Come September, Kaskade will officially be dropping his new album, Atmosphere, to go along with his just announced tour of the same name. MTV News caught up with the EDM superstar on the video set of the album’s title track, for which, in an unexpected spin on what he already does so well, Kaskade himself provides the vocals.
“This is the first time I’ve ever sung on one of my songs. I’ve written dozens, if not hundreds, of songs over the years … I’ve never sung on any of my songs,” he explained. “When I wrote this, I knew it wasn’t about my vocal performance and being a perfect singer. It was more about capturing the emotion of what I was writing about — it was a very personal song to me.”
Singing in front of thousands of his most dedicated fans is definitely not the norm for the producer/DJ, but according to Kaskade, Atmosphere represents an intentional stylistic change. In an effort to stay true to his genre and produce the most genuine music possible, Kaskade has taken a step back from several current EDM trends.
“I think people in electronic music are trying to get these big features: ‘Oh my gosh, I’m gonna get the biggest pop star to feature on my track.’ For me, Atmosphere was more about looking inwards and reaching out to people close to me. To emphasize the fact that I’m singing on the first single, this album is really more about me and songs that I’ve written, instead of collaborating with people.” This will certainly be a departure from his last Grammy-nominated album, Fire & Ice, which hosted many big-name collaborations.
As EDM has risen to mainstream popularity, several production tendencies have emerged on top of the pressures of having A-list features. For Kaskade, Atmosphere is more about keeping it true and honest and not necessarily going in the same direction as his colleagues in the genre.
“I do feel like there’s a level of ridiculousness going on in electronic music … It’s getting borderline absurd out there,” he explained, and he’s not the first producer/DJ to do so. Steve Angello recently expressed something similar to MTV News, urging producers to “become creative again,” while producer of many genres Diplo went as far as to call EDM “boring” to the Huffington Post.
Despite this EDM identity crisis, fans can still look forward to Atmostphere and hopefully catch one of the shows in Kaskade’s four-city tour this fall:
»September 14 – Miami, FL @ American Airlines Arena
»October 5 – Brooklyn, NY @ Barclays Center
»October 12 – Chicago, IL @ Navy Pier Exhibition Hall
»October 17-19 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Shrine Expo Hall
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