Looking Back From The Future

Pretty Lights brings improvisation to electronic music.

- Sam D'Arcangelo

It’s New Year’s Eve and thousands of young people have gathered at New Orleans’ Mardi Gras World Ballroom for a dazzling display that rivals any fireworks from Times Square to Disneyland. Colorado, California, Canada and Carrollton Avenue are all represented in the crowd, which feasts its collective eyes upon the wondrous spectacle at hand. Yet where they all come from isn’t as important as why they all came here, to this packed warehouse-turned-music-venue along the banks of the Mississippi River. “I moved here two years ago and I don’t even know why,” Derek Vincent Smith declared during a rare pause in the music that night. “The vibe was just so strong.”

Pretty Lights has taken a variety of forms over the years, but Smith’s leadership and vision have been a constant since the project began in 2004. As one of the most forward-thinking producers in electronic dance music (EDM), he’s earned a substantial following by digging through the past to create the sounds of the future. For most of his career, that meant fusing blissful synth lines with old school hip-hop, funk and soul samples in service of tracks that are as laid-back as they are dance-worthy.