#For Neo-Soul and Conscious Vibes:

[instructionsonback]

[actuallydrinkingtea]

My Top 5 Song Picks of 2024

In no particular order:

Duvet by BOA

Rise by Raveena

Make Friends by Hiatus Kaiyote

Weird by KAYTRANADA & Durand Bernarr

It Ain’t Over ‘Til It’s Over by Lenny Kravitz

Honorary Mentions:

Survival (album) by Hope Tala

Badlands by Earth Surface People

Where the Butterflies Go in the Rain (album) by Raveena

Dirt Roads by Tia Wood

26 by Caamp (Hellooooo, I got married at 26 this year, literally.)

Judge Judy by Tyler, the Creator

Duvet is like a warm vanilla-sugar Bath & Body Works™ hug from my childhood. It's nostalgic, hopeful, and gives you that warm, fuzzy feeling inside. I remember when this song blew up again (it dropped back in ‘98, but made its TikTok return in ‘21, and again in ‘23), and we all started manifesting that 2024 would feel like this song. The whole trend of romanticizing your life and embracing being just a little bit delusional? Honestly, it's a great reframing practice. It helps us appreciate the life we have and the small, beautiful moments.

Rise is straight-up about activism—“rising up” against everything wrong in the world. Raveena has been outspoken about Free Palestine, queer, and abortion rights at her shows and on social media. She’s an actual earth angel. I was lucky enough to meet her at a guided meditation she hosted before her performance at Showbox Sodo. The experience was so calming and grounding, and it gave me a deeper appreciation for her as both an artist and a person. After the show, she went straight to the merch table to meet and greet her fans. I can't stress enough how genuine she is in her fan service—she truly loves and appreciates the people who support her. That’s rare in this industry. I’m telling you, unless she decides to go live in an eco-conscious community somewhere (which would also suit her vibe, tbh), Raveena is on track to become the next Stevie Nicks. I know, I know, we shouldn't pit women against each other, but hear me out—every generation needs that iconic, barefoot goddess twirling on stage, backed by insane talent. And Raveena? She’s the one. The way she blends spirituality, activism, femininity, queerness, Indian roots, neo-soul, and early-2000s R&B is pure genius. I can't wait to see what projects she shares with us in 2025.

Make Friends by Hiatus Kaiyote. So, here’s the thing: I’ve been slowly diving into more Hiatus Kaiyote over the past year and a half. It started with Slip Into Something Soft and Nakamarra, then evolved into Everything Is Beautiful (and for the Adventure Time fans, don’t miss their track BMO is Beautiful featuring THE Niki Yang iykyk). But when I first listened, I had no idea what the band looked like. So you can imagine my surprise when I Googled them and saw a group of white Aussie musicians making the kind of soulful, funky, jazzy music I associate with Black artists in the R&B, soul, and jazz traditions. It’s fascinating because their sound is so rooted in those genres, but they’re coming from a completely different cultural background. It got me thinking about how genres like R&B and jazz have always transcended boundaries, and how it’s cool to see artists from around the world drawing from these rich, Black musical traditions. Reddit confirmed I wasn’t the only one taken aback by the band's Aussie roots, but honestly, I can’t deny that they make it work. Make Friends is a straight-up bop, and it’s all about that real connection—when you find your people, you just vibe. Anyway, moving on!

Weird by KAYTRANADA & Durand Bernarr. This one hit me hard in 2024. Sometimes I’m the one judging the "weird" person in the room, but other times I am that weird person. As a socially awkward 20-something with a bit of Capricorn energy, I don’t always mesh with certain social settings—and sometimes, I’m just being a little bit of a bitch. This whole album is a banger, but this song? It clicked with me in a way I didn’t expect. The ‘Timeless’ album was a frequent pick for my hot girl walks in 2024.

It Ain’t Over ‘Til It’s Over—and this post ain’t over yet! 2024 was the year Lenny Kravitz blessed us with his tour, new music, and—perhaps most memorably—that video of him bench-pressing in leather pants and a mesh shirt at the gym. Honestly, I’m pretty sure that viral moment almost topped the blanket scarf meme. Thank you for your service, LK. I promise I’ll finally listen to Blue Electric Light in the new year.

2024 was a year of embracing the awkward, the beautiful, and everything in between. Music was my guide through it all—helping me find moments of peace while also pushing me to confront the parts of myself I’d once kept hidden. From standing up for what truly matters to connecting with those who see and feel the same way, this year was about evolving, unlearning, and stepping into my truth without hesitation. Here’s to carrying that forward—more growth, more love, and more of those beautifully imperfect moments in the year ahead.

Song links <3 tagged below

[greysfall]

My 4444-word review of NEO TWEWY (with personal illustration + heavy spoilers)

My overall critical score for the game is 7.5/10, while my personal enjoyment score is 8.5/10. This review is posted as I have 80% completed the game, got the secret ending and achieved the Angel psychic rank. I’ll first start with the main pros and cons as follows.

PROS:

-        Enjoyable as a whole, still upholding the first game’s spirit in world building and sharing the same backbone - which was mostly revealed in the Secret Reports, it’s impossible to grasp the story without reading them.

-        The new cast and new game is charming in their own way

-        The old cast’s return is one of the biggest highlights for sure, it was fun and impactful. Everyone stays true to themselves and also had their own stories wrapped up nicely.

-        Boss designs are cool, new pins are fun to use and collect

-        The connection between the old and new cast is well written and executed, including but are not limited to the tension between the old and new protagonist, the weird but fun interaction between the 2 Composers, the new friendships revealed and formed

-        Sho being in the main cast is something so uniquely TWEWY and uniquely Sho

-        Still good music

-        Still many fun side quests, some of them really uphold the same quirky spirit of the old game and some are surprisingly touching

-        Many new nice stores and yummy looking foods to explore

-        The map is really easy to memorize for me, it’s fun to travel around the “current” Shibuya to see all the differences compared to the past

-        The social network is crazy and interesting to read through

-        Has an anti-frustration system to help 100% complete the game more easily and earn money faster, so post-game is relatively managable.

-        Overall, I really feel the efforts the team poured into making this as their passion project, not just during the development process but for all the last 14 years. They showed the vision of what they wanted to make, at the same time giving something to both the old as well as new fans.

CONS:

-        The biggest problem with the game is scenario writing. The story is so heavily back-loaded. The director himself thought it would be better to balance out the tension flow by adding more at the beginning but gave in to the scenario writer in the end, probably due to time pressure. This results in an underwhelming execution of characterization and lots of wasted potentials for the first half of the game.  

-        I struggle to view it as a stand-alone game, since the backstory and the old cast both play such an important role in the core of the game. If someone plays this game without having played the OG, they can only enjoy it on surface value at best.

-        The new cast is nice but most of them aren’t quite as intriguing as the old cast, maybe it’s cuz they’re all too nice deep down that they lack a little bit of an edge, of that batshit craziness that everyone in the OG used to have? I think some characters (Fret, Nagi) ended up weaker in terms of characterization because the writer is too afraid of making them unlikeable – which kind of backlashed cuz they only became likable in the most expectable way to cater for a specific group of fans. I would have wished for the other team leaders to be more crazy too, had they not suffered 30+ loops of the Game…

-        The CAMERAWORK IS HELL.

-        Gameplay does get tedious at certain points with all the time travels.

-        Shiba is so badly written as a villain, some Shinjuku characters should be given more screentime cutting into Shiba’s– like Hishima or Kaie or even, Hazuki (though his limited presence also solidified his importance).

-        Some of the main character designs, for example Beat’s hairstyle and his food reactions are hilariously bad. What’s the point of covering up most of his unique facial features?

-        Some of the minor/side characters’ design are too cool for them to have such a small role (eg: Ayano, Eiru). Ryoji did get much screentime but is nowhere as fun as Makoto was.

-        Overall the scope of this game is made a little too big for the team to handle as perfectly as the last game that was very compact, it felt somewhat rushed in development too so the missing pieces are clearly there in the final picture

The entry fee versus paying for it all in the end

An important difference between the Neo game and the original Shibuya game was that the Shibuya rule asked for an entry fee that is the Player’s most important asset, stated as a chance the Composer gives them to reexamine themselves. Meanwhile, the Shinjuku rule neither encourages nor allows personal growth and ultimately aims to erase as many Players as possible. It’s a pity we were never introduced to the full Shinjuku rulebook, as it seems like the system there focuses more on building up power and a grand government to compare with the individuality-driven system of Shibuya.

When you have to compare the new game and the original game (OG), this is an important factor to consider. Also, the OG has a serious storyline running through and through, locked with a different partner/GM creating unique atmosphere for each week and you don’t get to see your old partners again until the end. NEO’s team system does not allow such deep insight and communication between the Players. All of your teammates are always there throughout, the dynamic does change with each new addition but it is not as prominent as a partner change.

Another important factor is how the OG was built from scratch for a new platform as “something no one has ever seen before”, while Neo recycled a lot of old unused ideas from the previous development (check out this interview for more details). The development team for NEO lacks 2 key members and had a change of writer so the final product is not as strongly bound together as the last game.

The new cast is definitely inspired by today’s teenagers (from the view of creators), compared to the old cast they’re more sociable and always seem to take whatever works for them despite feeling unstable inside. They are all innocent and genuinely nice kids, avoiding to hurt each other to a degree that they end up keeping some sort of distance. They’re also unable to communicate at deeper levels, always stagnant at this half-baked stage of equilibrium without any motivation to get to the core of things. That is the cost of entering the game without an entry fee, without even dying or having a reason to be there/to fight seriously. These kids were stolen from the RG into a Game that was decidedly the worst environment for them to change or develop, just wandering around cluelessly to find a way “out” until tragedies started to unfold one by one and they ended up being charged the total sum of the price for their actions – ultimately losing everything in the end.

That is, I believe, a story arc which can resonate more to the youth of today rather than of my generation. If the message of the old game was to “listen”, enjoy life to the fullest and accept to trust others, the message of the new game is to “speak up” from the inside, trying to understand yourself and take actions instead of just going with the flow and finally, to take responsibility for such actions.

If Neku was handpicked by the Composer for being the special one with an all-dense soul to ensure victory of the game then Rindo was just a normal kid chosen out of random by Kubo to be his back-up plan, who just happened to have a high enough imagination to awaken the incredible power from his pin. Rindo was then officially chosen by the Composer as Josh picked up and handed the pin to him again, this time not as Josh’s personal Proxy – but as the Proxy to represent the normal people of Shibuya and via whom he could gamble if humans can fight for their own fate.

The underworld heroine and the hero with little of his own

Shoka is for me a refreshing and layered heroine. She’s the kind of character that took at least 3 trials of creators to form as a complete individual – that included Nomura who gave her the base design and Reaper background, Gen who gave a more cunning touch and the writers who made her English dialogues more punchy. Dishonesty equals “tsundere” is such a cliché, so the English writers tried really hard to avoid that trope in my opinion, while still letting her good intention come through.

She serves as the character who is informed of everything the players should have known, and there was almost nothing she could do about it. Almost. Until she met Rindo.

They were drawn to each other by sharing a state of “not having anything of their own”. They both started out with not being able to truly know themselves, Shoka even hated her RG life but also managed to mature from that stage before Rindo. She must have vibed with Shiki’s love and passion in the Gatto Nero threads, initiating her connection with Shibuya and understanding herself more. With Shoka as Swallow, they were able to open up to each other and offer mental support… but was still not getting to the centre of their problems because for all this time, Shoka could not tell Rindo the most important things about herself.

How did Shoka feel when she met Rindo at the UG? She probably didn’t want to hope that he would live the day until she witnessed the Twisters’ potentials. From the very beginning, they were both incredibly conscious of each other and also constantly frustrated that the person they happened to “notice” was such a condescending bitch/a clueless loser. The Shinjuku Reapers are overall quite drunk in power and uncompassionate to Players, Shoka included. She is also a master of dissociation, which results in her constant boredom, tone swings, haughtiness and subconsciously distancing herself from the friend – the boy she cares about – from false hope, as she judged from facts that it was a hopeless situation where nothing could ever be. Maybe she is naturally a bit of a chameleon just like her name suggests (Shoka 紫陽花 = hydrangea, the color-changing flower), so putting on an act and always dissociating herself from what’s important was easy, while hiding her contradiction was impossible. It was the ex-Reaper Beat who broke it out to her, that she should decide whether she really cared and wanted to do something for a change. He knew how it felt like to cross that line, and knew she wanted to too.  

Shoka is endeared by many of the Shinjuku Reapers and has shown independent acts of kindness (the Shinjuku ghost), proving that her kind and truthful side is as real as her harsh and dishonest side – which makes her a nice mirror to the previous heroine Shiki, who also embraced a dichotomy of self-complex and self-love within her character. In the end, she was the first of the new cast to ultimately accept all that is important to her and independently made the decision to help save Shibuya despite all costs.

