For a couple years now, the “it” topic in the cutting edge of music journalism seems to be the burgeoning intersection of emo and hip hop. It’s a combination that seems natural in hindsight, but blindsided most of the more involved music community when it started finding mainstream success. Pitchfork named Lil Peep “the Future of Emo,” a writer for the New York Times listed nothing,nowhere. as their pick for 2017’s album of the year. Suddenly, “emo trap” is a common term among people interested in neither genre.
But something’s missing from the emo that influences most artists such as these, something closely tied to emo’s roots as a location-based genre. While big cities like LA and NYC did give us the Say Anythings and Taking Back Sundays of 2000’s emo, emo’s more storied past in the nineties brings us to the Midwest. “Midwestern Emo,” pioneered by the likes of Cap’n Jazz and later refined by staples like American Football, features a twinkly, natural tone all its own. Recently seeing a resurgence with the “emo revival,” spearheaded by Algernon Cadwallader in 2010, Midwestern emo translates setting into sound.
It’s this subsect of the genre, and this area of the USA, that shape the energy found on producer and musician killedmyself’s latest EP, Take Care. By channeling this unique stripe of the sound that so many artists in this genre incorporate, killedmyself sets themselves apart in a tape that combines great production and impressive musicianship for something all at once familiar and new.
As if to signal this return to emo’s roots, as well as set the mood for the content of the song, Take Care opens with song “home sweet home!” In this track you’ll immediately see the groundwork laid for the content of the EP, with its jazzy math rock-inspired guitar work, combination of acoustic and digitally implemented beats, and overall ‘cozy’ feeling. It’s this cozy feeling that acts as the most grounded sense of feeling between tracks. The whole tape incites serious nostalgic emotions out of a listener through music alone, harkening back to halcyon days with a modern panache. This feeling is only strengthened by the added bonus of “old timey” visuals for the whole EP by way of the artist’s Youtube channel. Using vintage footage adds a whole new flavor and style to this EP in specific, setting it apart from the Backyard Cemetery series and other projects.
kms collaborates with other musicians twice on this extended play, both tracks “the 1965 world cup” (ft. Taylor Morgan) and “take care” (ft. 4evr). Each of them have their own little spin on the overarching style of the EP, with “the 1965 world cup” incorporating a strong brass line and a very danceable beat, and “take care” coming in with a strong sub and eventually giving way to some very nice drumkit work that rounds out the song as a whole. It’s also one of two tracks to have a portion of true vocal melody on an otherwise instrumental and sample-based tape. These collaborative efforts straddle the middle of the 5 song project, giving each track its own feeling and making sure the relatively short listen never finds itself getting stale, not that I expected it to anyway. “the 1965 world cup,” which uses a sample from Portland emo songwriter Rustycore, is an especially joyous listen, making it no surprise that it was the track that was released to promote the EP.
Of all 5 tracks on the project, “at long last” is by far the most ambient. Guitars (another Rustycore sample) in the track are delayed and looped to the point of ethereal haze, even if it never strays too far into shoegaze territory. Another interesting thing in this track are the fun, if brief, change-ups in time signature that give the beat a real groove in certain areas. Closer “open season” brings the mood down for the first time, using guitar work very reminiscent of Midwest emo revival progenitors Empire! Empire! I Was a Lonely Estate. The second track to feature a true vocal melody, “open season” really closes the EP strong. Even in saying that, the strongest part of “open season” is the way it ends, a key change and cool down strongly reminiscent of the works of American Football, especially. It’s a slight nod right at the end to where this project’s inspiration lies and closes it in a fantastically serene and almost hopeful way.
Killedmyself brings the Midwest out in all it’s glory on Take Care, through the crafting of beats and melodies that truly invoke a certain mood. Visually and audibly, Take Care pays homage to roots of niche American culture in a very nostalgic way, creating something very different from peers of a similar ilk. Seeing as how divisive a term “emo” has become between new artists and old hats, I imagine it will be misapplied as a label and argued over for years to come. But if emo can keep inspiring musicians to create music like this? I don’t think anybody has anything to worry about.