Artist Spotlight: Pretty Lights

   Happy Friday all! I hope you're excited about this weekend, it's shaping up to be a good one! But being that it's Friday, I have some business to attend to first...and all new Artist Spotlight! This week I'll be featuring Derek Vincent Smith, better know as Pretty Lights.

   Pretty Lights started producing hip-hop beats back in his high school days in Colorado. Once introduced to the rave seen by artists such as Aphrodite, he began producing his signature glitchy funk/soul infused hip-hop electronica. After a brief stint at University of Colorado he decided  to focus on his music, and with drummer Cory Eberhard, they began touring as Pretty Lights in mid 2009.

   As an example of his type of sound, check out his track Finally Moving...

  Smith's sample based, organic sounding grooves make his tracks very easy to connect with for anyone with a good musical sense. He accomplishes this with the use of a monome, and an Akai MPD32 midi controller. He uses these to control his music production software, Ableton 8 Live.

   Pretty Lights has received a big following and huge acclaim at many of North America's biggest music festivals over the past few years, including:  Bonnaroo Music Festival (TN), Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival (CA), Rothbury Festival (MI), Evolve Festival (NS, Canada), Nocturnal Festival (TX), Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival (CA), and the Ultra Music Festival (FL) to name a few.

   Here are a few more of my favorites

   One truly, amazingly awesome thing about Pretty Lights, is that he has all of his music available for download on his website, for...get this...FREE! All 82 tracks! %100 for free! Now that's not to say he doesn't except donation, cause he totally does, but more than anything, he just wants his music to be heard. So go check the downloads section of PrettyLightsMusic.com right here (<---right there) and go feed your iTunes some great music...everyone will be happy!

   He's on tour all over the US and mexico as we speak, and you can check out all the tour dates right here (<--- over there) I've heard that his live shows are something not too be missed, so if he's in town, check him out! And don't forget to check him out on all of his social media outlets.

Here <--- Pretty Lights Music Homepage

Here <--- YouTube channel

Here <--- Facebook page

Here <--- Twitter page

Here <--- Myspace page

   I hope you've enjoyed this weeks Artist Spotlight. I'll catch you all on Monday, Have a safe and happy weekend! Peace.