No Fidelity Spring 2022

SPRING 2022

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No Fidelity is...

Billy Bratton ◆ Jimmy Carlson ◆ Luisa Cichowski ◆ Isaac Crown-Manesis ◆ Loren Friedman ◆ Olivia Ho ◆ Henry Holcomb (ed.) ◆ Elise Hudson ◆ Alberto León ◆ Drew Rodriguez-Michel ◆ Owen Roth (ed.) ◆ Nelson Serrano ◆ Ethan Whiteaker ◆ From the Eds.....

If you happened to pick up this magazine and have no clue what you are getting youself into, welcome to No Fidelity! For those of you familiar with, fans of, and contributors to the publication, welcome back, it’s good to see you. We have been fortunate to have been blessed this term with a host of talented writers, musicians, and artists who have come together to create the product before you now. Hate it? Go for it and recycle this right now; or better yet, hand it off to some sucker you find aimlessly wandering around campus. Love it? Go ahead and do the same if that suits you; or dare I suggest, JOIN US! All jokes aside, NoFi is open to all students interested in or passionate about music, art, and pop culture. We welcome all students and encourage creativity and personal flair with writing styles so please feel emboldened to give us a shot and try out the NoFi experience. Email nofi@krlx.org or dm us on instagram @no.fidel with inquiries, questions, ideas, etc. and we will get you involved!

The Imprint student music release this term produced some incredible work and a diverse array of sounds from the five artists / bands that recorded tracks. The Imprint is out now everywhere on streaming services and is worth bumping at loud volume. It can be found on Spotify as No Fidelity 010. Seriously give this a listen.

NoFi has been undergoing some exciting changes lately: We recently aquired digital copies of much of the original publications –that date back as far as 2014– and are working to get them catalogoued online on the KRLX website, krlx.org. We will also begin piloting regular NoFi blog posts to the KRLX website starting in Summer or early Fall. No Fidelity continues to pursue plans for connecting with its alumni to provide access to future publication and Imprint releases.

All love to this tight community, Henry Holcomb ‘23 NF009 | 1

Contents

Dead Wax by Loren Friedman.............................................. 3 Magdalena Bay: Bimbo Robot Music by Drew Rodriguez-Michel......................................................................................... 5 Big Thief Stole Our Hearts On 4/27/22 by Isaac Crown-Manesis............................................................................................ 7 Memories & Nostalgia in Cassette: The Best Gift I Ever Recieved

by Olivia Ho.......................................................................... 9 My First Winter and an Album About It by Alberto León...... 11 Symphonic Folktronica Break Metal: the Wonderful Chaos of Igorrr

by Jimmy Carlson............................................................... 13 Ranking Every Alvvays Song For Lack of a Better Idea by Billy Bratton.................................................................................. 17 Metallic Hardcore: The Past, Present, and Future of Heavy Music

by Ethan Whiteaker........................................................... 18 Placing Denzel Curry’s Melt My Eyez See Your Future by Henry Holcomb.................................................................................19

Photo: Isaac Crown-Manesis

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Dead Wax Loren Friedman

From the darkest, dankest, dirtiest recesses of Carleton College’s regionally renowned record repository they COME FORTH. Rarely spun by anyone save for a few humble Record Librarians, for eons these deserted disks have been damned to hermetic solitude. It is the hope of this humble crate digger that this spread will serve as the means for their liberation. May the following blurbs encourage you to seek out these or any other fuzzy warbles housed within the cozy confines of the KRLX Record Libe. Be warned: not all of these titles can be described as good, listenable, or particularly interesting; however, I believe they represent a certain attitude, a credo, a vibe inseparable from the unparalleled atmosphere of the Record Libe and its caretakers.

Yours truly, Loren “Yer Ma’s Pierogi Sucks” Friedman Free Life, Free Life Imbued by its producer (Earth, Wind & Fire’s Philip Bailey) with the cosmic funk of the elements, this album is nothing short of absolutely delightful. Sweet, sweaty, and sticky, the steamy sonic jungle of Free Life’s syncopated brilliance inspires a sense of romantic passion like no other. Perfect for lovers, the heartbroken, or the perpetually lonesome, tracks such as “Stomp and Shout” and “Say You Do” inspire visions of hugging, kissing, missing, squeezing, and pleasing. If you find yourself in want of glide for your stride or dip for your hip, let the lush, knee-jerk, dance-thenight-away funk of Free Life provide a potent remedy.

Photo: Loren Friedman

The Works, Queen *dutifully transcribed from a series of liner notes on this album’s cover* Dj1: “Freddy Mercury, perhaps rock’s greatest facist (sic), rails in the first against “Radio Gaga”. It is ironic that the perpetrators of some of the worst songs on the radio in the last 10 years should protest the state radio is in. Various forms of Radio Gaga on this album: synthpop, metal, ballads, funk. Do the world a service and play the real thing, not these feeble rip offs.”

Dj2: “Disregard liner notes, Queen’s unique style is only displeasing to those unable to accept a novel, new approach to music.”protest the state radio is in. Various forms of Radio Gaga on this album: synthpop, metal, ballads, funk. Do the world a service and play the real thing, not these feeble rip offs.”

Photo: Loren Friedman NF011 | 3

Dj2: “Disregard liner notes, Queen’s unique style is only displeasing to those unable to accept a novel, new approach to music.”

Up Side Down, Fela Kuti and the Africa 70 This is cool. In a world of needlessly esoteric and pretentiously packaged repressings, records like this one serve as a reminder that behind all of the affected hipster posturing, there is some truth. Full of rich horns, dry drums, and wailing moans, Fela and his band embellish on this cut, crackling with a raw power. This is Fela in his finest form. Thundering with the Africa ‘70 into the fray of Afrobeat glory, Fela touches upon a nerve few can. Simultaneously minimalistic yet decadent, boisterous yet reserved, jubilant yet somber, this single, shipped to KRLX from the oh-so-cool London-based label Phase 4 in the heady days of 1976, deserves to be cherished, respected, and danced to.

Sammy Hagar VOA, Sammy Hagar This album is a turd. Pictured here in the reddest of Photo: Loren Friedman leather jumpsuits, with this disk the man responsible for the slow, grim demise of Van Halen offers up his particularly mindless brand of crotch rock. Particularly grating is the track “Dick in The Dirt”. Following the exploits of what appears to be Hagar’s favorite appendage, this four-minute exercise in actual masturbation serves as a manifestation of Hagar’s unique ability to suck harder than the average bear. Beat to death and encrusted in what I can only hope is dirt and spit, this gem stands out as among the worst pieces of property KRLX possesses.

Photo: Loren Friedman

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Magdalena Bay: Bimbo Robot Music Drew Rodriguez-Michel

If you, like I, find yourself scrolling through your saved albums on Spotify, YouTube, or Apple Music, perhaps searching for the right vibe or perfect length for your Goodhue-to-Weitz walk, look no further and hesitate no longer.

