Friday Five highlights music by Washtenaw County-associated artists and labels.

This week features forward-looking hip-hop by GVMMY, industrial hip-hop by Subcortical, soundscapes by Sean Curtis Patrick, synth-pop by Same Eyes, and chiptunes by Asilee Sound Group.

GVMMY, punkAngel
It's hard to believe GVMMY is a teenager. This Ypsilanti 17-year-old is already an accomplished and distinctive producer, mashing up trap-based hip-hop, industrial noise, R&B, hyperpop, ambient, and more on their latest album, punkAngel. But GVMMY is also a chameleonic rapper—I'm still not sure if it's their voice on every track of last year's dada (instrumentals + finished masters) or if there are uncredited guest artists. BigPlanet is the only guest rapper listed in the song credits for punkAngel and appears on two songs, but the other 11 tracks are all GVMMY, whose lyrical delivery veers between mumble rap, crooning, speed raps, and any other way they can use their voice as an instrument. Personally, I couldn't even switch between G and D chords on a guitar at 17—in fact, I didn't even have a guitar at 17. Meanwhile, GVMMY has already produced three deeply personal and highly unique full-length albums. Salute.

Subcortical, Isolation v.5
Sometimes when I'm writing about the artists in Friday Five, I reference obscure artists who aren't obscure to me—or any other geezers who read about experimental music in The Wire magazine in the 1990s. So, apologies for going back (again) in the wayback reference machine, but Subcortical takes me right back to the Macro Dub Infection days of Scorn and Techno Animal, two projects that set the tone for all industrial / isolationist ambient / instrumental hip-hop to come. Ypsilanti's Eddie Jackson, who is one half of the improvised live electronics duo EnD, is Subcortical and his fifth solo album under this moniker is a brooding, dark, gurgling cauldron of grimy beats and menacing sounds. Slap on a good pair of headphones, pop on Isolation v.5, and prep for the apocalypse.

Sean Curtis Patrick, "R A D I O P H O B I A" and "R A D I O P H O B I A II "
I'm sure former Ann Arbor-ite and current Bellingham, Washington, resident Sean Curtis Patrick wishes someone would come up with another word than "ambient" to describe his music—but it is what it is ... and it's always great. These two short compositions were created using an Ondes Martenot, a Nagra recorder, and hyper-processed field recordings from the Amazon Rainforest in Ecuador.

Same Eyes, "This Fear"
Ann Arbor synth-poppers Same Eyes plan to release a single a month throughout 2023, and "This Fear" is the first one—just under the January wire. Another bubbling winner from the dynamic duo of Alex Hughes and Chad Pratt.

Asilee Sound Group, Nostalgic Chiptune 183 EP
This Ann Arbor creator works in a sound world about which I know little—but perhaps you chiptune and video-game aficionados will appreciate Asilee Sound Group's description of this manic little EP: "A Touhou chiptune single created using Professional Music Driver, (PMD) the very same program used to create music for Touhou's PC-98 games. (As well as music for other iconic games like YU-NO and EVE Burst Error) Includes two remixes and one new arrange all based off of various Touhou games." There's a lot more Asilee music over at Pastebin and on YouTube.

Christopher Porter is a library technician and the editor of Pulp.