AYA – im hole – LP – Ecomix Splatter Vinyl [MAR 7]

LP – Ecomix Splatter Effect Vinyl

On im hole, aya distilled the incisive sonic experimentation of her early run of releases, the tongue-in-cheek giggles of her DJ sets and edits, and the identity-fluxing lyricism of her live shows. The album was immediately championed from all corners, ‘Best New Music’ in Pitchfork to DJ Mary Anne Hobbs Album of the Year, followed by incredible live shows which drew new listeners further into the net. Contorting language, dialect, gender and sexuality between intermittently controlled bursts of rhythm, noise and aural goop, aya sculpted a set of autobiographical vignettes that challenge established norms, question supposed truths, and affirm a spectrum of interlocking experiences. But while it’s wide open and personal, im hole also challenges queer art’s tendency to veer towards repetitive solipsism. Even the title itself references the unwieldy mix of self-actualization and sexualization that bogs down cultural perceptions of the trans experience. It’s neither one thing nor t’other, just as much a sly nod to dissociative afterparty sloppiness as it is any self-congratulatory pinkwashed grandstanding. The music follows suit, fragmenting familiar sounds, twinned with familiar words, assembled in unfamiliar ways, full of sharp humour, even in the middle of despair. Stories are muddled with phonetics just as dubstep is macrodosed with microtonal drone.

Tracklist:

A1. somewhere between the 8th and 9th floor
A2. what if i should fall asleep and slipp under
A3. once went west
A4. dis yacky
A5. OoBrosThesis
A6. the only solution i have found is to simply jump higher

B1. still i taste the air
B2. Emley lights us moor (ft Iceboy Violet)
B3. Tailwind
B4. If [redacted] Thinks He’s Having This As A Remix He Can Frankly Do One
B5. Backsliding