In 2018, they began an odyssey of self discovery, experimenting first with the synth. At In as fairy-godmother-like a position as possible, I be- this point, their queath to you a gem I recently discovered and have taken niche was the atthe liberty to define: bimbo robot music. You heard me. mospheric vibe Specifically, a band called Magdalena Bay. Their newest that was slowly album, Mercurial World (2021), is their claim to fame. gaining populariIn what I can only describe as an electro and synth-pop ty and soon to be fusion, this bright, bubbly, and in-your-face album is seized by the upbeautiful from start to finish. Their intense electronic and-coming bedroom pop genre (screams in Clairo). sound, however, is a relatively recent and much-needed Their 2018 single “Waking Up” debuts a variety of glimdevelopment in the scope of their discography. mery synths to foster the all-too-famous starry sound, and is topped off with lightly auto tuned vocals.

Altogether, the sound is nowhere near full bimbofication. A point of notability, however, is the single’s cover art, which epitomizes the tumblr-girl-to-bedroom-popfan pipeline (it’s time we start talking about it). With newspaper clipping wings, Tenenbaum stands, turned away and oh-so mysterious looking. If nothing else, I give them points for the nostalgia factor this brings.

Image: Billy Bratton

2019 is a fresh start for the duo, and, by my measure, their biggest jump sonically towards their current sound. Upon listening to their first EP day/pop, I was immediately greeted by a steady synth presence, including both keyboard and guitar. Production-wise, sparse and unfocused synths of earlier singles have been largely replaced by a decidedly 70s and 80s disco sound, and the airier vocals present a small but important departure from previously throatier belts more fitted for mainstream pop hits. Their lyrics are still as cliche as ever, although finally present a cohesive story (obviously one about love). Best off the EP is “Head Over Heels”, which, although I can’t claim to love today, I know highschool sophomore me would have adored.

The pop duo Mica Tenenbaum and Matthew Lewin began releasing music in 2017 after first meeting as highschoolers. For the majority of their discography, their sound more easily fell under classic and indie pop genres. Think: a very watered down Katy Perry—heavy on vocals, diminished instrumentation, and formulaic song structure. Of course, being new to the industry, their lack of ingenuity was somewhat understandable, but I reserve the right to judge their 2017 single “Neon” as little more than a Garageband beat.

2020 is the year I can safely say they win their synth NF011 | 5

battle, as Lewin mixes synths with booming beats and catchy hooks to give their songs a brightness previously unheard of. This was the year the duo released a series of mini mixtapes, along with their album A Little Rhythm and a Wicked Feeling, which includes the irresistibly groovy hit “Killshot”. Tenenbaum’s whimsical vocals meld seamlessly with mysterious and other-worldly lyrics for an all-around experimental feel, setting them up beautifully for Mercurial World.

2021 is their year of notoriety. Their album, which was released on October 8, is thoroughly saturated with synths, masterful transitions, and existentialist themes. Starting with “The End” and ending with “The Beginning”, the album offers a unique approach to listening; there is no linear way to engage with it.

If you do choose to listen from start to finish, in the second track you’ll find the song “Mercurial World”, vocally reminiscent of Grimes and yeule, and with a production style similar to that of Charli XCX. Next up begins my favorite stretch of the album, with “Dawning of the Season”, “Secrets (Your Fire)”, and “You Lose!”

The first offers a typical verse-chorus-verse progression, however the bridge to the song’s last chorus presents a key change that gets you on your feet. The transition between songs could not be more smooth, and in fact will go unnoticed unless you’re paying astute attention to the jazzy synth presence underlying both. “Secrets (Your Fire)”, is indisputably one of their best songs, and likely the catchiest, with the easily learned chorus “Your Fire” repeated just enough to get stuck in your head without becoming an earworm.

beautiful little stretch ends with the bombastic “You Lose!”, rich in intense guitar and synths that keep you coming back for more.

The middle half of the album is less memorable, although “Prophecy” adds a new string component and “Follow the Leader’s” allusion to Alice in Wonderland with the line “Follow the leader, the rabbit,” stays true to the fantastical nature of the album.

Penultimate song “Dreamcatching” is half spoken and half sung, dealing with heavier topics of death and longing. The synths are as bubbly as ever, and a synth solo in the middle of the song contrasts the heaviness of the lyrics, making it easy to enjoy for instrumental sound alone –if that’s more your speed. As a conclusion to the album, this song reinforces Magdalena Bay’s frenetic electronic sound while demonstrating the lyrical potential the duo has yet to fully explore, which I think leaves them with only more room to expand upon in future releases.

Image: Billy Bratton And with that you’ve reached the end, or “The Beginning”, really, where Tenenbaum repeats Lewin’s name, it seems waking him from the dream he’s been in. What I love about this most though is the ambiguity it leaves the listener—are you too, dreaming? Was this one big rabbithole like Alice in Wonderland, and if so, begs the question—is anything real?—pulling you back to the line in the first song, “The End”: “Everything comes from and goes to the same place: / Nowhere!” This nihilistic message reminds the listener to not take things so seriously, contextualizing the experimental ‘bimbo robot’ production style and speaking to the general unimportance of life. Don’t worry, they’re saying, life is just a series of happenings. And with that cherry on With fully bimbo-robotification reached in terms of vo- top, I think no matter if you’re a synth-pop lover, novice cals and array of buzzes, claps, and twinkles to embel- philosopher, or someone with a 46-minute Goodhuelish it all, the song, in my opinion, marks their brand: to-Weitz walking pace, Mercurial World should be your outer-space, romance, and general psychedelia. This go-to.

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Concert Review

Big Thief Stole Our Hearts On 4/27/22 Isaac Crown-Manesis

Big Thief returned to Minnesota for their Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You tour Wednesday, April 27th 2022. Led by Adrianne Lenker (10 year resident of Plymouth, MN), Big Thief has had a whirlwind several years. With exceptional lyricallity, and a distinctly strong and beautiful voice, Lenker has skyrocketed through the indie scene, bouying Big Thief with her. Releasing their first album as “Big Thief ” to rave reviews in 2016, Lenker alongside Buck Meek (her now ex-husband), Max Oleartchik, and James Krivchenia articulated a vision of indie folk rock that was at once generic and yet promisingly fresh. Throughout their discography, each album has remained fresh and elaborated thematic and formal elements upon which the band tends to fixate. The air surrounding the band is electrically charged, their careers are only just beginning.

Everyone seems to have a different Big Thief song. Their discography is expansive, encompassing five full band albums and six solo albums from lead singer Adrianne Lenker (two of which are joint albums with Buck Meek).

