Featured EP: 3lo – No Sleep.
Producer team 3lo and rapper Atlas Greene – all from Atlanta – have combined for perhaps the most meaningful and intimate project of the year. With appearances from DNick, K.Visue, and Hadiya, the EP is evidently the product of countless hours of work. No Sleep is totally varied, both musically and in terms of its subject matter, but it manages to remain entirely thematically cohesive – an impressive feat by any stretch of the imagination.
No Sleep kicks off with a jazzy introduction in “Formal Introduction To Insomnia: The Ego Death,” featuring mellow keys, boom bap drums, and silky bars from Greene, who spits ruthlessly with ever-changing flow and cadence.
Following a self-questioning interlude, “Reflections & Frustration” is a dark and depressed tune which begets introspection. The next track, “Old Acquaintances: A Call For Help” is equally brooding, featuring slowed and pitched down vocal chops, giving off eerie vibes. But this project is about so much more than just arbitrary gloom and doom; ultimately, it’s been created to make one deliberate.
For instance, “Limbo, Alienation” is spoken word meets sparkling soul music, and inspires one to question their place and purpose in this expansive and fundamentally confusing universe in which we live.
“Dillusions; Frustration Revisited” is a standout track on the EP, featuring trippy, gated vocals which anchor a stuttering and glitchy track that cascades into smooth, wavy jazz past its midway point.
“Regrets,” meanwhile, showcases sultry vocals from Hadiya, telling a tortured tale of lost love. The project concludes on a bright note with the bubbly “Good Morning,” and gives listeners room to pause and reflect – on tales of inner demons of the past and ambitious dreams for the future.
3lo sums up the project’s theme of inner turmoil perfectly, in saying the following:
In the night when everything settles and the world around us stops we are left with nothing but ourselves. These are the moments that force us to face the reality of who we are and what our lives have become. These instances of solemn contemplation can lead to an unsettling restlessness that stirs questions inside of us. Questions that we may not have the answers to.
.
We fall victim to the night. Pensive, we sit on our bed, waiting for it to come- begging our subconscious to come and erase the struggles and pitfalls of the day, but it evades us.
.
No sleep.
.
Victim.
.
The necessary recedes from reality, inner demons usually suppressed in the facade of daylight take shape and dance past the mind’s eye, mockingly. ‘No sleep,’ they cry. This is the spectrum of sounds from the nocturnal. The somnambulists. The victims. No Sleep
All artists involved have poured out their heart on No Sleep – and it’s wonderful. Check it out.
. . .
Show 3lo some love:
SoundCloud | Twitter | Facebook
