Live Review: Paces brings pop to the fore on his high-energy guest mix

If there's one Aussie artist who is revelling in this recent pop revival to its absolute maximum, it's PACES. The Gold Coast based producer has just dropped his second record ZAG and it is absolutely teeming with top notch collaborations, heavy inklings of the training and external education he undertook whilst writing the record and an incredibly insightful flair for creating heavy-hitting, punchy pop music.

He's responsible for one of the most watched Like A Versions in history with Guy Sebastian (who also makes a cheeky guest appearance on Paces' record) which is why it's so cool to see that on this record, he's taking his relationship to pop music to new heights.

ZAG captures an experience, one that we were lucky enough to chat with Mikey about on our radio show on FBi Radio last weekend. You can listen back to the full interview here.

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On his experience creating with this record, he talks about how he "put myself through a Berklee College course on harmony, so just like chord theory basically. I also started working a lot more with pop songwriters and I leaned into my hip-hop influences a little bit more. I did things differently. The first time I was finding my voice in a lot of ways. I'm proud of the first album, but I think things changed a lot in those two years and you can really hear it in the music."

The record was inspired by a single tweet from FlexMami, and I think this is definitely a record that stays true to the mantra: When everyone expects you to zig, just zag, binch!

ZAG is a rare record. One where it hinges on collaboration, but is defined by these poignant production moments that could only come from Paces. It's a record that celebrates growth, but is defined by change.

To celebrate, we got Paces to jump on the guest mix for our show on FBi Radio. He last delivered a mix for us back in 2016, and the mix featured some defining singles for that particular era of pop and electronic music. His last mix featured the likes of SOPHIE, Nina Las Vegas, GoldLink and more.

Fast forward to 2018, and I like to think that his new guest mix embodies that same celebratory spirit, but with bigger flair and a greater understanding and passion for the genre. His latest mix also features tracks from SOPHIE, Nina Las Vegas and more, but I think the beauty of these mixes being created two years apart, is that he's showing how pop music is constantly evolving.