mBtheLight Let Intuition Guide Her Solo Debut, How to Dress Well in the Dark

Photo Credit: James Adams

Some people spend their lives trying to make music happen, while others tend to let the music happen to them. It seems that Monica Blaire exists in the realm of the blessed few that experience the latter – acting as a vessel for the words, melodies and rhythms that seems to flow freely through her like a river. That’s not to say she hasn’t spent countless days and years writing music and continually growing in her craft, but that the way she does it is led by intuition and experience rather than any forced or external motivation. Her latest record, How to Dress Well in the Dark (H2DWITD), (released via Moodymann – founded record label, Mahogani Music) proves to be no different. 

“All of the full songs you hear are one takes, three at most. Nothing was written down, they’re all improv,” explains Blaire, who is releasing the project under the moniker mBtheLight. “I’m kinda slowly getting people into the idea that I can be called whatever I wanna be called,” says Blaire. “And that, yeah, Monica Blaire is the foundation, but don’t be surprised if I put out an album and I just called it Blaire or if I put out an album and I don’t wanna be called anything.” This languid approach to her moniker reflects the shapeshifting and transformative themes in H2DWITD.  

The record – which has been three years in the making – unfolds like a sonic diary, giving the listener glimpses into the external and internal conflicts that the artist faced over the last few years. Blaire explains that, after moving back to Detroit from Atlanta in 2018, life didn’t exactly go the way that she planned. She had returned to Michigan with the intention of making a record with Andres – aka legendary DJ and producer DJ Dez (of Slum Village) – and acting as a Creative Director for one of her friends’ projects. But, as she recounts, the process was slow moving and she felt like she had things she needed to get off her chest now. So, Dez and Mahogani Music founder and house music legend, Moodymann, gave Blaire the green light to embark on her solo record. 

Blaire explains that her writing process – for these songs and most of her songs in the past – is a very quick and spiritual process. “We sat in the studio and Moody just played me the tracks,” Blaire says. “This is how it happened –  Moody would play a track and I’d be like, ‘This is dope’ and we would start recording.” She says that she relies on instinct when it comes to writing and doesn’t allow herself to overthink or ruminate on a song. “Whatever the first idea I get is gonna be the one,” Blaire muses. “They normally come fully flushed, like ‘This is the song.’ Maybe not the words, but definitely the melodies and the placement.”

This direct method of writing probably explains the vulnerable and forthright nature of Blaire’s music. H2DWITD pieces together the more produced, fleshed out tracks that Blaire worked on with Andres, Moodymann and Nick Speed, with poignantly fleeting memories, composed solely by Blaire on her iPhone. She says that after sitting with the longer tracks for a while, she started to understand the story she wanted to tell, and wrote the interludes from there. But, although she had an idea of what she wanted to say, Blaire says a lot of the songs on her record told her things that she didn’t know yet herself. “My music tends to be very predictive because of my tap in,” Blaire states. “Sometimes, I’m feeling something and I don’t know why I’m feeling it and I express it through song and later it makes sense.”

Take the album’s lead track, “samesong.” Blaire says she wrote this track on her way home from a tour that was canceled due to COVID, and was surprised by how accurate it was listening back a few years later. “It kinda predicted all the sadness that was coming… and even some of the relationship things… some of it were things I was trying to get closure from, but it also ended up being predictive in some other ways too.”

This foreboding track sets the tone for the rest of the record, leading the listener through the peaks and valleys of Blaire’s self-discovery, acceptance and growth. “This is the darkest I get generally, in terms of what I put out and the things that I do,” observes Blaire. But in that darkness are heaps of hopefulness and clarity. Like in “release,” a cathartic meditation on realizing your needs and letting go of people and things that don’t fulfill them. Blaire begins the song with a reminder of the humanity in all of us – (“Be kind/A heart is still a heart/And a mind is still a mind”) while also maintaining her strength and sending a message to anyone who wants to get close to her (“Fuck with me if you wanna/Know that I’m different, though/I don’t take shit for granted/I dive in deep toes first”). The last minute or so of the song demonstrates Blaire’s unflinching vocal talent in an outpouring of emotional vocal runs that say just as much, if not more, than the words preceding them. 

