Kygo‘s upcoming album, Cloud Nine, was originally scheduled to arrive on February 12th. After pushing back its release date indefinitely, the Norwegian tropical house poster child has finally announced that it will come out on in May – and to satiate his fans’ thirst in the meantime, he’s uploaded a minimix of tracks from the album to Soundcloud.
If the minimix is any indicator, Kygo hasn’t strictly resigned himself to reinforcing stereotypes associated with tropical house. Many of the songs are rich in instrumentals and diverse in tempo, seeing the DJ/producer refrain from pigeonholing himself into the pan-flute-and-steel-drum sound with which many have come to associate him.
While it’s too early to gauge how his fans will receive his stylistic exploration, I respect it for its execution. It would be one thing if he tried to explore other sounds and failed, but each track sounds like it’s something that he was meant to make.
As far as the album itself is concerned, Kygo‘s Cloud Nine will come out through Sony Music on May 13th. If you get hooked on one of the sounds on the minimix in the SoundCloud player above, look out for it over the next couple months as he’s likely to leak more singles out early.