She was jealous at Rindo’s interaction with Tsugumi and Kanon but remained silent cuz she wasn’t at a place to have any say about it. She also didn’t reveal about Swallow because that would only add an awkward irrelevance to their current situation, as she was too ready to face erasure at the end of the Game. She only wished to “play a game” with him, be it FanGo or the Reapers’ Game. The tension that the team could only feel at the end, she’s felt it the entire time. The song “DIVIDE” is applicable to not just one bond in the game, but it always makes me think of theirs. There is always a “divide” between her and Rindo throughout the course of their journey, as the living and the dead, as a Player and Reaper, as someone who has a place to return to and someone who doesn’t, someone who knows little but wields too much power and someone who knows a lot despite not being able to do much.

“If only I had the chance to connect with you on the other side

But time goes on, and without us realizing it

The battle is getting heated

Time goes on, and without us realiazing it

Divided again”

To be honest, maybe I didn’t grow any affection for the new main cast from Rindo’s perspective but from Shoka’s. Since I started to sympathize with Shoka, I started to see the boy in a more “real” way. The real Rindo, behind his peaceful façade with others, would lash out on Shoka for her unfairly harsh attitude while none of the others cared. He could also subtly feel that mantle of unspoken secrets from her, her own contradictions, the unresolved chemistry between themselves – and not knowing what to do with it rather than to feel angry with all the unfairness he could not process. (As a Libra too, he’s triggered the most by unfairness!)

It is actually a positive development as he’s at least “reacting” to something strongly now rather than to keep evading his problems. During my replay, I clearly saw the difficult situation Shoka was in, her remaining harshness after the Motoi incident was due to her internal struggle with a mission to save her own life, versus a chance to really be with the team. Her decision was to do both at the risk of losing favour from both sides. Rindo started to accept her layer by layer, as the person who resonated the most to her contradicting nature from the start and knew that via learning her resolve, he has learnt his too.

Later into the game, she even got too much of his attention. Maybe even without knowing she’s Swallow, he’s familiar with her thinking direction and Swallow had always been closer to him than any other friend. It was only after she had to betray her important ones twice that she could start being truly honest. The scene when she died a 2nd time left a strong impression in me, the little reveal let Rindo know that he is also losing Swallow as he’s losing Shoka – and that only death could drive the last secret out of her. Her final “Later, loser” echoed through Rindo as it was the final truth, with only him remaining to hear it: they had actually, already lost everything.

Rindo was the boy who never dared to face all that matters to him until he lost it all, fighting an unfair battle in the faith that they would somehow still win. Shoka was the girl who always knew what was dear to her, but never dared to think she could be together with them ever after and still threw her all into a battle she knew was losing. I think they stir each other on naturally to fill out their gaps, similar to what the Shibuya game partner systerm would have aimed for. The end reward was a little divine intervention to help close up the divide between them once and for all.  

During the game there was not enough space to process anything personal so at the ending when they officially became “friends”, it was an important affirmation of their bond. Some people complained it was friendzoning but it’s not, they just have arrived at the perfect place to start something more. “From now on, we will truly be together” – I read it as that kind of message.  

The heroine from a lost battle, with her story taken away

After reading the secret reports and playing the game to be surprised of how small a role Tsugumi had in the main game despite being the “Hype-chan” thought to be a major character of the next TWEWY installment, many fans would feel sad at a missed opportunity to see the Shinjuku arc in full depiction.

It was shown clearly that, a Shinjuku arc was very carefully planned out and is a vital part of the whole story, yet it could not be made due to various circumstances behind the development scene. I would assume, that the team were not able to make a TWEWY game that ended on a despairing note, but it already happened in their mind, thus becoming a mental burden that forced them to break away from it and started the game anew with NEO. A significant part of NEO became the healing arc for the Shinjuku characters, especially for Tsugumi though I really wished more emphasis should have been placed on her rather than Shiba. We didn’t even get to see her brother – Shinjuku’s Conductor who had a vital role and instead was given the clueless Shiba, who had absolutely no idea what’s going on all the way until the last day in NEO. It’s as if Tsugumi has had her story stolen away from her, because her own battle ended with a saddening loss.

I think every time the game creators look at Tsugumi, they would feel that sadness too. Maybe to them, she is a bigger character than what is seen by the fans, as despite their failed effort to depict her story, she’s lived in their mind for all these years through periods of destruction, healing and rebuild.  Though it is a pity we could not get to experience the full scope of the Shinjuku story, the creators was clear about the place they wished for it to arrive at.    

Individuality, connection and the social network

The team system adapted from Shinjuku rulebook does not allow much room for personal development, as the team dynamic is closer to a work relationship forced to bear results, than a spiritual bond to max out all corners of understanding as found in the partnership system. The old Shibuya system allowed only 1 winner and 1 week limit per game, while the new rule declares for a 1 winning team and only the team at last place will be erased – the other teams will enter another loop. Furthermore, whichever team to challenge the unwinnable Ruinbringers will face the risk of ending up dead last followed by erasure. As a result, the longest-standing teams are most likely not the strongest ever recorded, but the ones who have figured out a strategy to simply survive until something changes, enjoying their newly found social constructs while they are at it. Basically, it is a system to hypnotise players into the illusion that they are still “living”.

Therefore, we as players would not get to the core of each Player individually as fast and directly as we did in the last game. The Twisters were able to stand out not because they’re powerful, they only started to have a real chance after growing enough to each form a meaningful and personal connection to another teammate. It did not come as a team, nor did it intiate from the existing friendship between Rindo and Fret. In fact, I did not find much solidity or anything truly note-worthy about the main team and new characters within themselves until they started clashing with other team members, Reapers and new recruits from week 2 onwards. Rindo found his personal development with Shoka (via a clash with Motoi and pretty much a mini dating sim between them), then via the confrontation of his role with Neku; Fret found his with Kanon then Nagi, the team learned about the real Neku via Beat, Neku entered the UG via Coco’s wish to save Tsugumi… it was not the team but their personal links that empowered them to fight and solve each of their problems.

The other team leaders may have failed because they did not form such personal links, after 30+ hopeless loops Fuya’s team all fell apart to pursue their own interest even at the cost of erasure, Motoi quit his KOL façade to work like a dog for the Reapers (probably to save just his own ass not his team), while Kanon dropped her tricks to find changes via honest cooperation in acceptance of a fair loss. The despairing note in that is huge without making much of a scene because their failure didn’t happen at their best effort to “win”, but in their last attempt to find a way “out”. Even Shiba got his way “out” in the end thanked to his personal friendship with Hishima and Tsugumi.

Something has shifted in the mindset of the game creators in the last 14 years, as both games are about “connection vs individuality” but the last game focuses more on connection between just individuals and this one on the overall network that is formed out of those individual connections.

The introduction of Beat into the main cast was truly the bridge between old and new, they helped each other out in several turns before officially recruiting him. Beat is a character whom a lot of fans including myself have felt somewhat concerned about after Neku disappeared from the RG, so when the new kids welcomed Beat with warm and organic interaction and Beat seemed happy, I started to feel like I wanted to help them out too! I think the overall team chemistry is enjoyable enough for new players, but I could warm up to the new kids more from the pov of a returning character – whom I’m glad to be Beat, as the older brother figure who is genuinely kind, fun, serious and upbeat at the same time; who is needed and needs the kids in return.

The social network is a fun and refreshing feature. You can read all of the crazy tidbits about Shibuya and the links each character have formed with the town people, it’s also fun to visualize how the characters act off screen. Characters’ profiles provide extra insight into their background too, like how it reveals Tsugumi has been friend with Coco during her time in the RG. During the game when not all characters have showed up, you can sometimes guess which empty spot will belong to whom. For example there is a 1 character linking to Neky that is not linked to anyone else, so I could guess that was Joshua, and that another character linking only to Joshua was probably Hazuki, hinting that the 2 Composers are related before either of them even showed up.

Hazuki only showed up for 5 minutes, but his presence is so vital and true to the game that I think he is the most memorable out of the new cast. The two Composers have such an intriguing bond, with their yin/yang or phoenix/dragon themes, opposite color design, the sempai/kouhai tone and the way they keep some sort of distance/work relationship as if it’s mandatory between Higher beings, yet at the same time they can talk so casually because they are truly equal – and different from one another. I have written a separate meta on them here.

Some people pointed out, that all Shinjuku characters’ names and themes are based off Hanafuda cards and the Phoenix in Hanafuda belongs to the Paulownia suit – which is Joshua’s name flower. This is so interesting because it feels like the creators somehow saw it as a sign to interweave the Shibuya and Shinjuku storylines together. Though it doesn’t come out much on the surface, it’s fascinating nonetheless considering both Josh and Haz had at some point interfered with the other town’s affairs.

“Shibuya tour with Haz” was such a special scene, as it happened between 2 characters who do not/no longer have a reason to care about Shibuya, on the subject of what is worth saving about Shibuya. Hazuki carried out the purification of Shinjuku and stepped in to restore Shibuya just as part of his job and unlike Hanekoma or Joshua who both possess profound understanding of humanity, he really didn’t know humans at all. Rindo’s irrational wish invoked in him a sense of curiosity, to try gambling on something irrationally and learning a bit of what his senior have experienced. With all the pieces put together, it provides an overview on Higher beings as a whole, and that Joshua and Hanekoma are really the odd ones out with Hazuki being somewhere in between them and the rest.        

The old friends

It’s easy to have returning characters overshadow the new cast as they have already matured out of their personal story arc and stayed in our hearts for all this time. In the end, I have managed to enjoy both the old and new cast separately and altogether, and they will both find their own place in our memory of this game for the long term.

Sho is truly as crazy as ever, the game wouldn’t be the same if Sho is any less of what he is. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like Neky or Beat is younger than Nagi at all, with moments when it seems like Neky has aged 14 years instead of 3 years. His friendship with Coco surprised me pleasantly, and their interaction together with Beat was fun to watch. Rhyme’s found a new dream and her friendship with Kaie is precious too, especially considering that she can still talk to him online after the game ended. Josh and Neku’s interaction suggested that they have resolved the past and are on equal terms now, they even parted ways in good spirit and I don’t feel any worry about them like I did before.

Neku and Shiki’s reunion scene was beautiful, theirs is such a special bond that it has grown and supported them even without being able to see each other. I am so happy to see them all again and that they stay true to who they are, albeit looking more grown up, cooler and happier than ever before.  

Overall, NEO can’t become a classic on par with the OG, but is definitely a good sequel and a good game in its own rights. I’m happy with whether or not there will be a 3rd game to complete the 3 monkeys theme, but if there will be – I hope the creators can really find the time to learn from the last 2 games and start over with a fresh mindset and strong core.  

[instantartific]

I would like to hear about the other districts!

Another district I've had in mind is one with somewhat... homey vibes, if that makes sense. The place is very hazy and low. You can easily get lost in the dull hums of the streets if you're not careful... or don't mind a detour.

The name's a tad work in progress, but for now, is Voyancy, meaning roughly "perceiving things not apparent to the senses." It's a place of a quiet love and losing yourself in it. The most noise you'll hear is conversation flitting through the streets and low music from homes and shops. You'll feel the music in the streets. The place's lit by street lights and (albeit electronic) candlelight.

It feels like the neighborhood barbershop: the place you go to talk and tell people news and just relax.

The Charter in particular is named Tūl; I talked about him vaguely here. His genre is Neo Soul, and all he cares about is the sheer love of being alive and living life, and the nature of his district reflects that. He's got a pretty good relationship with the citizens there, as he tries to do what he can to interact with them all. This includes "chit 'n' chat"s, aka free concerts, in which he'll just lounge in the plaza and play and sing for whoever wants to talk to him long enough.

You won't see any advertisements for the charter anywhere, though. The most you'll hear is segments he's featured in on the radio. He'd talk a lot with someone like Zam. For the most part, information goes through word of mouth, and that works very well.

Similar to VA-Ultra, Voyancy's pretty conscious of disability in architecture. It pretty much feels like a neighborhood you can get lost in aside from that. A few coffee shops and book stores around. A record place.

Voyancy may also be the most cared for district, as Tūl likes to focus on way of life things a lot.

[lovejustforaday]

Sonic Youth Albums Ranked (Part 3)

6. Sister (1987)

Main Genres: Noise Rock, Alternative Rock, Post-Punk

A decent sampling of: Experimental Rock

This is the first LP in the Sonic Youth discography accessible enough to be labelled a true ‘Alternative Rock’ record. It’s still rough around the edges, but Sister is full of catchy hooks and thrilling guitar sounds. I feel like this record and Daydream Nation probably went on to spawn at least 200 new alternative rock bands by the time the 90s came around (not that I was there to see it or anything, just speculation).

