So Much Light was born Damien Verrett, a songwriting savant whose five-song EP, Idiot Soul, was just released on Anti Records. With four original tracks and an acoustic version of Drake’s “Connect,” it’s a tasty treat of electrosoul, ala Toro Y Moi and Flume.

The 24-year-old’s songs—created by manipulating acoustic instruments such as marimbas, vibraphones and pianos—are intelligent and sophisticated but still earnest, emotional yet still complex, and seamlessly mashes prog-rock with R&B. Idiot Soul (the title track and the album, actually) is so delicious (and that Drake cover!) it pretty much deserves to be on all your playlists for workouts, hanging out, driving—it will fulfill all your music needs.

So Much Light premieres an acoustic version of the title track of his EP on Myspace. Watch the video above and read below as Verrett talks about the origin of his name, being a millennial musician, why he chose to cover Drake and that time someone wrote him some fanmail...

Hometown: I’m from Elk Grove, California. It’s a suburb of Sacramento. For a couple years while I was growing up it was the fastest growing city in the country.

Homebase: Now I live in Sacramento. While growing up I never considered the idea of moving there. I always thought it’d be cool to live somewhere like San Francisco. But the way Sacramento has been developing recently has been a lot of fun to be around. Missing out on watching my hometown become a cool city would be too much to bear.

How did you discover music? What did you listen to growing up?

My dad has been in and out of bands his whole life so music was around me from day 1. He really plays everything; guitar, saxophone, keys, harmonica. On top of that exposure to music, I went through all of the phases a kid in the late ‘90s and early ‘00s was supposed to. I listened to the Backstreet Boys (although later in life I’m realizing NSYNC were always better), Eminem, Nelly and TLC. I started playing guitar after getting into Pop Punk. The first song I ever learned was “Dammit” by Blink 182.

What is the song “Idiot Soul” about?

Idiot Soul is meant to be a sort of cynical retelling of the Cinderella fairytale. It’s twisted around so the dashing prince is this high society vulture preying upon a naïve Cinderella character who is placing him on a pedestal because of his social class.

I don’t like the way that I hear men talking about women. When dudes are talking about girls they’re interested in at a bar it’s so degrading. It’s like they’re treating this person as though they were soulless.

Talk about the first time you realized you wanted to sing and perform for others.

I started recording before I started thinking about performing. I had a little 4 track recorder that I’d use to do Talking Heads and Smiths covers. I still have those tapes somewhere and I’m terrified of them. I don’t want to hear how bad I sounded.

After jamming with my friends for a while we put a band together called Forestry Fighters. We played a show at the Western Festival in town in front of nobody but our friends and family. The more I started to play in front of people the more I began to realize that connecting with people was the main reason I wanted to be doing music.

Do you remember the first song you ever wrote?

I used to go on this website called Songfight.org. Every week they’d put up a song title and you’d have a week to write and record a song using that title. At the end of the week everybody would vote on which song they liked the best. I used to enter just about every week.

One of the songs was called “Applesauce Baptism”. I wrote it about finding a group of creatures in the woods that are doing some kind of crazy woodland ritual where they’re dunking each other into pools of applesauce. I started out writing some really weird songs.

What's your songwriting process like?

My process changes from song to song. Lately I’ve enjoyed starting with building a palette of sounds. That’s the smallest component you can work with as a musician. It’s like a painter mixing their own paints. When you’re working with new sounds you have a completely clean slate. If I use a drum sample I’ve used before or heard in another song it makes it hard to separate that sound from those other contexts. Having brand new sounds makes it easier for me to come up with new ideas.

Who are your musical heroes and why do they inspire you?

Joanna Newsom is a huge inspiration to me. The thought and care that are put into everything she releases is unreal. On top of that, her musicianship and the fact that she continues to improve her skill set with every release is amazing. She would definitely be my desert island artist. I could put her records on a loop and never get sick of it.

Why do you call yourself So Much Light?

I like the name So Much Light because of how visual it sounds and how adaptable the meaning is. It evokes images of basking in pools of sunshine or some sort of transcendence. Light is a solely positive force which makes it feel almost magical. I also like how ambiguous the name is. It could be describing some glorious spiritual scene or maybe it’s just a passive observation. It doesn’t beat you over the head with anything.

How does living in Sacramento influence your songwriting style?

Some amazing math rock bands have come out of Sacramento. Listening to bands like Tera Melos and Hella was a big part of my musical development. During that period I was gravitating away from standard verse/chorus structures. Since then, I’ve moved back towards more digestible structures, but I think my experience working with those looser songwriting techniques helps me come up with more interesting melodies and rhythms than I might have been able to think up otherwise.

Why cover Drake, and what other songs are on your list to cover?

I feel like Drake represents a cultural shift in pop and hip hop music towards people being comfortable talking about what makes them sad. Since releasing Nothing Was the Same Drake has put out some more standard self-aggrandizing songs, but on “Connect” he sounds so vulnerable. I think it’d be amazing if there were a famous pop star who could embody that aspect of the human experience; feeling insecure and fighting through those insecurities towards self-betterment. I’m not counting love songs either. Being an emotional human being in popular culture is too often reduced to how we react to our relationships. That’s such a huge dumbing down of what being a person is really like.

How do you describe your music to people who haven't heard it before?

If somebody’s asking what my music sounds like I’d much rather play them a song than deal with the struggle of trying to describe it. But if I were trapped in an elevator and somebody was asking what my music sounded like and both of our phones were dead and I didn’t feel like singing I would just tell them I sing R&B influenced pop music and tell them to visit https://soundcloud.com/so_much_light as soon as the fire department lets us out of this elevator.

I once had a fan of my old band The Speed of Sound in Seawater email me a very descriptive retelling of the sex she had with her husband to one of our songs.