Surely, each album brings with it a new indie chart topper, yet a room of Carleton Students I polled provided vastly different answers to the “favorite song” question. Her work is expansive stylistically, ranging from sparsely acoustic folk to careening electrified rock. Throughout her oeuvre, Lenker’s songwriting has explored her world, returning to themes of love and loss as they have manifested for her throughout the years. Her vulnerable writing has lent itself to her sharing of life milestones as they occur. When she and Meek found themselves at a terminal point in their marriage, the band played on. In a New Yorker profile, Lenker shares that their divorce only strengthened their friendship and artistic bond, but that the pain of separation was not an emotion they hid. With radical honesty, Big Thief lives through and alongside their music and performances.

Lenker’s music crafting process often involves improvisation and an experiential approach. The Photo: Isaac Crown Manesis original version of Shark Smile begins with a brief passage from an hour-long guitar riff Lenker played during a session for the song. Her bandmates have spoken in interviews about her almost magical connection to Music (presented as almost a platonic ideal) through her use of the guitar, describing her as touched by the muse as she pieces together notes and lyrics.

During their recent St. Paul show, Lenker performed several improvised solos as her bandmates looked towards her with wide-eyed awe as she played. After countless hours on the road with one another, and an apparent bond that NF011 | 7

goes far beyond working relationships, Lenker’s work still seemed to amaze them once again.

The audience was captivated as Lenker, ever relaxed, performed variation upon variation of the bands most familiar riffs. This clear love and respect the band mates have for one another is palpable and diffused through their audience.

A noted fan of the band, Jeff Tweedy of Wilco remarked upon Lenker’s, “disorienting quality all real-deal types have… a Photo: Isaac Crown-Manesis precise angle that only she seems to possess.” Close listening of the band’s music reveals this novelty and almost magical quality. Melodies resolve in complex and thematically cogent ways throughout an album. Lenker’s work can only be described as “essayist” as articled by Timothy Corrigan. The essayistic, “describes a personal point of view as a public experience,” and the audience is thus implicated in a conversation with the artist. The essayistic often requires a center of mass, a knot an artist will untie. The essayistic piece of art is more of an account of this process of unknotting than it is a presentation of a distinct theme or argument. Lenker’s work exemplifies this quality. She writes prolifically often during album sessions, and records simultaneously. The band’s, and her own solo work, contains the textures of this process of discovery and articulation. Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You interrogates love and life expansively, and is their most life affirming work yet. As Corrigan notes, this knot does not always need to be made explicit, but is felt by a viewer of a work. The band’s new album provides a deep feeling reminiscent of that articulated by many friends upon reflecting upon the past two years of intensity. I saw Big Thief this past summer during Pitchfork’s 2021 Chicago festival. The energy was reflective and slow paced. Many sat. Lenker performed without any musical accompaniment for much of “Orange,” and flexed her impressive vocal range. Their 2022 St. Paul show was different entirely, in ways shared by Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You’s distinctiveness within their body of work. Leaning on the dynamism of the album’s sound, Lenker invited her younger brother to the stage for a performance of “Spud Infinity.” The audience danced. Within the first Big Thief album since the pandemic began, Lenker articulates a vision of togetherness, of a humanity woven together with love, that defies without denying the world’s shared collective trauma. It is an exciting time in the world, emergence to a new normal has been protracted and stunted but feels imminent. However, as the band reminds us, life’s vast mysteries are contained in the microscopic. Their show reminded me to pay heed to the beats and pulses of the everyday, to be vulnerable and to live passionately.

“From way up there it looks so small / From way down here it looks so small / One peculiar organism aren’t we all together? / Everybody steps on ants / Everybody eats the plants / Everybody knows to dance, even with just one finger” NF011 | 8

Memories & Nostalgia in Cassette: The Best Gift I Ever Recieved Olivia Ho

The summer before I left for college, my older sister surprised me with a cassette tape and player. I, a product of my generation, couldn’t figure out how to remove the tape from its clear plastic case, much less play it in my boxy black Walkman. She and my parents (very unhelpfully) watched and laughed while I popped open the case, put the tape in the player, fumbled with the buttons on the side, and eventually heard the first scratchy notes begin to play.

The Walkman and tape—the songs picked by my sister and mixed by someone she found online—is perhaps the best gift I’ve ever received. Somehow, she managed to find exactly the right combination of songs that would remind me of everything I’d be leaving behind as I left for school: my parents, my childhood, the friends I made growing up. Falling asleep in the passenger seat of my mom’s car as the stereo softly murmured in the background.

Each of the songs she chose held specific and tangible memories, yet the story she managed to craft through this tape couldn’t be told without considering the order. The A side—which includes eclectic selections from Simon & Garfunkel and the Spirited Away soundtrack—is a lullaby. In the middle of the set is “Edelweiss,” from The Sound of Music. I’d almost forgotten about this song, but it seemed to have been living in the back of my mind for a long time. As I listened to the tape for the first time, I recalled faint memories of being woken up to my dad’s voice singing: “Edelweiss, Edelweiss / every morning you greet me / small and white, clean and bright / you look happy to meet me.”

The B side is freer and more nostalgic, opening with the Cranberries and flowing through the Crash Test Dummies and Carole King. These songs are what my parents listened to when they were our age: young and more uncertain, figuring out how to be adults.

The Indigo Girls’ “Closer To Fine,” the third song on the tracklist, particularly struck me. I can so clearly envision my mom singing along, newly graduated from college, having spent—as I am now spending—“four years prostrate to the higher mind.” Listening to this side changes the meaning of the tape.

Where the A side made me reflect on what my life used to be like, the B side made me consider what my life could be.

Photo: Isaac Crown-Manesis NF011 | 9

The B side closes with “Enterlude”—a fifty-second track that introduces the Killer’s sophomore

album Sam’s Town. My sister’s choice to end with this song was both very on-the-nose and very cruel. She couldn’t have chosen something more bittersweet to end the tape, as the song draws to a close with: “It’s good to have you with us / even if it’s just for the day.”

Whenever I have a little time to sit and think (which is not often), I put on the tape. While I’m quite an experienced playlist-maker myself, having created far too many Spotify playlists for every conceivable mood and purpose over the course of several years, I realized that there’s something special about the making of a mixtape. There’s a limited number of songs you’re able to choose. You can also physically hold it—meaning that listening to it has to be far more intentional than streaming a playlist, which involves nothing more than the pressing of a (singular and easily identifiable) button.

The purpose of a playlist is distinct from that of a mixtape. Most of my playlists are intended to capture a hyper-specific feeling—some notable playlists include “girls who don’t care?” and “thick pants songs” (don’t ask me to arImage: Billy Bratton ticulate what either of those things mean). I also use playlists to capture specific times in my life—which are especially fun to go back and listen to. A playlist, which can be as long or as short as you want, essentially allows you to elongate and articulate a unique feeling or moment. And, by virtue of shuffling, they allow you to experience this feeling in a different way each time. Yet, unlike a mixtape, the freedom allowed with a playlist can’t quite capture the power of a solid, unchanging story.