Sister deserves a lot of credit for solidifying on tracks like “Catholic Block” and “Stereo Sanctity” what would become the dominant formula for the band’s sound throughout most of the rest of their discography. I think that's part of the reason why this is Sonic Youth’s second most acclaimed and beloved record. Perhaps some fans would even be downright offended that I only put this at #6 on the list, but trust me when I say that this is only because the band has made so many fantastic records. In fact, for most bands, this would easily be their greatest record.

I can still remember the first time I heard the opening to “Schizophrenia”, I had never heard anything quite like it. The guitars sound upbeat yet worn out and dejected, making me feel isolated and almost spiritually weak when I listen to this track, yet somehow also comforted. The song is partially inspired by Kim’s older brother who has schizophrenia, though the roles are reversed in this song with a brother whose sister is schizophrenic. It’s a deeply fascinating and memorable piece, and I can see why many fans consider this to be a top five Sonic Youth track.

Most of the rest of Sister is very scratchy and punkish with some very tight guitar work, like “Catholic Block” which boasts one of my favourite melodic riffs in the Sonic Youth canon. There’s also “Hot Wire My Heart”, another major highlight and a cover of the obscure British punk band Crime, where Sonic Youth takes their song and upgrades the guitars and drums while also adding a bold wall of feedback at the end.

Then there’s “Pacific Coast Highway”, a completely sickening song and one of Kim’s very finest moments as a lyricist and vocalist. This haunting noise rock jumble tells the story of either a unhinged stranger, or perhaps a resentful ex-lover, who is obsessively catcalling the listener from their car, with the not-so-subtle implication that you’re all by yourself somewhere and that this person intends to harm you. I have no idea if this was written about a personal experience, but I do know from listening to their voices that this is something many women have either gone through or live in perpetual fear of. Seriously fucked up stuff, but also one of Sonic Youth’s very best tracks.

"Cotton Crown” is an odd one out in the Sonic Youth discography; an uncharacteristically sincere but still off-kilter love song that Kim and Thurston sing as a duet. Their voices are a bit out of tune with each other, but i think that honestly fits the Sonic Youth aesthetic and it’s sweet in its own quirky way, although very bittersweet decades later with hindsight about the fate of their relationship. Sort of a noise rock lullaby almost, maybe even with hints of early shoegaze.

Sister does a really good job of taking the seemingly juxtaposing ideas of the ‘fun’ and the ‘grotesque’ and fuses them together. This album is both largely exciting and still somehow alienating and depressive. It’s textbook Sonic Youth, really. I will say that the best tracks are clustered together with a noticeably weaker middle portion, but really this is still a consistently great record throughout. Altogether, Sister is one of the many entries in the band’s discography from 1986 through 1990 where Sonic Youth could basically do no wrong. A classic record.

9/10

highlights: “Pacific Coast Highway”, “Schizophrenia”, ‘Catholic Block”, “Cotton Crown”, “Hot Wire My Heart”, “Beauty Lies in the Eye”

5. A Thousand Leaves (1998)

Main Genres: Noise Rock, Experimental Rock

A decent sampling of: Alternative Rock, Post-Rock, Neo-Psychedelia

I’m just gonna say this now: A Thousand Leaves is by far Sonic Youth’s most underrated record. It’s also the last truly amazing record that the band ever put out. Maybe it’s just the bizarre choice of an album cover that turns people off of this LP. Really, what the hell were they going for here with the minimalist hamster vibes? The beautiful title really suggests something a lot more visually stunning.

In all seriousness though, I feel like nobody talks about this one because it’s overshadowed by its predecessor Washing Machine, but if there’s one area that this record exceeds above all other Sonic Youth LPs, it’s that it perfectly captures that mellow feeling that the later Sonic Youth albums were inclined towards. Not a lot of Sonic Youth records put me at ease like this one does.

Likewise, this is maybe the most ‘feel-good’ record in their discography along with Murray Street. But where Muray Street is something you could put on in the background and enjoy pretty modestly, A Thousand Leaves is a largely experimental, out-of-body experience that pulls you into its surreal, flowery, evergreen world.

“Contre Le Sexism” is a perfect opener for this kind of record; this quiet daze of a waking dream is both dainty and delirious, alluding to Alice in Wonderland with Kim’s vocals never before sounding so gentle and bright. I swear I start to hear a door creak at the end. Maybe that’s the sound of stepping out into the rest of A Thousand Leaves.

What follows immediately after is “Sunday” which is actually one of the band’s poppiest moments, making it somewhat of an outlier on this highly avant-garde and immersive record. But the warm spring vibes of the melody fits right in. The wall of sound introduced during the bridge is a soft mesmerizing bliss more akin to a band like My Bloody Valentine, if not for the tiny distant screeches of atonality whirling around here and there. As a big fan of both bands, I’m all for this kind of sound.

“Wildflower Soul” is easily one of the best things Sonic Youth has ever written. Endless amounts of creativity are poured into this nine minute noise rock acrobatics performance along with a lyrical ode to love, nature, and childhood. The vibes of this one are really quite jaw-dropping given the fact that these are the same guys who wrote “Schizophrenia” and “Death Valley ‘69″. There’s such unison and harmony in the band’s performance here as they switch between different bpm and even time signatures, and the usage of the heavy phaser effect towards the end sounds nothing short of godlike. "Wildflower Soul” almost feels like an entire album experience in one song, and I’m beyond impressed every time I listen to it.

This makes for a hard act to follow, but A Thousand Leaves still has plenty of other highlights. “French Tickler” is a strange and satisfying track that switches back and forth between a playful melody and churning, stretchy distortion. “Karen Koltrane” is a murky but textured portrait of Lee Renaldo’s ex-girlfriend, who got addicted to hallucinogens and became heavily withdrawn from the rest of the world. “Snare, Girl” is a soothing spell where Thurston sounds like he’s trying to coax the listener into a never-ending slumber.

My only real complaint here is “Hits of Sunshine (For Allen Ginsberg)”, a lackadaisical jam session that sounds cool enough, but really overstays its welcome given the lack of development it achieves over its eleven minute run time. It’s a nice piece to vibe to, but it very noticeably disrupts the album’s flow. Take this one track away entirely, or even just edit it down severely, and this would probably be a 10/10 record for me.

Still, wow what a cool album. A Thousand Leaves is a great example of why I respect this band so much. Even this late into their career, Sonic Youth were willing to try so many new bizarre things while also building judiciously upon the foundations of their past work with great attention to detail. I wouldn’t recommend most people start with this one, it’s definitely a bit more challenging especially if you haven’t listened to some other really weird experimental rock records. But once you’re in the right headspace for it, it’s easy to get almost completely lost in A Thousand Leaves.

9/10

highlights: “Wildflower Soul”, “Sunday”, “French Tickler”, “Karen Koltrane”, “Snare, Girl”, “Contre Le Sexism”, “Heather Angel”

4. Goo (1990)

Main Genres: Noise Rock, Alternative Rock

A decent sampling of: Experimental Rock, Post-Punk

Goo was my very first Sonic Youth album, and I can definitely still feel some of the old teenage angst that I had at the time whenever I listen to this one. What probably adds to that feeling is the fact that this along with Daydream Nation is one of the two albums in the band’s discography that I’d say possesses a great deal of immediacy. Albums like Sister and A Thousand Leaves are a bit more subtle and they take a while to be fully digested. But this one, this one hit me like a brick wall.

Between “Tunic (Song For Karen)”, “Kool Thing”, and “Cinderella’s Big Score”, Goo is above all others the Sonic Youth record where Kim Gordon is really the star of the band, featuring not one but three of her most captivating songs. Likewise, I would also say that this is Sonic Youth’s most overtly feminist and socially conscious record.

I don’t know if anybody else feels this way, but to me the opener “Dirty Boots” really does sound like “Teen Age Riot” part 2. That’s not a bad thing of course, Sonic Youth making more songs like “Teen Age Riot” could never be a bad thing, and “Dirty Boots” is definitely one of the highlights of Goo with its massive build up of kinetic energy. That being said, I do have to say that I don’t think any song could do this particular kind of album opener better than “Teen Age Riot” already does it, but I still really do enjoy “Dirty Boots”.

“Tunic (Song For Karen)” is one of Sonic Youth’s most poetic and poignant songs. Kim’s sing-talking voice is even more solemn than usual as she takes on a surreal retelling of the final days of drummer/pop star pioneer Karen Carpenter from her perspective, highlighting the severity of her loneliness and the criminal negligence of many of the people around her who let her succumb to her eating disorder. Set to a backdrop of stark and droning alternative rock, I would say that this is possibly the band’s most depressing moment and certainly one of the biggest statements that they ever made.

A lot of the rest of Goo is actually pretty fun though. “Kool Thing” features Chuck D on guest vocals, and its a funny sarcastic take down of the subjugation of women’s voices in supposedly liberated spaces like the world of rock and hip hop, inspired by the time Kim interviewed L.L. Cool J and attempted to have a political conversation. The song mocks L.L.’s attitude towards women while also poking fun at Kim’s own self-perceived elitism. There’s also “Mote”, a sensational head rush that dissolves into noise rock weird-isms, sorta recreating the feeling of going from buzzed to totally black out.

“Mildred Pierce” is almost a practical joke but I kind of love the hell out of it anyway. A short track with lyrics consisting only of the song’s title, it starts with the band getting into a nice little riff before (without warning) bursting into a hardcore punk cacophony as Thurston screams the name over and over into the listener’s ears. Made me jump the first time I heard it.

And then there’s “Cinderella’s Big Score”. If “Schizophrenia” vaguely hinted at Kim’s estranged relationship with her older brother, then “Cinderella’s Big Score” confronts it dead on. Featuring some of the band’s most totally insane and disfigured guitar work ever, this song sounds harsh and militant, like the dawn of a nuclear cataclysm. It’s very hard to believe that Kim is 37 years old here; she reverts to sounding exactly like a hurt teenage little sister, rebelling against her childhood trauma and lashing out at her brother’s past bullying and now his cold indifference towards her.

The song grapples with some very painful emotions, but the experience is raw and cathartic. “Cinderella’s Big Score” is definitely somewhere in Sonic Youth’s top 10 tracks for me; it just doesn’t get any realer than this. Honestly, the record could’ve ended here. I like “Titanium Expose” enough as a closer, but this would’ve made a really powerful and lasting impression to end the album.

Despite that, Goo is an excellent Sonic Youth record that demonstrates just how much the band had mastered their craft after a decade of making all sorts of noises. Obviously I’m biased since it was my own first Sonic Youth record, but I really do feel like this is the very best place to start with the band. Goo is one of their more melodic and accessible offerings, but it’s also one of their most provocative records and it really captures the essence of Sonic Youth’s identity.

9/10

highlights: “Cinderella’s Big Score”, “Tunic (Song For Karen)”, “Mote”, “Kool Thing”, “Dirty Boots”, ‘Mildred Pierce”

3. EVOL (1986)

Main Genres: Noise Rock, Experimental Rock, Post-Punk

A decent sampling of: No Wave, Alternative Rock

If Bad Moon Rising was bleak and desolate, than EVOL is disturbed, uncanny, and deeply paranoid. Sonic Youth’s third record evokes the feeling of being all alone at midnight on a sketchy highway, complete with mental images of flickering street lights and looming shadowy figures. I mentioned earlier that I have to be in the right mood to enjoy Bad Moon Rising, but this record puts me in the right mood almost instantly whenever I put it on.

EVOL isn’t exactly a no wave album like their first two records. The highly experimental influence is still there, but the arrangements are starting to sound fuller and more intentional.

You could say that this LP marks somewhat of a transitional phase between Sonic Youth the no wave band and Sonic Youth the alternative rock band, and in many respects it has the best of both worlds. There’s a few catchy darker alternative rock songs here and there, sandwiched between tracks that could best be described as ‘mad scientist’ music, which altogether creates a varied and unique album experience.

“Tom Violence“ immediately establishes the tone of EVOL with crooked, scraping flashes of post-punk guitars. This track reminds me of heads hung low, bodies slouched uncomfortably, and the feeling of being completely wide awake at 2:00 am. There’s something very unfriendly that lurks beneath the dissonance of these sounds.

If “Tom Violence” is uneasy, then “Shadow of A Doubt” is an auditory nightmare, managing to capture something akin to the fear of being watched by an unknown stranger hiding in the shadows. Notes are gently plucked like icy cold fingers slowly crawling up the listener’s back while Kim whispers about murder plots and oneirophrenia. The “just a dream” lyrical motif is first uttered reassuringly, but eventually turns into a desperate plea as Kim begins to shout frantically and the music intensifies.

The album dials down the spook factor a few notches with “Starpower” and “In The Kingdom #19″. The former is an early example of Sonic Youth’s ability to combine melodic hooks with meandering chaos that would become refined on the next few LPs, while the latter features Lee’s first solo vocals (and one of his best performances) reciting a lucid, jet black vision of a car accident. Thurston threw firecrackers into the recording studio when they did Lee’s vocals on this track and you can hear it in the recording, and just like “Mildred Pierce” it really caught me off guard the first time I heard it.

