Today, alt-R&B savant Sylo releases his much anticipated new album Dreamt that I Was via The Orchard. Loungey, sultry, and all around experimental, Sylo’s newest offering, executive produced by David Tanton (Afternoon Bike Ride), unfolds around the listener. Thoughtfully plucking all the beauty from the mundane, Sylo wields a voice with the viscosity of honey, leaving his fingerprint of intimate care on every second of his music — Stream.
The overarching theme behind this body of work is linking his childhood to who he is in the present moment. Sylo has existed through countless life stages, but the version of himself in this exact time wants to reach people with this exact grouping of songs. This motif perfectly ties into the project’s artwork, a grab of young Sylo in a film called Bulletproof Monk.
Beginning with a “half-letter to a past self,” Sylo opens the album with “Slow Down For A Minute.” He sets an optimistic tone early on expressing the sentiment of this too shall pass. On one of today’s standout tracks, “Alaska,” Sylo said, “The struggle of coping with one’s anxiety can cause you to want to make some last-ditch effort to crawl out of your skin and start over — be the person you always imagined you could be. But does that truly exist?”
Sylo then moves listeners through some of the project’s singles before getting to the hazy, distorted, all-encompassing “Don’t Fight It.” He explains, “This is a story of a drug-induced experience and having a glimpse into the void, whether or not I wanted it. All I had was her body and words to hold onto. The rest was up to God.”
All points culminating at closing track “Abyss,” a building jazz horn section acts as the guide over the edge of oblivion. “I went on a meditation retreat once. My objective was to let go of all things that grounded me,” Sylo shared “This led to the realization that the only way to truly be free is to make the vast uncertainty of life your only home.” A crescendo into an abrupt ending leaves the listener wondering what is on the other side?
