Glow Washington DC & Steez Promo Present:
Moonrise Festival
Saturday, 8/12/17 & Sunday, 8/13/17
Pimlico Race Course
5201 Park Heights Ave, Baltimore, MD 21215
Click Here for Tickets
And with that, we have announced all the artists that will be coming to Moonrise. Pretty Lights Live will be joining us at Pimlico Race Course for what is shaping up to be one of the best Moonrise Festival line-ups yet.
FINAL ANNOUNCE:
After mixing around with hip-hop music in high school, dropping out of the University of Boulder his freshman year, and struggling to make ends meet as he pursued his music, Derek Vincent Smith has more than earned his title as a revolutionary of dance music. Combining downtempo beats with upbeat layers that give his tracks a club feel, Pretty Lights was created with the desire to merge three of Smith’s favorite genres: electronic music, hip-hop, and soul. With this winning blend of genres, Pretty Lights played numerous festivals and shows across the globe and was even nominated for a Grammy in 2014 for the album “A Color Map of the Sun”.
It was “A Color Map of the Sun” that sparked Smith’s desire to bring more authenticity and originality to electronic music. He wanted to infuse live instruments with his synthesizer to create his own music and not rely on samples from other artists. After dipping his feet into creating live music, Smith formed the Analog Future Band, comprised of a drummer, trumpet player, keys, and trombone and set out on a lengthy tour. Using what the band referred to as ‘breaks’, Smith would line up a sample and then the band would either recreate the electronic composition or create their own music to go along with the sample. While a new step for Smith, this wasn’t exactly a revolutionary way of performing and therefore Pretty Lights set out to make something new and his own.
Then, in 2016, after Smith had moved to New Orleans and lived there for two years, Pretty Lights Live was born. With a new band behind him, including the talented drummer Alvin Ford, Jr., son of renowned gospel drummer Alvin Ford, Sr., Pretty Lights set out to create purely improvisational electronic music. Using what they call ‘flips’ the band has learned how to switch from working with a pre-produced track to being completely improvisational, mimicking a crossfade. This ‘flip’ is reminiscent of when jazz players would play a song and then one player would initiate a solo, leaving the other players to improvise. With the creation of Pretty Lights Live, Smith had truly created something new and exciting.
We are so excited to finally be able to share this with you and we can’t wait to see y’all at Moonrise Festival in just a few short days ?