…one of LA’s premier underground electro-hop artist’s just released some of the freshest ambient elegance on February 17th. It is produced with swathes of Laviticux’s drive and effort to produce a sound experience that wavers over your essence and soaks through you.
Dark Night of The Soul runs with cohesive electricity. It looms with an ominous conglomeration of synths and a variety of bass-i-ness that floats in between the lyrics, bleeding together like ink droplets that sink and dry slowly into freshly laid out paper.
“Wait on me” plunges you into this spacey soundscape with visceral lyrical expressions that lace the instrumentation with somber reflections for anyone who doesn’t want to see Laviticux press forward. This music isn’t just a hot pursuit for her, it is the ultimate way to unpack inner musings that are best boiled over a beat. Resulting in this hefty serving of sensational sauce.
“Till I Die” continues the tape, dripping with cold commentary on how death will capture Laviticux before she stops using her sense of musicality to convey her message. If you are not a part of the wave she’s riding, that isn’t going to stop her from riding it.
Creeping up next is the most experimental track on the tape (imo), “haunted;” it takes crisp, soft high hats and blends them with pitched up vocals and a bass boom that reminds me of what it’d be like to zip through neon enriched streets with a super-charged speaker system. Then the lead single, “Insanity,” rolls in with an almost 180 affect the way its mystifying bump encases you and brings you down from the high velocity nature of the track before.
This then helps the dreamy interlude “The darkest night” ease into your ears with a hazy buzz that is a rich waft. It sounds like what it might feel like to float on smoke in the middle of the night. The vocals queue in, starting with a watery echo that crescendos alongside bright, tatting high hats until the hook washes completely over you:
“And I keep falling in this darkness…
and there’s no one to light it up, to brighten it up, yeah…”
Despite the title and overall aesthetic of the tape, the ambience of this track really cups your ears in a hammock of this vibrant hybrid of electronica and booming hip-hop. This segways nicely into the next track, “MOVE ON.” It’s got those bright undertones that shower the hammering high hats and bumpy bass. Not to overtake any of that, but to blend together with the particular majesty that is a hallmark of quality writing and producing. It’s got a real-late-night-coastline-beach-cruise thing going for it and the track carries you out with a quick but smooth fade.
Then the closer comes in, “World Ends.” Immediately there’s this glowing spacey feel to it, and just as you’re getting comfy with that… the intro vocals chime in with an otherworldly autotune (tasteful autotune, nothing unsensibly placed). And not to play the comparison game, but when the featured verses from Nasir Taylor start bursting between hooks and birdges like micro stars just really gives you a jolt of 2010s B.o.B. (in the best type of way). Pay attention to those lyrics because it bleeds with at least one life musing I’m sure any of us have wondered about before. Then after a short, misty bridge of suspended synths and lingering vocals…
Laviticux comes in with a poppy but robust and deeply stirring verse:
“I been dreaming of a higher place,
I fade away…
Think I took too much,
can’t feel my face…
Can’t hide the pain,
I’m screamin’ out for help.
Are you with me?
Can you hear me?
My only friend,
Someday this world will end.
Someday this world will end.
I’ve lost my only friend.
Goodbye my only friend…
Are you with me?
Can you hear me?
I’m not afraid…”
I can only surmise that Lavitcux either lost someone very close to her or this is about someone she knows who lost someone very close to them. Either way, it is a gleaming track to end on that is ladened with all kinds of heart and artistry to match.
It has waves and distortions and pitches that go all over the place but with utmost grace. Not to mention it even ends with a sort of “transmission over” effect as the final “I’m not afraid(s)” are vacuumed into an instantaneous, zippy fade out.
This seven song tape packs a mighty punch in so many regards. It stirs your emotions in a thoughtful and mulling way. It has a diverse repertoire of electronic instrumentation. Which is pieced together with incredible and paid-attention-to mixing. It is eclectic in both vocalization and instrumentation without deviating from the general soundscape that has been concocted. Just listening through it and having it cycle through my ears, it is yet another reminder why underground music is so important. The best artists…then, now, and in the future…will only ever do right by remembering their underground foundation and consistently drawing from it for inspiration. As you grow, that inspiration can project you in different ways. It is ultimately what you wind up taking away from looking back that determines your trajectory moving forward. Laviticux is one of those artists I see sticking that landing every time.
Check out her music on Spotify, YouTube, and Apple Music!
Also be sure to keep up with her happenings and updates on Instagram!
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