In a recent interview, New York-bred songwriter, producer, and one-time FADER FORT DJ Ryan DeRobertis—aka Saint Pepsi—explained why his live sets are often extremely upbeat. "I just want people to walk away from it happy," he told Interview, "that euphoric feeling that you get when you're at a high school dance, if you didn't hate high school." The two songs on his debut Carpark Records 7-inch, the blindingly catchy "Fiona Coyne" and now "Fall Harder," meld wobbly disco, New Wave, and contemporary electro-pop in a way that recalls the post-genre meddling that music blogs started calling "chillwave" in the summer of 2009. Except where "chillwave" or "glo-fi" often conveyed nondescript emotions and the vaguest sort of nostalgia, Saint Pepsi's songs are more in-your-face, choosing to focus on the very specific feeling of crushing on someone so hard that it's borderline painful. For more, find out what's on Saint Pepsi's reading list currently in our What We're Reading column.
Stream: Saint Pepsi, "Fall Harder"
