Jesse Kardon, better known by his alias Subtronics, is an American electronic music producer and DJ from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He began playing drums as a child and continued through grade school, before discovering EDM in high school. He has toured internationally, headlined major festival stages, launched his own annual festivals in North America, and released multiple charting albums. In 2020, he founded his own label, Cyclops Recordings.
Subtronics' freshman album Fractals released in January 2022 and charted at No. 4 on the Dance/Electronic Albums chart and trended globally over K-pop on Twitter/X.
He is known for his song "Griztronics", a collaboration with Michigan-based electronic music artist GRiZ that peaked on Billboard's Hot Dance/Electronic Songs at the No. 9 position in late 2019. Kardon peaked at No. 10 on Billboard's Next Big Sound chart in September 2019. Kardon is married to fellow producer and dubstep DJ Sonya Broner, also known by her alias Level Up.
In 2024, Subtronics released his second album Tesseract, which peaked at No. 5 on the US Dance/Electronic Albums chart.
Contents
Career
2017–2020
On April 28, 2017, Florida-based dubstep producer Midnight Tyrannosaurus collaborated with Kardon to release the song "Revenge Of The Goldfish" via Never Say Die Records' Black Label imprint. The song was released for free as part of Never Say Die's sixth Black Friday compilation extended play and sampled a speech originally by Klaus Heissler during an episode of the American animated sitcom American Dad.
Subtronics released a mix series called Now That's What I Call Riddim from February 2017 to January 2020. He stated the mixes are not riddim, despite the name. On April 20, 2018, Kardon released his seventh extended play Wook Laser via Never Say Die's Black Label sub-label. The 4-track extended play was well-received, with it being described as encapsulating "everything that is right in bass at the current moment" by an EDM Sauce editor.
On July 6, Canadian electronic music duo Zeds Dead and American DJ and electronic dance music producer Jauz released a remix album of their song "Lights Go Down". Kardon's remix of the song was featured on the album, alongside remixes from by Sikdope, Duke & Jones, Gentlemans Club, Jarvis, Lick, Sqwad, Awoltalk, and Spirix.
In mid-August, Kardon's SoundCloud account was hacked and as a result, had various unreleased and private songs stolen and published by the Hacker. Before, he had received a message from Los Angeles-based dubstep producer Megalodon, asking him to repost a song uploaded by an unfamiliar account. After privately messaging him, Megalodon told Kardon that he was hacked and soon blocked him. The same account later published a song by Kardon that was previously only accessible from his hard drive and private SoundCloud account. On October 19, American record producer Herobust released a remix album of his previous song "WTF". The album, titled WTF VIP + Remixes, featured Kardon as a remix artist. In November, multiple producers had most or all of their songs removed from online audio distribution platform and music sharing website SoundCloud for wrongful copyright claims. Among these producers were Kardon, who had lost 23 songs due to these claims.
In the same year, Depth Perception EP was released on SubCarbon Records, and Thermal Expansion EP on Disciple Round Table. Kardon announced his “Headline Tour: Warp Drive Tour” during the same time period. Later on, Wook Laser EP was released on “NSD: Black Label”.
2021–2024
In 2021, Subtronics launched his first-ever Cyclops Cove, a one-day event with a single stage, and played at Red Rocks 2021, which was the venue’s first full-capacity event following COVID-19 restrictions.
In 2022, Subtronics released his album Fractals. The album was released by his own recording label, Cyclops Recordings. The album itself encompasses several EDM genres.
Then in 2023, he released his album Antifractals. The album remixes each song from the original Fractals album and some of his prior hits. These remixes were done by both Subtronics himself as well as other artists such as Peekaboo, Sullivan King, Zeds Dead, and his wife Level Up. The album reached number 4 on the Dance Charts as well as had over 50 million streams. Then he inked a Live Nation tour deal for the sold-out Antifractal Tour and also sold out the Kia Forum in Los Angeles.
On February 16, 2024, Kardon officially released his 2nd full length album coined "Tesseract"; the album contains many collaboration with other artists, such as Excision, Rezz, Grabbitz and HOL!. The album consists of 16 songs. He launched the Tesseract tour, headlining major arenas such as Barclays Center, Cable Dahmer Arena, and State Farm Arena. Cyclops Cove expanded to a three-day event, and Subtronics was named Beatport's top-selling artist of the year. He also delivered a production at the Tacoma Dome and made his main stage debut at EDC Las Vegas. Kardon has been a winner at DJ Mag North America's 'DJ of the Year' 2023 and a three-time winner of Dubstep Artist of the Year.
2025–present
On March 29, 2025, Kardon officially announced a two-part album on his social media platforms, Fibonacci. The first part, Oblivion, was released on April 4, 2025. The EP contained the single "Final Breath", a collaboration with English singer and artist A Little Sound.
Subtronics recently announced part one of a new album series, Fibonacci Part 1: Oblivion, during his mainstage debut at Ultra Music Festival. This was the first installment of a two-part series in the album. He also kicked off his first-ever Las Vegas residency at Wynn Las Vegas. Subtronics sold out six nights at the Shrine Expo Hall in Los Angeles, which was the second-highest number of shows ever held at the venue.