Lights has shared the project she worked on with close friend and collaborator i_o before he passed away, and it is a hazy-eyed celebration of rave culture at its finest.
Back in 2020, Lights spent her time off the road indulging in her love of electronic music. That showed up on her release ‘Dead End’ which she worked on with MYTH.
During that time, she also worked on music with a young producer called i_o, releasing an incredible track called ‘Annihilation’.
They apparently made a whole record together, which Lights has just surprise-dropped. Though the release is bittersweet, as it is a posthumous one for i_o, who passed away in November 2020.
The record is called ‘Warehouse Summer’ and is a driving, euphoric, sticky collection of house, drum and bass, trance, techno and experimental tunes that perfectly embody the feeling of yourself in a night of dancing. It is a celebration of a culture and an artist who brought so much to it.
Lights has released the record with this poignant message:
“Warehouse Summer is a 14-song album I made with i_o in 2020. It is one thing that will always remain a triumph, a bittersweet opus from that year.
Garrett and I spent late nights scrounging up purpose in making this music, using it to mull over every inch of life. On facetime he’d tinker with samples n sip rice wine or a random beer he found while I plucked away on ambient guitar tones mumbling lyrics.
Each song we made flowed right into the next, one through fourteen of them, nothing was hard when we were working on Warehouse Summer (the project name was decided pretty much after we wrote the first song, Supermelt).
The first time I listened to this again was 20 months after he passed, i dusted off the db link and shook the whole way through. I am reminded that even in your darkest moments you can emerge with remarkable memories. I will always, always cherish this one.
I won’t speak much more on this cause I don’t want to speak for him, but ill say this: Garrett always said Warehouse Summer felt like the feeling you get when you leave the rave at 4am and the air is hot and sticky and you’re dead af but alive. Like ghosts riding penny boards
I hope you feel every bit of this when you listen to Warehouse Summer. It’s intense and gentle, like he was. I lost a dear friend and musical partner, I miss him very much. 444ever. I would say he was so fucking inspiring but he would hate that.”
And here it is. It is really special:
