Woofers and subwoofers weren’t the only part of the sound system Bassnectar brought to Governors Island on Saturday for Bass Island, a marathon of dance music and hip-hop. Bassnectar’s music, and sets by opening acts including the rapper Lupe Fiasco and the disc jockey Z-Trip, also used the midrange of vocals and the highs of synthesizer lines. But the attraction for the roughly 10,000 people who attended the event — in face paint and fluorescent clothes, wearing goofy hats and festooned with glowsticks, carrying tall poles with toys bobbing on top — was the promise of extended exposure to deep, body-shaking bass.

Bassnectar, a k a the electronic musician, producer and remixer Lorin Ashton, has been releasing albums for a decade, aligning himself with no single dance-music mini-genre. He clearly hears music from the bottom up, which links him to dub reggae and hip-hop; some of the wobbly bass tones and oozing attacks he uses are central to dubstep, which in recent years has been making itself heard beyond the dance-club underground.