ALT-ELECTRONIC ARTIST/PRODUCER ARK PATROL ANNOUNCES NEW ALBUM GEM
June 17, 2024 BY Bailey Vigliaturo
Today, alternative electronic artist and producer Ark Patrol announces his new album GEM, out via Nettwerk August 23. The Hawaii-born, LA-based artist has been trickling out pieces of the project since the beginning of the year.
Today, listeners are treated to the E EP, the second portion of GEM, following March EP G. The four-track E includes features from indie pop/funk-RnB artist SEB on scintillating dance-pop banger “FOLN4U,” and precocious genre-bending artist Lecx Stacy on EP cut “Relief.”
To build out the surreal visual world of GEM, Ark Patrol has enlisted the help of director/3D animator Anna Chandler (Selena Gomez, Sabrina Carpenter, Khruangbin). Today, Ark Patrol debuts the B&W music video for “Relief,” building on the bird’s eye view of a metallic landscape of dunelike mountains in the “FOLN4U” lyric video and the kaleidoscopic patterns in the “La Mina” lyric video.
The video follows a tall, slender figure with a lightbulb for a head in pursuit of a gem. Fantasy and reality intersect as the figure makes their way through canyons, dunes and a cave and passes by ancient looking columns and artifacts. It’s the exact type of visual that feels tailor made for an electronic festival.
His first album in five years, the 13-song GEM mixes vocal tracks and instrumentals to form a chronological narrative, drawing on sounds, emotions and themes from childhood, through adolescence, and into young adulthood. The album runs parallel to Ark Patrol’s own life experience, as both a performer and a cancer survivor.
“Across 2016-2021 I was convinced I was going to die of cancer only to turn out as a viral artist,” Ark Patrol shares. “I received more positive attention and resources than I knew how to process. Following that, my reality dimmed heavily. Meaning began to disappear and gravity shifted. Combined with unchecked childhood abuse, these events formed an opening through which I could outline answers.”
As Ark Patrol continues to embrace introspection and narrative with his new music, his catalog, which boasts over half a billion streams across DSPs, continues to resonate with fans and artists alike. GEM sees Ark Patrol reconnect with singer Veronika Redd who previously worked with him on 2016 viral hit “Let Go” which has surpassed over 200M streams across DSPs.
“I consider GEM a personal memoir and an armature on which to hang your own experiences,” he leaves off.
With G and E out in the world, Ark Patrol is two-thirds of the way toward spelling out GEM. Stay tuned for more music and live shows to come in this exciting new chapter.
GEM LP Tracklist
You Know
Top Of The World
Oui (with Veronika Redd)
Origin
Tomorrow Can Wait (with Fifi Zhang)
FOLN4U (with SEB) ‡
La Mina ‡
Painting In A Low ‡
Relief (with Lecx Stacy) ‡
Say
Too Far
Control
Estudio
‡ Track appears on E EP
