Rising Canadian music producer NICOLAAS has released his new single “Shot In the Dark” featuring vocals from Nick Allbrook (frontman for Pond; former member of Tame Impala). “Shot In the Dark” (Haven Sounds) is a dark disco house track that also fits in Nick’s psych-rock wheelhouse he’s best known for. Listen to the song now below.
“‘Shot In The Dark’ is a colorful mix,” shares NICOLAAS aka Rob Bakker. “My goal was to walk the line between dark disco and glam rock, and to do that justice, I knew I needed a bold and stylish vocal performance. Lucky for me, Nick was feeling the demo, and he really ran with it! I’ve been a huge fan of his for years, so being able to collaborate on this track has been an absolute treat. The louder you play this, the better.”
Allbrook adds, “I’ve heard the word ‘manifestation’ a whole lot recently, and I think it applies to Rob reaching out with this song, and how I gently asked the universe for a dark disco house banger to sing over by listening to Kylie’s Slow and Dinosaur L and Ray of Light every day for a few months and dreaming of disco balls and the club and a burning pyre of guitars.”
“Shot In the Dark” is the latest offering from the emerging producer who recently issued the electro-funk track “XXO feat. Chela” and the trippy, electro-synth “Daydream feat. Millionyoung.” NICOLAAS has been steadily releasing original music since his disco-fueled debut single “No Stranger Thing feat. Lucy Mason” dropped earlier this year, followed by the groovy “Real Escape.” Official remixes are available for “No Stranger Thing” from Pages and Louis La Roche and for “Real Escape” by Disco Despair and Robert Parker; the official remix of “Daydream” from electronic trio Kraak & Smaak is coming soon.
NICOLAAS marks a new beginning for Bakker. As a revered rapper and producer in the world of hip-hop under the pseudonym Muneshine, his compositions dominated the underground Canadian scene, earning him multiple Juno Award nominations, a Much Music Video Award nomination, and a win of the prestigious SOCAN Songwriters Award. As Muneshine, he’s collaborated with a noteworthy list of artists including Tom Waits, Pete Rock, Sean Price, D-Sisive, DJ Spinna, and more. While critically fulfilled, Rob was exhausted musically and had creatively hit a wall. “Everything was mundane. The sounds I relied on went stale,” he explains. “My structures and content…nothing excited me. I needed something new and I needed to wrap it in a shiny new package. My greys needed some neon.” To do this, Rob turned up the BPMs and pulled from inspirations he’d never dreamed of accessing – genres he admired from a distance like disco, house and funk, as well artists such as Nile Rodgers, Blondie, Daft Punk and Toro Y Moi. He began creating like he’d never created before. “I abandoned the style of sampling and reworking someone else’s song and wrote my own melodies. The energy felt alive. I felt born again.” To complete the transformation, Rob decided to retire the pseudonym he was so well known for and identify by his middle name, NICOLAAS.