Kygo
Cloud Nine

Release Date: 2016 | Tracklist

Summer continues to come faster than we have anticipated, fastening itself with high school/college graduations, and the many albums that compete tirelessly to be the ultimate screenshot of the warmer side of the year. With every summer that shines on by, it always features an album that photographs the essence and feel of it all. While it may not be that time just yet, Norwegian DJ and producer Kygo might've just quelled the competition before it even began, bringing it to our doorstep for the warm season ahead. Being inspired by neighboring producer Avicii and his bustling sound, the jock-like 24-year old spun his idols' glitzy aesthetics and cosmic sound to make into his own bright movement: tropical house. Less mainstream, more laid back, and strapped with a bright, warm flavor to it than of his other commercialized contemporaries, Kygo takes us flying with his sunlit sound that doesn't just capture the moment and gives it to us in first glance: he eternalizes it in full scope. In his bristling debut Cloud Nine, he takes off full throttle to his quick ascent atop the EDM stratosphere and to a fantastical world with that where, as the title of the album persists, is so euphoric and emotional that you don't just feel good inside: you literally feel like you're on cloud nine.

Heightened by the steaming momentum that he's riding on, Kygo's feisty debut speaks volumes of his instant rise to fame and to the celebration the upcoming season brings with it emotionally. It is to ride off the beaming, emotive euphoria that people are feeling with the end of tireless school/work days and the beginning of vacation on the rise. It certainly gives it the theatrical, grand coronation the return of summer deserves with his biggest commercial hit to date, the glitzy, dimmed "Stole The Show" with its funky, glowing synths coating with industrialized percussion as if it is turning on every colorful light in the spectrum and vividly oozing out of the speakers. American singer-songwriter Parson James croons his way through this stylistic confection with flair and meaning, delivering pretending lines like "we used to have it all/but it is our curtain call" that calls to someone's spark with another, but it doesn't exist on the other side. Songs like with the sparkling, calm "Fiction", built off with pulsating, neon synths that vibrate away into the atmosphere with clean-cut bass streaming along, do a damn good job at creating meaning to its premise. Telling a couple who happen to be in a long-distance relationship to "live in the moment" in the short time they are in the same room together, indie-pop UK artist Tom Odell convinces you the pain of not being able to stay with his or her lover for more than "a weekend or two", with his grundy, rustic vocals brimming away in the colorful, dreamy track.

Every single track in this flavorful cocktail contains vocals from every caliber and renown, whether it's pop superstars like John Legend or veterans who have had staying power by placing their vocals in EDM tracks, diversifying every track with their own stylized approach to it. In the tropical, sandy "Oasis", EDM mainstay Foxes stigmatizes the saving of one's soul from the darkness with her stellar performance on vocals to glossy, sunset-bathed synths glistening and surrounding at every angle with roaring bass magnifying it to send shockwaves down the spines of those that come to listen. Every feature on this album manages to find itself following to the musical creativity of each individual, which makes it for a fresh, new approach that comes away with it only to be further lathered in the warm, bristled hues of Kygo's cool sound. John Legend showcases it in the personal, inviting "Happy Birthday" with his eloquent, fancy vocals echoing through ultraviolet synthesizer and a pulsating acoustic guitar in the backdrop that fits to the usual tone of his work, whilst singing of his newborn baby that he just had with model Chrissy Tegan. It certainly is quite the birthday song made for his child, tearfully singing beautiful lines like "I'll love you with all I am/tonight is where we began" with damning conviction, also quite perfect enough that invokes lustful, romantic vibes out for others at the same time.

Being the supposed leader of his "tropical house" movement, Kygo leads his young brethren with confidence and enforcement in his tangy debut Cloud Nine. This isn't your average EDM album, divulged in generic, mainstream-pleasing sounds that don't convey any sort of feel beyond the per usual. Now, while there are some moments in this album where it feels like you came across it before ("Happy Birthday" feels like a different rendition of "Fiction"), or eerily dreadful to bear such as the screeching "I'm In Love", it doesn't make much of a dent to do anything significant. He also delivers quite possibly the best set of vocal features in a long time for any EDM album of any kind, which always seems to be the cunning factor that dilutes or drags down this kind of humid content. The summery, splashing essence that is sprayed into this tangy cocktail captures the grip and feel of summer, in its ultimate form into one 15-track adventure. This is the kind of album that you definitely need to have looped for pool parties, road trips, a day at the beach; you name it. This album is the photographic screenshot of the warm season that is yet to come, and oh summer, how much we have missed you.

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