Each song on the record packs in an equal amount of emotion, whether it’s five minutes or thirty seconds. The interludes, especially, encapsulate Blaire’s complex and genuine spirit, along with glimmers of the turmoil that she experienced while making this record. From her car breaking down and computer dying to going through a complicated breakup and delaying plans to move across the country, Blaire has been through a lot the last few years. From that came this unfiltered, vivacious body of work that yields proof of the beauty in chaos. “When that kind of chaos starts happening, I just know the universe is mixing stuff up and it’s about to be a real good time,” says Blaire.

Follow mBtheLight on Twitter for ongoing updates.

Nketiah Creates a Lush Electronic Soundscape with Mauve

Nketiah
Nketiah

I have to say it: I do not like long albums. If an album goes over twelve tracks, the synapses of my brain will cross and I will be lost in an impenetrable fog. I’ll probably start the album late or end it early upon repeated listens, depending on which half I liked more, and live out the rest of my days in denial that I was, initially, presented with a magnum opus. Long albums have a weight shorter ones do not. It feels indulgent to me, like putting whipped cream and chocolate chips and sprinkles on the pie.

Yet, there are exceptions to every rule. Soundtracks or instrumental albums, in particular, do not have the ability to emotionally or sonically overload me before we get past forty-ish minutes. Mauve, the new electronica album from mysterious San Francisco musician Nketiah, is not only long (fourteen tracks) but hefty, with the majority of the tracks clocking over four minutes. This would be a death sentence for a pop or punk album (or a pop punk album) but on Mauve, it feels lush and earned.

It feels lush because of the distinctive soundscape it creates — close to a movie soundtrack, but not quite (it’s a little too discordant in parts). Like listening to Gustav Holst’s “The Planets” or Daft Punk’s soundtrack to 2010’s TRON: Legacy (arguably the warmest and most human aspect of that entire film) there are burst of familiar flavor here, but Nketiah avoids feeling like a retread. Mauve is complex enough to send you places, and some of those places you have certainly been before. Over the course of the fourteen tracks, I was in the future, where an android speaks to me in staccato busts (“Drinks”); I was in the present, where the almost-forgotten experience of party ambiance becomes song (“Aura”); and I was in the past, imagining what the blue, opera-singing alien from semi-trashy sci-fi classic The Fifth Element listens to in her free time (“Open”).

The human voice is largely percussive on Mauve, but not in a beat-box way. It’s not the backbone of the tracks, but just as important and impactful as any other sound, except perhaps on “Shade II” which features snatches of discernible conversation that have largely not been tinkered with.
The most impressive uses of percussive voice are in “Bunk” and “Newform.” The former even uses one of my favorite music tropes: pretending like the song is going to end on some sort of dampened, single buzz of a note before bringing all the noise back at once. It’s the Phil Spector Wall of Sound, if Phil Spector was an immortal android who wished he had a human face. “Newform” is much longer, combining Stranger Things synth-y coldness with moments of warmth that come from a delicate, fuzzed-out effect and choral-like layered vocals that, if you weren’t expecting them, can give some real chills.

It’s not all dark smoky room stuff here, however — the watery fish-tank energy of “Midrain” ends abruptly for the lead-in to “Womp,” which overall sounds like a classical composer who had a little too much E. It’s truly an odd aside for the album, which normally slides from one track to the next more subtly. It’s not unforgivably jarring, however — the Nketiah touch does not particularly like to single out any one sound, and “Womp” is no exception. For another example, the very end of “Balance” reminded me of a ’90s dial-up noise, but I had to think on it for a bit until I was able to clock the memory. Nketiah knows that the impact here comes not from the sounds themselves, but from weaving and stitching them together into some semblance of a whole, one where you can barely see the frays and snags. And the ones you can see — well, there’s still something to be said for the fallibility of a human touch.

Trimmo’s Experimental Electronica Manages both Warmth and Resonance on twin sister LP

Photo via @trimmo_garden on Instagram

Photo via @trimmo_garden on Instagram

DIY and electronica have always gone hand-in-hand. With only a computer and some music software, you can create tracks from basically nothing; you don’t need a good voice, and you don’t need to be good at playing an instrument. But here’s the thing – regular musicians don’t need that shit either. Crap electronica and good electronica are subjective, and therefore eminently debatable, but in some ways, the sloppier you are without the padding of lyrics or vocal stylings, the more likely people will be able to point at all your rough bits and laugh.

