Steve Aoki

Event Details

For STEVE AOKI, the future is not only bright, but glowing, multi-colored and above all, neon. The Los Angeles-based producer/DJ and leading figure in the still growing global EDM scene, has a vision for the years to come, and he’s set to share that upbeat manifestation via a new concept album called NEON FUTURE. “When I think of the dance world, I think of how it’s a colorful world,” he says of the ambitious album’s title. While some may project a darker vision for the future, AOKI, who has traveled the globe aggressively via 250 + tour dates every year, sees things a bit differently. “Essentially, I really look at the future in a more of a utopian sense than a post-apocalyptic sense,” he says, adding that he predicts a “colorful future” where people are more interconnected via music. “Neon Future is a futurism/trans-humanism concept record.” Luckily for fans of the musician, they won’t have to wait too long to hear AOKI’s future-themed new music, the first part of NEON FUTURE is set to drop September 30th, with the second part of the double concept album set for release in early 2015, both on Dim Mak/Ultra Music. Part one of NEON FUTURE is already on EDM fanatics’ proverbial radar via the set’s first official single, “Rage The Night Away,” which is out now and features rapper Waka Flocka Flame. “I wanted to put it out post Ultra (Music Festival) and around Coachella,” says the 36-year-old of the relentlessly catchy track. “It’s a record meant to be enjoyed outside in summer.” Fans will get their first visual taste of NEON FUTURE’s futuristic theme via the “Rage The Night Away” video, which boasts a Sci-Fi storyline and comes out in May. “The concept of the video is people are going to a nightclub to experience an AI [artificial intelligence] feeling of raging by putting on this node to their brain,” AOKI explains of the forthcoming clip. “Once they arrive there in that state of consciousness, Waka Flocka is the main dude in that fictitious world raging with them.” But NEON FUTURE is much more than just a collection of songs which will feature science fiction related music videos. AOKI is taking things one step future via not only offering up a futuristic vision via music and music videos, but collecting some of the world’s most visionary futurists across multiple disciplines to appear on the record in short spoken word clips. “I interviewed all kinds of people from different fields from science to spirituality,” he said of the audio clips that will appear on NEON FUTURE, name checking everyone from English author and theoretician in the field of gerontology Aubrey de Grey, to American author, scientist, inventor, futurist and director of engineering at Google, Ray Kurzweil, as those whose words AOKI will highlight on the set. “I just want to get an overall sense of attention around this concept of a ‘Neon Future.’ Also people will hear respected scientists on the album too,” he says of the short audio clips that will be underscored by music AOKI wrote himself on NEON FUTURE. “We can never come back to earth… to earth… to earth” go the lyrics over a pulsing, enigmatic soundscape. Yet NEON FUTURE is not all one sound, or style. The record hosts more conventional offerings as well, such as AOKI’s collab with Afrojack and Bonnie McKee, entitled “Afroki.” “I actually first met Bonnie at the first ever Holy Ship,” says AOKI of the songwriter best known for penning hits for Katy Perry. “She asked me to remix one of her songs and then I asked her to sing on “Afroki,” and she nailed it,” he adds. “It’s great to work with a professional songwriter like her,” AOKI continues. “When I talked to her about the song she really honed in on the concept making it more of a deeper, emotional record.” And while the first part of NEON FUTURE is seemingly packed with singles that could take the record well into 2015 (see Aoki’s collab with will.i.am “Born To Get Wild” and an updated new vocal version of “Boneless” featuring Kid Ink as two prime examples), the producer/DJ can’t help already getting excited for Part 2, which won’t see release until next year, but boasts several big name collaborators, including Snoop Dogg. “’Horizons’ definitely has the definitive ‘Neon Future’ sound,” teases AOKI of his forthcoming single with Linkin Park that will appear on Part 2 of NEON FUTURE. “It’s not quite done yet, but it’s the track I have worked on the most of all the songs on the album and I can’t wait for people to hear it,” he says. For AOKI’s fans, the feeling is surely mutual, and the future can’t arrive quickly enough for both parts of a pulsing, thought-provoking and positive NEON FUTURE.