Boutique Feelings, the Montreal alternative hip hop project of Atsuko Chiba’s Karim Lakhdar, has finally announced the follow-up to their self-titled three-song single release earlier this year. Across nine tracks, Shwaya, Shwaya, the debut LP, will be released in mid-November via Mothland and explore all facets of hip hop while holding somewhat of a heated and lyrical sociopolitical lens. Lakhdar explores themes of alienation, social justice, and personal identity through sounds of psychedelic trip hop, funk, and other experimental textures.
The madness begins with “Long Shore,” a newly released single that addresses the plague of social media. For Lakhdar, social media is a cesspool that warps your mind. “From videos of death and war to videos of cats and food, our brain is forced to jump from emotion to emotion within seconds. I noticed this behaviour in myself, where I would scroll through my feed and cry, then laugh, then feel hopeful and then sad again, all within minutes.”
“Long Shore” begins with a heavy and distorted “drunken drummer,” swing beat, a mishmash of synthesizers and noise, and some melodic flute flourishes for good measure. The song is accompanied by a mostly black and white music video (directed by Anthony Sifoni) featuring Lakhdar rapping directly at the camera, which brings back that old-school boom-bap vibe. Still, the instrumentation is enough to make your head spin.
Opening photo by Aabid Youssef
