#ceremonial contrafact

[darth-maya]

The song of the day is

WILLOW - wanted feat. kamasi washington

[redbullsupernova]

WILLOW’s ceremonial contrafact (empathogen deluxe) feels like the kind of album that doesn’t so much begin as it erupts into being, like a seed that grew roots and leaves all at once, spilling over the boundaries of what you thought an album could be. It’s alive in a way that most music tries to be but often isn’t—pulling you in not because it’s polished or perfect, but because it knows how to make you feel every emotion at the same time.

The album is a kaleidoscope of sounds—jazz and funk, pop and Indian raga, Native American throat singing and Gregorian chant—and somehow it doesn’t feel like a collection of mismatched pieces. It feels like a language only WILLOW knows how to speak. The bass lines are funky and alive, the synths drift in like waves of smoke, and the drums don’t just keep time; they disrupt it, break it open, then stitch it back together in some strange new rhythm. It’s music that moves and breathes, that changes shape depending on where you’re standing when you hear it.

Like all great albums, ceremonial contrafact (empathogen deluxe) doesn’t ask for your time—it takes it. You tell yourself it’ll be just one track, maybe two, but before you know it, you’re in deep, the kind of deep where you forget what you were supposed to be doing because the music is doing something to you. For me, that track, the one that keeps pulling me into the loop, has been “False Self.”

The bass line in False Self comes in like it’s trying to tell you something, like it’s got a secret it can’t quite bring itself to say out loud. It doesn’t just anchor the track; it pulses through it, steady but restless, syncopated in a way that feels like a heart out of rhythm. And maybe that’s the point—a song about the things you carry that don’t sit right, the heaviness of trying to be everything to everyone while wondering what’s left for yourself.

The drums are their own kind of conversation. They skip and stutter, not like they’re broken but like they’re breaking—falling apart in some places, holding steady in others. They aren’t just keeping time; they’re negotiating with it. And over this shifting foundation, there’s the guitar, hanging back like a quiet witness, its notes bending and echoing into the distance, as if afraid of what might happen if it stepped forward. The synths rise and fall like breaths, heavy with a kind of tension that never quite releases. This is music that understands the weight of silence, the way it shapes the space around what’s been left unsaid.

And then there’s WILLOW, right in the middle of it all, her voice sharp enough to cut through the layers but raw enough to feel like it’s cutting her, too. She sings like someone trying to exorcise something, her delivery swinging between a whisper and a wail, between vulnerability and fury. Her harmonies don’t soften the blow—they amplify it, like a choir of her own selves, each one singing a different truth. And when her voice distorts, when it cracks under the weight of the production, it doesn’t feel like a flaw; it feels like the most honest thing in the world.

What I love about this album is that it doesn’t try to smooth over its rough edges. It embraces them, leans into them, because that’s where the truth is. WILLOW’s voice cracks and distorts at times, but it feels deliberate, like she’s showing you what it looks like to push yourself past the breaking point and still keep going. Her lyrics wrestle with the tension between authenticity and performance, between the self you are and the self the world demands you to be. “My false self must die” she sings, and it’s not a plea. It’s a declaration, bold and unflinching.

This isn’t an album that tries to resolve anything for you. It’s not about answers; it’s about the questions that linger after the lights come up, the messiness of trying to exist in a world that wants you to be everything all the time. The production reflects this tension—quiet moments that feel like a held breath, crashing into dense, overwhelming walls of sound that don’t let you look away. The music is both intimate and vast, as if WILLOW has figured out how to make you feel like you’re alone in a room with her while simultaneously standing on the edge of a universe too big to understand.

By the time it’s over, you’re not left with the sense that you’ve finished something. You’re left with the sense that you’ve begun something, that the album has opened a door and asked you to step through it without knowing what’s on the other side. That’s the brilliance of ceremonial contrafact. It doesn’t try to tie itself up in a neat little bow. It lets itself be wild, unruly, unfinished in the most beautiful way. It reminds you that art isn’t about resolution—it’s about creating a space where all the contradictions can exist, where the chaos feels like home. WILLOW has built that space here, and it’s one I want to keep coming back to, again and again.

