Jeremy Ray - "M.I.N.O"

By Gerard Marcus

With so much (needed) attention being placed on some deep rooted issues in our country, it may sometimes be hard for people who don’t face systemic harassment on a regular basis to remember that people who normally face that harassment have been facing it their entire lives. A lot of the issues that are now seeing more or less universal empathy have sadly become normalized in the world of the afflicted. There’s a tension between a lot of the new voices strongly calling for change, and an unwillingness of some from affected communities, who have been given false promises before, to believe that call. Jeremy Ray’s new single/video ‘M.I.N.O’ (murder is not opportunity) explores this tension from the side of the afflicted. 

The video is a simple one, finding Jeremy in an acid-kissed dreamscape proposing questions and relaying observations from the mind of someone who is searching for an optimistic future, but has experienced the dulling pain of crushed hope again and again. ”Are we not on stolen land?” Jeremy asks, pointing to the foundation of pessimism. How can a person looking back at our country's entire history open themselves up to believe this time will be different? “So involved you couldn’t see the violence.” How does that person know this isn’t another passing social media phase driven by people's inability to access a lot of the normal comforts of their daily lives? As soon as those people regain their comforts, will they just lose interest like they have so many times before? “Well I wake up scared for my brothers / Hope they’re not mistaken for another man.” This struggle is everyday. 

How do you comfort that? For those new voices so adamant to take action, how do you convince a person who’s mother, father, grandparents, great grandparents, and on have been harassed and taken advantage of that change is coming to a system that defines the rules of the society they live in? There is no one answer, but a strong way to start is by giving your continued time and attention. When life for you gets easier again, don’t forget that this ease isn’t universally experienced. The struggle for equality has been a frustrating, Sisyphean struggle for a lot of us. It would be nice to finally have enough people stick around to help us make it to the top of the hill.

This is the first solo release from Jermey Ray (formerly Dove Lady) who, rumor has it, will be doing a release on Canada based label Vain Mina Records in the not too distant future!

ESHOVO - ok u mad

By Phillipe Roberts

Anger doesn’t need to be righteous to be real or worth hearing. As the oppressive foundations of the good old USA crumble beneath us a bit more visibly these days, sharing our deepest, most visceral emotions shouldn’t require justification. Sometimes, “u mad” is all the recognition you need, and who better to unpack the boundlessness of anger than PG County label-dodger ESHOVO? 

A frequent collaborator of ThrdCoast favorite Tony Kill, ESHOVO makes space in the cracks between genres, blending noise, cinematic atmosphere, and off-the-wall sampling across a universe of albums and singles that stretch back to 2013. He truly takes off on his 2018 project Listening or Of Empathy and Echo, where his sprawling sensibilities collide for an expedition into a loud mind that’s tired of existing in silence.

“Ok u mad,” the album’s second track, evolved gradually from a rant over a hastily-assembled instrumental, to the self-assured verbal sparring that rumbles out of your speakers. “Before actually writing to it, I layered a recording of myself speaking for a few minutes on the track,” ESHOVO explained, “I was saying something about perceptions, self and external. After writing it, I didn’t touch it for a few months, and when I got in the studio it was like I was right back in the shit, in a good way. That's where everything else came out.” 

That refined stream-of-consciousness, punctuated by waves of twinkling synth delays and an arsenal of clattering percussion, throws punches against being misread and misrepresented, and keeps the focus on observation. “Watch my words and keep ya eye open,” he says, bobbing and weaving through the beat with glee.

The song’s video, which arrives today on ThrdCoast, follows ESHOVO as he dances, plays basketball, and wanders through tall fields on grainy video. Directed by fellow PG County artist R. Treshawn Williamson, the video’s sketch-like quality brings out the track’s not-so-hidden vulnerability incredibly well, capturing both the isolation and joy that comes from feeling that anger deeply and fully. The video’s treatment of lyrics about staying cool and validating aggressive emotions is particularly effective, juxtaposing these lines against two people slap-boxing from a skewed angle, just out of frame. 

