Lorde, Sam Smith producer Flume finds his voice

If anyone has the magic touch, it's Flume. Quietly, but with assured confidence, everything that he has worked on as a producer, remixer, or, more recently, as a experimentally downtempo artist with a hit album in

Skin

, winds up as a massive success, no matter now offbeat or off-kilter his soft, trip-hoppy sounds happen to be.

Flume - Harley Streten of Sydney, Australia - will perform Wednesday at the Electric Factory.

"It still strikes me as odd that this stuff is so popular, especially in America," Flume says on the phone from Detroit. "It all seemed so unattainable in the States, as if I was infiltrating."

Since 2011, Flume's woozy "Sleepless" or his production on AlunaGeorge's "I Remember" have topped the charts. You may even know his softly jarring remixes of Disclosure's "You & Me," Arcade Fire's "AfterLife," Sam Smith's Lay Me Down," and Lorde's "Tennis Court" even better than the original versions.

"A lot of those remixes thankfully feel fresh to me. The Lorde thing, in particular, seems to have caught on, as you can hear remnants of it in other people's song," Flume says of its trend-starting click-and-clatter.

Flume was trained as a composer and saxophonist, and he credits his early musical education - "how to listen and understand" - with making him a better producer. "Honestly, production when you first start can be difficult to wrap your head around," he says. "To be able to understand the musicality of those more technical aspects was a big help."

Skin, more so than his cool first album - 2012's Flume - breathes warmly, as if it comes from someone with the intimate knowledge of reeds and horns. Its most simmering moments (the platinum-selling "Never Be like You" single, "Smoke & Retribution") achieve a whispery, hot breath vibe, strange for an electronic album. "For me, one of the downfalls of electronic music is that it can feel a little soulless or robotic," says Flume. "I want to make music that is completely electronic, but doesn't feel it."

Success - personal, financial, spiritual aesthetic - wasn't on his mind when he was looking to bridge the gap between the avant-soul and deep rhythms of 2012's Flume and the poppier, but still radically downtempo Skin. He says he wasn't looking to write pop hits. "Increasingly, as I was gaining traction as a producer, that allowed me to work with other artists and from there, with Skin, I had the confidence to sound more universal."

While his first album was produced in the bedroom of his parents' house in Sydney, Skin had more of a professional studio tan, "with proper songs and proper care to writing and producing for the voice," he says. That's crucial as Skin prominently features guests such as indie-pop god Beck, soul-jazz siren Kai' and rappers Vince Staples, Vic Mensa, and Raekwon - to say nothing of Flume's own vocals for the first time.

"Along with 'Free,' where I sing quite a bit, there are additional songs on Skin where you can hear my voice in the background - lots of 'oohs' and 'aahs.' But more often than not, I use my vocals to prompt other rappers and singers to feel calmer, better, bolder. It's a technique that I use in the studio, where I show them how silly I can be, and one that makes them feel more comfortable." he says. "It works most of the time, too."

Flume, Kenton Slash Demon, and Basenj: 8 p.m. Wednesday at Electric Factory, 421 N. Seventh St. Tickets: $30-$35. Information: 215-627-1332 or electricfactory.info.