Indian Wells is an Italian producer who has been releasing music since the early 2010s. He’s probably best known stateside for releasing an album and an EP on Friend of Friends back in 2017 and 2018, respectively. Now he’s hopped on to the British label Mesh to release a new EP, New Ruins.

New Ruins is an interesting project in that Indian Wells went out to the countryside in Southern Italy to record the project, but instead of writing something peaceful and serene inspired by the beauty of his surroundings, he began to think about the environment and the short-term ways of life that so many people live and the damage that we do to our own planet. This in turn inspired Indian Wells to write an EP that sounds very urgent, and driven by synthesized sounds, whether they be keyboards or drum machines. He’s brining in influences of house, industrial, hip hop, and experimental electronic music, crafting a style of music that is eerie and intriguing. He’s switching up his drum patterns and coming at you in some unexpected ways that really push the music forward, but then he’s also putting in the work to really develop the songs melodically as well, so that these songs will stick in your head after the EP is over. Indian Wells finds a great balance between the two, so that while you’ll enjoy the music while it’s playing, you will never get too complacent while you’re listening to it. And that’s the idea – reflect on the environment and how you interact with it, but don’t ever get complacent and take it for granted.

New Ruins is an excellent EP from Indian Wells, both on a basic level of musicality and on the level of the underlying message to it. Enjoy the music, but don’t take this planet for granted.