Playing with that tension between emotion and expression is key to their collaboration. “Emotions are really complex, and letting out your aggression is even more so. It’s just something really sublime about feeling what you need to feel,” Williamson says, “I feel like, for us, coming from where we come from, slap boxing is the most controlled form of aggression I’ve ever seen. But at the same time, you can only slap box so long before it gets actually real. That teetering point with aggression, that’s exactly what getting mad is about. When you juxtapose things together, like the slap box does, there’s only a certain window of time before it becomes something entirely different."

Check out the song’s video now and dip into ESHOVO’s discography at his Bandcamp page.

Tony Kill - Love High Speed

By Phillipe Roberts

A genre-less expanse of frayed ideas, Love High Speed is a series of sonic detours taken with giddy abandon. Conducted by Washington D.C.-based artist Tony Kill, the EP presents seven smeared tracks that play right into the enigmatic presentation of their creator, offering little to no clues as to who, or what, we’re listening to beyond fragmented voicemails, clipped field recordings, and twisted singing that phases in and out of audibility. Let the constant distortion wash over you for the first listen, however, and you find yourself in a rich sonic world that makes a virtue out of misdirection. It keeps ambitions high even as the fidelity crawls deeper and deeper underground.

In contrast to the rest of Love High Speed, opener “Dolin Blanc” whistles its way in and keeps things smooth, much like the sweet vermouth that serves as its namesake. A sensuous bassline rumbles under gently splashing drums before dislocating from the groove entirely, playing against ambient swirls of guitar as the scene dissolves away from the pleasant morning reverie. Suddenly, a pen scratches out a signature, and a desk attendant asks if you need help with your bags. You’re fully checked-in to his surreal hotel now, and Tony Kill is free to really let loose for some twisted fun. Because for all of the sweetness and order of “Dolin Blanc,” it’s the rough-hewn weirdness of the rest of the EP that allows Tony Kill to really shine, unhinged from the expectation of providing anything for you to comfortably grip onto.

With the bouncing bass from “Dolin Blanc” still present as a holdover, Tony Kill begins his descent on “Heaven Sent,” charging through church organ swells with a chorus of Tonys proclaiming “You’re Heaven Sent” ad nauseum. Other indistinguishable vocals pour in, crying out with a kind of impassioned religious ecstasy that crashes over the main vocal in waves–a brilliant effect that sounds like watching someone have a mental breakdown in the middle of Sunday service.

Crafting these sharp moments of emotional tension is something that Tony Kill does remarkably well across the EP. Particularly so on “Drive,” where distorted shouts pile on top of a screeching guitar solo, which mellows out into a light, bluesy twang, before erupting again in chaos in a perfect mirror of the lyrics–“Intruder alert / Intruder alert.” But with all of this dissonance, Tony Kill isn’t afraid of a satisfying groove. Like the aforementioned “Dolin Blanc,” much of the EP ruminates on stretching simple ideas out into flavorful instrumentals. From the undeniably catchy krautrock pulse of “Gotta Turbo (Truck Stanley),” which almost sounds piped in from a Stereolab or Broken Social Scene rehearsal, to the industrial throb and burbling vocals of “I Am This Close,” it’s clear that Tony Kill knows exactly where to turn on the head-nodding charm.

Love High Speed ends with the instrumentally slight and vocally dissociative “Anyone.” Tony unspools a yawning manifesto, “I don’t fear anyone,” just twice over a creeping groove that hardly shuffles past the one minute mark. Thought it follows the disorienting, dubbed-out odyssey that is “Suddenly Unknow Everything,” “Anyone” feels like the perfect place to conclude his latest adventure–fearless and unphased, laughing in the face of any potential detractors before they even get a chance to respond. Love High Speed keeps you on your toes–and is well worth the disorientation–but don’t expect any congratulations from Tony for making it through to the other side. He’s above it all, distinctly unimpressed that you’re finally on his level.

