Brooklyn electronic genre defiers HDLSS have just released a little gem of a final single in the lead up to their excellent forthcoming album Selections From Dumb. ‘What Comes Next’ is a kaleidoscopic and quietly relentless pop wonder that musically honours the night and straddles the line nicely between experimentalism and accessibility. However, lyrically and in keeping with the rest of the album’s socially just political bent it rightly pulls no punches and talks of the involuntary duality that can emanate from mainstream white culture’s penchant to stereotype and demonise people from minority populations;
This song was born out of the incongruity of your insides not matching your outsides. That universal feeling that the way you look does not represent who you actually are. As a brown person, stereotypes have always followed me, and now, when Muslims are being demonized everyday, it is even harder to escape. Hindus are perceived as Muslims. All Muslims are perceived on the same axis as extremists. Nuances get lost. It’s an issue any minority confronts, where an individual is force to represent a swath of people, the Other, since most people do not know many South Asian, Latino, Black, LGBTQ etc. people. To the majority/white culture, we become ambassadors, put on display to perform “exotic” cultures. This puts people who have critiques of their own culture in a precarious position. And what does this do to a person within a faith who has doubts, or is still developing a faith, yet at the same time they are perceived to be a spokesperson? How does that affect his/her natural spiritual development? “What Comes Next?” addresses that question by taking the perspective of someone grappling with being born into Islam, and fighting to understand religion in a nihilistic/narcissistic/consumer-driven society.
Listen to the track below and get a copy of Selections From Dumb here. It’s out this Friday.
What Comes Next
HDLSS (USA)
From the forthcoming album, ‘Selections From Dumb’, Self Released. Out Aug 4.
HDLSS Facebook
Audio Stream