AOTW #7: Ilia(D:) by Banjo Ulysses

written by Cooper RH

Eclectic artist Banjo Ulysses has a knack for transforming collages of found sound, youtube clips, music, spoken pieces into tracks for him to soulfully croon, rap over. T4 was his strongest to release to date, receiving recognition from Sydney Independent radio giants FBI, as well as blockchain based streaming platform Nina Protocol.

However much I like T4 though, Ilia(D:) has been haunting my thoughts more than most releases have come close to this year. Tracks like Vindicated, Get Lost, Err on the Side of Contempt have these dreamy hooks that weasel their way into your mind during the dreamstate that you are bound to enter when listening to this front to back. Similar to music from anything by Dean Blunt there’s a sheet of comforting dread that accompanies this (see In the Mouth a Desert 2). An effortless coolness. Anyway I’m fawning.

It’s not just the ‘hits’ that make this “collection of works” what they are, the small interludes that transition tracks like ttamwih7gowattihbomg and 02H_d77Q+3 dont just pad out, but also strengthen the string that runs through the whole project.

Ilia(D:) ends on Pash (and New Recording 74), a 10-minute long odyssey, which for its whole duration has the same percussive sample and synth pad washing over you, like the ending of a pleasant night's dream. There’s a drake(?) sample too i think, which all combined sounds like an eccojams b-side. New Recording 74, leaves you to marinate in the album that just was, really unzipping the proverbial zip file. Like a good friend of the show and NMS Day 1’er said to me the other day “That last track on ilia got me bawlin at 4pm on a Tuesday.”

Sophisti-pop, Art-Pop, Anti-Pop, Experimental. Not sure what to really classify this album as, so why not figure that out for yourself by listening to it!

Available on Bandcamp and all good streaming platforms.