rather than long technical workouts.

The distribution habit was just as deliberate. Early on they posted new music to Instagram weekly and ran exclusive mixes alongside it, which built a following before the labels were involved — Tommy's account of that period describes follower counts moving daily and the project overtaking everything either of them had done before. Radio came next, with support from SiriusXM and Capital Dance, and the duo now use their own radio show as the main channel for unreleased material.

Interscope, Trick, and the company they keep

The widest-reaching HILLS record to date is not a club tool. "Dreams", a collaboration with Anyma, arrived on 31 December 2025 through Interscope as part of the deluxe edition of The End of Genesys — a 130bpm melodic house and techno track, and a long way from the stripped tech house that made their name. It put HILLS on a major-label release alongside one of the largest touring names in the genre within a year of their first single.

The label spread since then reads as a map of where tech house is actually traded: Catch & Release, REALM, Repopulate Mars, Universal, Aeterna, Cr2, Spinnin Deep, Higher Ground, TSZR, Mad Minds and Insomniac's In Rotation. Their records have been played out by John Summit, Dom Dolla, FISHER, Tiësto, Meduza and Chris Lake.

The most recent step is the "Check It Out" EP, released on 23 October 2026 on Patrick Topping's Trick. The title track leans on retro synth stabs, shifting lead lines and clipped vocal cuts; "Is It Really Love" is the softer half, mixing R&B phrasing with a nineties-leaning bassline, sustained pads and garage-inflected drums. The duo called a Trick release "a huge milestone for us", which is a fair reading — Trick is a producer-run imprint with a reputation to protect, and it does not sign on streaming numbers alone.

Where they stand in November 2026

Output through 2026 has stayed at the pace of the debut year rather than slowing after it. Apple Music lists a run of 2026 singles and short EPs — "Affection", "Break It", "The Shift", "Blow Your Mind", "Lift Me Up" and "Bassline" — ahead of the four-track "Check It Out" release in October. "Lift Me Up" and "Bassline" currently sit at the top of their most-played songs, with "Clarity" featuring Mary Jensen and "Swagger" close behind.

Two commercially released DJ mixes mark the live side of the year. One captures their set at EDC Orlando 2025 on the Circuit Grounds stage; the other, "Experts Only 060: HILLS Takeover", came out in 2026 on the mix series run by John Summit's label — an invitation that tends to follow a good festival season rather than precede one. Their own account of 2025 includes sold-out headline shows across the United States and Asia and a European debut in Ibiza.

The booking pattern now is a mix of festival stages and long-form club rooms rather than a routed theatre tour. They played the SIDEPIECE day party at Gold Bar Distillery on 24 October 2026 and the main stage at Breakaway Music Festival Mass in August 2026.

The current run of dates

The diary from here is short and spread wide. Australia comes first, with an afternoon slot in Port Melbourne on 7 November 2026 and White Bay Power Station in Rozelle, Sydney, on 8 November. The pair then turn straight back to the United States: Club Space in Miami on 13 November with an 11pm start, The Concourse Project in Austin on 15 November, and HQ2 Nightclub Beachclub in Atlantic City on 28 November, also late. The year closes at NOS Events Center in San Bernardino on 31 December for Countdown New Year's Eve.

Those listings tell you something about how HILLS are being programmed. The daytime festival slots are the exposure; the Club Space and HQ2 bookings are the ones that give a tech house act room to actually build a set, since both rooms run long past the point where a 60-minute festival slot has to deliver its last drop. No full press review of a HILLS headline set has circulated so far, which is normal for an act whose second year is still running on festival bills and club residencies rather than a named tour.