isomonstrosity share single featuring Danny Brown and 645AR

isomonstrosity, the new project helmed by producer Johan Lenox (Travis Scott, Kanye West, Lil Nas X), Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Ellen Reid and conductor/computer engineer Yuga Cohler is today announcing the self-titled debut album which is set for release via Brassland on November 18. News of the record comes alongside the new single, "careful what you wish for" which features Danny Brown, Johan Lenox and 645AR.

isomonstrosity is a pandemic symphony that incorporates elements of rap and avant-pop. It was inspired, in part, by the mood and the constraints of the Covid-19 quarantines of 2020-21, recorded separately in pieces, with every musician working in isolation. The trio's goal was to make a vocal chamber music album using the same process as a contemporary rap album, assembling contributions from a wide array of artists – the aforementioned Danny Brown and 645AR, also Kacy Hill, Danny L Harle, Empress Of, Vic Mensa, Tommy Genesis and Zacari – and then reorganizing them endlessly into a final work. They began by commissioning excerpts from established new music composers – Bryce Dessner, Marcos Balter, Nina C Young, Wang Lu, Carlos Simon and themselves – which were then recorded one track at a time by the International Contemporary Ensemble before chopping and changing contributions from the list of featured artists.

When discussing how the album came about and the making of this first single, Cohler explains: "Form and structure are something we talked about a lot on this album. Johan and I in particular have discussed the significance of songs like Travis Scott’s “SICKO MODE” and Kanye West’s "New Slaves" which are really a stitching-together of multiple songs, in pushing formal boundaries in popular music. “careful what you wish for" takes a page out of that book, and features some very disparate elements: the always great Danny Brown on top of a percussive beat, next to 645AR's ethereal falsetto over clarinet processed through a vocoder. I really loved watching Johan have that "aha" moment to craft an entirely new piece out of these really contrasting fragments."

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The three principals’ credits are unassailable. Reid won the Pulitzer Prize for Music for her opera p r i s m in 2019, the year after Kendrick Lamar shone a new light on an award previously spoken about mostly in the jazz and classical worlds. Yuga Cohler has a dual career as a Juilliard-trained orchestra conductor and a well-established software engineer working for Google and Coinbase. Johan Lenox is an LA-based artist who studied composition at the Yale School of Music and then built a subsequent career as a go-to producer for iconic pop performers, contributing to records by Travis Scott, Big Sean, Shawn Mendes, Teyana Taylor, Lil Nas X, Selena Gomez, and Cautious Clay. Most recently he was an integral part of 070 Shake’s You Can’t Kill Me album, also opening her entire North American tour with a pair of sets presenting his solo work and a block of classical composition.

A few artists, like Danny Brown, probably require little introduction no matter what part of our fragmented music landscape you pay most attention to. If some of the other names aren't familiar, they should be. 645AR and Tommy Genesis are experimental pop artists who regularly flout pop music’s unwritten rules. Zacari has been associated with the Top Dawg family, including multiple features on the Black Panther soundtrack. Empress Of, Vic Mensa and Kacy Hill are underground darlings who have each flirted with the mainstream: Kacy was initially signed to Kanye West's G.O.O.D. label and Vic is both a successful solo artist signed to Roc Nation and a frequent collaborator with his Chicago peer, Chance the Rapper. Danny L Harle has become a go-to collaborator for experimental pop artists such as Caroline Polachek, Tkay Maidza, PC Music and Clairo.

isomonstrosity
isomonstrosity
November 18, 2022

1. intro
2. shining (ft. Tommy Genesis)
3. cascades
4. too quiet
5. watch it burn (ft. Zacari)
6. i hope she is sleeping well (ft. Danny L Harle)
7. take me back (ft. Empress Of)
8. break glass
9. careful what you wish for (ft. Danny Brown, 645AR & Johan Lenox)
10. wake up (ft. Vic Mensa)
11. i used to (ft. Kacy Hill)
12. losing my mind

Find isomonstrosity online: Bandcamp | Instagram | Brassland