Pretty Lights – A Color Map of the Sun [Album Release]

There’s no beating around the bush. Pretty Lights’s latest album, “A Color Map of the Sun” falls nothing short of a masterpiece. This album is less about unveiling new music than it is showcasing years of hard work and artistic innovation atop the highest, most deserving pedestal.

Derek Vincent Smith describes Pretty Lights as his musical vision and if you’re familiar with the Denver-based artist and his musical family, you’ll know that that musical vision pulls from every edge of the musical world to translate into something unique. You can hear the history embedded into the Pretty Lights’s inspiration, pulling samples from hip hop, jazz and rock and roll to shell out deep, soulful dub influenced electronic music.

With his latest album release, Smith has taken a different approach: instead of digging through troves of albums at record shops and sampling his findings, he’s taken the reigns to take his own snapshot of history. Using live instruments and vocalists and experimentation, the album represents a journey into the musical psyche that focuses more on live music and instrumentals than electronica.

Smith calls his latest album a “multi-medium map of my mind and self”. It’s a description that makes “A Color Map of the Sun” sound like some kind of dream therapy rather than an album and a dream is really the closest analogy to describe the album — a collage of sounds that create an overall experience without articulating any specific information or purpose.

With any intention aside, each of these tracks showcase Smith’s prowess as a technician. He layers samples, vinyl-sounding vocals and live instrumentation to create a sometimes frenzied and sometimes relaxing atmospheres into consistently hazy textures.

“It has been 2 years, 5 months and 24 days since I last released a record. I am properly delighted to announce the release of my new full-length album A Color Map of the Sun. I began work on this album/project/experiment in February of 2011 and spent a year creating my own vinyl collection of everything I needed to produce the album I heard in my head. I spent the next year producing songs with homemade vinyl samples and a big crazy analog synth I built just for this album. It is truly Analog Electronica. It’s soulful electro hip-hop that went back in time to learn from the life of its smooth ass grandparents”. – Derek Vincent Smith

In the “Making Of” video below, we get a look into the process used in A Color Map of the Sun and get to see the time spent in the recording studio with live artists before the electronic element. The fervour with which Smith produces shines through in this video as well as on the album, where it’s easy to hear the passion and attention to detail that’s gone into the production to make this a self-proclaimed work of art.

Highlights from the album are many, but because the album reads like a book it’s hard to take certain tracks out of context. One that stands out is the intro track “Color of My Soul” which if you’ve been a fan for a while will suck you in with the style that hooked you onto Pretty Lights the first place, and as a new listener will draw you in, gracefully easing in to the rest of the album.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/e1k6aqnscv9xncm/pretty%20lights%20%20%20color%20of%20my%20soul%20-%20%5BMP3JUICES.COM%5D.mp3|titles=Color

The album is the epitome of everything you ever loved about Pretty Lights and more. There’s the dark, twisted songs that strike a deep, artistic and angst-y chord deep down (“So Bright”), the happy songs that sound the way watching moving clouds feels (“Yellow Bird”), and then the bangers that knock you on your ass when you hear them live (“Let’s Get Busy” and “Prophet”).

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/dqz22x8m8tyrcro/pretty%20lights%20%20%20so%20bright%20%28original%20mix%29%20-%20%5BMP3JUICES.COM%5D.mp3|titles=So https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/ibrb0surlytkrwy/pretty%20lights%20%20%20yellow%20bird%20-%20%5BMP3JUICES.COM%5D.mp3|titles=Yellow https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/7hle37w0j995e0x/pretty%20lights%20%20%20let%25252339%3Bs%20get%20busy%20-%20%5BMP3JUICES.COM%5D.mp3|titles=Let's https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/h4620in3qt6kpxj/pretty%20lights%20%20%20prophet%20-%20%5BMP3JUICES.COM%5D.mp3|titles=Prophet

Most importantly, there’s the standout track that brings music lovers of all types together with an inspirational line we can all sing along to, with enough instrumental breaks to give us a chance to dance along and appreciate the track before the next chorus arises: step down, “Finally Moving,” and allow me to introduce to you, “Around The Block (feat. Talib Kweli)”.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/3jjwn0cwwkkke80/pretty%20lights%20%20%20around%20the%20block%20%28feat.%20talib%20kweli%29%20-%20%5BMP3JUICES.COM%5D.mp3|titles=Around

Lastly, there’s what separates good artists from great ones and that’s experimentation. Songs like “Vibe Vendetta” and “One Day They’ll Know” offer curious electronic sounds and stylistic choices that aren’t textbook Pretty Lights tracks and are successful for that reason. Look, Pretty Lights made a niche in the music world and with tracks like these, he proves this niche has no boundaries and infinite possibilities.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/jpwgom74n9vezkk/pretty%20lights%20%20%20vibe%20vendetta%20-%20%5BMP3JUICES.COM%5D.mp3|titles=Vibe https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/ubn42av1sv646uq/pretty%20lights%20%20%20one%20day%20they%25252339%3Bll%20know%20-%20%5BMP3JUICES.COM%5D.mp3|titles=One

Smith’s creative process is commendable, artistically speaking, but also for the reason of being a role model and demonstrating to the infinitely ranging (in size and age) audience of EDM that success is built upon passion, perseverance, and inner confidence. Music, namely electronic, is no longer a trend, a song you rip from YouTube because your friend told you it was cool. It is returning to its roots a respectable art, and the most delectable art at that.

As usual, “A Color Map of the Sun” will be available for both free download and paid download from your favorite music outlets. But there’s an added bonus for buying the album: live session bonus tracks that are included on the deluxe paid-for version. On this second “disc” of sorts lies the full live recordings that inspired each track. What’s special about this album is that Pretty Lights’s style still remains expansive and true to his “electro-hip-hop-soul” roots, but is all original composition, though he’s changed the way music is produced.

Smith may have said it best himself on his Soundcloud: “If there is any success to be had from this album, it will go back into my rule bending, never ending quest to channel beauty and taste through music and art.”

I encourage you to download (but really, if you can, purchase) and appreciate “A Color Map of the Sun” for the thousands of reasons that it’s worth.

At times I feel, like a literal color map of the sun, Pretty Lights has the power to see things in life that us mere mortals cannot.

Complete Tracklist:

01 – Color of My Soul
02 – Press Pause
03 – Let’s Get Busy
04 – Around the Block
05 – Yellow Bird
06 – Go Down Sunshine
07 – So Bright
08 – Vibe Vendetta
09 – Done Wrong
10 – Prophet
11 – One Day They’ll Know
12 – Always All Ways
13 – My Only Hope
Bonus Tracks:
14 – Where I’m Trying To Go (Bonus Track)
15 – All I’ve Ever Known (Bonus Track)
16 – Sweet Long Life (Bonus Track)

Download the album here or Get it on Beatport now!