After some resistance, I finally came around on the Drainer movement. Assuming that all of Drain Gang’s music was like the misogynistic side of Yung Lean, I was pleasantly surprised to find that they were a multiracial group that delved into emotional issues in some amusingly cryptic ways. That obscurity is on full display here with Ecco2K’s “Peroxide.” The ambient pop song deals with the experience of being black in Sweden, but even after multiple listens I did not pick up on that theme. With the most memorable lyric being “Chop off your body parts / Chop! Chop! Chop!” you might forgive me for missing the deeper meaning here. But once I realized that this song deals with being black under the white gaze, it becomes apparent that this image of dismemberment comes from the white Swede who sees Ecco2K as a violent butcher from the very first glance. The violence of the lyrics seems extremely at odds with the uplifting music until it becomes clear that this is an empowerment song about freeing yourself from other people’s judgments.
“They all stare at me, I don’t care at all / Everywhere I go they look at me wrong.”
More meaning hiding in plain sight can be discerned with the lyric “No peroxide, I stay dark,” showing how the title of the song deals with his unwillingness to bleach his hair with hydrogen peroxide and assimilate. The music video shows Ecco alone in a foreboding ocean and yet he is just dancing and enjoying himself. It is a beautiful image that illustrates a self-confidence to persevere, even within in a place where you can’t find your community. The cloudy R&B along with the muted visuals paints a gray vision of paradise that requires you to color it in yourself.
Watch a surreal live performance of this song here and have a nice day!
Category: Uncategorized
Laughing Ears – “Sandouping 3”
“Sandouping 3” is a track by Shanghai artist Laughing Ears. Her work shifts between a number of electronic genres including footwork, ambient, and noise. The song comes off of the compilation HKH Cryosphere, created by the stellar record label Chinabot. It is a compilation of tracks by artists from seven different Asian countries and it is dedicated to the Hindu Kush Himalayas, whose melting glaciers impact the 10 major rivers they feed as well as all the countless people connected their banks. It was released on 4/20/20 and it is unknowable if that is meant to relate Hindu Kush at all.
“Sandouping 3” is concerned with Sandouping, China, a town which is connected to the Himalayas by the Yangtze River. In particular, it likely refers to the Three Gorges Dam which Sandouping is famous for. It is the largest power plant in the world and has caused deforestation, extinctions, landslides, and stagnation. It is also extremely powerful, avoiding millions of tonnes of emissions compared to coal power. All of these features tie into the central ecological theme of the album and she seems to raise the question of the future of this dam.
“Sandouping 3” is one of the more dance friendly tracks on HKH, sounding like Laughing Ears personalized take on witch-house. Sparse drums pierce through dark ambience and a foreboding bass synth. The threatening nature of the track brings to mind bleak images of future dam failure. In that sense, the song serves as a cautionary tale for what will happen if we cannot slow the melting of the Himalayas. The song also conveys the sheer power of this enormous dam, which can both be admired and feared.
In Chinabot’s own words:
“Water is vital, spiritual, and restorative. It is a common that connects us all to each other, and to our biosphere. We are drawing some of the possible futures for the river in order to promote dialogue and hope about how our relationship could change. Water can quickly become wild without attention, it becomes alive, a new ecosystem where all the 10 songs can begin to live in this compilation.”
Check out Laughing Ears’ music or pick up HKH Cryosphere here.
Sarathy Korwar – “Birthright” (feat. Zia Ahmed, Mirande & Swadesi)
Jazz percussionist Sarathy Korwar was born in the US, grew up in India and is now part of the UK jazz scene. These diverse backgrounds all play a part in the eclectic style he brings to jazz music. On “Birthright,” tabla playing, street sounds and chanting greet the listener. Then comes in a powerful deadpan vocal delivery from poet Zia Ahmed with some wonderful minimalist keyboard lines. He intones, “‘Mi casa es su casa,’ says the man who stole your land… Does the land stitch itself back together? Do people stitch themselves back together?”
The charged lyrics illuminate the hypocrisy of the entitlement of people living on stolen land. The pressure of the song builds as the hypnotic keyboard lines stay relentless, the lyrics become more pointed and more singing voices are introduced. Suddenly, most elements drop out and we are left with only percussion and a repeating line referencing our rising seas: “Higher and higher / water on fire.” This incredibly poignant song takes on so many of the issues the world faces today. Though the title “Birthright” first brings to mind the Israeli propagandist group offering free trips to Israel, the song’s targets range from all settler-colonial states to the entitlement of those who destroy our environment. Hopefully all land torn apart by borders can soon be stitched back together.
Check out Sarathy Korwar’s 2019 album More Arriving here.
Shabaka and the Ancestors – “You’ve Been Called”
Shabaka Hutchings returns with Shabaka and the Ancestors, one of the many bands that he has been making waves in. This song opens with atonal swirls reminiscent of Herbie Hancock’s avant-garde Mwandishi era. That music is accompanied by the cries of both babies and other animals. The vocalist sets the tone with spoken lines like, “Burned the mortgage, burned the student loans… An act of destruction became creation.” Eventually this chaos dissolves into a more structured jazz song with a refrain that appears throughout the album: “We are here / Cause history called.” Clearly this project looks to the past as a source of inspiration to liberate ourselves. Let’s heed that call!
You can support the band and buy the full album We Are Sent Here by History here.
Freeing Music 