NO FEAR OF THE NEW: Zephrxd, Lucy Liyou, Rustie
by John Warlick
In today's globally connected, genreless music world, it's a rare pleasure to discover music that feels like a genuinely new spin on things. In this column, I write about 3 new albums or songs I got into last month that I think push music in interesting directions.
Zephrxd - After All That, Im Still Here
I was going to write about Novagang boss prblm's newfound penchant for Brazilian funk this month when the yassified-quadriplegic album cover for Novagang signee Zephrxd's After All That, Im Still Here hit me in the face. Oddly enough, it's a perfect encapsulation of the music. AATISH trades in a multicolored, sample-happy Detroit sound similar to what Babytron popularized earlier this decade, but with the edges filled in with wisps of cloud rap and vaporwave. Project opener "Thank God" sets the template with a hi-def and highly joyous Prins Thomas sample; it's both a feast for the ears and groovy as fuck. The tape is also hilarious: Zephrxd is a gifted rapper with humor that splits the difference between the boundless, reckless philosophy of RXKNephew and the shrugged-off truisms of the late Drakeo. Among the lines from highlight "Brain Fog" lodged in my head: "Walk outside / too cold!"; "Cartier frames / we three blind mice"; "this weed free / once I knew what it was..." I can't even express how disappointing it is to go to this tape's Genius page and find it completely unannotated. Come on people!
As modest as this project is — Zephrxd calls it an EP — the well-honed sound and seamless construction clearly show higher ambitions. I won't pretend I know much about Zeph's output before this album, but as far as i can tell he's been at this for years. A line on "Dysphoric Over The Fit" (how's that for a song title?) goes "innovative when I'm doing what I've already been," which I guess is all I'm really saying in this column. Whatever. This tape is nothing less than an excellent time, and I'm just excited for this guy to blow up.
Lucy Liyou - MR COBRA
Even knowing column alumnus Jake Muir was involved didn't prepare me for how wild the tracks Lucy Liyou released in advance of their album MR COBRA next month would be. What I also didn't understand was that Muir didn't go behind the boards but instead played a character on this thing! Lucy Liyou is a Los Angeles artist who I knew for beautifully fragmentary electroacoustic collages and atmospheric, fractalized singer-songwriter music, but this first taste of MR COBRA ditches the melody and seriously ramps up the sketchiness. With their scattershot Freudian tics, discordant instrumentation and near-suffocatingly foreboding peripherals, these tracks feel less akin to "songs" than silhouettes of haunted radio dramas. It's some seriously skin-crawling stuff!
On their Bandcamp page, Liyou vividly describes the personal and sexual trauma they deconstruct in MR COBRA, and you can feel it pretty viscerally in the music; it sounds like the audio output of a bad dream-turned-waking nightmare. The best comparison I can make to the sound here is that it's between a more ambient Residents and aya — "yassified Scott Walker" — as a friend of Liyou opines, is probably the best way to put it. However you take it, it's a remarkable trip, and I can't wait to get bowled over by the whole project come April.
If you happen to be in NYC this spring, you can check out Liyou doing a one-woman theater performance also entitled Mister Cobra at Performance Space New York on 4/25.
Rustie - "TRIZKEL SUN"
I know I wrote about Rustie just a few months ago but tough luck! I'm never going to resist an excuse to write about Rustie. This time, it's a new track where the last genius standing of purple sound suddenly decodes the oddly unassuming run of singles he's put out since ending his hiatus from music two years ago.
I won't beat around the bush: out of nowhere, Rustie is doing black metal vocals over his music. It's a very surprising move for a producer whose synths have always done the talking, but compositionally it couldn't be more fitting — Rustie's harsh vocals transform this floating, ultra-maximized avalanche of cataclysmic synths into something that feels like a new genre completely. It's like if you took Revengeseekerz-era Jane Remover and turned the intensity past 10, or if Liturgy were produced by F1lthy. It's a fascinating stylistic move, and it's amazing to find out Rustie can still readily drop my jaw 20 years into his career. I need more of this ASAP!
