See, it isn't all scary. Find some of my favourite music here.
People are tryin' to hear what I'm saying
Deep Web is one of my favourite Death Grips songs from my favourite Death Grips album proper (Exmilitary is actually my favourite thing they've done, but that's a mixtape). I've been a fan of DG for over a decade at this point, so I remember a time when they would actually perform without fear of dickheads in propeller hats throwing shit at them on stage from the pit. I've never actually been able to see them live though. They perfomed at the Electric Ballroom in Camden a couple of years ago but I couldn't get tickets. Lecky Ballroom is a really nice venue, but it's small. I've seen Machine Girl there and, in a repeat of the 2023 Death Grips Debacle, I desperately tried to get tickets to see Jesse Welles when he performed there last year, but to no avail.
Anyway, one of the things that I like about No Love Deep Web is how unavowedly evil it sounds. A lot of DG's music is pretty dark-sounding, but this record in particular is insanely darksided. Other high(low?) lights include the off-kilter processed drumbeats at the start of No Love, lapsing into snare and crashing cymbal, as well as the up-shifted grinding synth motif of Pop (that does give way to mystic fairy-sounding sparkles, though).
Deep Web sounds like you're a runaway teenager sprinting through an alleyway in the dead of night, lungs seized up and throat sore from screaming, feet aching from beating the street so fast. Sounds like an escape that you can't quite make. It's crushing and all-encompassing and makes you want to hold your breath. I held my breath for the whole record.
Also, for those who don't know, the Epstein-style censor bar is covering up a penis (which is weirdly pink - I'm admittedly not an expert but I don't know that they're meant to be quite that shade?) with the words NO LOVE DEEP WEB written on it in sharpie. I'm not posting the uncensored version here, not because I approve of censorship or because I'm the next Mary Whitehouse but because I don't want a penis on my web site.
...realised I held the blade inside my back
Like a lot of people in the YouTube comments suggest, I also came across this song from Angela He's short game, Missed Messages. The game is great but can be very sad - I kept getting the ending where
your roommate kills herself.(click for spoiler)
I really like Angela's work - she also created A New Life, which I played during the throes of the pandemic and at which I cried like a baby, and the very addicting Cat Cafe game. The whole aesthetic of the game is very sweet, but belies a darker tone. The OST is made up lofi tracks. I really like lofi music, but it's distressing to realise how many of the Lofi Hip-Hop Beats videos (usually with some type of dessert in the thumbnail) are actually created by AI.
Fortunately, though, yyu - who is very elusive and about whom I can find very little information - released this song in 2014, meaning that it is definitely not AI. I really like this song. There's something very comforting about it. It feels a bit like being wrapped in a soft towel after a hot bath before Sunday lunch, like being inside with your laptop and a bag of snacks on a rainy Saturday, like being awake at 3am with your partner snoring softly beside you, reading into the sunrise.
I guess it just feels safe.