Lav's Music Corner

The EP is a format I've often explored on this channel with the intention of finding breaking artists on their earliest work. While that is also normally mixed in with a handful of more established and polished artists who wanted to dip their toes into the EP pool, I can name dozens of artists I loved who I first covered on this blog with the release of early EPs. This year, however, that wasn't necessarily the case. The theme of this list is more about side projects, artists going solo, collaborations, and just a vibrant and exciting collection of little projects where beloved names do something entirely new. It made the process of listening to all of these projects, ordering them, and writing the list itself a rewarding creative challenge that resulted in a collection of boundary-pushing projects that I'm happy to be recommending.  10. The Other Side  - Ruth Radalet The former frontwoman of Chromatics finally debuted as a solo artist this year, but she isn't necessari...

Icarus  - Cryalot Icarus is the debut EP from Cryalot, the new solo project of Sarah Bonito from Kero Kero Bonito fame. It's essentially a five song collection framed around the story of Icarus which Sarah uses as a metaphor for some of her own experiences in recent years. The main thing I was curious about as the singles unfolded was what made this a true solo Sarah project. She's always delivered quite a bit of personality to the music of KKB which meant the split to a solo venture was either because she wanted to write, produce and create songs entirely on her own, or there was a thematic or stylistic shift that was too drastic to still fall under the band's umbrella. After listening to the EP I'm still really not sure which one it is. While the lead single Hell Is Here  is fine, it didn't really convince me. The track that did win me over eventually was the opener Touch The Sun  whose booming drums and maximal shimmering finale both work as a perfect sonic and t...