After its world unveiling on Holy Ship! during his surprise back-to-back set with Skrillex in February, American electronic music icon Kaskade has released his new single "Never Sleep Alone." The new track features the soft female vocals of Salt Lake City-based singer Tess Comrie and is the lead single from the "Eyes" DJ's still-untitled upcoming album set to be released on Warner Music/Arkade.
The tune is the best of everything Kaskade has done over his career: main room festival anthems and more subdued house songs with an impeccable and addictive female vocal that he will be able to use in his sets for years to come. The track softly builds around Comrie's voice and an oscillating synth line before crescendoing into a heavy pitched-down chords and bass as the Utah singer croons "Never Sleep Alone." Listen to the song below and purchase it on iTunes.
Kaskade took to his website to write about the inspiration for this track, explaining his songwriting process and how he feels connected to his fans even long after the show is done, resulting in a metaphorical feeling of never sleeping alone:
When I write, it's in the more quiet and subdued moments. I don't actually write with very much confidence, and rarely finish anything with a triumphant chest pound. I don't know how anything will be received. But I go with what I'm experiencing, or have experienced in the past. My metamorphosis has been cohesive and traveled a path that makes sense to me; it's grown as I've grown. Not better or worse but reflective of what is happening in my life. Because I am the author of my "sound" -- it is my life. I've never had to try and chase a current trend or hype a certain genre. The origin of everything I've done has simply come from me. It is consistent in that truth.
"Never Sleep Alone" could be taken so many ways. I hesitate to tell people what it means to me, because I want my listeners to imprint their own circumstance on it. That's what makes it meaningful to them. But "Never Sleep Alone" is interesting because it conjures up so many moods. Essentially, the big picture meaning for me is this: we never sleep alone. Nobody does.
There's a whiplash effect that happens pretty much every time I play on the road. While performing, I can almost tangibly feel the thousands of eyes on me accompanied by thousands of hands reaching for me. We all sing the same songs and move to the same strenuous beat and it creates this crushing feeling of belonging. Belonging, not just for me (I hope) -- it's a feeling that blankets the room. It is the opposite of isolation -- it is desegregation and connectedness; it is unity.
In what seems like only moments later, I move from this sweaty and loud but peaceful state to a much-too-quiet hotel room. The door is locked, there's usually some kind of buzz from a heater or air conditioner (or maybe it's just in my ears) and then there's me. I'm expected to sleep because I'm told that's what people do. But it's euphoric what we all do together, at these shows. And it's really hard to come down. I cannot sleep because I never sleep alone. I am haunted by a mind that won't stop racing, one that is fed by the energy of the thousands of eyes and hands and smiles.
I never sleep alone.
