𝒸𝓇𝓎𝓅𝓉𝑜𝓅𝒽𝒶𝓈𝒾𝒶 𝒾𝓈𝓈𝓊𝑒 11

Welcome to a new issue of Cryptophasia. We’re currently in the process of reorganizing things a bit, in hopes of eventually also including interviews. This letter was written by Liz. More soon and thanks for reading!

𝐵𝐵 𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝐵𝓁𝒾𝓅𝓈, “𝒯𝒽𝑒 𝒮𝒾𝒸𝓀𝓃𝑒𝓈𝓈”

Lately whenever I need to rattle some crypto-scammer discourse out of my brain, I ritualistically blast the now-defunct punk group BB and the Blips’ pummeling 2018 cut “Bitcoin Baby” as loudly as possible: “Bitcoin baby/Invest in me,” Bryony Beynon aka BB snarls cheekily. “BURST/MY/BUBBLE!” This unfailing palette cleanser appears alongside other highlights like “The Ballad of Personal Growth” on the genius and overlooked Shame Job LP from the Thrilling Living label.

Even by the Blips’ standards, their final offering, The Sickness Tapes, feel prescient. Recorded in 2019 but released at the end of last year, opener “The Sickness” finds BB thinking about AIDS, who survives a pandemic, and “who gets to sleep through social murder.” It’s a brutal reminder that these questions were not new in 2020. Beynon’s voice twists and soars to blown-out heights, belting verses on body counts and quarantines, calling out the NIH, FDA, and CDC. In the final moments of its music video, these words haunt the screen: “Then, as now, they let it happen.”

𝓀𝒶𝓉𝒾𝑒 𝒹𝑒𝓎, “𝒻𝑜𝓇𝑒𝓋𝑒𝓇 𝓂𝓊𝓈𝒾𝒸”

Like other glitchy experimental producers, Australia’s Katie Dey pushes the limits of where pop can go, but what sets her apart is her weary songwriter’s heart. On her latest, forever music, she fights for it: “Forever music/I'd like to live without killing my heart,” she sings on the title track, a steady piano ballad on a collection where her beats can evoke the feeling of the body outracing the mind. Dey’s voice sweeps and cracks—traversing boundaries of not only digital aesthetics, but digital emotions, like the uneasy concurrence of isolation and intimacy. Even the very title of 2020’s mydata evoked the challenge of distinguishing our avatars from ourselves, but also how it might be regressive to think we need to. There’s a heaviness in that, and it’s part of what makes the longing in her songs so beautifully visceral.

𝓒𝓪𝓶𝓹 𝓒𝓸𝓹𝓮, “𝓡𝓾𝓷𝓷𝓲𝓷𝓰 𝒲𝓲𝓽𝓱 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓗𝓾𝓻𝓻𝓲𝓬𝓪𝓷𝓮”

The catharsis of Camp Cope songs is singular. The Australian trio, formed in 2015, might be the only emo band whose shout-along anthems have routinely eviscerated the misogyny around them in music. And while singer-guitarist Georgia Maq turns her pen more inward than ever for their new full-length, that context will always make Camp Cope songs feel celebratory to me. On “Running With the Hurricane,” Maq spends only one verse stuck on a crush—“I get so bored thinking about anyone else!”—before embracing a more energizing chaos. “Running” becomes a skyward, life-affirming song about pulling yourself and your friends off the ground: “Look out boys I’m on fire and I’m not going out!” You really can’t help but see her just running and running. Maq’s voice has always soared fearlessly, and here she triumphantly makes clear that there is simply no other way: “The only way out is UP!”

𝓔𝔁-𝓥𝓸𝓲𝓭, “𝓒𝓱𝓾𝓻𝓬𝓱𝔂𝓪𝓻𝓭”

At last: the long-awaited return of Ex-Void, the noise-pop project fronted by former Joanna Gruesome members Lan McArdle and Owen Williams, singing together once again in unrelenting harmonious bliss. In their old band, they were known for pairing fuzzed-out blast beats with sugarsweet hooks; “Churchyard” absorbs similar influences with a more clarified delivery, akin to the powerpop Williams has been making with The Tubs (who released a great EP last year). “They don’t understand, they never will!” McArdle and Williams shout together. They catch unapproving glimpses across a churchyard from passersby, but can’t be bothered: “Take a look in their eyes, they don’t really care about us.” Emboldened by camaraderie, they brush it off, and with their voices in unison, the result is pure joy.

𝒞𝒽𝑒𝓇𝑜𝓀𝑒𝑒 𝑅𝑜𝓈𝑒, “𝐵𝓁𝒶𝒸𝓀 𝐼𝓇𝒾𝓈𝒽 𝐼𝓃𝒹𝒾𝒶𝓃”

“I am a Black Irish Indian/But you don’t know about me/Because nobody ever taught you/Your true history.” So begins the crystalline first single from the folk singer Cherokee Rose’s soon-to-be reissued Buckskin, originally released as a limited-run cassette in 1993. In a documentary released by Don Giovanni Records, who will re-release two of her records this year, Rose tearfully attempts playing it through, a meditation on mixed-race identity, trauma, and rejecting simplistic historical narratives. “I don't think I can play this without crying,” she says, wiping her eyes. “I never thought anybody would hear this song.” In the clip, she considers whether the song was destined to live in the 2020s all along. And listening to her sing its heart-wrenching words—of false divisions created by those in power, of the consequences of a contextless existence, of the search for truth—it seems she may be right.