Fri. November 12, 2021
Coming to you with some good news today! We are extremely proud to be presenting the Vancouver debut of the exceptionally lovely & talented Erika De Casier *LIVE* at Paradise on Thurs. March 24th.
Presale: Monday, November 15 @ 10am
Public On-sale: Wednesday, November 17 @ 10am Local
Erika de Casier is a breath of fresh air to anyone with a passion for music in all its genres, who’d bang a ‘90s jungle track and Mariah Carey in the same sitting. With hushed, pillow-soft vocals and production that references turn-of-the-millennium sounds, the Copenhagen songwriter-producer’s sound surveys the past while looking to the future. Newly signed to 4AD, her album Sensational marks a new chapter for Erika, an expansion of her sound that pushes to new creative heights.
2019’s Essentials, de Casier’s first full-length project, tapped into Y2K classics via Darkchild-style harp plucks, choppy breakbeats and UKG organ stabs. Rather than sounding like a relic of pop culture past, though, it felt hyper fresh and exciting – like you could file it next to both Sade and Yaeji. That record, released via her own Independent Jeep label, was a slow burn, shared feverishly among music fans including Clairo, Shygirl and Dua Lipa. “It was very surreal and very sweet but frightening at the same time,” de Casier says, “because then people had expectations of me, and I hadn't had that before.” Praise for her music has been widespread: Essentials graced Best Of 2019 lists at Mixmag, FACT, Crack, Dummy and more, even making Gorilla vs Bear’s best of the decade list. Type Erika’s name into Twitter and you’ll see people constantly discovering her work with joy.
Born in Portugal to Belgian and Cape Verdean parents and raised in Ribe, Denmark, Erika was one of the only mixed-race kids in her school. She dipped into creative pursuits around this time, drawing and painting and browsing the library for CDs to listen to on her Walkman. After leaving school in Aarhus, she downloaded music software and began producing her own material, finding that the time flew by. Adding her vocals to the production, she would whisper them out of necessity (the paper-thin walls of her flatshare), but these breathy, intimate lines would become her calling card.
In Denmark, Erika aligned herself with the Regelbau collective who are known for reshaping rave sounds, lending her vocals to tracks like DJ Central’s ‘Drive’ and covering Sovereign’s garage banger ‘Truly’. With her name bubbling gently among crate-diggers and forum heads, de Casier gradually evolved into making solo music, sending sketches of her sounds to her friend Natal Zaks (aka DJ Central, or El Trick) that would form Essentials.
With Sensational, Erika de Casier has produced a body of work that is deeply personal, that stands up next to the pop and R&B greats she used to listen to on her Walkman. It’s like being let in on a secret you won’t be able to keep to yourself.
