Guest Post: Aural Hubris, be gone - By TK

Editors note- Dear Reader, TK is a very cool boy who knows his musics and blesses this editor frequently with said musics. Thanks Tony :) Also, there are some bad words in this post, like belieber. We apologize.

After a couple of hours wafting through SoundCloud, fishing for tracks that may pique my interests, it starts to get a tad bit unstimulating. Complacency in one’s own “tastes” sometimes makes one think that one can spot a gem just from chopping through a track’s timestamp (at least the intro, mid part and around the end). Inadvertently, one ends up denying attention to some thoroughly fresh tunes, this here is one of those cases.

I happen to follow le producteur x DJ français, 20Syl. Been a fan of Hocus Pocus for a hot jiffy, and the amount of devotion I offer up to French artists for their electronic music production puts most religious beliefs to ruddy shame.

Editor to TK: Excuse me Sir, do you have moment for me to share the gospel of DJ Jesus? He resurrects beats and rose on the 3rd day to give you the drop.

Also, could dude look any more French?

So with my eyes and ears collectively knackered, I absent-mindedly clicked to preview his new EP, Motifs. I inattentively skimmed through it and closed the page. Fast-forward, I’m on youtube (which is up to some fuckery btw) and thank fuck for the ‘recommended videos’ section and the ghosts of coincidence that lay beneath the bedrock of these interwebs, because right in front of my face was 20Syl’s video for his new single, Kodama.

In basic terms, best video I've seen in bloody ages.

This thing is a cinematographer’s wettest dream broken down into the most effortless form of minimalism.The whole piece looks like it was done on a 3x2 bit of floor in an apartment. Finely. crafted. art. There was none of that contrived caricature attempt at being deep and forcefully artistic, a subculture that’s presently eating up the indie world. Seen a cornucopia of shite vids attempting such of late.

Back to this pearl Kodama. Here’s a downright dope sensation that’s tough to top. Just when you’re experiencing the conjecture of your new-to-be favourite music video, it hits you that the tune itself is actually a joyride on its own. I might as well attempt to explain to you what's going on with the track. 

In my take, on the first listen it might be tough for the naked ear to fully fathom the diamond that is this newest slice of 20Syl’s genius.  An extremely brilliant producer, 20syl isn’t as well-known seeing as his soundcloud has just over 62k followers. Now in an ideal world uninhabited by beliebers, more enlightened music choices would be made and 20Syl would command a couple million fans for churning out aural gold such as this. But I digress, this is what is great about Kodama: soulful piano chords, seamless drum patterns, nuanced vocal snippets and layers upon layers of warps all come together to create a cohesive enchantingness for your ears to bust a nut to.

 The video, in all its cinematographic glory, kinda provides a snippet into a world of live production. To be honest, an AKAI MPC & a synth/MIDI controller plus a vinyl record thrown into any picture automatically make it look cool as fuck. There's a xylophone and a rubik’s cube in the video too, just for extra hardware sexiness.

An aural and visual feast, Kodama  is the shit. Plain and simple.

For as long as the views for this pure piece of happy are less than one hundred billion, every opportunity I get to play it, I will. Then wonder if I shouldn’t do it again. Then do it again. And again. And again.

TK