Since the announcement of Liquid Stranger’s ASCENSION tour and EP we’ve been buzzing. The tour took off before the EP’s release which left us plenty of room to be teased with the new tunes in the meantime. The back and forward flirtation with the idea of new tunes is over though. On Valentine’s Day, Liquid Stranger gave us the ultimate gesture of love, the gift of the ASCENSION EP.
Liquid Stranger is hard to pin as anything other than what the moniker Liquid Stranger stands for. Liquid refers to going with the flow, constantly morphing, and submitting to being formless. Stranger in the sense of being different and unpredictable. The idea behind the name Liquid Stranger is to celebrate that journey into the unknown. Having produced music his whole life, it’s no wonder that he’s not only in tune with his ever-morphing sound and the things his following loves but also what we need that we haven’t heard yet. Between concocting some of the most groundbreaking Bass music, constructing a mold-breaking line-up of Freeform Bass artists on WAKAAN Records, and creating a hub for like-minded individuals to dive into the weirdest sides of Bass music at WAKAAN Festival; there’s no denying that Liquid Stranger is a pioneer. He transcends what it means to be a trailblazer by not only revolutionizing modern Bass music but also by showing what it looks like to build a community around what you love with those you love by operating as your most authentic self.
The ASCENSION EP is Liquid Stranger’s life works, in all their forms, morphed into a loving, celestial reverberation. Dedicated to and specially made for the WAKAAN family, the EP is a fluid balance of rigid build-ups and cathartic surrendering. ASCENSION features just a few of WAKAAN’s finest: LSDREAM, LUZCID, and Hydraulix. The leading track “Psychonaut”, puts you in the headspace to receive the blessings that are to follow. The track’s mellow, vibrating bassline brings complete cerebral bliss. We then ascend into one of the EP’s middle tracks “The Hammer” featuring LUZCID. The track has a calculated bass formula to produce the perfect pattern of traction and release to massage the eardrums. “The Hammer”, like the other collaborations on the EP, is the perfect marriage of each artist’s style. The collaborations on ASCENSION are shining examples of how to converge each individual artist’s sound to complement each other without outshining the other. The EP eventually settles into its closing track “Over n Out”, an intergalactic echo of what a kiss goodnight sounds like. The track’s relaxing bass gently rocks you into deep relaxation. Though there are no words I would go as far as to call “Over n Out” a guided meditation. This devoted love letter to the WAKAAN family is received loud and clear.
You can catch many of the WAKAAN artists dominating a stage at numerous festivals across the world, rectifying the manifestation of Liquid Stranger’s work. WAKAAN Fest 2019 was a visceral get together that sold out Mulberry Mountain with 2020 plans already in the works. In the meantime, catch the WAKAAN family at the WAKAAN Takeover at The Shed in Charlotte, NC. To hear the EP live be sure to catch Liquid Stranger on the ASCENSION Tour at a stop near you!
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*Featured Image via ShutterKlick*