Layered into the experience of listening to all 39 minutes of this album is the sound of a young artist in motion. You hear her searching, yearning, learning, and growing. You hear her fighting against everything that tells her to stop, failing in the way we all do when we’re trying to become, burning with the kind of intensity that leaves nothing untouched, and then starting over again, because what else is there to do? It’s messy and relentless and beautiful, a magnificent journey that feels like it was never meant to be polished—it was meant to be felt. And we’re lucky. Lucky that WILLOW decided not to hold any of it back, lucky that she allowed us to go on this ride with her, through all its highs and lows, through its moments of doubt and its bursts of clarity. This is an album that doesn’t just move—it moves you. It’s not just hers anymore. It’s ours now, too.

[skinnyhyena]

My sibling started playing the latest Willow album and all I could think was that it really sounded like it should be an anime opening. Like duvet, or the Aimer opening for the Red Light District arc of Demon Slayer, or a Co Shü Nie song. Cannot change my mind

[edinburghacademia]

28/09/24

🌡️ Feeling: 75%

woke up feeling grumpy and miserable but it turns out exercise does actually help your mental health and now I'm feeling more like myself

Strength HIIT class

Budget check-in (0.5h)

Revise Spanish & homework (0.5h)

Finalise CV (0.5h)

Meal prep

unwinding with some Stardew Valley heheh

🎧 Currently listening: ceremonial contrafact by WILLOW

= 1.5h of work 🔆

[8circles]

in 2024, i tried to listen to more artists/albums, tried to finish albums which i abandoned listening to part-way, and tried to listen to the albums i said i would listen to but ended up putting it off. i still haven't finished listening to the albums i abandoned part way and there are still a lot of albums i put off, but i did expand my taste and listened to more albums than i usually do. i decided to compile the list and put them somewhere at the end of the year so that i can see how much i listened to.

so here is 2024's album list.

(criteria: needs to be at least 4 songs long. there were some single albums that didn't make the list because of this.)

new albums (2024)

ariana grande - eternal sunshine

taeyong - tap

lim hyunsik - the young man and the deep sea

beyonce - cowboy carter

hozier - unheard

doyoung - youth

onewe - planet nine isotrophy

billie eilish - hit me hard and soft

dua lipa - radical optimism

kep1er - kep1 going on

charli xcx - brat

normani - dopamine

tyla - tyla

nct127 - walk

jaehyun - j

oh my girl - dreamy resonance

charli xcx - brat and its completely different but also still brat

a.g cook - britpop

willow - ceremonial contrafact

bon iver - sable

kep1er - tipi tap

magdalena bay - imaginal disk

cat burns - early twenties

laufey - bewitched the goddess edition

tyler the creator - chromakopia

bastille - & (ampersand)

kendrick lamar - gnx

homecomings - see you, frail angel. sea adore you

sza - lana sos deluxe

new(ish) albums (2023)

travis scott - utopia

chappell roan - the rise and fall of a midwest princess

pinkpantheress - heaven knows

hitsujibungaku - 12 hugs (like butterflies)

justin vernon - hazelton

yoasobi - the book 3

other albums (first time listen)

sophie - oil of every pearl's un-insides (2018)

weyes blood - titanic rising (2019)

grizzly bear - veckatimest (2009)

kendrick lamar - mr. morale and the big steppers (2022)

death cab for cutie - translanticism (2006)

the weeknd - dawn fm (2022)

the postal service - give up (2003)

wilco - yankee hotel foxtrot (2002)

lauryn hill - the miseducation of lauryn hill (1998)

yo la tengo - and then nothing turned itself inside-out (2000)

the weeknd - after hours (2020)

kinokoteikoku - time lapse (2018)

charli xcx - how i'm feeling now (2020)

charli xcx - vroom vroom (2016)

sophie - oil of every pearl's un-insides non-stop remix album (2019)

gfoty - gfotybucks (2017)

yonige - girls like girls (2017)

donna summer - a love trilogy (1976)

other albums (started and unfinished)

kendrick lamar - good kid maad city (2012)

kendrick lamar - to pimp a butterfly (2015)

kendrick lamar - damn (2017)

tyler the creator - igor (2019)

barcelona - absolutes (2008)

i break horses - hearts (2011)

hitsujibungaku - our hope (2022)

volcano choir - repave (2013)

jay-z & kanye west - watch the throne (2011)

radiohead - ok computer (1997)

homecomings - new neighbours (2023)