Track listing: Bins Baby, GCash, Dreamin', Could've Been, Heyoyo'El x Nutahe'Yah, Yai Yai d'Farang, Return of the Crag

Pulsing. Haunting. Hypnotic. Attention-grabbing. A baby's cry opens Oklahoma City-based EDM/Hip-Hop artist Steven Gaines' latest album, Dreamin'. Known more around OKC for his lyrics and rhymes, Gaines drops these 7 tracks as a late-night club package--ready to mix right into the DJ's vinyl bin.

"Bins Baby" sets the mood with its mysterious reverb-laden female vocal accompanied occasionally by an infant's wimper. The bass line is so massive you feel it from your chest, up through your spine, deep into your nasal passage. An unrelenting beat. Contrast this against "GCash": a much more poppy, almost New Jack groove that incorporates all sorts of sluggish, warbled synth tones. 

The record's title track introduces an acoustic piano interspersed with spoken word muffled and distorted nearly to the point of non-recognition. Back-to-back "Heyoyo'El x Nutahe'Yah" and "Yai Yai d'Farang" take the listener down a cinematic, hyper-trance wormhole--I feel like I'm falling through the cosmos, only occasionally getting a dreamy glimpse of what I used to understand as reality (and I'm not even under the influence of anything atm!).

Dreamin' is a journey into sound, into a universe where the colors form out of rhythms and the temperature is measured in melody. It's a trip, to be sure. Check out Dreamin' on all the major streaming platforms (distrokid.com/hyperfollow/stevengaines/dreamin) then take the journey a little bit further, uncovering Steven Gaines' more true-to-form Hip-Hop sounds.