Summer is dying and I tell myself I hate the cold, but with each little gust of wind I’ve been feeling slight jolts of anticipation. The warning shots of winter have made kllhhr’s “skin,” a barren, phantasmic transmission from the other side of grief, feel like home. A glum theremin melody, a swirl of light piano, and a voice too stuporous to be feigned appear one by one like slowly dissolving mirages. It’s addictive in the way that staying in bed on a bad day is addictive; I haven’t been able to climb out of “skin” for like a month now.
Originally released in May, this beautifully fragile piece of ambient rap has garnered half a million views on YouTube since its video dropped two weeks ago. kllhhr, who hails from Atlanta, has become something of a poster child for SoundCloud’s ambient scene; back in April, I wrote about how (for some reason) his music started bubbling through memes on TikTok. His work is extremely earnest, though. kllhhr’s tight-knit online collective, SIE, uses ambient rap as a vehicle for diaristic, drug-fueled intimacy, a style they’ve doubled down on since the death of founder tazparis in January. About a minute into “skin,” taz’s voice drops in for a few seconds when kllhhr trails off.
It’s likely there are no presets on kllhhr’s vocals at all. All his music is as unadorned as this, and it makes his despondent meditations feel painfully authentic. On “skin,” he sulks in dark vehicles, keeps a pair of gloves on at all times, and pops pills in his friend’s worldly absence. “I can’t even bap, my life in her hands,” kllhhr says about a girl he likes, hardly above a whisper. “But I just wanna be in her skin.” His gonzo approach has made for atonal, ill-fitting verses in the past, but on “skin” everything falls into place. Comparisons to early LUCKI and Izaya Tiji are pretty obvious, but “skin” reminds me of some other proto-ambient standouts: Kyslingo, Lerado Khalil, even early Spooky Black. Music like this feels more inviting when the sidewalks start to depopulate and the sun departs a bit earlier each day.
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