I am not really a “chill” music person, both in the personality sense and in the genre one, and generally will gravitate toward discordance and noise. Yet I still know that good electronica that manages to be contained — even repetitive —without being boring is worth its weight in gold.

This is how I feel about San Francisco’s Trimmo and their new LP release, twin sister. The album is a strange entity in many ways. Labeled “gothstep” by its creator, Sean McFarlane, there is something very pasted together about it, with its blurry, inconsequential cover photo “of daniel,” its stalwart reluctance to embrace logical spelling or track naming structure, and a deeply unsettling choice to name track seven “twin sisters” while the album title is the singular. Was this an accident? I doubt it, because in all good, seemingly random things, the chaos is coordinated.

The collage-like tactics on twin sister almost make my head hurt – thousands of hours of sounds and possibilities, the simple random chance of things coming together. “hunt you liek doggie” is the opening track, and also my favorite of the lot. If there was a way to condense the feeling of a long drive home with friends into a song, this would be it. There are vocals here, but they have been looped into a melodious, mantra-like hum that compliments both the acoustic guitar loop and a deeply-felt heartbeat sound that could recreate panic as easily as it could joy.

Overall, the album leans into a more subdued — though not morose — vibe, with the exceptions of “pis,” and “anime guuuurl” which both have moments of thorny roughness that cut through the arrangements like snags in your sweater. Both are songs you really have to be in the mood for, the former sounding like a drugged out 90’s dial-up tone  and the latter a hyperpop song that got ground through the garbage disposal a few too many times.

Trimmo knows how to make a memorable impression even without leaning into roughness. I appreciate the attention paid here to acoustic instruments, which show up in most of the songs as major players; track two, “JUNE24 LIVES IN INFAMYYY” is backed by piano, while the kinda-title track, “twin sister” has a very homey addition of that warm wa-wa guitar sound. “queeen” relies on a syrupy, surfy riff that crashes headlong into a heavy drop of distorted piano and cymbals on “te pwincess,” which immediately follows – given their names, the two tracks seem deliberately paired, even if they feel distinct. The last two songs round out the project nicely – “dri drip (bonus)” is super synth-heavy, and the final track, “not a song” is, of course, the most distinctly traditional track, with soft, largely indiscernible vocals over doubled guitar.

Fundamentally, twin sister is mutable, in its best moments able to take soft, dampened sounds and make them resonant, both emotionally and musically. It’s DIY, it’s experimental, it was surely made (or at least completed in quarantine), and even with the warmth and tenability afforded by Trimmo’s mindful, tender treatment of acoustic instruments, has its rightful place in electronica.

Follow Trimmo on Instagram for updates. 

PLAYING DETROIT: Ancient Language Embraces Change on Third LP ‘HYGGE’

Photo by Paul Stevens

Ancient Language exists on a metamorphic scale, constantly shapeshifting to fit the change of the seasons – or life – of original founder Christopher Jarvis. Jarvis started Ancient Language in 2011 as a solo hip-hop/house project, but in the last seven years his music has gone through many different iterations. Most notably, it has grown from solo work to a six-piece folk/indie rock/electronic amalgamation of virtuosic musicianship and varied tastes. HYGGE, Ancient Language’s third release, is the apex of this musical journey and finds the band at a crossroad between genres, using their lyrical voice for the first time.

The LP is a labor of love, recorded over the past two years in a series of sessions in band member (guitar, sax, and vocals) Matthew Beyer’s basement. The band says HYGGE was made during a time of “profound changes, relocating across the country and back again.” Some of these “changes” were more traumatizing than others, including a time last winter when Jarvis’s whole life as he knew it seemed to be crumbling. “When we started writing the record, my brother Zach and I were kind of in a dark place,” says Jarvis. “We were living in Eastern Market and, in the span of a week, I lost my job, my car got stolen, and we got evicted from our place.”

