Light Up the Night

"Light Up the Night" closes the circle of Skylar Spence's aesthetic project toward its most danceable resolution — the influences are integrated rather than displayed, the track moving with a confidence that comes from an artist who has stopped negotiating between his references and started building from them. The guitar work carries a precision that suggests actual knowledge of the instruments being invoked, and the drum programming has a physicality that rewards being played loud enough to feel. Vocally the track opts for texture over extended phrasing, the production treating the human voice as one rhythmic element among several rather than the primary narrative vehicle. Lyrically it occupies the specific pleasure of a night extended past its expected end, the hours between midnight and dawn when the city belongs only to those willing to stay. The production's brightness never softens into haze; this is music confident enough in its own warmth that it doesn't need to soften its edges. It plays best in motion, in groups, at a volume that makes conversation momentarily impossible.