Kaskade Shares Emotional Story with Latest Installment of Arkade Destinations Series

It’s not unusual for the man who brought us tracks such as “Eyes” and “I Remember” to go heavy on the emotions, but his latest release comes with a personal story about a near-death accident he had in Iceland.

Arkade Destinations is a series started by Kaskade last year. “The idea behind this compilation was to put together a collection of music that was inspired by a location.” The first installment took listeners to Tulum, Mexico and now we’re traveling to Iceland.

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The 1st time I went to Iceland it was on an airplane on fire. I was on a flight home after completing a European tour, sleeping, when I woke up to the smell of burning plastic. As the main cabin started to get hazy and fill with smoke, it was obvious that something was really wrong. Before my heart could start to race+ my imagination could go crazy we got the DING + the captain came on and told us they were preparing to make an emergency landing in Reykjavik. I had a lot of questions. But the biggest one was: how far is Reykjavik? My seat was stuck in its comfortable-but-not-emergency-crash-landing-ideal fully reclined position. With no power to the cabin – it was not going to change. I sat there on top of my makeshift bed with my legs crossed, hair in full bed head mode wondering where I ditched my sandals. I was a little fuzzy from the long weekend and the lack of sleep but this was starting to feel real. It did occur to me that maybe just laying back down and riding it out on this crappy pillow was the best way to go – but the attendants brought me back to an empty seat where I could sit for the landing. As I walked back I saw people crying, and whimpering – couples holding hands and even people praying. The question begged to be asked, am I going to die this afternoon? Is this really the end because it seemed so anti climactic…I mean, EDM has not even happened yet. I sat down. Seeing people so distraught really affected me. It made it real. I prayed to see Naomi again, I prayed to see my girls again. I looked out the window and all I could see was the ocean. We were low but we were flying. When the land finally came in site… when we could finally see Iceland… everyone started to clap and spontaneously cheer, like we were at a soccer match. After all the emergency procedures were done and everyone was off the plane they shuttled us on busses into downtown Reykjavik. People boarded the busses randomly hugging one another, smiling and laughing sharing their stories of what happened swapping bits of info. I sat on that bus riding along the beautiful oceanfront, sun shining on my face, thinking how grateful I was to be alive.

A post shared by @ kaskade on Oct 8, 2019 at 8:08pm PDT

The 2-disc, 27-track collection is the soundtrack to an Icelandic adventure featuring sounds from Lipless, Blue Noir, MR TAPE, Finnstagram, LoKii, and more. The tracks blend so fluidly it listens as one continuous mix.

About this latest installment, Kaskade said, “I have long felt that you are affected by your surroundings – I know that I write music differently depending on my environment. For this project, I took the idea further – rounded up a bunch of my musically talented friends and headed to Iceland, where we immersed ourselves in the beauty of the country, ate good food, told jokes and spent some time in the studio together. It really was an amazing trip and incredibly inspiring. This is the product of that trip. From my friends and I, a 2CD compilation that I continuously mixed with some new music – inspired by a beautiful place. I hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed creating it!”

You’re in luck because Kaskade will be making TWO stops in Arizona next month. First, at Dusk Music Festival in Tucson Arizona and then in Phoenix at Track Club. Grab tickets in the links.

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