Hailing from The Netherlands, Kai Hugo (a.k.a. Palmbomen II) has secured a great deal of acclaim in the global electronic music community for his phantasmal lo-fi sound. A graduate of the Red Bull Music Academy, Hugo and his band Palmbomen put out their first EP via Non Records in 2010, followed by their debut LP, Night Flight Europa, in 2013, taking on a retro-futuristic pop sound with catchy vocal melodies.

Deciding it was time for a change, Hugo migrated from Berlin to Los Angeles in 2014 with a desire to pursue his personal, synth-based intuitions while getting his fill of sunshine and “palmbomen” (which translates as palm trees in Dutch). It was in Los Angeles that Hugo developed a fascination for film, prompting a self-directed music video series for his breakthrough, self-titled debut as Palmbomen II—released on Tim Sweeney’s Beats In Space imprint in March of 2015. Hugo recorded the album back in Berlin while awaiting his visa to the states and binge watching old VHS tapes of the X-Files, which subsequently led him to name each track on the LP after various minor characters from the classic TV show. Cryptic and impressionable, the video series‘ VHS/’80s inspired aesthetics perfectly match that of Palmbomen II’s dusty and laved analog sound.

The day before leaving The City of Angeles for a three-month long touring stint through Europe, Hugo met up with XLR8R near the beaches of Malibu and brought along his complex hardware setup to lay down 14 minutes of relaxed rhythms and signals for your viewing pleasure.