New collaborative project delivers warm, evocative pop…
The arrival of ELYXR offers a new venture via Seattle-based electronic musician/producer Kasson Crooker. Each ELYXR release is designed to be a collaborative project introducing different singers for each subsequent release.
‘Engine’ marks the first of the ELYXR releases and here features Elissa LeCoque from Brooklyn indie-electronic act Kodacrome. We’re happy to announce that The Electricity Club is premiering the track today ahead of its June release.
‘Engine’ delivers subtle, layered electronic pop elements that, combined with LeCoque’s soulful vocals, lends the whole composition a certain sadness.
Crooker is of course better known as founder-member of synth-pop outfit Freezepop and also recently released the Gishiki album via his other side project Symbion Project (see TEC review here). ELYXR marks a different direction from his other ventures with the collaborative element opening up new musical horizons.
“From the very beginning of how I wanted to craft ELYXR into a different kind of musical project, there were some key elements that I was really fixated on” Kasson Crooker told The Electricity Club. “Beyond not making albums and EPs and just releasing a string of singles, the other main element was to have each song be a unique collaboration with some of the amazing singer/songwriters I had the pleasure of knowing through my years of playing in Freezepop and Symbion Project. With my last Symbion Project album Arcadian there were some really unique collaborations with each of the singers helping to craft something unique. So I wanted to go even further with this idea and really reach out to some of my favorite singers to see what we could come up with for some juicy synth-pop tracks! The other thing I love about collaborating is knowing that I’ll be pushed beyond some of my normal songwriting habits that can often happen without those outside influences pushing you”.
The collaboration between Crooker and LeCoque came about when Symbion Project opened for Kodacrome at a gig in Brooklyn. “Kodacrome has always captured a real purity with their releases that I’ve been entranced by” comments Crooker. “Nothing flashy or overproduced, with just the right balance of honest synth-pop mixed with Elissa’s bewitching vocals. Getting to work with Elissa has been an extreme pleasure and she brings a real soulfulness and honesty to the synthesized compositions and her lyrics have a unique depth not found that often in electropop songs”.
Future ELYXR releases are scheduled for this summer, with the next one loosely scheduled for a late June release. Crooker is keeping details of future collaborations under his hat for now, but hints that there’s some male vocalists that he’s keen to work with.
Meanwhile, ‘Engine’ delivers a good sampling of what this new collaborative concept is all about. Its warm, electronic melodies touch the heart and elicit a certain melancholy – which is what good electronic music is all about.
‘Engine’ is released 2nd June on the Speed Of Dark label.
https://www.facebook.com/ELYXRband/
http://www.symbionproject.com/
http://kodacrome.com/
