The Acid: Artist You Should Know

Sometimes the internet really works.

I met artist Steve Nalepa through Twitter. He sent me some music that I loved and I began to play it on the radio. A month or so ago, he sent me his new project, The Acid.

The first song I heard, which you can hear below, is “Fame.”

What I heard is a baseline of electronics, with sweet melodies performed with a present rawness, and a decidedly organic feel. It’s sexy. Because of the people and talents involved the end result, rather than a mish-mash, is a beautifully conceived, deftly executed balance of songs, instruments, machines and soul.

The three players are: Steve Nalepa – Californian, producer, composer and professor of music technology, Adam Freeland – a Grammy-nominated English DJ, remixer, and composer, and RY X – an Australian singer songwriter now based in Berlin.

This is definitely a case of the sum being greater than the parts. Serendipity brought these three artists together (which is a whole other story about, in their words, nerding out over music) and each one has brought a different expertise and set of experiences to the table. The result is gorgeous.

Here’s how the band approached it, from Steve himself:

“Since we all had history and careers, we decided to just float it out there on Soundcloud anonymously and not tell any of our friends it was us.

We wanted the music to speak for itself, not be perceived as someone’s side project or get viewed through the lens of their other work. We changed where we were from every week or so. First we were a band from Santiago, Chile, then Norway, then Mozambique, then Iceland, Australia, Berlin, etc. We had fun with it.

Soon enough, people started finding it and we actually starting getting hit up by labels.”

They ended up signing with Infectious out of the UK, who partnered with Mute for the North American release. Their full length “Liminal” will be out next week!

— Anne