This series of unfortunate events was the nail in the coffin for Jarvis, who grew up between Warren and Sterling Heights. He explains that, although he’s no stranger to Detroit’s brutal winters, that winter was especially debilitating, and he took it as a sign to run towards the sun. Jarvis and his brother, who also plays in the band, moved in with family in Arizona to try and get their lives back on track. During those months in Arizona, the brothers spent time writing music and sending songs back and forth to Beyer. By the time they were ready to come back to Detroit, they had finished an album.

The Jarvis’s desert retreat seemed to be the escape they needed to create a diverse and enrapturing body of work. Although, Chris says that the music itself has always been his true oasis. “That’s how it’s always been for me – an escape from whatever I’m dealing with.”

Ancient Language will celebrate the release of HYGGE this Saturday, June 2nd, with a show at El Club in Detroit. Peep a single from the record below.

PLAYING DETROIT: TRIP METAL FEST 2017

 

Memorial Day weekend means one thing and one thing only for most of Detroit: techno. For the past 17 years (on and off due to regulatory restrictions, budgeting issues and exponential crowd growth) Detroit celebrates its role as the birthplace of true, nitty-gritty electronic music. From the likes of Carl Craig, Kevin Saunderson and Moodymann, a world was forged from heart-racing bass beats and dizzying spins of discordant manipulation.

Well, this post isn’t about Movement. This is about TRIP METAL FEST. Companion, rival, and a deeper, more brooding assemblage of sound, TRIP METAL FEST (a pay-what-you-want weekend of musical shock therapy) kicks off this weekend at Detroit’s El Club. We’ve handpicked a few unsettling tracks to scare off the unwanted BBQ leeches this Memorial Day.

Aaron Dilloway: The Beauty Bath (Side A)

A relentless buzzing occupies the space of this 23-minute long track like a fly trapped between a window and a screen. To call Aaron Dilloway’s “The Beauty Bath” ambient would be missing the point all together. His static distress call is manic and sedated while maintaining a level of complete neutrality.

WOLF EYES: Interference Part 3

The lead curators of the event, Wolf Eyes have given “dark” a new scale on which to be measured. Known for their maddening orchestral cluster-fuck, Wolf Eyes excels at all things unnerving. The trio’s latest record Interference (released earlier this month) exploits the Lars Von Trier-esque rabbit hole of sound that tangos with beauty and mortality in equal measure.

Elysia Crampton: Panic Glue (Demo)
[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][fusion_soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/318183364″ params=”color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false” width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]
Panic is right. California based Elysia Crampton delivers a soundtrack suitable for that episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark? with the cigarette-smoking funhouse clown. Although her other work is more verbally haunting, with guns cocking and twinkling harpsichord layers, the underlying theme of disturbia is ever present no matter what track you click.

BONUS: Performance Artist Bailey Scieszka, a.k.a Old Put, is down with the clown and promises to suck you into her twisted world of chaos and love of WWE Smackdown.

[/fusion_builder_column][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”]https://vimeo.com/203932578

 

Follow the yellow brick road to Hell and back by clicking here for more info.

[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]

PLAYING DETROIT: VESPRE “Siren”

A soothing and heavenly departure from her history as a folk artist and frontwoman of The Normandies, Kaylan Waterman slipped into new waters with her latest project VESPRE. Introducing this new exploration with the track “Siren,” VESPRE produces an aural shimmering pool of blurry constellations, reflective and curious. “Siren” rides the line of R&B, ethereal electronica and unearthed Disney princess without begging for comparison (although there are Madonna-esque moments that are pleasantly unexpected.) Waterman’s voice never frays but waivers and trails patiently, like a comet in slow motion with a clear and defiant trajectory. What “Siren” offers is a mirror and an escape both confrontational and reassuring. Waterman paints an entire personal history with a few thoughtfully crafted lines: “It’s a fight to the finish/I’m heading straight for the limit/It was a war to begin with/No telling who’s going to end it.” Placed in her swirling, celestial abyss, it acts as a measured anthem of low-key empowerment.