“Secret Girl” is the scariest fucking thing in the whole Sonic Youth discography, and also just one of the scariest songs I’ve ever heard. It starts with a deep shuddering thud that sounds like it’s getting closer and closer. Then out of nowhere, a cassette-recording of an old detuned piano starts to play a simple, unnerving refrain while Kim offers a cryptic and uncomfortably suggestive spoken word piece. It feels like a scene that might play out in a horror film, where a television screen comes on by itself and the person on the screen begins to talk directly to the viewer.

Finally, there’s “Expressway To Yr Skull” (alternatively titled “Madonna, Sean, and Me”), which would be my #1 Sonic Youth album closer if not for the #1 album on this list. That being said, this song is still one of the biggest highlights of the band’s career. "Expressway To Yr Skull” starts off restless and spectacular, leading up to an utterly earth-shaking climax, and then it’s as if the song promptly dies, only to become a lingering undead entity that pulls you down with it. I still can’t get over how the ending really manages to sound like it’s dragging you down further and further into its barren depths.

To add to that, there’s actually a locked groove on the original vinyl release of this LP that plays the last little bit of “Expressway To Yr Skull”, meaning that if you let the needle sit there, it will forever loop that last little bit of droning at the end of the track. I really appreciate this little detail; it’s as if the pervasive darkness of EVOL is so encompassing that it could turn into a deep midnight that never ends.

EVOL is honestly so close to being a 10 for me, but just like Sister I find that it is decently weaker towards the middle. Still, I’m absolutely enamored with the atmosphere on this album. No gothic rock record has ever managed to sound so deeply unsettling to my ears like this little experimental record does. You really just have to experience this one for yourself. Honestly, don’t be surprised if in a year or two I’ve changed my mind and bumped this one to a 10.

9/10

highlights: “Expressway To Yr Skull”, “Shadow Of A Doubt”, “Tom Violence”, “Secret Girl”, “In The Kingdom #19″, “Starpower”

[peacelykerockets]

Yeah man, I'm really not a Kanye fan anymore I listened to The Midnight Miracle, which is a podcast with Yasiin Bey (Mos Def), Dave Chappelle, and Talib Kweli. And all it reminded me of is how these guys remained grounded while Kanye is off on some bullshit. Now if you weren't around in those days (early to mid 00s) and don't know about the neo-soul, "conscious" rap days of those times, Kanye used to roll with Mos, he showed up on Chappelle's show like two times for performances. This was when Ye was coming up. This seemed like a thing at the time. All the names - Dave Chappelle, Mari Bin Ari, The Roots, Slum Village, Bilal, Erykah Badu, John Legend, Mos Def, Common, Alicia Keys... I could go on. Oh my fucking god it was a time. And early on Kanye seemed a part of these section in an overall magical era in black music. Now on The Midnight Miracle they did not say anything about Kanye. But mind you, being a teen around that time, obsessed with Chappelle's show, hearing The College Dropout, and just everything going in that segment of hip-hop and R&B at the time, it was just a wonderful time in the midst of all the bullshit going on the the 00s. This was Bush's America. War on terror, 9/11, constant fear mongering, and just being black in America period. As a teen who watched the towers fall, and reached high school in 2003 two years later, man music was a fucking refuge. Kanye came in with "Through the Wire" in 2003, and from that time I was rooting for a guy who I thought was a nobody. The song was so honest, so raw, something that we hadn't heard in mainstream hip-hop since probably 2pac or Biggie. That rooting must have worked because Kanye blew up, became a household name - but the going back and listening to that Kanye vs the Kanye of today, damn is it a stark contrast. Kanye was never humble, admit that. I remember watching him being "punked" on MTV's "Punk'd" and seeing it from right there. I remember being in school and my hip-hop head friends thinking that episode would ruin him. Even then we though 'yo what the fuck is wrong with this dude?' But it was all played down, the music was great, The College Dropout was out and we got hit after hit. Jesus Walks, Slow Jams, Kanye's Workout Plan, and I wore that damn [bootleg] CD out. In a few months I went from begging my moms to buy me Get Rich or Die Trying at Target to being a Kanye fan with my best friend handing me a bootleg copy of The College Dropout, and us vibing to that album all summer.

Maybe I'm getting old, I'll admit that as I get old my admirance of rappers and really all celebrities is wearing off. But listening to The Midnight Miracle made me feel something. People are talking about a 00s revival and I'm feeling that. Listening to that podcast made me: a 31 year old man, feel like a 13-15 year old teenaged boy again. It put me back in that era, makes me want to buy some earthtones and chill the fuck out and let the world fade into the back. Maybe it's because Kanye has seen more success in his career than Mos, and Talib. Dave I feel is Kanye level in his craft of comedy. But damn did Ye lose his head. Younger folk may not get it or remember Ye pre 808s and Heartbreak. I mean I was the dude who was all aboard with saying that if you want old Kanye then listen to old Kanye. Now I'm like yeah, where's my guy? Not the guy chasing trends, selling sneakers. The 40 something year old man who was hopping music trends where he really didn't fit, sounding awkward trying to ride beats and styles of younger dudes. I like how Dave, Yasiin (Mos Def), and Talib seem to be maturing and aging gracefully while Kanye is still chasing the bullshit Maybe I'm being nostalgic, missing a bygone era. Nah... I fully admit I miss that era. But shit seems to have come full circle. And for someone who seemed so forward thinking at a point, Kanye just now seems to be fallin behind, punching under his weight. I'm just hoping Ye can get his shit together at some point, and deliver some music that people really feel and fuck with at some point, And stop faking us out on album releases. The antics are getting old. I can't get with this dude anymore.

[huahsu]

A RAT YEAR

previous years: THE MOON REPRESENTS MY HEART :: 2019 A SONG THAT DEGRADES EACH TIME YOU PLAY IT :: 2018 A CHURCH AND JOHN LENNON’S “IMAGINE” :: 2017  SIKH DEVOTIONAL MUSIC :: 2016 SPOOKY BLACK :: 2015

Not just other people, the sight of other people on the subway or bus, walking carefree down the street, lost in their music, emitting auras, and I’m wondering what that music is. Not just music, I miss the stories, the way we gather around a sound as though it’s a flame, the way other sounds, triggering other other sounds, can shatter and send us. Not a sound, but a volume I miss is when you’re at a club or a show, and you’re trying to tell someone something, and you’re conscious of not wanting to shout directly in their ear, since you know a polite whisper will get drowned out by the music, and so you (or, in this case, I) resort to a loud mutter, or you emphasize the most important words and hope they can fill in the rest, or you tiptoe your sentence through the noise, guiding whatever you’re saying in between the quiet spaces of the music. Not music, but a sound I thought about a lot this year was a young Black man killed by the cops, his name was Elijah McClain, and he used to play the violin to comfort stray cats. Not playing the violin, rather sawing open this world to reveal one somewhere else that I’d like to believe exists.  IF ONLY THIS HAD EXISTED WHEN I WAS LEARNING CELLO AS A TEENAGER Clarice Jensen, The experience of repetition as death PER USUAL: MY FAVORITE HARP RECORDINGS OF 2020 (HORSEHAIR CATEGORY) Rhodri Davies, Telyn Rawn

FAVORITE HARP (PEDAL) Dezron Douglas and Brandee Younger, Force Majeure MOST LISTENED-TO ALBUMS THAT FELT INSTANTLY FAMILIAR AND WELCOMING Duval Timothy, Help Jeff Parker, Suite for Max Brown MOST LISTENED-TO ALBUM THAT CONFUSED AND DELIGHTED ME ANEW EACH TIME, IT SOUNDS LIKE NOTHING ELSE Still House Plants, Fast Edit ROOKIE OF THE YEAR KeiyaA, Forever, Ya Girl FREE JAZZMATAZZ Boldy James and Sterling Toles, Manger on McNichols

FREQUENTLY SUBLIME...MOTORBIKES, RICKSHAWS, CHAOS THROUGH WEAK CLOCK RADIO SPEAKERS 3Phaz, Three Phase EARTH HEALED HERSELF Gaia Tones, #002 Chains/Shackles BUT ESPECIALLY TRACK 4  ⣎⡇ꉺლ༽இ•̛)ྀ◞ ༎ຶ ༽ৣৢ؞ৢ؞ؖ ꉺლ, ooo　̟̞̝̜̙̘̗̖҉̵̴̨̧̢̡̼̻̺̹̳̲̱̰̯̮̭̬̫̪̩̦̥̤̣̠҈͈͇͉͍͎͓͔͕͖͙͚͜͢͢͢͢͢͢͢͢͢͢͢͢͢͢ͅ 　oʅ͡͡͡͡͡͡͡͡͡͡͡​(​　؞ৢ؞ؙؖ⁽⁾˜ัิีึื์๎้็๋๊⦁0　̟̞̝̜̙̘̗̖҉̵̴̨̧̢̡̼̻̺̹̳̲̱̰̯̮̭̬̫̪̩̦̥̤̣̠҈͈͇͉͍͎͓͔͕͖͙͚͜͢͢͢͢͢͢͢͢͢͢͢͢͢͢ͅ 　ఠీੂ೧ູ࿃ूੂ I MISS THE NIGHTLIFE Julion De’Angelo and Viola Klein, We

ASK THE AGES Mary Halvorson’s Code Girl, Artlessly Falling

JOURNEY TO THE ONE Ambrose Akinmusire, on the tender spot of every calloused moment JOURNEY TO THE ONE, IN A RAINFOREST Matthew Halsall, Salute to the Sun BEST LIVE MUSIC Pharoah Sanders at Zebulon BEST OLD MUSIC Foul Play, Origins I OFTEN PUT THIS ON AND FORGET WHAT IT IS AND CYCLE THROUGH MY WINDOWS EXCITEDLY IN ORDER TO REMEMBER Alabaster DePlume, To Cy & Lee: Instrumentals, Vol. 1 WONDROUS...WE FLOATED OUT OF THERE...IS THIS HOW PEOPLE FEEL ABOUT ‘HAMILTON?��  American Utopia at the Hudson Theater ONLY POSITIVE VIBES Dougie Stu, Familiar Future Jeen Bassa, Cassava Pone R E S P E C T orion sun, “mama’s baby” I WOULD HAVE PLAYED THE SHIT OUT OF THIS BACK AT THE ENORMOUS ROOM drea the vibe dealer, priestess of vibrations SIM SIMMA (SLOW VERSION) Ruth Orhiunu, “Loving Goes Down” AT LES (VERSION) ọmọ igi, “Coco” and Prone2 THIS WAS THIS YEAR??? RMR, “Rascal” FLY AWAY Morray, “Quicksand” “I GOT POWER NOW I GOTTA SAY SOMETHING” Lil Baby, “The Bigger Picture”

LOVE IS ESSENTIAL Ian Isiah, “Loose Truth” STARING AT THE SUN Sharada Shashidhar, Rahu 2 BRIDGES MUSIC AND ARTS APPRECIATION POST THOUGH MY TASTES ARE ADMITTEDLY HELLA BASIC COMPARED TO THE SHOP’S GENERAL ETHOS AND VIBE NYZ, OLD TRX [87-93] Conrad Pack, Stations of Control I CAN’T BELIEVE I FUCKING FELL FOR "CHOPPED AND SCREWED WILCO” Chopstars x Barry Jenkins, Yankee Purple Foxtrot OR “JAZZY CLUB MUSIC”...BUT I DID SW., Night PROBABLY THE BEST THING I BOUGHT THIS YEAR Angel Bat Dawid, “Transition East” 7-inch bundled with Emma Warren’s wondrous Make Some Space and Piotr Orlov’s killer manifesto ANNUAL “THING I DISCOVERED THROUGH BEING FRIENDS WITH/FOLLOWING ORLOV” Ase Manual, Black Liquid Electronics HEADHUNTERS Jadakiss f/ Pusha T, “Huntin Season” ”I WAS LEFT BACK LIKE EVRA” Tion Wayne x Dutchavelli x Stormzy, “I Don’t Know” 56 BARS Lil Eazzyy, “Onna Come Up” ALFA ROMEO / FUEGO / I’M ON MY WAY, YO / WACO / ALFREDO / SCOTT BAIO / MAYO / MAINO Roc Marciano, “Downtown 81″ I WILL ALWAYS LIKE THE VULNERABLEST SONG ON YOUR PROJECT ZahSosaa, “Emotions” THIS BEAT GOES TO ELEVEN Heem Sosa, “Expose You” SAME, BUT WEST COAST YeloHill, “Tales From the Hood” BEST NEW DRONES FUJI​|​|​|​|​|​|​|​|​|​|​TA, iki

