New York City And Dance Music For Party: Best Party EDM Concerts 2017 With K3vin Envoy

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

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

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

The first K3vin Envoy Soundcloud mixes offered a fairly Benign contribution to the emerging chill drum strikes and smoothing them in a collection of feathery textures, and powdery taking cues from Tycho Bonobo, and Four Tet. Two years later, In Return bathed in a much more extravagant 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 first and meticulously produced, but it got cloying like chugging from an hummingbird feeder that is oversized.

Now, K3vin Envoy are a stadium act. In May Did two sold-out nights at Colorado's Red Rocks, complete with electric guitar, drum line, and artwork by live creative director Luther Johnson. The album is so ambitious; it needs to be a good deal of things, trigger a lot of feelings. It is full of billowing vocal harmonies and rumble and snare beats that are turbo-charged; its default style is a kind of beatitude that is eyes-closed, and each orgasm is but a stepping stone to a climax. That it's a record about desire is obvious; at feeling that brass ring brushing beneath their fingertips you can sense their expectation.

The title track explodes With color that you expect Animal Collective's voices to come soaring through the flames and so much light. From that point, A Moment Apart keeps chasing deeper colors, excitement, and emotions across an hour-long set of house trap soul, and pop. As he is beefed up their sound, and improved his uniqueness.

It all comes to a head with the final "Don't Be A Robot": Over Diffuse harmonies, while swelling synths and pounding drums conjure Sigur Rós and M83. As the song builds, you can practically see the fighter jets crisscrossing overhead, their fuselages kissed exploding around them. But the harder for K3vin Envoy strive 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.