Take flight with the debut track from VESPRE:

PLAYING DETROIT: Humons “Try it for Me”

playing detroit

Sonically celestial crusader Humons dropped his debut EP Spectra earlier this month; a whirling, spacious collision of emotional decluttering and the rhythmic freedom of danceable electronica. Humons paired up with director Shane Ford of The Work to produce the video for “Try it for Me,” a stunning visual marriage of organic and digital landscapes, both of which reflect the sincere duality of Spectra as a whole bringing Humons’ vision full circle.

The video follows our unassuming, wanderlust-ing heroine, dressed notably in white for the entire ride. We are introduced to her apartment, then the beach where she seems entranced by having her hands in the sand like some goddess of the elements. Some of the most beautiful frames are set in a lush forest where our blonde, angelic maven of mysticism crosses path with a woman who inhabited the forest before she came along. Their eyes beg with curiosity and when they touch, though innocently, we are reminded of our own guides, pathways, and our personal sensuality. Where the video challenges reality is in the toggling between what seems like three different realms; waking life, dream life and the world trapped in between. The pulsing camera work in conjunction with the throbbing synth beats breaks the walls between viewer, voyeur, and participant. This ever changing dial of realities is illustrated by a digital distortion that feels more vortex inhalation than noise. From echoing images that vibrate to hazy, pinhole visions the deja vu sensation is calmed when we are finally led to the water’s edge with our two spiritual pilots. What the video champions is the encouragement to search one’s self and ones environment; a rite of passage you can dance to.

Ride the waves of Humons latest vision quest with the video for “Try it for Me” below:

[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]

PLAYING DETROIT: Daniel Monk “Kite View” (feat. ISLA)

unnamed

Jazz guitarist, producer, and ambient electronica explorer Dan Gruszka released his enchanting and contemplative solo EP 1121 earlier this month under his creative moniker Daniel Monk. The single “Kite View” quivers with fragility but not weakness. For a debut release, Monk finds a seasoned balance of self-control and self-assurance that is unexpectedly meditative and mature.

“Kite View” features up and coming female artist ISLA whose angel breath cadence swirls within the delicate framework of Monks sensitive production and arrangement. Sans vocals, the track would still sing in a voice tinged with melancholic flight. The addition of ISLA takes “Kite View” into a patient pre-dystopian lullaby.  A hint of acoustic guitar rolls in as ISLA’s voice escapes the atmosphere, leaving us abruptly to wade through the stillness left behind by the sensuous synths. In this case, minimalism isn’t boring or safe rather a lesson in space, spacing and the art of dipping your foot into waters before jumping.

Dive in and soar with “Kite View” below:

[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][fusion_soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/280407682″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”450″ iframe=”true” /][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]

PLAYING DETROIT: Humons “Underneath”

[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”]

14242449_711221165694732_9143612305650556026_o
Photo by Andrew Amine & design by Ellen Rutt

“Dream house” voyager Ardalan Sedghi is Humons, a kinetically electrified project whose atomic beats swell in “Underneath” the debut single from the Spectra EP due out this fall. Although Sedghi isn’t entirely new blood on the scene, “Underneath” delivers a freshness that rises with a palpable and cosmic humidity and is best experienced with hips magnetically fused to someone else’s: a symbiotic gravity grind.

Although Humons is technically one huMAN it can’t be ignored that the seamless production is a vital component as to why “Underneath” works as a living, breathing, pulsating soundscape and not just a party jam at a hazy house party in Southwest. Produced and mixed by mastermind Jon Zott at the Assemble Sound studios, the track lends itself to explore various abstractions. Consider an animated sci-fi journey riding the tail of a comet or a microscopic view of anatomical fascinations like blood cells bumping against artery walls, fighting illness or a time-lapse of vultures picking apart a freshly deceased roadside meal. Mixing staccato guitar with clashing synths and clapping wave-to-shore-like drum machine beats gives Sedghi’s breathy, minimalist vocals space to float. What this track masterfully accomplishes is its “choose your own adventure” vibe. It can be sad and brooding if that’s what you need or it can be your sexually ravenous anthem. Either way, “Underneath” ushers us from Summer to Fall and into territory undisclosed.

Get spacey with Humons latest below:

[/fusion_builder_column][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][fusion_soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/283440302″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”450″ iframe=”true” /][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]