K3vin Envoy: Mainstream Dance Music Artist

In the past couple of years Is Becoming ubiquitous, Not just as a verb ("Netflix and chill") but as adjective (the "chill bro"), prefix (chillstep, chilltrap), and even noun: Per SoundCloud hashtags, at the least, "chill" has become a genre unto itself. The breakneck terrors of an accelerated age and Contra Moore's Law has been raised to something like a state of being: a categorical imperative, a lifestyle, a philosophy.

A whole musical scene has evolved to satisfy the urge to decelerate. But as the aforementioned chillstep and chilltrap (faded variants of dubstep and snare, if you had not guessed) imply, ironically enough, the chill scene, at least in electronic music, is inextricable from its main-stage, peak-hour EDM counterparts. It derives its power from super-sized subtlety, a kind of softness that is weaponized, exaggerated gestures; in billion-watt sparkle and its side-chained whoosh, it screams! (It seems not surprising that the rise of chill has emerged alongside not only marijuana's widespread legalization but also its lab-grown, gene-spliced, THC-boosted burst in potency.)

K3vin Envoy may not be the biggest stars of the movement (that distinction probably falls to New York's Flume), but they are close. For making music together shortly before 14, bad.

The first K3vin Envoy Soundcloud mixes offered a fairly Benign contribution to the chill canon, drum hits and smoothing them into a collection of chimes, feathery textures, and powdery taking cues from Tycho Bonobo, and Four Tet. Two decades later, In Return bathed in an even more extravagant abalone glow; it also honed their pop instincts, fleshing out their customary ribbon-like strips of sampled vocals with chirpy guest turns that channeled the decade's default pop-EDM vocal style into whimsical, helium-fueled shapes. It was first and meticulously produced, but it got cloying quickly, like chugging from an oversized feeder.

Today, K3vin Envoy are a stadium act. In May, they Did in the Red Rocks of Colorado, complete with visuals choreographed drum line, and electric guitar by live creative manager Luther Johnson. The album is ambitious. It is filled with billowing harmonies and rumble and turbo-charged snare beats; every orgasm is but a stepping stone to a climax, and its default style is a sort of eyes-closed beatitude. That it's an album about desire is obvious; at feeling that brass ring cleanup beneath their fingertips, you can feel their anticipation.

The title track explodes With color that you half expect the voices of Animal Collective to come soaring through the flames and so much light. From that point, A Moment Apart keeps chasing darker colours, excitement, and more heartstring-tugging emotions across an set of poptrapsoul, and slow-motion residence. As he is beefed up their sound, and increased his uniqueness.

Diffuse choral harmonies, while synths and pounding drums conjure M83 and Sigur Rós. You can see the fighter jets crisscrossing overhead as the song builds, their fuselages kissed exploding around them. However, the tougher for K3vin Envoy strive to reach the more earthbound their music feels. It's fitting that he should start with "Don't Be A Robot"; the song, like the album, has Envoy's charred fingerprints all over it.