In celebration of this year’s Record Store Day, Pretty Lights — aka Derek Vincent Smith — released a limited edition double 10” vinyl set for his The Hidden Shades EP. The blissful and bass-ful sample-heavy collection featured four unreleased B-Sides and remixes from last year’s Grammy-nominated A Color Map of the Sun album — which we posted for […]

Pretty Lights — aka Derek Vincent Smith — has been one of the most consistent instrumental producers of the last half decade. With a complex layered approach that’s more DJ Shadow than cornball EDM mainstage, the Denver producer is one of the few talents that has flavorfully blended the world of hip-hop beats with electronic textures. […]

It is with much childlike glee that we shut down our computers and unplug from the mainframe of the matrix for a few days and head to the glorious lands known as the 2012 Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival, for what is surely one of America’s best musical throwdowns. Yes it’s gotten increasingly commercial […]

Caught the official premier of the documentary RE:GENERATION last night at the Mann Chinese theater, and have to say we were pretty impressed. LIAS previewed the RE:GENERATION Music Project late last year when we were leaked a teaser and were hopeful with what we’d seen, but the finished product really takes the potential of the concept to […]

RE:GENERATION looks to be a really interesting documentary following 5 world class DJs/producers as they break away from their comfort zone and collaborate with musicians from far-flung genres and backgrounds. Sponsored by the Hyundai Veloster and made in association with The Grammys by award-winning documentarian Amir Bar-Lev (My Kid Could Paint That, The Tillman Story), […]

Pretty Lights pretty much runs the game with the free download market, unleashing free full-length albums on people that are easily better than 90% of the for-pay fodder clogging up iTunes archives. The latest is a free download of his new remix for Radiohead’s “Everything in its Right Place” mashed up with Nirvana’s “All Apologies” […]

Colorado’s Derek Vincent Smith, aka Pretty Lights, releases his new “Future Blind” video from Making Up a Changing Mind. One of the 3 EPs he released in 2010 for free, Making Up a Changing Mind is actually not his latest release — that would be Glowing in the Darkest Night. Regardless, it’s clear Pretty Lights […]

After catching Pretty Lights’ set at this year’s Coachella it was pretty clear Derek Vincent Smith is more than a cut above the average dancefloor filling producer. Although lacing his sound with plenty of Triton-generated bass pulses and brash electro textures, Pretty Lights strangely reminds me more of vintage DJ Shadow than contemporaries like Deadmaus […]