Pretty Lights is the musical vision of the ultra-versatile Colorado based producer Derek Vincent Smith. At a time when music lovers from almost all subcultures and genres are finding common ground in the basic form of bangin’ beats, Pretty Lights is giving the people what they want: electro organic cutting-edge party rocking beats that fill venues with energy and emotion and send dance floors into frenzies. And the people are responding. Pretty Lights has given away more than three million free album downloads to date.
“The Illumination Tour,” Pretty Lights’ 2012 U.S. run, kicked off with a sold-out, two-night stand at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Morrison, CO. Reviews for the 55-date tour were stellar: “Smith wowed the crowd with his Crayola-colored set of lasers and his ever-present grin of pure joy as he danced along to his own tunes,” said SPIN while Rolling Stone called him “wildly unique and talented.” In addition to the headline dates, Pretty Lights played the Electric Zoo, North Coast and CounterPoint festivals and partnered with Skrillex to spearhead the two-day “With Your Friends Festival” in downtown Nashville.
In another innovative partnership, Pretty Lights teamed up with Bassnectar to put on a two-day “BassLights” event in December 2012, marking the first-ever electronic music shows at historic Hampton Coliseum in Hampton, VA. Pretty Lights closed out 2012 with two intimate shows at New York City’s Roseland Ballroom.
A brand new Pretty Lights album is due out in 2013. “I’ve completely switched up my process of producing and composing. It is being created from all originally composed samples off of self made vinyl and all analog modular synthesis,” says Smith. “It’s prolific, conceptual, consistent, yet extremely diverse, and a real substantial piece of music you can sink your teeth into.”