BEST OLD WOBBLES Skream, Unreleased Classics 2002-2003 JOURNEY TO SATCHIDANANDA Deradoorian, Find the Sun VERVE’S “SLIDE AWAY” VIDEO Raymond Richards, The Lost Art of Wandering THE OPENING SECONDS OF “HOLY ARE YOU” Corey Fuller, Sanctuary SHOPPING CARTS CRASHING FOREVER HPRIZM, Loops Are a Form of Meditation I MEAN IT’S CALLED Chris Crack, White People Love Algorithms  $ilkmoney, Attack of the Future Shocked, Flesh Covered, Meatbags of the 85 A NICE LOOSIE Ryuji Ono, “Should Be There” SOME THINGS YOU LISTEN TO A LOT BECAUSE YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW THE BEAT AND VERSES WORK, AND WHETHER IT IS INTENTIONAL Choose Up Cheese x ShittyBoyz, “Shitty Cheese” I HAVE NO IDEA WHY I BOUGHT THIS BUT THE GENRE TAG IS “POPOL VUH” Ñaka Ñaka, “Thorny Place” ANNUAL MOOD HUT INSTANT CLASSIC CZ Wang, Neo Image, “Just Off Wave/Open Mic Beat” IS THIS BETTER THAN THE ORIGINAL?? 岩本清顕 Kiyoaki Iwamoto, “Love Will Tear Us Apart” ONE OF THE BEST SONGS OF ALL TIME IS Lim Giong, “A Pure Person”

WHICH SADLY COULD NOT BE INCLUDED ON this Pure Person collection of covers by Taiwanese artists (as well as LG’s own spiritual sequel to the original) that is an incredible vibe FREE GUZHENG  Mindy Meng Wang 王萌, An Improvisation Through Time and Space 穿越时光的即兴 I KNEW NOTHING ABOUT THIS SOUNDTRACK OR FILM BUT IT IS FANTASTIC Carman Moore, Personal Problems OST THE BEST GENRE OF MUSIC IS SADE patten x sade 54D3 SECOND BEST: LATE 80s/EARLY 90s UK STREET SOUL  Soul Connection, Street Soul BRONZE: SEAN PAUL ASSAULTED BY JUNGLISMS Gallery S, “I’m Still in Love Restructure”

SPEAKING OF BLARES Standing on the Corner, “Angel” ONLY GOT TO SEE STANDING ON THE CORNER TWICE THIS YEAR 2/7/20 :: Black Music Future :: NYU 2/21/20 :: Artists on Artists :: Studio Museum  BUT THIS SUFFICES Standing on the Corner, “Zolo Go” SONG OF EVERY YEAR

[reckonslepoisson]

Smiling With No Teeth, Genesis Owusu (2021)

Joyous, furious, sumptuous, groovy, sultry, soothing, post-punk, dance-punk, synth-punk, Ween? Industrial/hardcore/conscious hip hop, all sort of in neo-soul. On Smiling With No Teeth, the vibes are exceptional – but so is everything else, too.

Pick: ‘Don’t Need You’

[idontneednofuckinhug]

My top 20 albums of 2019

As 2019 is in its final month, we're not only about to experience the end of the year, but also the end of a decade filled with amazing music, ground-breaking albums and self-made musical geniuses. We've had some fantastic years, such as 2012, 2014 and 2016 for album releases and this year definitely rivals all of those beforementioned with the quality and quantity of records we had. There was such a great quantity of amazing albums this year that I had to change my original plans of a top 15 list and move it up to a top 20 list, just due to the saturation of projects. Before starting off the list, I'd like to give my honourable mentions to some great albums which would've made the list in quite a few other years: Charli XCX - Charli; clipping. - There Existed an Addiction to Blood; Charles Irwin - Singles (308). I'd strongly advise to check these out as well as the ones I'm about to list off and with that said, let's get going!

20. Solange - When I get Home A project showing her versality, with music ranging from smooth jazz and blues-inspired vibes to Gucci Mane and Playboi Carti features, Solange once again showed a fantastic ear for production and how amazing her voice really is, without putting it in your face and demanding your attention. Instead the album is like a long, carefree day in mid-April, with Solange's voice giving you an amazing vocal experience.

19. Billy Woods & Kenny Segal - Hiding Places Ranking much lower than last year, the underground New-York genius of Billy Woods once again showcases his amazing talent for rough and grimy delivery combined with industrial, eerie production. The project is very personal for Billy, as he gets very real about his fears and anxieties and even takes a spin for the existential as the talented lyricist raps about his mortality, creating a very unsettling and uncomfortable listen, nonetheless keeping you entertained for the whole duration of the album.

18. Blood Orange - Angel's Pulse A much shorter project this year than last year's Negro Swan, Devonte released a very raw mixtape, presented as a radio-cut, with sudden transitions and unexpected topic changes. The tape is presented with very groovy production, creating the feeling of a warm summer day, but Blood Orange does keep close to discussing personal topics about his anxieties, insecurities and political worries.

17.Injury Reserve - Self-Titled Definitely not Injury Reserve's first project, but their official studio-album debut, it really lets the odd trio's strengths shine, with its chaotic production, personal bars and focus on making it out of the regular 9-5 life. Full off innovative ideas, such as the song "Rap Song Tutorial" which is true to its name, the album also includes fantastic features such as Rico Nasty, Jpegmafia and Freddie Gibbs, with its main strength being the difficulties of keeping the balance between being a rapper and a regular person.

16. EARTHGANG - Mirrorland The Atlanta duo's debut-album, Mirrorland is very witty and cheerful, capturing the story of Doctur Dot and Johnny Venus's come up in the ATL. Full of quirky and whimsical ideas, the record really does remind listeners of Atlanta's OutKast, with EARTHGANG's very own personality and spin to it, with very playful bars and captivating singing, beats with multi-cultural inspirations, such as on "Tequila" and banging trap production, the album is a fantastic mirror to the duo's potential.

15. Ariana Grande - thank u, next Carried by the freedom and carelessness of Ariana's voice, thank u, next is an album inspired by her romantic experiences through her life, addressing Mac Miller, Pete Davidson and her need for sexual freedom. The project explores the insecurities she has experienced with herself and acts as an assertion of Grande's confidence in herself as a woman, creating a huge emotional range during the 12 tracks.

14. KAYTRANADA - BUBBA A return to form for KAYTRANADA after a 3 year hiatus, this was an amazing funky and playful R&B project, blessed with fantastic features. The record really does just make you want to dance along and move to the groove, with its defining feature being each song's simplicity, letting the right elements to shine - like in 10% with Kali Uchis with the sexiness of her voice. Don't let the simplicity of the sound fool you, as BUBBA is full of complex production and small elements and samples that you might miss on the very first listen.

13. YBN Cordae - The Lost Boy Another studio-album debut, YBN Cordae really shows an amazing knack for sticky bars and storytelling, backed by the fantastic production of of a team overseen by J. Cole and feature assassins such as Pusha-T and Anderson. Paak. Although occassionally a bit too corny, the project paints a fantastic picture of his persona and puts the light on a young talent, emerging in the mainstream.

12. Ari Lennox - Shea Butter Baby One of the best neo-soul projects in the past few years, Shea Butter Baby really wraps around you with its warmth and nostalgia and brings back fond memories of kicking it back on a couch with your friends. Full of amazing jazz and funk samples, the slow pace and easygoing melodies really put you in a carefree state of mind and create a chilled out vibe.

11. Flying Lotus - FLAMAGRA This might be a difficult album for some, but FlyLo once again shows an amazing talent for creating songs from scratch, with a very psychedelic jazz-funk vibe. Each song telling its own story, with the feeling that each second of the album matters, FLAMAGRA's biggest strength is its spiritual element, giving off an energy that touches your soul, if you grasp deep enough within yourself to feel it.

10. Jpegmafia - All My Heroes are Cornballs Much tamer than last year's Veteran, Jpegmafia's last album has a very experimental R&B feel to it, but that does not mean that it doesn't sound like pure musical chaos. Showing a surprising vocal versatility, Peggy raps, sings and screams, keeping true to his "Fuck PC Culture" bars and nasty punchlines. Each song has a very manic and wild energy to it, with the album sounding like structured anarchy.

9. Free Nationals - Self-Titled A modern take on classic soul and jazz, Anderson. Paak's Free Nationals crafted a very sexy, intensive album, that gives a feel that there's no hurry for anywhere and everything will happen in due course. The sensual record can easily be described as baby-making music and has handpicked seductive features like Kali Uchis, Daniel Caesar and Syd to underline that vibe.

8. Anderson. Paak - Ventura Very much a modern take on a soul record, Anderson. Paak really creates a feel of time-stopping whilst listening to the project's songs. Paak wearing his influences on his sleeve on this one, you can really feel the vibrant melodies and groovy emotions, with the amazing funkiness of Ventura also having a very sensual feel to it, thanks to the thoughtfully picked out features and background vocals.

7. Mereba - The Jungle is the Only Way Out An album that I believe didn't get enough attention, Mereba's latest release is a very conscious R&B project, full of beautiful darkly-toned synths and very slow and jammy folk. The topics range from facing your vices, to the overwhelming emotions of seeing your lover and the self-realization that people's opinion ain't shit. Her voice is absolutely stunning and authentic, with it giving off the feel of her being uncertain and lost with each song.

6. Denzel Curry - ZUU Denzel never misses and this is fact once again - releasing his most dynamic record to date, Zuu goes back to Zel's roots of South Florida. In it he reminisces about his come-up and relationships with his family and friends and the project stays true to its nature with the features being only rappers from the area. Although very party-focused, ZUU has a wide range of songs, with boom-bap, trap, soundcloud rap and even having slower, more introspective jams to it.

5. Rapsody - Eve Eve is a love letter, celebrating the success of the black woman. Rapsody absolutely peaks her musical versatility and rapping potential, crafting an amazing classic hip-hop album, full of creative bars, alluring samples and a very socially engaged range of topics. The record's strengths create a vivid picture of why successful women need to be appreciated and cannot be given enough credit in its impact for the female side of hip-hop culture.

4. slowthai - Nothing Great About Britain A very heavily punk-inspired record, Tyler clashes with the UK's upper class in this project, exploring the difficulties of the everyday life in the UK's working class with cynical and sarcastic bars, full of energetic and grimey production. The topics in the cleverly titled record go into detail about the class bracket gap, widening poverty, political uncertainities and the average briton's arrogance. The album is full of witty jokes and very direct humor and thai does very well to paint the picture of a realistic Great Britain.

3. Freddie Gibbs & Madlib - Bandana Arguably one of the best produced albums of all time, Madlib and Gibbs really pull eachother deep in their worlds and crafted a geniusly produced project. Celebrating black freedom, the record shines on Freddie's talent for grimey and nimble rapping, with him changing cadence again and again, whilst Madlib's gift for erratic production and turning classic jazz and funk songs into off the wall earworms and samples turns this into a spiritual experience.

2. Little Simz - GREY AREA I'm kind of pissed off I put this at number two, just due to how good it is. Simz's coming of age album is a wicked, erratic record full of witty bars, discussion of social themes and goes between grimey, rough production and introspective, jazzy vibes, making for great entertainment. The record is a very open window to her life and the difficulties she's had as a woman and is crafted in such a masterful way, that even if you're not catching the lyrics, you'll feel the album's emotions just by listening to the production.

1. Danny Brown - uknowhatimsayin¿ This project finishes a cycle of Danny for me personally - starting off with his rockstar, crackhead phase with XXX and the consequences of his drug-induced party life in Atrocity Exhibition, his latest project is the maturest face of Danny we've ever seen. Overseen by Q-Tip as an executive producer, uknowhatimsayin¿ is very free-flowing compared to his previous records, topped off with irregular beats and unnerving samples, keeping true to Danny Brown's personality. The project is the culmination of his rap career, as he addresses the need he had to get his life together,get out of the rut he was in and grow up. He uses his cadence and snapiness to make the point of him being grown up, but still being the dude who can do what the fuck he wants.

[thefreshfinds]

Propelled by the vibrant energy, treasured ambiance, connectivity, heart drenched food and melodies intertwining with the Saturday afternoon clouds —

There I stood in the emblem of The Philadelphia Music Festival, starving for a bite of fresh talent and so I decided to fill my plate with only the best manifolds of visionary hip hop, pop, R&B, trap and rock but little did I know I was in for a feast!

*Credits to @_brandoncaptures_ *

The first to perform was Monica Joelle, a dynamic Pop/R&B songstress from Philly that strikes your heart hard like Cupid’s arrow with her orientally sweet voice and cherry dripped instrumentals. She effortlessly plucks you with relatable lyrics (whether it’s about sticky situations, love or having a crush) and that’s why no one can seem to get enough. Monica started off with songwriting / singing lessons and from there she has continuously bloomed into her own sound as an artist, writing pieces that show off her complexity through set-ups and syllables. The songstress has only been making music until December 2017 but prior to that she has always been performer whether it was for dance or theater. The first song she ever created which was “Never Forget You” which is your ordinary heartbreak song but still relatable (and surely a track she had the most fun making.) To prepare for the festival she took the living room as her stage — using the microphone and speaker as the components for an astounding set off in real life. And in the future? Monica plans on releasing an EP and shooting out singles. (she can’t give us a name as of yet but I’m sure whatever it is will reflect the bubbly aura she conveys on and off the stage) The date will be revealed before you even know it but don’t take the risk of missing out on it.. just make sure to follow @MonicaJoelle.