Neither method of cultivating what music you listen to is better than the other, necessarily (there have been far too many pretentious articles written about the degradation of music as a result of people using anything other than gramophones, or whatever). But these two mediums are different, and by virtue of their differing forms, they change the experience of listening to music. The fact that the ways we listen to music can give it new depth and meaning is, I find, quite beautiful.

My confession is that I have yet to get another cassette tape—perhaps a part of me is still reeling from the sheer nostalgic force of my sister’s tape. But now that it’s almost been a year since my sister gifted me her cassette, I’d like to continue exploring the stories that cassettes have to offer.

After all, who knows? Perhaps by the end of the summer I’ll have made enough nostalgic passenger-seat memories to mix my own tape.

Image: Billy Bratton NF011 | 10

My First Winter and an Album About It Alberto León

Last Winter Term represented my first proper winter experience. I had been wanting to see, feel, and touch snow since I can remember, but I finally got the chance at almost 20 years old. Getting into details about that experience is a little bit complicated. I loved it, but it also kind of sucked. While the snow never stopped to awe me, at some point I got sick of feeling the weight of the wind in my face and also 90% of campus being a slippery hazard. Clothing became a limitation, and I at least took the time needed to layer up into consideration when planning ahead. The temperature conditions plus a couple of COVID outbreaks usually punished socialization. The pain of walking at 9:00 in the morning to class in -22°F (or -30°C in the more alarming Celsius) three times a week took a toll on me.

However, this time of amazement, pain, and solitude made me relisten and give a new perspective to some albums I had already listened to. These albums, directly or not, are related to cold. Their album covers, the titles of their songs, the sounds they use, and their overall atmosphere convey that cold sensation; similar to how an afternoon could feel independent of weather conditions, that fatigue and tiredness that survives sun and snow. This was not my first time listening to those albums, but this was my first time experiencing in a more direct way that sensation of cold. Where I’m from, the average temperature on a day is around 75°F, maybe a little bit more, and that is true year-round. So, as expected, listening to these pieces while experiencing what a winter feels like gave me the opportunity to grasp new sensations and perspectives, different from my initial impressions about those albums.

The original plan was to write about three, but I realized I was extending myself into writing about the album that most accompanied me during the term: I Want to Be There by Sadness. Sadness is the name of the solo project of Illinois based artist Damián Antón Ojeda. This album has been associated with genres such as Blackgaze, Atmospheric Black Metal, Post-Metal, Shoegaze, Ambient, and others, but the first genre I believe is the most appropriate label to this project.

Traditionally, Black Metal and its sub variants are associated with the cold and dense forests of Scandinavia and Central Europe. You can easily make the association by looking at the imagery of Black Metal groups, and –at least for me– the dense tremolos feel like walking through a blizzard. This is especially true for projects like Paysage d’Hiver and Bekëth Nexëhmü, whose focus is to create that same dense, cold-but-eerie atmosphere. Dissidents of the destructive aesthetics and connotations of the traditional Black Metal scene created something called Blackgaze. I would not call it a fusion, but rather a middle point between Shoegaze and Black Metal, as both genres are known for their distortion and density. This middle ground allows synths and the sweeter breaks and melodies usually found in Shoegaze to coexist with the louder and rougher riffs found in Black Metal. I would not like to spend more time discussing both genres because the comparisons and differences are almost infinite.

It is an extremely dense but bittersweet album, encasing everything I described about Blackgaze, and bringing the best out of Black Metal and Shoegaze. Its weight, materialized by its dense and loud riffs, feels like walking through a blizzard. Each song, not counting the interlude, has a slower, calmer part, made up by a simple guitar riff or a synth arrangement, which is there to end or build up the heavy and crushing atmosphere made from the layering sound of guitars. Thematically as well, this album departs from what is usually associated with Black Metal and takes up a more down to earth, sincere, and melancholic approach. Even if the lyrical content is minimal, all the elements of the album convey the feeling of being away from a loved one. The album as a whole is a love letter to somebody who is not next to us, or in front of us, but should be. It doesn’t necessarily translate to a break-up kind of NF011| 11

album, it might be, but I think the album plays in such a way that that distance is up to interpretation.

In my case, this album encapsulates the feeling of distance, being far away from everything you love and cherish, with the musical elements of the album building up that sensation. This album represents both the experience of enduring the extreme cold and the dense snowstorms of Minnesota, and the expansive sound of the album resembles the vast distance between me and love. This album feels like the perfect way of saying “I miss you” to everyone back home, and it feels perfectly catered to my situation.

Its first track, In the Distant Travels, starts with a heavily compressed drone before exploding into a layering, tremolo, guitar progression. For me, this song feels like walking through campus, in the middle of a heavy snow, with clothing and ice limiting your mobility. They both feel like a beautiful endurance, as contradictory as it sounds. You experience both discomfort and fulfillment but one tells you that the other is missing. Everything could be easier if you stayed back home, but here you are getting your face slapped by the wind and the snow. You don’t know if it will be worth it, because you’re still looking for what could make you happy even if you think you know it. When the song turns into a calmer, post-rock track, it mimics the sensation of being wherever you were heading to. It’s a short moment of introspection when I usually remember who I love, which makes me miss them even more.

This song is not really uplifting, but rather an intro to the confusions of love and distance.

The second track, and my favorite, I Want to Be with You, feels like walking through one of those really cold, stale, and quiet days. It starts with a melancholic, simple riff that repeats itself for at least a minute. A riff that unexplainably makes you drawn to who you love. Then, the riff adds drums, which make the song feel like a march –a march through the heavy snow on the floor, while enduring the pain of the cold in the little exposed skin between your layers. The riff transitions into a layered version of itself, accompanied with tremolos and heavily distorted vocalizations of the artist, which blend together into layers and layers of nostalgia, happiness, and heartbreak. Then, a short verse is heard: “You dance like the June sky / You magical pink rain / And I burn orange / Watching you resplend / Like the words “I love you” / Pink like you / Pink burning in me / You dance like the June sky / You magical pink rain / And I burn orange / Watching you resplend / Like the words “I love you” / Pink like you” When the song turns back again into the simple riff, you realize that song represents your loneliness. This throws you into self-awareness of all the confusing feelings from the experience of being in a college far away from home during a proper winter, the strongest of them is loneliness. Everyone you love is far away from you and the weather and the workload makes it hard to enjoy the company of others.

