I have a bit of a secret to let you in on: I’ve become a bit of a closet hipster when it comes to electronic music. Not in the pretentious Bon Iver listening, Chomsky quoting, fair-trade coffee drinking, Etsy surfing kind of way (although I do happen to like all those things…), but the “I liked ‘X’ before it was cool” kind of way. At least that’s what I like to tell myself. But I digress… The fact of the matter is, since the eclectic upstart label DhARMA came on the scene last year, they’ve quickly become my go-to label for new indie dance and synthpop and certainly have become one of my favourite labels of 2012. I feel like I’ve been granted access to some secret club that plays only fantastic and unique music. And their seventh release by Brooklynite ARRON ALEXIS continues that trend.
The title track, “Kill The Lights”, is a lush offering with almost hypnotic vocals. I suppose you could describe it as downtempo, but it certainly will put you in a relaxed state of mind. It is, however, very representative of the future retro sound (does that even make sense?) that the folks at DhARMA have curated and cultivated. “Scars” flows nicely from there and expands on everything that the previous track brought to the table but with a small hint of 80′s pop (think Phil Collin’s “In The Air Tonight”). The real prize among prizes here, though, is brought to us by KYSON, whose remix of “Kill The Lights” takes the original and feeds it a Xanax before taking things to a dark and mystical place. This track truly does urge you to just simply kill the lights… Sincerely a beautiful track that I could listen to on a loop for hours. Really, I could do that with this entire release. Not a bad way to ring in the new year.
Released on New Year’s Day 2013, you can now pick up Kill The Lights on Beatport or on DhARMA’s BandCamp Page. With support from other like-minded hipsters such as John Digweed, Jody Wisternoff, M.A.N.D.Y, Derek Howell, Roberto Rodriguez… but you’ve probably never heard of any of them…
Stay tuned as I’ll be posting an interview with DhARMA label co-founders Dibby Dougherty, Ciara Wilson and David Young in the not too distant future.
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Aaron Alexis Links:
Aaron Alexis on SoundCloud
Aaron Alexis on Twitter
Aaron Alexis on Facebook
Kyson Links:
Kyson on Soundcloud
Kyson on Twitter
Kyson on Facebook
DhARMA Links:
dharmalabel.com
DhARMA on SoundCloud
DhARMA on Twitter
DhARMA on Facebook