“I’m not going to stop, I’m going to keep going. Forget what the haters say” Monica says.

SoundCloud - https://soundcloud.com/monicajoelle

Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/artist/55UAah5w59sJuQyekaRswr?si=wKn4V9eeSJaIM8XJtvZFAw

Fun Fact: Her favorite slang is “Jawn”

My favorite song? On My Mind.

The next performer to zazzle the crowd was conscious wordsmith, Teef. Teef is a laid back visionary from New Jersey (residing now in Philly) who puts your mind at ease through charismatic storytelling intertwined with a fusion of neo-soul hip-hop, concrete flows, very solid messages and speaker knocking beats that could make your head snap off your neck (literally). Resonated with A Tribe Called Quest, one could even say that he has their style down pat as he makes sure to transition a soothing ambience through the vibration of his rhymes and wit. Teef started his musical journey in 2015 after dropping his first project called “Hip Hop On Purpose”. He was always into music but this project was the pinnacle of his musicianship “I just stopped thinking about doing something and I finally just started doing it,” says Teef “I was very hesitant about becoming a rapper at first because of what was out on the mainstream. I don’t even rap about that stuff [being on the block, etc]. Then one day I performed at an open mic, people liked it, asked me to come back and since then I kept going.” Aside from spitting bars Teef also enjoys welding, reading informational novels, free styling and networking. “Earlier [before the festival] I was actually welding up a rail and it wasn’t even a joke!” Teef goes on to say “Genuinely I just love to be around people. [when asked about networking] I like being around other independent artist and feeding off of their energy and ideas.” To prepare, Teef didn’t do much but go with the motion of the [creative] ocean and sway his natural repertoire in the ears of the ones close by. “I picked my songs when I got here. But I don’t always put my set together until I get there.” Teef says “I just went with the vibes”. One song that Teef enjoyed making the most was his first song “Get Free” because it allowed him to showcase his style to other people. “It was really random. It was made at three o clock in the morning and I really didn’t have an intent but it just hit me out of the blue. I crafted it in my own way. It was the most memorable time for me. That’s why I consider it to be fun because it just happened.” Common to persona, Teef’s favorite slang is “coolin” and the number one person that he looks up to in history is Bob Marley because he brought people together (and even squashed beef between politicians). “He was all about the people and the community”. Teef is currently running a weekly radio show called “Most Slept On Radio” on 98.5FM (it covers the Philadelphia area). He also runs Table Talk with Teef on Tuesday’s.

“I’m just growing with my artistry”

You can follow him on

Instagram : @realteef03

Bandcamp : https://lateef.bandcamp.com/Spotify : https://open.spotify.com/artist/0wNgFnLMKH5Dui6DdHSoUK?si=We2MVY6jSE6eut8W_CQaGg

My favorite song? Strangers in the Night

Wafting their chantable ad libs through heavy marijuana smoke, this group’s sound floats smoothly to your ear canals. The next act, The Joint Cheefs allowed me to let my conscious free through their use of moderate boom bap and sharp witted lyrics… but to be more clear, I can say that this trio changes the high experience by implicating an old feel of New York rap through their wrap of rhymes *that solely support the 420 movement* and calm aesthetic. To begin Geo The Rican, Sonny Blue Note and Loud Pack Ralph formulated as a triad one day while working in their studio in the Bronx. “We are producers and engineers so the idea itself just grew organically” says Geo the Rican. They have been making music for some time but to get to where they are now they pretty much just smoked a lot (no pun intended) and became more personal with their music, putting their trials and tribulations through their rhymes and as a result they have been gaining a peak of listeners on a daily basis. To prepare for the Philly Festival they answered with “smoking weed” but ultimately it was through the power of fun. “We take the music seriously but we try not to take ourselves too serious.” they go on to say “We take pride in our sound far as recording and making it.”To separate theirselves from the rest, the Joint Cheefs actually live through what they rap about. “We’re in a lane that we want to be in. It’s not too crowded, some people might say it’s our own and we’re going to hot box all the way to the top.” Aside from their recent release of “Never Canoe” on April 20th 2018, the Joint Cheefs are currently working on their album “Jars” which will be on all platforms by November 31st. When it comes to favorite strands, Sonny Blue Note enjoys Indica because it helps him sleep, Geo the Rican chooses Sativa because it helps him stay focused and Loud Pack Ralph enjoys hybrid because he just wants to get high. Fun fact: Their favorite slang is between “BroGod” and “Deadass” because they love to pay homage to their hometown.

You can follow them on

Instagram - @thejointcheefs

Soundcloud - https://soundcloud.com/thejointcheefs/the-joint-cheefs-n-high-c

Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/artist/1DQg3ISncFAuWAdDhebBMc?si=Q-Lu8Xv9QP-pfqkDU9tflg

My favorite song: It’s a tough one. It’s between “N High C” & “The Art of Hotboxing”

Lights on (meaning the sunlight of course) and centered on the stage, the next act to captivate me was Almost Famous who reels his listeners in with a hook of merciless R&B and a fair amount of auto tune. Generally speaking, Mr Famous has the 2000 feel of soul mastered perfectly as he dashes platforms with a similar production that Ne-Yo or even Genuine would use. The difference between him and the artist mentioned though is that he adds his own twist of dominating words, making sure to switch it up through trap and pop (while also warning his mysterious lover from time to time that they could be replaced in a heart beat) But don’t assume that his heart is locked up in a cage, Mr Famous still has a soft side to him and shows it from time to time. To begin, Almost Famous started off his career as a background dancer for a mass of Philly artist. “Hearing them, I realized that maybe I should create my own music so I started writing, perfecting melodies and harmonies and going to shows.” Famous says. This West Philadelphian has been doing music for 4 years but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s slowing down. Almost Famous grinds hard through releasing new singles and it even shows through his stage presence! “[To prepare for the festival] I had a few shows coming up, so I just kept on rolling with my other ones.” says Almost Famous. One song that Almost Famous enjoyed making the most is “Options” because it was during a time when he had to walk to work in the midst of a strike. “I heard the beat and it was mine from there. If it wasn’t for the strike, it wouldn’t be what it is now.” Fundamentally, Almost Famous would collaborate with Jasmine Sullivan if he was given the chance because her song writing skills and singing is perfect. But the bonus? Jasmine Sullivan is also from Philly. Even though Almost Famous shows love to his hometown he is not too fond of the people who run the Philly Hip Hop Awards “About a year or so they dogged me out but now that I’m apart of a new record label, they try to follow my moves and the label I’m with [Spit It Out Entertainment].” Famous goes on to say. As for his opinion on DMX? He thinks that DMX is a legend. “I feel like he’s been through a lot and a lot of people try to discredit him.”

Almost Famous’ favorite slang is “you drawlin’. “ He also considers himself a morning person because that’s when he’s able to get the day started. His project “Growth” will be released in November. Almost Famous also wants to give a shoutout to Spit it Out Entertainment.

My favorite song? Options (but the other song title can’t be given out. I will let the fans know when “Growth” is on streaming platforms)

You can follow him:

Instagram - @almostfamous215

YouTube - https://youtu.be/ilkKpQ0X8us

*Credits to Brother IB Photography @brother_ib *

The next act to glide his angelic floetry to the streets of Philly was Mashich, an upcoming trap soul artist from Philly who keeps things interesting through a singsong vocal pattern and propulsive beats but to stand out from the other singers that took a part of the festival, Mashich graced the crowd with silver printed dance moves. Even though Mashich has been singing since he was 7, he started taking his craft seriously in the past year. He’s originally from Aiken, South Carolina but he moved to Philly 7 years ago. When it comes to his favorite slang from his new home, he says it’s “d*ckhead” or “f*ck out of here”. To prepare for the Philly Festival, Mashich practiced nonstop. “I’m really big on practicing so I utilized any free time and space I had.” Mashich goes on to say. “I blasted music from my speaker, went over the song and got my movements down. From there I was able to find a form that helped to present myself and my style.”To stabilize his vocal chords, he drinks a lot of tea and does a range of warm ups while making sure to sing out of his diaphragm. In addition, Mashich would collab with Daniel Caesar if he had the opportunity. “All of his music is super creative and how he keeps his vocal deliveries organized is really dope,” says Mashich “I could learn a couple of things from him.”What makes this crooner so different from others is the thing he plans on bringing an old school feel back to R&B. “I hope that through my unique songwriting and vocal structure I am able to push other artist to do the same” All in all he wants good fortunes for the human race. Because let’s face there’s more to life. Love is limitless. “Miss My Dawgs” is currently out on streaming platforms. Be on the lookout for his debut EP “Small Town, Big City” which will cover his coming of age story. Leaving his house and growing with Philly.

“Whatever you believe you can do, you can do that sh*t. You can much success and much love”

You can follow him on:

SoundCloud - https://soundcloud.com/mashichmusic/miss-my-dawgs

Instagram - @k.ing.tut

Last to wow the crowd away was Bronx native Captain DMac who “makes your neck stretch like an ostrich”. Ticking the spinal chords of those familiar with dancehall and pop, Captain DMac’s brush of sultry vocal play and enticing melodies took me back to a tropical island that effortlessly illuminates peace, love and good vibes towards it’s community. I couldn’t help but to move my hips to the vigorous, self pulsating beats to follow.

We [Luis and I] were instantly allured. We needed to find out more and so we did.

Captain DMac started making music when he was in high school. “I was doing songs for different environments and people or surroundings,” DMac goes on to say “Anything that would happen I would make a song about it. I would often recite Snoop Dogg’s “Drop it Like It’s Hot” [in that time period] too because he’s one of my favorite artist and then someone said “Hey you should make your own song” so I decided to try it. The first cover I did was “Dreams Money Could Buy” by Drake and ever since I have been creating my own songs.”His tracks are mostly embed with a homage to his culture and admirable women and when he spits, he SPITS. Before switching genres, Captain DMac was just an aspiring rhymester who made headlines with his hit single “Big Ol Booty” because of the line from the song “Stretching out her neck like an ostrich” (and it became so well known that it went viral on Facebook and Worldstar, gaining over 8 million views to date.) However, Captain DMac didn’t get the credit he deserved but eventually he was gaining more recognition and reclaimed what was his. A lot of people [A&R’s] saw his songs for what it is and not what it could be, but his close ones thought otherwise. “One day I was talking to my boy and he said “Yo you’re Jamaican you should really touch that dancehall scene because there’s a lot of American artist that are doing it.” and I said “You know what you’re right let’s try it. The first one I made was Hold (which received positive feedback) and from there I said to myself let’s keep creating these vibes.” says Captain DMac. “There was a lot of obstacles to get to where I am. I met a lot of good people, sometimes bad. But I continue to strive and I surround myself around people who also strive. They have to work hard towards what they want to get and that’s what my team does. We just trying to get it. It all starts with good music.” Captain DMac also says that “Just Me & You” was his favorite song to make, “I recruited my friend to do light vocals and in the end he sounded like Super Mario.” All in all what makes him unique from the rest is his pen game. “I can have multiple versions of one song”

Captain DMac will continue to touching the Dancehall scene & the people.

He will be dropping two EP’s very soon.

His single “Think About” ft Juanialys is out right now

Fun fact: His favorite slang is yerr

&

He is a boxers guy.

You can find him at:

Soundcloud - https://soundcloud.com/captaindmac

Instagram - @captaindmac

Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/artist/5p154fD2gshCzENn8a4W8b?si=YLJ645G7TEOZSWFjQuj47Q

At its best, Philly Music Festival will continuously flourish as a platform for artist on the rise.

It’s more than just an event, it’s a spot that’ll reign of harmony, inspiration and positive energy.

