Friday Five: Vonsiwel, DJ Renovation, BigPlanet, Fearless Amaretto, Wolf Named Sköll
Friday Five highlights music by Washtenaw County-associated artists and labels.
This edition features R&B from Vonsiwel, electronica from DJ Renovation, rap by Big Planet, hip-hop soul blues by Fearless Amaretto, and industrial ambient by Wolf Named Sköll.
Vonsiwel, "Wishful Thinking"
It's time for Ypsi's Vonsiwel to release an album. All the artist's singles are Quiet Storm bangers, and the latest, "Wishful Thinking," is somewhere between Ne-Yo's plaintive singing and a certain incarcerated crooner's R&B/hip-hop story songs.
DJ Renovation, Evolution EP
If you are of a certain age, you know the building at 516 East Liberty Street in Ann Arbor as Chances Are, or Second Chance. And if you're of another vintage, you know the current Necto as the Nectarine Ballroom, as it was called from 1984 to 1996. DJ Renovation is a California-based music producer who DJ'ed at the Nectarine Ballroom as DJ Reno from 1993-96, and he's just now releasing his own music. The four synth-filled tracks on the Evolution EP—including "Oh LaMour," an instrumental cover of Erasure's 1986 song "Oh L'Amour"—exist between vaporwave and Nintendo game music: charming, whimsical, and mid-to-slower tempo. It's not fast enough music for DJ Reno to spin but it's a perfect introduction to DJ Renovation.
BigPlanet, BP
Elias Kirsh is BigPlanet, and this recent or soon-to-be grad of Ann Arbor's Community High School is a prolific and talented rapper and producer (I think he does his own music for the most part). His latest album, BP, continues his trend toward blown-out beats: The mix is so up in the red that tracks such as "me and you" and "Calling my spirit" are clipped and distorted. The aggressiveness of the music is dampened by Kirsch's lyrical flow, which is low-key and mellow while also being fast and dexterous.
Fearless Amaretto, Sticky Notes: P.S. EP
Ypsi's Fearless Amaretto released the genre-bending Sticky Notes in February 2024, mixing house, hip-hop, and R&B and turning it into a unique amalgam of quirky soul music. The five songs on the new companion EP, Sticky Notes: P.S., continue the off-kilter, jazzy cabaret stylings of this self-proclaimed "Bigender Badass."
A Wolf Named Sköll, The Darkness Behind the Light
A Wolf Named Sköll, What's Coming Is Greater
Snorri Sturluson's 13th-century Prose Edda collects poems and stories of Norse mythology, and within that text is a wolf named Sköll who chases the sun goddess Sól across the sky as she rides her chariot. The word "sköll" refers to mockery or treachery, but Ypsi's A Wolf Named Sköll isn't made up of jesters or duplicitous lupines; it's the duo Joshua Allen and Kaitlin Brown, who use a mixture of real instruments and electronic elements to create a slow-moving, slightly menacing style of ambient. The new The Darkness Behind the Light and 2024's What's Coming Is Greater evoke the mystic-industrial music of Nurse With Wound, Current 93, and Paul Schutz, incorporating bowed guitars, flute, and piano along with samples and loops. There's also a 2021 album, Paramasturbatory Delusions, on another Bandcamp page that's worth grabbing.
Christopher Porter is a library technician and the editor of Pulp.