The fourth and title track, I Want to Be There, starts with a heavy, drone riff. But then, the middle of the song transitions into a beautiful synth arrangement. It feels like it sparkles, like all the stars in a beautiful clear Northfield night sky. This song is there to bring out the beauty from this confusing and sort of destructive mix of emotions. That middle part is like gazing at the stars: realizing not only that time flies and you’ll meet who you love eventually, but also of every fulfilling experience you’ve gotten from this adventure called college. And those feelings reaffirm themselves even further when the song explodes again into layers and layers of guitars, but following the bubbling melody of that album.

“Love for me is an extremely violent act,” philosopher Slavoj Zizek says at the beginning of The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema. This album represents the violent and destructive nature of love. Not necessarily because it doesn’t work but rather how it could make us feel under certain circumstances. It’s an album that destroys and builds back afterwards. It’s an exercise about understanding your own feelings. This is how I would describe I Want to Be There by Sadness.

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Symphonic Folktronica Break Metal: the Wonderful Chaos of Igorrr Jimmy Carlson

Some time during the summer of 2020, as I was sucking in the mind-numbing vapors of my YouTube recommended feed from my bed, I happened upon one of the strangest pieces of digital artistic expression that I had ever seen. It was the music video for “Very Noise,” a short track from a band called Igorrr. I was not prepared. As this barely cohesive tale of an amorphous, breakdancing flesh monster from outer space and his geriatric, motorcycle-riding nemesis unfolded before my eyes — and as an odd mixture of breakcore drums and thick chromatic riffage pounded my eardrums — I found myself moving from passing interest to deep fascination. After the flesh monster exploded in a giant fireball and the motorcycling hero rode off to meet its spaceship, I clicked on the link to the channel homepage, and I was done for. Over the ensuing months, I fell deeper and deeper into the Igorrr rabbit hole, turning one vapid click on a YouTube thumbnail into a passionate admiration for what I believe to be one of the most utterly creative artists to draw from the sounds and instrumentation of metal.

Photo: Marta Bogumila Nowak

Igorrr is the brainchild of Gautier Serre, a French producer, multi-instrumentalist, and livestock lover who seeks to create the purest possible artistic expression through his music. His sound is a bizarre stew of genres and styles that few would consider compatible, if not for the proof of concept that he provides. He lists many disparate influences — “Meshuggah, Cannibal Corpse, Domenicco Scarlatti, Aphex Twin, Portishead, Mr Bungle, Mayhem, Taraf de Haidouks, but I forget millions of others!” (interview with La Grosse Radio, 2015) — and he is not afraid to adopt every single one in a given track.

This can make for an overwhelming listen: “Houmous,” for example, features death metal drumming, sax solos, screams, bass, choir, acoustic and electric guitar, and a cash register in just its first minute and ten seconds, all set above slamming accordion riffage. The brazen eclecticism of Igorrr’s music is astounding and gripping, but also potentially alienating. I was already accustomed to the abrasive sounds of extreme metal by the time I came across Igorrr, and even I had a hard time stomaching the relentless, grinding, disturbing, and rapidly changing nature of many of their compositions. The lack of attention to accessibility, lack of lyrics (almost all Igorrr vocals are sung or screamed in gibberish), and favor towards wild genre shifts that Serre adopts can sometimes feel like a meaningless joke, a silly form of weirdness worship.

No Igorrr song pretends to have any explicit meaning, but, over time, enough listens of their songs start to reveal a pattern, a consistency within the chaos. Igorrr seems to express a consistent flavor of meaninglessness, if you will.

There’s just a sort of spirit of joy mixed with despair, sublime divinity mixed with earthly filth, and above all a sort of blissful ignorance of it all. If you are listening to an Igorrr song, you will know. The sophistication of the baroque sounds, the aggression and mania of the metal elements, the illogical chaos of the electronic effects and breakbeats, and the simple, inebriated-ish, goofy feel of the gypsy music elements (not to mention the little flourishes sprinkled around from other genres) all blend together into a sound that is unmistakably Igorrr. In my opinion, Serre is somehow able to make this style work well in every song. Each one goes about it differently, but I would not say that Igorrr really has any songs that are bad, or that break its style. This level of consistency amid insane variability is reflective of an unwavering devotion to a single creative philosophy.

The beauty to Igorrr’s music is that no matter which insane direction it may take, its path is always guided by NF011 | 13

a central artistic thought. For Serre, every single element of an Igorrr song must reflect in some way what he feels and desires: “It’s spontaneous, in the sense that it’s exactly what I want to do” (interview with A L’Arrache, 2011). Igorrr songs are meant to come straight from the heart, as messed up as the heart may be, and this results in songs that can feel very expressive and enjoyable. Where many acts in the breakcore and grindcore genres, for example, push their music to the limit for the sake of extremity alone, Igorrr adopts both of these genres at once and still finds a way to make it all emotionally logical. These results come out of a deeply intrapersonal creative process. Serre is synesthetic, which in his case means that he sees colors when he hears sound. In a 2017 interview with Metal Injection, he describes how he sometimes looks at or thinks of an image, and tries “to build up all the elements to try to make this painting real.” Igorrr’s songs are literally sonic drawings. This consistent creative integrity pays off in a beautiful way. Like in good poetry, the fact that Igorrr’s music holds direct congruence with the images in Serre’s mind (at least as much congruence as sound can have with an image) gives the listener a special window into the artists internal experience that most music cannot achieve, even with lyrics.

Image: Billy Bratton

I could go on much longer about the various details that make Igorrr the coolest thing ever, but I thought it would be better to make some room for a summary of their different albums, and the gradual shifts and trends in their sound that came with each. Every release has a distinct feel and appeal, and so even as there is much stylistic overlap between them, it seems worthwhile to note their differences.

Poisson Soluble/Moisissure Before putting out his first album, Serre released two EPs as Igorrr. In 2006, the world was introduced to the project through Poisson Soluble and in 2008, they received a second dose in the form of Moisissure. At this point in his career, Igorrr was a solo project that gave Serre a more Image: Billy Bratton free creative space to get away from the other groups he was in, and develop his style. These EPs are distinct from the four main Igorrr albums in two ways for me. First, the songwriting in them is more simple. Rather than throw in shifting, clashing genre schemes and complex song structures, these releases will more often (but not always) stick with one theme played on one instrument, carry it through the song, and riff on it as it goes along. Second, there is a more low fidelity feel to the production (possibly because they were self-released). The result are EPs that are more relaxed and modest in their disturbing and idiosyncratic ways. Of the two, Poisson Soluble is the more interesting, experimental feeling release, while Moisissure is, in my opinion, the most relaxed, lofi, and unambitious outing in Igorrr’s catalog.

Nostril (2010) Nostril marked Igorrr’s first studio album release, and its first release with a record label. It garnered immediate respect for Igorrr within underground circles, especially within the breakcore genre, and the reason for that is self-evident. This album is insane. From start to finish, the songs are constantly erratic. The love of grindy, disturbing chaos that Poisson Soluble laid down is NF011 | 14

turned up to 11 here. This does not mean that the songs are less enjoyable or artistically cogent, however, it just means that Serre takes the logic of his songs further than he previously did. The instrumentation is crazy, but inspiringly well-applied. The groovy sections are consistently worthy of a nice headbang, and the emotional, melodic sections are entrancing. The transitions within and between songs are wild, but pleasing in retrospect. This album feels dirty, deranged, and free, and also establishes Igorrr’s bent for humor. I will avoid song suggestions in general in these reviews, but I just have to shout out “Tendon” as one of the weirdest songs I have ever loved.

Hallelujah (2012) Hallelujah saw Igorrr take the insane variety of Nostril in a direction that was both more and less chill. In one sense, Hallelujah feels more grounded. Most of the transitions between one part of a song and the next maintain at least one instrument and develop earlier themes, and most sections have more continuous development within them, making the whole experience more musically satisfying. This is enhanced with a greater sense of melody and dynamic movement, and a much greater emphasis on vocals as extended solo performances (this coupled with the lack of lyrics also adds to the humor at times, see “Grosse Barbe”). There is also a wonderful sense of atmosphere present here, exhibited through beautiful sampling and minute changes in background parts, which makes everything feel more special. At the same time, Hallelujah feels remarkably… unstable. Even the more melodic songs are filled with breakcore drums that are almost never constant, giving the sense that it all could come crumbling down at any time. There are also some songs that just don’t obey the trend of consistency present in the rest of the album, and instead seem to deliberately f*** with you by having some of the most ridiculous transitions in Igorrr’s discography (looking at you, smooth jazz break of “Absolute Psalm”). In general, Hallelujah is just slightly more accessible than Nostril, and can still feel like electronic chaos soup if you’re not in the mood, but if you can get used to that, it becomes clear that this is a truly special moment in Igorrr’s discography, and you’d be hard-pressed to find a match for it.

Savage Sinusoid (2017) After Hallelujah, Serre decided that he wanted to take on the challenge of making an album without a single sampled sound.

According to a 2017 interview, he wanted Image: Billy Bratton “to be sure of the quality of the ingredients.”

It was a process that took him four years. He recruited artists from far and wide to collect all the sounds he needed to sustain his no-limits style of writing, and worked meticulously with each to get the exact result he wanted (as seen in the “Cheval” music video, for example). Coupled with the increase in production quality that came with Igorrr’s switch to Metal Blade Records, this control over the sounds used in the album makes everything feel more NF011 | 15

natural and congruous: it all comes from the same source, and that matters. Along with this increase in (literal) sonic originality came an increase in the pace of the music: the moody, shifty writing style of earlier albums gave way to songs that move quickly and always feel like they are moving forward (with the notable exception of “Problème D’Émotion,” Igorrr’s best “chill” song in my opinion). This album feels more metal than Hallelujah, and it is very arguably more fun. Where Hallelujah is a hallucinogen, Savage Sinusoid is a raging stimulant. At the same time, I would say that Savage Sinusoid is an easier listen overall than either of the albums that came before it, and I would point to it as a great place to start listening to Igorrr if it weren’t for their next release.

Spirituality and Distortion (2020) In January of 2020, when the decade was young and the hearts of the people were still full of joy, Igorrr put out their most listenable album yet in the form of Spirituality and Distortion. By this point, the band had become a global phenomenon. The release of Savage Sinusoid and the band’s move to Metal Blade Records had garnered a lot of attention, and Igorrr was booking huge international metal and electronica shows left and right. Serre’s next move, whether or not you think it had anything to do with his changing external circumstances, was to make an album that was more organized and that had a greater focus on raw enjoyability than any of his other main releases. Spirituality and Distortion has no less genre-fusing or complexity than Igorrr’s other albums, but it is slightly less likely to throw something completely unexpected at you. Instead, SaD focuses just a bit more on things like groove, harmony, and just kind of making sense. Perhaps the best example of this (I know I said I wasn’t going to give highlights, this isn’t a highlight this is an example) is “Parpaing,” a song that features, for the very first time, LYRICS! Where it might not fit in other albums, SaD is perfectly suited to a straight-up death metal song (with a straight-up death metal vocalist in the form of Cannibal Corpse legend George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher), with an electronic bridge section, which is undeniably about a guy who really, really wants to build a house out of dead people. This spirit of wholesome, comprehensible insanity pervades the whole album, and it is lovely. It is so lovely, in fact, that I often use this album to introduce people to metal! Here, the internal diversity of Igorrr’s music works more towards its broader appeal than against it, though it is undeniably still a very weird album. Start with this one if you’re interested in Igorrr but cautious.

These have been my thoughts on the wonderful, chaotic music of Gautier Serre and his project Igorrr. I hope you enjoyed if you did in fact read all the way through. I would like to finish with a little disclaimer: Igorrr is not the only wildly creative artist trying out weird combinations of electronic music, metal, classical, and or other things! Lots of other artists that I do not know nearly as well, including Pryaprisme, Ruby my Dear, breakcore artists like Venetian Snares, artists that Serre himself has collaborated with like Whourkr, and so many others are out there making wild and crazy music that I recommend for anyone interested. Igorrr will always stand out to me, however, for its feeling of humility and reality that it maintains even as it explores mind-twisting artistic extremes, and its closeness to the metal that I love.

Image: Billy Bratton NF011 | 16

Ranking Every Alvvays Song For Lack of a Better Idea Billy Bratton

In preparation for making this list, I decided to do a grueling relistening of the entire Alvvays discography. One hour later, my ranking was complete. Without further ado, here is the definitive ranking of Alvvays songs from not that good to that good.

23. Already Gone 22. Echolalia 21. Forget About Life 20. Underneath Us 19. Supine Equine 18. Dives 17. Ones Who Love You 16. Hey 15. Red Planet 14. Party Police 13. Lollipop (Ode to Jim) 12. Your Type 11. Saved by a Waif 10. The Agency Group This is my cool “deep cut” pick.

drowning as a relationship meta- The verses aren’t as strong as the phor. chorus but that’s pretty much a nitpick.

8. Not My Baby I definitely underrated this but to 4. Pecking Order acknowledge that would be to ac- Alvvays’s hidden gem and possibly knowledge my fallibility. their best chorus.

7. Plimsoll Punks 3. Adult Diversion I have no idea what a “plimsoll Secretly better than “Archie” alpunk” is but that doesn’t really im- though no one wants to admit it. pact my listening experience.

2. In Undertow 6. Atop a Cake If the rest of this song were as good Featuring potentially the best Alv- as the last minute or so, it would be vays lyric: “how could I lose control one of my all-time favorite songs. I when you’re driving from the back- mean it already is but even more so. seat?”

1. Dreams Tonite 5. Archie, Marry Me Yeah it’s the best.

9. Next of Kin Fun little tune about death by

Photos: Isaac Crown Manesis

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Metallic Hardcore: The Past, Present, and Future of Heavy Music Ethan Whiteaker

Modern heavy music has heavily influenced my enjoyment of music writ large. Some absolutely killer acts have been releasing music these past few years, and I wanted to shine a light on what is an underappreciated part of the heavy music scene. The genre: metal-influenced hardcore or, as I and many others like to say, metallic hardcore.

Metallic hardcore is deeply influenced by the beatdown hardcore of the 80s and 90s, but has the production style of modern metal. This distinction is important because modern heavy music has been vastly increasing in production quality over the last two decades.

People like Will Putney, Ross Robinson, Paul Levitt, and Devin Townsend have all made a name for themselves in heavy music production and have helped to raise the industry standard for production. With this production quality boost came a great thing: more fusion between different styles of heavy music.

Heavy music has historically not been able to replicate their live sound within studio recordings. Technological difficulties with drop-tunings, gain overloading, and the general logistical problem of finding a producer who was able to do a half decent job with that style of music made creating a good studio sound difficult, but these problems are being fixed and even rendered almost obsolete in the modern era. New editions of common Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs) and other music software, as well as industry-standard recording gear have been catching up to the heavy music scene and allowing the full spectrum of its music to be recorded.

With the notes on production out of the way, I can finally talk about the music itself. Metallic hardcore is heavily influenced by the hardcore punk tradition, featuring the lower drop-tunings of death metal and the -core subgenres. Drop-tunings themselves have been in music since the days of jazz and blues music, but they were exaggerated by the beatdown hardcore scene. Beatdown would eventually be combined with thrash to create metal, which gives metallic hardcore an almost circular history in its modern sonic landscape.

Another facet of the modern metallic hardcore scene is the insistence of oldschool hardcore punk values such as the DIY-ethos and the supporting of other groups in the scene. This is part of what makes this new wave of hardcore so rooted in past music tradition. Looking forward to the future of heavy music in general, metallic hardcore is paving the way for more groups to follow a DIY-method of management while still making music that is produced just as any pop album is. Metallic hardcore is bridging the past, the present, and the future in a manner in which hasn’t been seen, since the grunge movement’s surge.

To talk about some specific bands you should check out, I highly recommend Knocked Loose–probably the most popular example of this subculture of the heavy music scene. Their albums have been produced by Will Putney of Fit For An Autopsy, and are some of the most heavy, raw sounding mixes a band could hope for. Their debut NF011 | 18

album, Laugh Tracks, takes the beatdown sound of the past and infuses it with 808 type bass drops and the hardest pre-breakdown calls to come out of hardcore in the past decade. Their follow up album, A Different Shade of Blue, and latest EP, A Tear in the Fabric of Life, take this sound and continue in the band’s path of brutally cathartic lyrics with their fun beatdown riff-style. Knocked Loose fights a tradition of toxic masculinity present in past beatdown hardcore bands with emotionally vulnerable lyrics, and through their actions advocating for women’s centers with their merch drives. The modern metallic harcore scene’s fighting of previously imposed barriers for marginalized groups are part of what makes this scene so special. Knocked Loose is just one example of a band that is working to correct this scene’s troubled history.

Another band fighting the norms of beatdown and hardcore in general is Sharptooth. Their debut album, Clever Girl, is a politically charged whiplash focusing on themes of oppression and retaliation to said oppressors. Lead singer Lauren Kashan has gnarly screams and the stage presence of a 20 foot giant stomping through the woods as she runs across the stage. Her lyrics forge a connection with the audience that is unparalleled. This band is very underrated and needs more attention, so check them out if you like a more classic hardcore style that is infused with the modern beatdown type metallic hardcore. Some other related bands to check out are: ◆ Jesus Piece (straight beatdown, politically charged lyrics) ◆ Code Orange (more metalcore-ish) ◆ Great American Ghost (brutal riffs, more beatdown) ◆ SeeYouSpaceCowboy (mathcore) ◆ Vein (mathcore adjacent) ◆ Converge (progenitors of modern mathcore type hardcore)

Image: Billy Bratton

Placing Denzel Curry’s 2022 Melt My Eyez See Your Future Henry Holcomb

Known best for his hit track that got everyone flipping water bottles in middle school, Denzel Curry has changed a lot since releasing Ultimate in 2015. Also known as Zel, the artist continues to step across genres and assert himself as a worthy figure in the current rap scene with his newest project Melt My Eyez See Your Future. Traditionally distinguished within the rap industry with his signature expressions of punk rap and rap metal, Curry has expanded sonically with a creative wielding of soul, alternative, and electronic sounds.

Over the last several years, Curry’s participation in projects across genres both demonstrates his growth as an artist and shows a larger trend in the contemporary music scene as artists respond to an increasingly digitized market.

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With the rapid rise of Spotify, Apple Music, and other streaming services, artists across the music industry have adapted their strategies and sound to achieve success. As publishing creative projects online have become widely accessible, standing out within an increasingly crowded scene has continued to become more difficult for artists everywhere. Furthermore, the ways in which the public consume music have changed dramatically; instead of listening to projects in full as physical materials consumers have shifted their behaviors to more playlist-oriented patterns. Songs blow up, and are thrown on corresponding playlists or forgotten as the masses shift to the newest hot tracks. Now with subscription based streaming services, consumers have no obligation to listen to the larger album of a charting track, which has now effectively been reconceptualized

to the as a collection of individual songs. In the past, albums were evaluated and purchased more commonly as complete projects: As the whole albums had to be bought in the physical, fans would put their dollars towards works that were the most impressive as a collective of their parts. With the current environment however, listeners’ barriers of choice have been removed, eroding the obligation to listen to projects as complete works. Artists are now motivated to load albums up with a myriad of songs and sounds in hopes to have as many tracks land as possible. As playlists become increasingly influential in directing streaming patterns, artists have begun to step into more genres in hopes to increase their exposure to new consumers outside of their main base. While partially a product of financial decisions, the trend of genre lines becoming increasingly blurred is nonetheless an interesting development for music sonically. While Curry’s development as an artist has followed this phenomenon it is nonetheless impressive and exciting to hear him wield an increasing arsenal of sounds.

His first album length project since the 2019 Zuu, Curry’s Melt My Eyez See Your Future strides boldly into a more mellow atmosphere. Distinguished throughout by smooth backing vocals, soul and electronic instrumentals, and more mature,

fully-developed lyrics Melt My Eyez See Your Future stands out amongst Zel’s discography. Opening with Melt Session #1, the album begins in melancholy. Over a meandering piano Curry smoothly laments his struggles, establishing his flaws and resolving to his audience that he will continue to try to be a better person.

He focuses on his articulation, with an introspective flow that moves unhurriedly with female backup vocals that weave with the piano. Expanding upon Melt Session #1, the second track Walkin scales continues the scaled-back production with bass guitar and soft drums pushing the song along. Repeating female vocals take up equal space as Zel’s bars, merely an arm of the song –instead of the sole focus of the track, his words are merely a part of the journey he has embarked on.

Curry begins to have more confidence in his voice on the third track, Worst Comes To Worst. While still flowing well with previous tracks with its choir of background voices, Worst Comes To Worst carries a certain paranoia as backup vocals leave the listener with a sense of foreboding. Curry’s emphasis of collective struggle is emphasized through a more raucous execution that is underscored well with the more electronic flares of the track. The next song, John Wayne, highlights this fusion more extremely and is indisputably a JPEGMA-

Photo: Friedoxygen NF011 | 20

FIA-produced track. While maintaining a mellow production style with strange electronic alien-sounding whirrs JPEG loves. The Last, the fifth track, starts with a lofi sound before falling quickly into a more typical trap beat that leans on high-hats as Zel continues his theme of rapping about the ills of the United States. Zel speeds up his flow, throwing criticism at poverty, racism, and the prevalence of performative activism. Once again slowing things down, Curry brings Bridget Perez and Saul Williams in on the next track, Mental. Perhaps the most vulnerable song so far, Mental features lyrics of Curry’s struggles with depression over a soulful chorus and Perez’s backing vocals that are buoyed by piano, drums, and bass. Curry ends the track with a declaration of how he has matured as an artist as Saul Williams asserts, “[I] Needed somethin’ death could dance to / Changed my whole style up, so used to the slickness / Sorrow streamlined into story / Dancing alone in front of speakers my whole life.” The whole end of the song is a display of expert lyricism and I would really recommend you listen to Curry’s vulnerable poetry.

sounds and into a more recognizable Denzel sound.

Produced by Kenny Beats, the song’s production feels more contemporary with trills and heavily manipulated vocals, pitched up for the song’s chorus. Featuring T-Pain, the song is a curious one, sounding like if DaBaby’s ROCKSTAR was made emo and ran through a teletubbies episode (and I would have it no other way).

Trust me, you’ll have to listen to it to get what I mean.

Ain’t No Way follows this track as a group project, featuring 6LACK Rico, JID, Jasiah, and Kitty Ca$h. This song features abrasive trap beats with verses feeling like chaotic celebration as the artists interrupt each other.

While this song is fun, it definitely stands out from the rest of the album; Zel spoke to this in an interview in the Bootleg Kev Podcast stating he didn’t originally intend to have the song as his own track. Nevertheless, the cacophonous energy of the track flows well, a product of J.I.D’s his experience navigating full tracks from his time in Spillage village and Dreamville projects. X-Wing, the ninth track, continues with a signature Zel trap sound and high-energy chest thumping lyrics about his success. Angelz, the next track, finds the artist revisiting Marking the halfway point of the project, Troubles be- sounds from the first half of the album and pairing them gins a transition of the album away from smoother soul with the lyrical execution present through his trappier tracks. Where Walkin on the album held Curry’s vocals on equal ground as its backup vocals, Angelz demonstrates that the artist has taken a hold of his destiny –no longer a passenger to his life. Curry puts his foot down, he will no longer be kicked around or capitalized on.

“She Spider” by Elise Hudson NF011 | 21

While The Smell Of Death is the shortest track on the album, it packs a punch. Zel jumps into instrumentals where jazzy sounds fight against harsh electronic sounds with vocals that say “watch out,” to their listeners.

After the first verse, the track pivots from threatening to gloating; emphasizing the artist’s confidence. Sanjuro hits you immediately after, transitioning from The Smell Of Death like a fist punching a wall. 454, featured on the song, provides a smooth verse on the track giving this song an impeccable flow. Pauses between verses feel like breaths of air before being thrown underwater again. Out of all

the tracks, Sanjuro definitely is the trappiest. Returning to the now-familiar female backup vocals, Zel raps with an urgency over a glitchy breakbeat in Zatoichi. The drums fight against Zel’s words, crowding each other in continuous crescendo only to be pushed to the side as slowthai’s chorus speeds up the track. Both rappers compete against the song’s instrumentals, fighting to get words between drum beats. This song is frenzied but executed in a way that makes it one of my favorites on the album. Closing the album is The Ills. This song’s jazzy piano sounds like something from the Vince Guaraldi Trio. Through the track, louder bass and record scratches build on top of the piano layer transitioning the song into a beat more rooted in 80s hip hop. Curry seems to find a peace with this track, settling somewhere between the polar ends of the sounds he’s been experimenting with up until this point. He has transcended labels limiting his sound, realizing his ability to express himself on his own terms. The track too provides a sense of closure for Curry, as he translates his pain into his craft: “I’m seein’ illusions in the pockets of my brain / I use it, then find a way to illustrate my pain.”

Melt My Eyez See Your Future remains a project of introspection and self-love. Curry recognizes his troubles and embraces them with a non-judgemental gaze, looking instead at what he can become. The album is one of quiet resolve –or as quiet as Zel will give you– where Curry considers who he can become both personally and professionally. This project demonstrates a vulnerability and maturity that is not easy to build. From Zuu to Melt My Eyez See Your Future, it is clear that Curry has grown into himself more. His experimentation into new sounds shows his commitment to becoming a better artist and his collaborations on other’s projects since Zuu demonstrates the stones that Curry stepped from sonically to reach this vulnerable album. Music is a mouthpiece for Curry, and a coping mechanism; and this project is an expression of the artist exploring new strategies to speak and to heal as he looks forward.

Below is a selection of Denzel collaborations since Zuu to explore further:

Also worth a listen is Denzel Curry and Kenny Beats 2020 Unlocked project.

Image: Billy Bratton Electronic Other

Soul / Jazz Inspired

Punk Rap / Rap Metal

Pig Feet - Terrace Martin, Kamasi Washington, G Perico, Daylyt

Bleach / Draino Zillakami

Got My Back RIMON

Art of War - Jasiah, Take Care In Your Rico Nasty Dreaming - The Avalanches

A+ - Kenny Mason

Count My Blessings - Anna Wise

Bad Day - Nyck Caution

FTP - BIJOU

African Samurai Flying Lotus

Kill Us All - The Neighbourhood

Bloodrush - Andrew terms - slowthai, Broder, Dual Selah, Dominic Fike Haleek Maul

Dog Food - IDK

Tokyo Drifting Glass Animals

BALD! REMIX JPEGMAFIA

Bruuuh - JID

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