By: Natalee Gilbert 🌞

[justabullsfan]

pretty skies & waterfalls & plants & forehead kisses & deep conversations & Scripture reading & puzzles & dancing to smooth jazz & wine & painting & soft r&b & late night drives with parked car conversations after & conscious rap & fruit picking & vegetable planting & hand holding & silence & sunsets & open ended questions & prayer & scrabble & peace & poetry & sunrises & water & church & neo-soul & long hugs & vinyls & healing & wisdom & kisses on the cheek & cartoon movies & dates at home & nature & polaroids & old school jamz & butterflies & views & Black novels & soft kisses & church & brunch & picnics & dates outside & gospel music & the drive-in & talks about God & meditation… these the kind of vibes i’m on 🧘‍♀️

[dagr8fm]

Haven's Way

All the way from Indianapolis, Indiana Dagr8FM presents Haven Ways.  Born June 8th, 1996 Haven Ways is the youngest of 5 children introduced to the world of music by a cousin named Deejay.  Growing up, his life was far from perfect.  Diagnosed with A.D.H.D. as a youth, Haven Ways struggled to excel academically and socially amongst his peers.  Family life was not ideal either, both of his parents were together for the beginning of Haven Way’s life into his adolescent years.  Everything changed when his father began developing an excessive drinking habit.  His irresponsible behavior grew so rampant he ended up losing their family home and they were forced to move in with relatives.  This resulted in a slew of financial woes and shortcomings that began to take a major psychological toll on Haven Ways and his family.  These issues reflected in his performance in grade school.  He began to focus more on his external issues than his school work which led him to drop out during his senior year.  Fortunately, after realizing that he, along with all the other dropouts, was headed down a very dark road that would probably have ended him up dead or in a prison cell, Havens Ways made the conscious decision to re-enroll and complete his secondary education.

During these tough times,Haven Ways really started to take his music career seriously. He had always written songs but now they were so much more meaningful.  He wrote about the many turmoils of his upbringing like living with a disability and experiencing the negative effects of alcoholism.  He began using his writing as an emotional outlet, a means to maintain sanity in a world plagued by strife and inequity.  One of his most popular tracks “Trying”, available now on all music platforms, is a primary example of his mindset.  The song itself is beautifully produced featuring subtle bass kicks, piano notes, and string instruments to really give off an R&B meets neo-soul/jazz vibe very reminiscent of artists such as Chance the Rapper and Lyfe Jennings.  As for the message being conveyed, Haven Ways simply says that despite all that he has gone through in life so far he will persevere.  He talks about hoping to “touch a million”, drowning the feelings that have consumed him for so many years, and how he refuses to settle for his current circumstances.  This track is surely to become an anthem for individuals feeling defeated along life’s journey.

Presently, Haven Ways is working hard in the studio finalizing his upcoming motivational E.P. project titled “Commitment” set to release in August of 2020.  He is also in the developmental stages of an L.P. called “C.P.M.” (Coach Player Mascot) as well. He hopes his career will lead him to collaborate with some of his industry favorites like Starlito and Don Trip. Through his music, Haven Ways aims to connect with those who feel unworthy or defeated due to their circumstances.  For now and for many years to come, this man will be showing us how to overcome our demons to fulfill our destinies; the Haven’s Way.

To read more blogs please visit our site: dagr8fm.

[creativemorningsdublin-blog]

Meet our musician: shiv

Meet our Musician: shiv

For February’s CreativeMornings event we are joined by shiv as our musical guest. 

shiv is a Zimbabwean/Irish musician based in Dublin. Having established herself as a house DJ, she turned her attention to where her passion truly lay in song-writing. 

Her music, though simple in its musicality, envelops you in her world. She uses her unique blend of R&B and Lo-fi Hip-Hop with elements of Soul and Neo-Soul to create music that is emotive and brimming with feeling. Shiv’s silky-sweet voice wraps you in a hug that carries her soulful lyrics and brings them to life over the warm, hazy instrumentals. 

Our music co-ordinator, Molly, sat down with shiv to ask her about all things music and creativity.

How did you transition to being a full time musician?

In a weird way, Covid definitely made that happen. Music has always been in my life but to be actually doing it full time with nothing else going on is great. This is my primary focus right now. Before Covid, I was working in a restaurant alongside doing music and when restaurants closed down and the Covid payment was instated, I had to rethink what I was doing. So, it really threw me into music. I was DJing for a little while before all of that because I didn’t really think of singing as a career path, necessarily. I felt like it was a one in a million kind of thing where only a few people are chosen and you have to be chosen by a major label. The old industry model. I thought DJing was a great way to express myself musically without necessarily being a musician or a singer but music was always part of my life.  

When my sister was getting married and I was the maid of honour, I was meant to write her a speech but I just don't like public speaking. I don’t really enjoy speaking in front of more than about 5 people. It's too much. So I decided I would write her a song instead. I put that song up on YouTube and my managers at the time saw it and suggested that I consider doing this as a career. Then I just went from there, slowly but surely building things up right and learning more about production and how to put everything together.  And yeah, I guess that sort of brings us up to now.

Do you use that song that you wrote for your sister’s wedding in your set?

No, I don't use it. It was the very first song I wrote so I thought about putting it out, but I ended up going in a different direction. 

A lot of creatives find that their confidence fluctuates, as a byproduct of their creativity and their values being such a huge part of their work. Do you feel in a good place with your confidence?

Yeah! Before releasing my EP I was definitely in that turtle mode. It’s the pressure of knowing people are looking at you and that people have expectations of you. That was really hard to swallow I guess, and even though at the time I don't think many people were looking at me or are looking at me currently, it just really felt like they were. I felt like I had something to prove. So, at that time it was difficult but because the EP is about all of that stuff, that was my way of processing all of it. 

I do feel like that’s behind me though. I’ve come up with coping mechanisms and would like to think that I have a more internal locus of evaluation, to put a psychological spin on it! Obviously that's easier said than done though, you have to also be in a good frame of mind to be able to rationalise all of that.

So that was a big thing. Being able to just say ‘look, create for you. If you're happy with it, that’s the important thing and if anyone else likes it - amazing, obviously that’s such a bonus. But if not, whatever.’ You haven't lost anything by putting yourself out there, you know.

People need to like your music to spend money to see you perform those songs. So that’s definitely part of it. 

I think it's just about finding the right balance between being sure that you’re doing it for yourself and appreciating people who enjoy what you’re doing. 

Your EP ‘Me 2 Me’ gives off that vibe of sitting in the grass in the summertime. At the same time, the tone of the EP is driven by introspection and exploring the insecurities that you described earlier. Are there still narratives that arise around your creativity that you have to work on silencing? 

Yeah, definitely. The big one is comparison, thinking things like, ‘oh well, this person is doing this so I should be doing it like that too.’ But then it can just cripple you completely from even wanting to try. With the process of making music, another negative narrative might be judging what I’m doing as I’m doing it but the more that I just ease into it and just do it, I stop thinking. At the very least maybe you’ve finished something. If it’s not good then maybe it might inspire something else that you make later on.

So, I think they are the two big things. Trying to get to a place where I just have patience with myself. Showing up is half the battle really, just showing up and doing it. It doesn't matter what you come up with at the end of the day ‘cos it's gonna all build towards something good in the future. Sometimes it’s just about having the confidence to know that if you’ve done it before you can do it again. It’s in ya! It wasn't a fluke. Understanding that was a big thing. Patience and compassion for yourself.

We often hear creatives talk about how it’s so important to let yourself make bad work. It sounds like a lot of your creative process is just allowing yourself to sit with it and try things. 

Exactly, yeah. It's not that you're setting out with the intention of sitting down to specifically write a bad song. Even though I’ve heard Blindboy say that before on his podcast, he's advised people to sit down and write something bad. I've never done that personally, but if I'm going to write a song or going to do some work on music, I do like to set myself a time where I just sit for two hours and just see what happens in that time. It could be bad, it could be good or it could be something that you draw inspiration from for future projects and future work. 

You never know what subconsciously comes from those moments. You could look back at a Logic session and be like ‘oh my god, that’s where I got the idea for that little melody line.’

Was there anything that has surprised you about your creativity over the past year?

I don't know if anything surprised me, necessarily. Nothing's jumping out at me that I was like, whoa, I didn't know that. But I did have a realisation around discipline and how it’s just so important. If you're disciplined in every other area of your life and you have a routine set up, then it leaves space to be free with your creativity which is how it should be. 

I guess I did just realise how important discipline is and how important it is to do at least one creative thing a day, whether it’s a journal entry or a poem or drawing something. Also, making sure you go on some little adventure to the shop or for a walk because you end up soaking up things that you didn’t even realise, or making new connections that you wouldn’t have made before. 

It’s so easy to just be stuck in the house and stuck at your piano or your computer forcing yourself to create. The space outside of where you create is just as important, those experiences where your conscious mind is off and your subconscious is ready to pick up on those little bits and bobs, those moments are really valuable.

The theme for this month’s CreativeMornings event is Divergent. What comes up for you when you think about that word? 

At the moment I've been thinking a lot about the building racial situations and everything that’s been happening around that. I feel like being mixed race is a weird one because you don't really fit into either category. It’s like you’re too white to be black and too black to be white. So I definitely feel like that's such a divergence from the norm. That's how I'm finding myself at the moment, but not necessarily in a negative way. I’m just something different, I'm a diversion from what is the standard on either side of the spectrum. 

It can be really difficult to know when to include something so personal in your art, if ever. Especially with things that are so fresh. Do you keep those things in your life separate until you know how to approach them or do you tend to dive in? 

I think you definitely need to take time to process things a little bit, even though writing does help with processing. But sometimes when stuff is too raw, I don't feel like sharing it unless it's completely just something I'm writing for me, but even just seeing it on a page sometimes is too much. 

I have been writing about it. I feel like I have a lot to say about it at the moment so it is coming through. But you do need to figure out what you want to say and how exactly you feel about it before you can really put pen to paper and make a song out of it. 

Your music currently sits in that soothing R&B, summers day soulful genre. If you could click your fingers and jump into another genre for a day, which one would you gravitate towards? 

That's an interesting question. I wouldn’t deviate too far from R&B and soul. I think I would happily be a rapper or a jazz musician, if I could do that. Then I’d love to be a house musician as well because I did DJ for a while and I loved it. Sorry, that’s three!

DJing must have been so fun. Was that your full time gig?

No, I was doing it on the side. I used to do two nights a week. I had a residency in Berlin Bar on Dame Street. DJing was fun, it was a nice way to make money and it was just a good buzz but when I needed to take the next step to make it a bit more regular, I couldn’t really find the motivation to do that. That’s when I knew it was just a hobby, you know. I was thinking, ‘oh maybe I could do this full time,’ but then I don’t think I could be excited to DJ full time. It’s definitely fun though, I do miss it. 

Your visuals are such a well matched extension of your music. They portray that same warm and authentic sense of self that we hear when listening to your songs. Is there a particular way that you approach them or is it just about going with what feels good in the moment? 

In the beginning, I didn't have a budget or any support so it was all about getting friends on board and explaining what I had in my head. It was about saying, ‘let's just put something together and see what happens’. I didn't really put too much thought into any of them, especially because I don't come from a visual background at all. It's not my comfort zone, not one bit! So, I just wanted to put across whatever I could.

Moving forward, I would love to get a bit more professionally and creatively involved in the visual aspect because I feel like it's such an important part of the whole story of the music. I know it can engage a whole different audience, so I do think it's important. Possibly a little to my detriment, I haven’t put enough effort into the visuals, but I also feel like sometimes it is just about what feels right and fleshing out a basic idea that you have in your head. And like all aspects of creativity - it’s about getting started with an idea. Then more ideas just kind of flood in once you get the ball rolling, you know.

-- You can catch shiv on Spotify here.

[lovejustforaday]

Album Review - The ArchAndroid by Janelle Monáe

THE ARCHANDROID - JANELLE MONÁE

Main Genres: Art Pop, Progressive Pop, Contemporary R&B

A decent sampling of: Psychedelic Pop, Jazz Pop, Neo-Soul, Rock N Roll, Synth Pop, Swing, Baroque Pop, Conscious Rap, Alternative R&B

It’s hard to think of an artist who arrived onto the scene with a more fully-formed vision than Janelle Monáe.

Creative minds of her caliber are few and far between. I bet a lot of artists wish that they could say that their debut LP was as bold, ambitious, and left as lasting an impression as The ArchAndroid.

The ArchAndroid is the most cinematic experience an album has ever given me by itself. Artists like Gorillaz and Beyoncé have dropped “album movies” where every song (or just about every song) gets a music video, and I admire those kinds of projects for all the effort that goes into them. But The ArchAndroid never needed a music video for every song - each song is already so vivid, so full of colour and life, that I can already picture clearly what the music and the story looks like inside my head. Of course, it helps that Janelle Monae did everything in her power to make the story behind this concept album as real and tangible as possible, between little details like the written lore in the liner notes to the real life persona she adopted at the time of its release. But what exactly is The ArchAndroid all about? Well, it’s a little complicated. Monáe refers to her debut EP Metropolis and her first two LPs as “suites”, with Metropolis representing suite 1, The Archandroid suites 2 and 3, and The Electric Lady suites 4 and 5. These suites tell the story of Cindi Mayweather, a prophetic, afrofuturistic android protagonist who was cloned from Janelle Monáe’s DNA, who falls in love with a human named Sir Anthony Greendown, and lives in a dystopian future where time travelling villains known as ‘The Great Divide’ are oppressing androids.