REVIEW: Sir E.U + Tony Kill - African-American Psycho

Raquel Dalarossa

I first heard DC rapper Sir E.U on Rob Stokes’ album from earlier this year. That release, a collection of soul and R&B-influenced indie rock, featured the rapper in two songs and, incidentally, was co-produced by Tony Kill. Perhaps that was the project that brought the two artists together, a stroke of serendipity that would lead to the creation and release of their ten-track album, African-American Psycho.

Whatever the circumstances that originally forged this union, the meeting of their minds feels momentous for both the rapper and the beat maker. No doubt they’ve individually dabbled in the experimental before—Sir E.U, for example, recently put on a 25-hour performance—but this feels notably different from any of their previously released material. African-American Psycho plays like a loose concept album, and together, Sir E.U and Tony Kill confidently push boundaries within and outside themselves, without much care for whether you’ll be able to follow them into their new territory.

Truly, the record feels like a psychotic breakdown, mixing electronic production with bleak beats that create an at times subtle, at others overt, but almost always present feeling of distress. The distorted, overblown treatment on everything from vocals to percussion makes it hard to understand the discrete elements in each song, which is part of the trick; tracks like “Let Me Tell You About My Dog” and “No Sex” are loud, overbearing, and confusing. But the production also lends itself to the frantic, almost manic tone of the album as a whole.

Sir E.U’s vocals mostly serve the beats, but his virtuosic ability to mold his own voice and inject tricky emotions into it—or erase all emotion from it—make him a standout. In “Ultra,” his erratic mumbling adds a strangely smothering effect to the propulsive beat, while in “Lower Self (For Freaks Only),” his voice sits in a low, sinister register uncomfortably close to the ear, and he takes shallow gasps for breath as though his lungs are being slowly crushed. In “No Tax,” which features LeDroit and Nappy Nappa, unintelligible vocals are layered atop one another to the point that it feels schizophrenic.

Even the most danceable track, "Cha," feels dense and busy, and Sir E.U seems to lose steam by the end of it, his vocals fading into the background. Hearing this, combined with their contributions to the Rob Stokes album, makes African-American Psycho feel like even more of a feat. It seems these two can do pretty much any genre they please, and it's hard to say where their ideas will take them next.

REVIEW: Rob Stokes - Live at the Heartbreak Hotel

Raquel Dalarossa

There’s not much to be found online about Rob Stokes. Aside from a Bandcamp and an Instagram, information about the musician and artist seems hard to come by. But as it turns out, Stokes is a formidable figure in the Washington, DC indie circuit, where he runs Medium Rare, an initiative that sees Stokes recording, producing, and engineering music for other artists, putting out tapes, as well as curating events. Amidst all of that, the Pittsburgh native has found the time to put together his own album.

Live at the Heartbreak Hotel threads together a background in jazz, a budding career in beat-making, and an easygoing approach to experimentation. It feels like the thematic counterpart to Stokes’ EP last year, Love Was Made for These Times, though the lyrics are not the centerpiece in any of his work (especially given the effects often applied to the vocals, turning them more into instruments than deliverers of actual words). What comes to the fore immediately is how rhythmically driven his songs are.

There’s a lot of variation within these ten tracks, but they meld together beautifully. “Blue” is a soulful slow jam heard through a psychedelic lens, while “In the Cut” is a laid-back guitar-pop dream, ambling along like a summer’s day on just a little bit of acid. Songs like “Space” and “Sharks in the Pond” feature acoustic guitar for a folksier effect, but a lively bass and percussive backdrop keep the groove going. Meanwhile, DC-based rapper SIR E.U features on two jazzy R&B tracks, providing fuzzy but nimble verses that provide a propulsion to balance out Stokes’ mellow singing.

All throughout, even when the tempo goes up, the vibes stay pretty relaxed. It’s easy listening that can find itself in a lounge in the ‘60s or at a jazz club today. And really, that’s what sets Live at the Heartbreak Hotel apart: it feels all at once weird, and classic.