SHLOHMO
by Zach Finch
Have you ever woken from a dream of your childhood and felt lost?
For a distant moment I was certain of these old, bent wisdoms inside me, of warm places with oxidized locks and windows that only open on one side.
There was something about that bedroom, drowning in slanted sun, the faded yellow dresser poxed with stickers. Something inside it that I knew once - if I could recall it now, it might let that thick, heavy sunlight loose.
But trying to remember is Legos that no longer fit, melted sockets and warped joints. Static that shrinks into the corner when you listen too close. Eyes sinking open.
Fast-fading tendrils peel themselves from my skin, retract into my ears, rejoin the slumping mountain of lost afternoons on the sticky underside of my consciousness.
Image courtesy of Fact Magazine
Shlohmo melts nostalgia and corrodes innocence, distills it all down into a warm molasses scattered through with shining detritus. Familiar and disorienting at once, his music pulls back from a happy childhood memory to reveal something dark and many-legged curled about its periphery.
While his early works are undeniably steeped in hip-hop, releases spanning the last decade have settled their sticky filaments over a diverse spectrum of sound. Some tracks flutter on moth-wing lullabies (Forgot I Was Here) while others sink fitfully into tar-pit-grunge (Trapped in a Burning House, Dark Red).
Image courtesy of @Shlohmo on instagram
The End, released on March 22nd 2019, straddles the headwater where these soundscapes mingle, offering a spot on the couch to watch the apocalypse unfold, joint in hand.