Essentially, the story of Cindi Mayweather serves as allegory for issues surrounding blackness, queerness, oppression, and interacial love in our own times. Furthermore, Cindi Mayweather’s character represents love itself as an opposing force to hatred. The ArchAndroid in particular very strongly represent’s Janelle Monae’s socio-political manifesto of love, protest, and peaceful rebellion in the face of societal injustices like racism. The whole thing is basically just really nerdy pop music meets sci-fi social justice, and I absolutely fell in love with the concept from the very first time I heard The ArchAndroid. Anyways, let’s talk about the music. Monáe’s pop fusion sound takes inspiration from all sorts of directions here - from good old rock and roll, classic psychedelia, and 60s girl groups, to modern hip hop and neo-soul. What really stands out however is a particular fondness for the classy sound of 1920s jazz, swing, and big band music, and the accompanying visual aesthetics for the album draw heavily from this influence. The production on this album is BIG. Part of what makes this album so cinematic is the crisp, clean mastering and the large orchestral arrangements that feature prominently throughout. Everything sounds meticulously placed and she clearly worked with a really great team on this project. I’d also say that this is the kind of album you definitely have to hear on vinyl to get the fullest experience possible. Monáe’s talents as a vocalist are also a key element. She’s got a fire in her soul and a very real stage presence, and her range is impeccable. She can rap on tracks like “Dance or Die” and “Tightrope”, she can serenade the listener so sweetly on tracks like “Say You’ll Go” and “Sir Greendown”, or she can belt out a song with sorrow in her chest on tracks like “Oh, Maker” and “Cold War”. At almost 70 minutes, it’s a very long album by pop standards so it’d be pretty difficult to pinpoint what all of my favourite tracks are on The ArchAndroid and why, but here’s a few highlights anyway. “Dance Or Die”, “Faster”, and “Locked Inside” start off the album with a three part musical chase scene where Cindi is fleeing her oppressors. I see a heavy rainy night, dark alleyways, flashing city lights, and futuristic floating cop cars when “Dance Or Die” kicks in with its incredibly infectious beat that gets my heart pumping every time I hear it. “Sir Greendown” is a wonderful little love song with mysterious undertones, and a warm throwback to the era of brill building. This song establishes one of the main conflicts of the ArchAndroid portion of Cindi’s story in particular; that is, choosing between her destiny to stay and fight for her people as the Archandroid, or escaping to the safe haven land of mushrooms and roses to live a life of peace with her lover. “Tightrope” is just a total banger from start to finish. This jazzy, swingy r&b rap track features Big Boi of Outkast, one of her clearest musical inspirations and it’s really cool to see both of them absolutely kill it alongside eachother. The breakdown with the record scratching is one of the very best musical moments on this LP and it really gives me the vibe of an android glitching on the dance floor from partying too hard. “Wondaland” is absolutely utopian, a lofty, mythical synth pop song that sounds like it came right out of a pixar movie with all kinds of weird little android voices in the background. “Say You’ll Go” is my personal favourite. This classy tune is mostly an exhibit for Monáe’s artistic tastes and her soothing vocals, but it’s done so incredibly well that I can’t help but wonder if this is what elevator music in the tallest skyscraper of an advanced society might sound like. The ending with its interpolation of “Clair de Lune” and a soulful choir in the background is a really nice touch. “BaBopByeYa” is a fantastic eight minute closing piece of soul jazz that represents the peak of the album’s cinematic qualities, with a progressive song structure that tells an entire story on its own. The fact that this wasn’t the biggest album of its decade is honestly sort of a crime. I can only think of one other album from the 2010s that I love just a little bit more than The ArchAndroid, but if we’re to assume that some element of music critique is objective (which is a whole other can of worms), then I have to point out just how put together this whole LP is, how much love and hard work clearly went into it, and how incredibly impressive this sounds even to this day. Speaking as ““““objectively”””” as I think I can, this is the most impressive thing I’ve heard that’s come out in the past 11 years. This could have come out yesterday and it still would have sounded so incredibly beyond what I thought was possible at the time. What’s more, the political issues tackled by The ArchAndroid are sadly just as relevant today as they were the day that it dropped. Speaking as a dumb privileged white guy who obviously isn’t an expert on the subject, I really did want to put out a review for Black History Month that would honour a great black artist, and Janelle Monáe is the first one that comes to mind. Monáe is obviously a very proud black woman, and her art definitely needs to be celebrated.

That being said, The ArchAndroid is really the kind of album that just about anybody should be able to enjoy regardless of their background. Either you love sci-fi, hate injustices, or just like listening to really fucking good music.

10/10

highlights: “Say You’ll Go”, “Wondaland”, “Tightrope”, “Dance Or Die”, “BaBopByeYa”, “Sir Greendown”, “Oh, Maker”, “Locked Inside”, “57821″, “Cold War”, “Mushrooms & Roses”, “Suite III Overture”, “Suite II Overture”, “Faster”, “Make the Bus”

[tonybconscious]

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Anthony Brown (@tony_b_conscious)

VEGAN MOB WEEKENDS @officialveganmob ----------------------------------------- ARTISTIC vendor marketplace ( 11- 9pm) 🖼🎨🖼🎨🖼🎨🖼🎨🖼 Curated by TONY B. CONSCIOUS ( THE GHETTO VAN- GO) ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ----------------------------------------- SATURDAYS: LIVE DJ 🎧🎛🎚🎶🎼🎵🎼💿📀 SUNDAYS: LIVE JAZZ/ NEO SOUL BAND 🎹🎸🥁🪘🎶🎵🎙🎼🎹 ----------------------------------------- DELICIOUS, HEALTHY FOOD, 🍟🌭🥪🌮🌯🥙🍔 GOOD MUSIC, 🎵🎶🎵🎶🎵🎶🎵🎶🎵 DOPE ART,🎨🖼🎨🖼🎨 Fly drip ...🥼🧥👕👔👖👚 POSITIVE, PERFECT VIBE 😀😆😁💥😇😁🤗😎🤓 ...PULL UP !!!💎💎💎💎👑👑👑👑💯💯💯💯💯 ----------------------------------------- Ashe, NAMASTE TONY B. CONSCIOUS (323)251-4969 #art #artist  #artistlife #blacktwitter #bayarea #berkeley #oakland #blackartmatters #soul #blackartist #bayareaartist #bayareavegans #veganartist #california #poetry #leimertparkartist  #veganmob #creativegenius #basquiatinspired #freestyle  #positiveoutlook #icon #theghettovango #telegraphave  #tonybconscious #tonybconscious1 #tonybconsciousart #tonybconsciousartwork (at Vegan Mob - Vegan BBQ and Soul Food) https://www.instagram.com/p/CKFscyHDN8P/?igshid=1wwyw4wp87hb1

[kickmag]

The Brooklyn-based Herbivores just released one of the sweetest soul collections in the midst of the panic and frustration of a worldwide pandemic. Their self-titled EP is inspired by the current season and all the fun that's usually associated with summer. Songs about love and the heat of a summer day are nostalgic when social distancing and face masks have become the new normal. But the current anxiety felt around the country regarding economics, health and the upcoming election has made the healing power of music while everyone is shut indoors even more valuable.

Musicians, songwriters and producers  Bel-Ami, Redddaz, Misha Savage and Will Sacks were independent artists working in New York City before they became the Herbivores. They were drawn together by their desire to make music with each other as much as their love of plants. In this interview they talk about how the band was formed, the EP and being artists during COVID-19.

"Finishing this project I think for all of us has been really cathartic"- Misha Savage

How did you all come together to become the Herbivores?

Misha Savage: The Herbivores initially came together as myself and Will trying to find somebody to sing all of these weird productions that we were making at his house. I had been in a project with Red for a number of years previously and what happened is we had called Amir up kind of out of the blue. Will and I had met at a jam session probably two years before we founded the group. And we just called him out of the blue and said we had some random songs that and it just sort of ballooned from there we called Red in for another one of these little productions we just wound up writing these kinds of songs together.

Do you all eat plant-based diets?

Bel-Ami: Not everybody fully all of the time.

Where does the name Herbivores come from?

Misha Savage: When we first started writing, both Bel-Ami and Red were plant-based. That combined with the fact that Will is an urban farmer/crazy plant dad. Seriously, he has twelve fruit and veg plants on his fire escape.

I’ve heard the EP and you’ve made it a two-part release, where did the idea of music for the summer and then the upcoming Nightshades for the fall come from?

Will Sacks: Originally at the top of the year we were planning to do four seasonal EPs, which were going to be four tracks each so almost like one song for every month of the year. But when COVID hit we had to cancel our release tour. We were going to play a few colleges we kind of regrouped and we said how can we put out as much light as possible right now. And you’ll see in a few months when we release the Nightshades project It has a very different feeling and tone.

Was there a conscious decision to make love songs was that the theme?

Bel-Ami: I don’t know if that was a conscious decision. When we are inspired we just go me being like mainly like a writer of neo-soul music that’s one of the things that I touch on heavily. Red does as well and like Will alluded to this record being much more of a summer vibe like these are the happier of the songs these are the lighter of the love. You’ll see in the Nightshades it gets a little deeper.

What’s the story behind “Kind of Like A Crush?”

Misha Savage: So we were playing basketball one day and we had smoothies it was a healthy day. I went home and wrote the whole thing in a night on Will’s synthesizer and I thought about a dancer I had met on my travels overseas and I included kind of like a crush in the title. We passed it over to Bel-Ami and he had written the entire song based on the title of the project.

Bel-Ami: Often times when I receive music from everyone they have a title on it and maybe it’s the mood they were going for but I actually glean a lot from that and typically I like to stay within that theme if I’m inspired by the music just because it feels a little bit more authentic to their creation. I write love songs and I crush all the time so I was able to draw on a lot of my experiences and it just flowed. I remember I was actually on my way to out of town I don’t remember where I was walking to the Megabus I might have been going to Maryland and I wrote it on my way from my house by the time I got to the Megabus I was already done so maybe like an hour trip. And I had everything exactly how I wanted it and rarely do I get inspired in that way but there’s a song that’s on our Nightshades EP that actually is the first song that I wrote with Misha and Will inspired me in the very same way. So it’s good to have those moments and I’ve had lots of those moments working with these guys.

Who’s playing the guitar?

Misha Savage: I played the guitar on that one.

Who is the vocalist?

Bel-Ami: That's me.

What was the process for  “Like You?”

Bel-Ami: The composition on that song really got me and I’m a sucker for a good guitar riff and often times when I write I draw on current, past maybe wanna be future experiences and everything just came.

Will Sacks: I sent it to Bel-Ami as I often do and what I got back were these gorgeous vocals honestly I don’t know if I told Amir this but I cried a little bit when I heard the hook the first time it gave me chills I really love that song and that’s me playing guitar too. We went back to Amir and we were like we’re keeping these vocals like I know you just recorded these at home remote pre-COVID before it was even cool. There have been three or four songs where within an hour of me sending something or Amir sending something Amir is like I’m ready to record.

Now you’ve already kind of touched on something I want to ask which is of course, how has COVID-19 impacted your creative and work lives?

Redddaz: The thing about COVID-19 is that it took the touring out because we were looking forward to going to colleges and performing. But for the most part, we have already been utilizing our work style pre-COVID in terms of working remotely so in terms of that it was never really an issue it was just the fact of getting out there and performing and sharing music with the masses. But in terms of the production quality, we’re still able to produce.

Did you all perform together live before the release of the EP?

Misha Savage: Yes, the last place we performed was at a place called at a venue called Elsewhere and it’s kind of crazy looking back like a full house of 308 people and looking back on it feels like a fever dream cause it feels like it’s been three or four years. That was the week before everything.

Redddaz: It was the last time we saw our entire New York family.

Have you been creating more since everyone has had to quarantine?

Misha Savage: It’s gone different ways for each of us Will and I took a lot of time to finish mixing this record and finish mixing a lot of the stuff that we had. I know that both Red and Amir have been also mixing and working on their own stuff at home and I do want to say one thing in that finishing this EP a lot of us and this is something I have talked about with Amir through finishing this work we can be inspired to finish the rest of our canon.

Redddaz: Just to piggyback off of that COVID gave us all a second to take a deep breath and to finish the things we had been tinkering with.

Misha Savage: We were planning to release mid-April before everything but having an extra second to take a breath to re-listen to everything remix everything, get it mastered, and really make sure that everything in our house was clean. For me, the first part of quarantine was like reading hundreds of pages of Buddhist literature and kind of getting back to a place where I wasn’t succumbing to the hustle and bustle of New York City anymore trying to re-center. So finishing this project I think for all of us has been really cathartic.

Have you come up with an alternative plan to promote the record now that COVID has killed concerts until further notice?

Misha Savage: We have a multi-prong strategy that’s a hybrid of the digital and in-person media. Right now we’re talking about doing rooftop style shows on myself and Will’s building that we can live stream. The conventional way has been thrown out the window one thing I was looking to early on in the quarantine is to start coding to make some video game for us to market.

Follow the Herbivores on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter