“Get Refreshed” is a weekly column by Billy Bugara covering all things digital in the music world. Refresh yourself here.  Cover by Parent Company “Prying Eyes” Is A Natural Next Step For Tropes Even in scenes as dynamic and diverse as digicore has shaped up to be, certain commonalities between its artist-base are all-too-prevalent. Among this scene’s most standout shared traits is its artists’ willingness to explore any and all creative outlooks in regards to their career progression; from incorporating new sounds and styles into their sonic approach, to simply taking on a “fluid” artistic development with no set structure overall, these artists are finding solace in consistent artistic exploration from all avenues.  Following suit in this light is PlanetZero and Graveem1nd mainstay Tropes, who surprised just about everyone this past week with their out-of-the-blue release “Prying Eyes.” The 4-track EP takes a full dive into the worlds of alternative, punk-centric pop — fit with guitar-centric song structures, deeply personalized themes, and other traits consistent with this particular approach.  Produced entirely by easily their closest and most trusted contemporary dltzk, it’s a project that impresses beyond its explorative traits in full. The pure quality that these two bring in this …

“Get Refreshed” is a weekly column by Billy Bugara covering all things digital in the music world. Refresh yourself here.  Cover by Alejo Andres Remembering To Forget With Cat Mother Any creative eager to move towards new beginnings in their artistic career might focus on the idea of the “future” more than anything else. Most creatives would more than likely share this belief in full; planning out how things might turn out in going through with an artistic transition is much better than going in blind, obviously.  But what’s even more obvious is this: Quinn – the 16-year-old phenom of the online music world – has never, and will never, be classified under the title of “most creatives.” Simply put, we’re dealing with a talent who stands completely amongst themselves in regards to their place in the modern music landscape as a whole, and nothing better exemplifies that than their brand new artistic endeavor under the pseudonym “Cat Mother.”  This fresh title has arrived with an equally-fresh outlook in regards to their craft. The immense, impactful, and influential waves that they have already created with their past pop-centric work has been effectively concealed and placed out of sight by way …

“Get Refreshed” is a weekly column by Billy Bugara covering all things digital in the music world. Refresh yourself here.  Cover by Brixton Yorker dark0: “shining star” I am not quite sure who would’ve ever had the following belief, but for anyone who thought London-based club producer dark0 had anything less to prove up to this point in his career, they would be coming from a place of sheer ignorance, plain and simple. The outstanding outpouring of content from this digitally-incentivized production force has been nothing short of brilliant in all regards, and the mass amount of times this notion has been proven as such should be enough to cement their status as among the greatest modern figures within his craft.  And yet, he’s nowhere close to being finished — not in the slightest. Exemplified by the Year0001-hosted single entitled “shining star,” the first off of their long-awaited debut album experience Eternity, his potential has yet to be fully revealed, which is truly saying something for us outside onlookers who have considered his past work in a near-perfect light.  But with this track being paired with the corresponding reveal of the forthcoming album’s fantasy video game concept – driven by …

“Get Refreshed” is a weekly column by Billy Bugara covering all things digital in the music world. Refresh yourself here.  Main Cover by Brixton Yorker // Special Cover by ddertbag Editor’s Note I feel as though it’s important that I acknowledge why this week’s column is slightly different. This is a special edition of “Get Refreshed” where – aside from the below trio of notable releases I intended on highlighting before the present news hit – I take a backseat and let the people whose voices are most important to the week’s online music discourse be focused on and listened to as they deservingly should.  Those voices come in the form of past and present members of the integral, impactful, and illustrious online music collective called Bloodhounds — the aforementioned news surrounding the group being the sudden and shocking announcement of its conclusion this past Wednesday. As one will see by the end of this piece, the amount of space I’ve reserved for reflecting on and chronicling the legacy of the digicore-purveying collective is entirely appropriate given just how remarkable their legacy has been and forever will be in regards to the continuing era of online music.  Below these few …

“Get Refreshed” is a weekly column by Billy Bugara covering all things digital in the music world. Refresh yourself here.  Cover by Brixton Yorker Twikipedia + SEBii: “hotel” Occasions like these remind me that nothing ever truly grows “stale” in music, no matter what the hardcore skeptics and critics of the world may think otherwise. Both the art and the craft of basing entire hip-hop tracks around video games – while always being present and developing – have taken on prominent and exciting new forms over the past decade. MCs and producers alike from scenes that stretch from South Florida to the Kanto Region ushered in this wholly entertaining era as the 2010s entered its waning years, and though this particular approach had its moment for quite some time, it certainly isn’t at the level of supply that it once was.  Now if anyone from today’s crop of superstars-in-the-making were to give this approach a welcomed return-to-form, could we have chosen a more obvious pairing than Twikipedia and SEBii? I seriously believe there could have been no one better to take up this task than these two given their track record of video game-centric bars and aesthetics alike; the shared …

“Get Refreshed” is a weekly column by Billy Bugara covering all things digital in the music world. Refresh yourself here.  Cover by Brixton Yorker Ecco2k: “PXE” Before last week, the prevailing notion behind Ecco2k’s inevitable return after 2019’s still-unparalleled E was already set in stone: when it happens, it’s going to be something new, unfounded, and rooted in this magnificent creative’s ever-evolving artistry. And with the surprise release of “PXE” – a brief, 5-track EP with an accompanying short visual by Japanese-based artist Freddy Carrasco  – that’s exactly what we got in every sense of those terms. But based on how dramatic of a departure most of this project is from something as clear and defining as his debut album, we were given an even more nuanced experience than we could have ever asked for.  We certainly weren’t expecting such a clean slate to be presented to us here, but it’s safe to say that we’re better off for it. Ecco himself has dubbed the sounds both heard and felt on this project as “pixie music” — music that conveys something of a “live” atmosphere about it, yet transcends that simplistic description into something completely beyond that scope. It’s music …

“Get Refreshed” is a weekly column by Billy Bugara covering all things digital in the music world. Refresh yourself here.  Cover by Bernard Vernon fishmonger, Or, How To Be Today’s Perfect Album For Yesterday What do you call an album that sets out to do everything, and then does more than everything? I think I’d refer to an album like this as “one in a million,” but fishmonger also works just as well. We were promised quite an impactful project given the anticipation that came from underscores’ long-awaited solo return, yet none of us could have predicted the sheer ambition, flawless sonic balance, and masterfully-constructed songwriting that this album ended up exhibiting — all under the mantle of numerous sounds, styles, and overall creative dynamism within this 34-minute journey.  This is the first album to fully, and I mean fully, encompass what the decade of the 2000s means to those who grew up in it; it goes above and beyond what even the likes of 100 Gecs have been able to do inside that same arena. Everything is here, and it’s here en masse: the brightest points of pop’s teen-centric era, the emotionally-profound soundscapes of alt-rock and emo that laid …

“Get Refreshed” is a weekly column by Billy Bugara covering all things digital in the music world. Refresh yourself here.  Cover by Bernard Vernon NOVAGANG (Feat. Funeral and Zee!): “HUNNID ROUND” Talk about the most obvious pairing to ever exist. Though the former is among the group’s longest-tenured members and the latter being recruited just this year, NOVAGANG’s very own Zee! and Funeral perform together like Magic and Kareem. Both these two have the ability to take on practically any style they’d like in a given moment, but the relentlessly brazen deliveries heard on tracks like “HUNNID ROUND” are perhaps where they shine brightest on a consistent basis. Every time these two take this particular approach, the resulting track always factors out to an experience that’s equal-parts intoxicating as it is poignant. Combined with exceptional production work from their collective’s now de-facto leader Stef, no track better exudes the group’s eternal mantra of “intensified simplicity” than what we have here. https://soundcloud.com/novaganghellsing/hundred   lei: “whatiswrongwithme?” Could someone please tell lei to just… miss? For once? I mean, we’re nearly 3 months into 2021, they’ve dropped almost 10 songs in this time, and not a single one hasn’t been a hit. What’s …