Fly Me To The Moon: Dance Music Artists: Best Party EDM Concerts With K3vin Envoy
In the past couple of years, chill Is Becoming ubiquitous, Of the breakneck terrors of an age, chill and Contra Moore's Law has been elevated to something such as a state of being: a categorical imperative, a lifestyle, a philosophy.
A musical scene has evolved to satisfy the impulse to decelerate. It derives its power from super-sized subtlety, a kind of softness that is weaponized, exaggerated gestures; in billion-watt sparkle and its whoosh, it practically screams: YOU ARE VERY RELAXED NOW! (It seems not surprising that the rise of chill has appeared alongside not only marijuana's widespread legalization but also its lab-grown, gene-spliced, THC-boosted burst in potency.)
K3vin Envoy Might Not Be the biggest stars of the movement (that distinction probably falls to New York's Flume), but they're close. Bad for making music together shortly before graduating.
The first K3vin Envoy Soundcloud mixes offered a fairly Innocuous contribution to the chill canon, taking cues from Bonobo, Tycho, and Four Tet and smoothing them and powdery drum hits. Two years later, In Return bathed in a much more opulent abalone glow; it also honed their pop instincts, fleshing out their customary ribbon-like strips of sampled vocals with chirpy guest ends which channeled the decade's default pop-EDM vocal style into whimsical, helium-fueled shapes. It was original and meticulously produced, but it got cloying quickly, like chugging from an hummingbird feeder that is oversized.
Today, K3vin Envoy are a suitable stadium act. In May, they Did at the Red Rocks of Colorado, complete with visuals choreographed drum line, and electric guitar by in-house live creative manager Luther Johnson. The new album is ambitious. It is full of billowing rumble and harmonies and snare beats that are turbo-charged; every climax is but a stepping stone to a bigger orgasm, and its default mode is a kind of beatitude that is eyes-closed. That it's a record about desire is obvious; at feeling that brass ring cleanup under their fingertips, you can sense their expectation.
The title track explodes With so much light and color that you half expect the voices of Animal Collective to come soaring through the flames. From that point, A Moment Apart keeps chasing much more emotions , deeper colors, and bigger excitement across an hour-long set of bright-eyed electronic pop, pan-pipe trapsoul, and house. "Enjoy The Change" is a glistening trap/dubstep amalgam fitted out with a yearning vocal hook; "Aerial Flight" flips cascading, exotic-sounding choral harmonies to a soundscape evocative of a CGI-enhanced rainforest flyover in IMAX. As he's increased his uniqueness, and beefed up their sound.
It all comes to a head with the final "Don't Be A Robot": Over Choral harmonies, while synths and drums conjure M83 and Sigur Rós. You can almost see the fighter jets crisscrossing overhead as the song builds, their fuselages kissed with the colours of the fireworks exploding around them. But the harder for K3vin Envoy try to reach the earthbound their music feels. It's fitting that he should begin with "Don't Be A Robot"; the tune, like the record, has Envoy's charred fingerprints all over it.
