BEST NEW INDIE POP: KAIVON - FIRST BREATH

Kaivon’s “First Breath” is a breath of fresh air in a cyncial, samey-same EDM scene.

People love to hate on Coachella. It’s pretty easy (and fun!) - what started out as a hip, cool place to find the newest, most cutting-edge underground music has basically become a lifestyle ad for American Express and H&M, while white girls in flower crowns get to run around living the dream, while most of the world slowly starves to death or have what little of their dignity remains stripped away by politicians’ tiny hands. It’s refreshing, therefore, to hear something optimistic come out of the summer festival season.

KAIVON - FIRST BREATH

LA’s Kaivon started making music after seeing some of the biggest names in electronic music at Coachella in 2014. Taking inspiration from Skrillex, Flume, and RL Grime, Kaivon walked away from the road-more-travelled to focus on his electronic music career. With “First Breath” Kaivon seems destined to grace the same huge stages he used to bow down for, taking Flume and RL Grime’s trademarked bright plasticine sheen and primary colors and imbuing them with just enough true, real heart to make you look twice, (and likely listen many more times).

Elusive qualities like ‘heart’ and ‘taste’ are hard to pin down, which is why we are such avid diggers and curators here at We Are: The Guard. We promise to peel back all the artifice and find the pulse and heat of the newest, most cutting-edge indie music. Like Coachella used to do.

J. Simpson occupies the intersection between criticism, creativity, and academia. Based out of Portland, Or., he is the author of Forestpunk, an online journal/brand studying the traces of horror, supernatural, and the occult through music, fashion and culture. He plays in the dreamfolk band Meta-Pinnacle with his partner Lily H. Valentine, with whom he also co-founded Bitstar Productions, a visual arts collective focused on elevating Pop Culture to High Art.