Premiere: Power Animal - "Light Elating Everything"

Power Animal - "Light Elating Everything"

(2017 Human Kindness Overflowing)

Haunted house concept: this year, we can do without the corpse paint and corn syrup blood. I'll flick the lights on and serve the ghoulish tenants warm cider in shallow mugs around the old Tudor's fireplace. The shaggy beast that once lurked in the boiler room sits pretzel-legged and picks at the wall's flaking paper, grinding the wafers of yellowed floral print between his talons. He says his whole life he's felt like a fraud. Like no matter how hard he tries -- however well he hides -- he's never been able to believe that the screams he elicits from trespassing humans are genuine.

"They're only screaming out of pity," he says, taking a sip that leaves the hair on his upper lip wet with McIntosh tartness. "I only got this job because my pop's been in the haunting business for years; he knew a guy who knew the guy that runs the house. But I've never, like, really been scary. This job belongs to someone else, I'm sure of that. But I don't have the courage to quit."

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Song concept: Power Animal's house is mostly haunted by the lightbulb flash of self-actualization, though it isn't out of the ordinary for a bedsheet ghost to wander though its halls. Supplementing his transparent synthesizers with phantom howls, the Philadelphia-based solo act chops and re-arranges these spooky soundscapes into a ecstatic push forward.

Though Hampson's hip-hop production does dabble in the lo-fi textures and whispery deliveries that populate Bandcamp's vast emo scene, his newest single, "Light Elating Everything" feels more indebted to Empire! Empire! I Was A Lonely Estate than any other project that's operated within the sub-genre: it's an exorcism of self-destructive thoughts, looking back on sad times through wiser lenses.

"The light's gone out in some corners,"  he speaks more than sings, "but the light has been shown some places, too."

The crackling samples; the fluttering hi-hats; the trills of screechy synth-pop melody -- they all add up to leaves on the sidewalk and candy wrappers in your shorts pocket. Bonfires in the backyard.

"I regret every disappointed breath up to 2005...you have always been the light elating everything."

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Briefing: Good Wind Pt. 1, Power Animal's first record since 2012's Exorcism, comes out on Nov. 10th via Human Kindness Overflowing, a label that donates 50% of its profits to charity. This particular release's proceeds will go to Emergent Fund, an organization formed in response to the 2016 election that supports grassroots movements formed within marginalized groups.

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