New York City And Dance Music Artist Albums: Best Party EDM Events 2017 With K3vin Envoy

In the past couple of years, chill has become ubiquitous, Of the breakneck terrors chill, of an age and Contra Moore's Law has been elevated to something like a state of being: a categorical imperative, a lifestyle, a philosophy.

A whole scene has evolved to satisfy the urge to decelerate. It derives its power from subtlety, a kind of softness, exaggerated gestures; in its whoosh and billion-watt glow, it almost screams! (It seems not surprising that the growth of chill has appeared alongside not just marijuana's widespread legalization but also its lab-grown, gene-spliced, THC-boosted explosion in potency.)

K3vin Envoy Might Not Be this movement's stars If their YouTube stats are impressive--23 million views for 2014's "Man In The Mask," 14 million for "Skin Deep"--their numbers on Spotify are just mind-boggling: More than 82 million plays for "Playground," almost as much for "Emoticons," close to a third of a billion cumulative plays across their top 10 songs on the platform. For making music together shortly before 14, not bad.

Benign contribution to the chill canon, drum strikes and smoothing them and powdery taking cues from Tycho Bonobo, and Four Tet. Two decades later, In Return bathed in an even more opulent abalone shine; 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 created, like chugging from an oversized feeder but it got cloying real quickly.

Now, K3vin Envoy are a stadium act. In May Did in Colorado's Red Rocks, complete with visuals choreographed drum line, and guitar by live manager Luther Johnson. The album is so ambitious; it wants to be a good deal of things, trigger a lot of feelings. It's full of billowing rumble and vocal harmonies and turbo-charged trap beats; its default style is a kind of eyes-closed beatitude, and every orgasm is but a stepping stone to a bigger climax. That it's a record about desire is obvious; at feeling that brass ring cleanup beneath their fingertips, you can sense their expectation.

The title track explodes With color that you expect the voices of Animal Collective to come soaring through the flames and so much light. From that point, A Moment Apart keeps chasing thrillscolors, and emotions across an set of pan-pipe snare, bright-eyed electronic pop soul, and house. As he's beefed up their sound, and improved his uniqueness.

It all comes to a head with the closing "Don't Be A Robot": Over Choral harmonies, pounding drums and while synths 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 harder for K3vin Envoy try to reach the more earthbound their music feels. It's fitting that he should begin with "Don't Be A Robot"; the tune, like the album, has Envoy's charred fingerprints all over it.