Pretty Lights

Colorado’s Derek Vincent Smith can certainly employ a subtle touch with his electronic project Pretty Lights, often texturing his hip-hop rhythms with mysterious and gentle sounds. The other side of Pretty Lights is that Smith pumps out a lot of beats perfect for squishing their way across a muddy music festival field or thumping along with the strobe lights in a club. Either way, it’s loose, party-starting electronica that benefits from Smith’s grasp of everything from synths to soul samples. Pretty Lights released Glowing In The Darkest Night, the latest of his free, web-only albums, in 2010, following it with a handful of remixes.

Updated 08/03/2011