R.M. Hendrix – Drugs (2023)
From the empowering positivity of ‘Morning Complaints’ and ‘Summer Dresses’ to feelings of pent-up frustration in ‘Magazines’, singer-songwriter R.M. Hendrix captures both the dark and light side of the human experience. When we left him, Hendrix was on the darker, unhappier, angsty side exploring the impact of digital media and online celebrities. In his new single ‘Drugs’, he looks at frustration and angst wrapped in a trip-hop melody.
Following his full-length album Blindur, ‘Drugs’ is the first single on his double-sided single ‘Drugs/ Wet Work’. Unlike ‘Wet Work’ which clings to the mellifluous downtempo vibe, ‘Drugs’ adds a piercing harshness puncturing the downtempo melody with a brash force. Recorded by Hendrix in Reykjavik, but mixed and mastered in Massachusetts, ‘Drugs’ is a provocative single inspired by news headlines. Looking deeper into the war on drugs, Hendrix explains:
“The war on drugs points fingers across borders and oceans. A PR machine connects dots to gangsters and deviants but scratch the surface and find certified mechanisms in the interior producing pills on double time then jacking up the prices. The Authority’s response is to pressure people who need the drugs, not the makers…the pushers get a few slaps…but your parents, grandma and neighbour are the ones really paying for it…treated like dopes when they go for their medicine. Pushed to financial edges while cluttering the kitchen table with resin-coloured columns of confetti…”
Perfectly capturing a feeling of depressed acceptance, ‘Drugs’ opens with a loop of synths and drumbeats which flow as an underlying blindness throughout the track. Constantly behind the instrumentation, it acts as a sort of innate acceptance; however, Hendrix pushes a sense of frustration, angst, anxiety and determined resilience with piercing beats slithering throughout. Crescendos to bold hip-hop-infused breaches the wall of submission bringing some type of acknowledgement. The thing is, just as the forcefulness of these beats grows in strength, they are subdued as but a glint of nothing. Then again, this is merely my opinion.
Sharing a human experience through sonic wandering, Hendrix connects with audiences on an intensely intimate level. He holds you in his hand, breathes life into your soul but still releases you into a melancholic acceptance. Describing ‘Drugs’ as a “protest song”, it is a song of resistance, yet it is also the song of acceptance whether that be of the issue at hand or stepping out into an enlightened sense of empowerment. It’s all subjective and is a song I highly recommend for its obscurity.
For more from R.M. Hendrix, check out his official website, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Spotify.
This artist was discovered via Musosoup #sustainablecurator
