L.A producer Dakota Blue conjures up a plethora of electronic musings on his most accessible work to date with “My Idea of Perfection”.

Released March 19th, 2021, Self Released.

If you asked Dakota Blue what style of music he creates, his recently coined genre ‘New Wage’, a cross of new wave pop and downtempo new age, would help you understand his work tenfold. The L.A native draws upon multiple genres to paint his expansive soundscapes, experimenting with combinations of new wave and chamber-pop, goth styled indie with dream-pop and more.

“My Idea of Perfection” is his fourth LP in as many years, following 2020’s “Off The Grid & On The Run”, now sounding closer to orchestrating an entire movie with cinematic styles of electronic music. 

Opening track ‘Blow Torch’, with its slithering synth key, starts with the opening credits rolling across the blue skies of a midnight desert before the goth-post-punk style of ‘(About To) Melt’ begins. Gorgeously draped new-wave hooks quickly fill the air on this short vacation to an ’80s paradise, worth repeatedly listening to so you can bathe in the luscious melodies of this ’80s influenced track. Similarly, on album single ‘Frequent Liar’, Dakota Blue utilises the euphoric sound of ’80s synth-pop to create gorgeous displays of atmospheric cinematic pop, meant to be truly immersed in rather than casually listened to as background noise.

It’s with the shortest tracks on “My Idea of Perfection” that minor road bumps appear for Dakota Blue, as the expansive displays of dreamy electro disperse on ‘Steep Street’ and ‘Timing My Moments’. While still cinematic in style, Dakota’s genre experimentation reaches its peak with these two tracks. With more guitar-driven moments that sound just alien enough to the LP to cause a fork in the road, Dakota pushes you to reach out for the cult-hit claim button or snub the two tracks for the more accessible moments of expansive ’80s electro-pop.

“My Idea of Perfection” utilises Dakota Blue’s love of genre-blending to craft sublime displays of electro-pop and only struggles with its more experimental moments when they push against the grain too much. Dakota Blue’s style has always gifted his work with an air of intrigue and allowed interpretations to run as wild as possible, creating new genres in the process that add more excitement than they do moments of uncertainty. The next phase for Dakota Blue will hopefully involve further experimenting with his newfound ‘New Wage’ style, pushing his expansive soundscapes even further while restraining himself enough to achieve even more exciting results.

You can find Dakota Blue on Twitter and Instagram and purchase “My Idea of Perfection” via Bandcamp.