Whether you celebrated Valentine’s day or not (because it was Ash Wednesday for some of us, not because we didn’t have anyone to give us gifts), love was in the air, disregard science and Sheldon Cooper for a minute. Call it a social construct, a corporate sham, a waste of time, blah blah blah, just let people have nice things, and I’m sure detractors wanted nice gestures too on that day.
Season of beyond-platonic love or not, though, it’s a topic that finds a way to frequently wiggle its way onto trending topic and timelines. With opinions on what an ideal relationship entails and the traits of a perfect partner landing anywhere between sensible, fake woke and #RenosNuggets, it’s hard for a lot of millennials to keep up with these infinite amount of splintered standards aimed at defining what an ideal partner and archetypally fulfilling relationship is these days.
Regardless of these new age problems, part of growing into adulthood is trying to experience love, even if it will involve a lot of clunkers. LOFN – a playlist project released by the We Talk Sound collective just in time for the recent Valentine’s season – is a collection of songs tied together by a common aim of capturing the arrhythmic pulse of modern day love and relationships, a mix of the butterfly filled glories and a few gut punching gores.
Although the common conceptual thread running through the songs is easily vivid, the lack of definite sequencing by track helps the project along with its loose, pressure-less ‘playlist’ structure, also connected by youthful naivety and/or exuberance across individual songs. LOFN could be described as a house party with an AA setup, where ideas and experiences bordering on love and relationships are swapped around for relatability points, therapy or pure fun.
Featuring more contributors than number of songs, LOFN is a scattered collage, but I’d deem “All We Need” as a worthy central point. Between the joyous combo of translucent guitars, boisterous drums, rap verses by Sorple and a splendid, blues inflected hook by Logan February, “All We Need” is a hearty profession of love for love’s sake, displaying an optimism that guides the project even in its less jubilant moments.
Flattery is an important tool for the more colorful spots on LOFN, Pleasantune’s “Arike Ade” which is rife with high praise for an unidentified love interest, delivered in Yoruba and (Ibadan-scented) English is a great example. Another highlight is Audio Monkey’s “Slow Dance,” featuring Wolei and HennesseyVSclass winner Vader. The production on “Slow Dance” is the project’s most infectious – a fluid, percussion-heavy beat clearly influenced by Afrobeat with its rhythm section of guitar and piano riffs, bass guitar and digital brass horns. Skating between devotional (“No more flings, the feelings have taken over/you get me high, it’s hard to stay sober”) and lascivious (“I’m loving how your booty looking in that tight dress/on your driest days you’ve got enough to quench a guy’s thirst”), Vader’s verses are composed and showy, in one of the more polished performances on the playlist.
On the more contemplative moments, apart from the dourness in aesthetics, writing does play a huge part in describing emotions. The penultimate song “Scavenger,” by Bardkay details the timeline of an initially promising relationship that sadly nosedives, reflecting on the factors that unravel the seams of the type of affair anyone would root for. Closing out the playlist, AOK’s “In Time, My Love” is a haunting self-produced unlikely ballad meets skeletal jam session, about its creator’s inability to love due in part to his relatively young age.
With these artists being in their gestation period, it’s not hard to spot the roughness at several parts of LOFN, especially with regards to crispier sound mixing, but their small falters won’t hold anyone back from enjoying the array of talents on display especially with a runtime running just over half an hour. Songs range from those with mainstream appeal (“Today”), to others with a more alternative, experimental edge (“Soul’s Interlude”).
LOFN is very diverse, a project as colorful as Joseph’s garment, curated by a group of young artists who are determined to use their affiliations to help each other create better and maximize their potentials on all artistic fronts.
Even with the amount of talent displayed on LOFN, the We Talk Sound collective has an even wider membership base, with over 400 creatives, including but not limited to music makers, writers and filmmakers.
It is impossible to project what their impact would be in the nearest future, but based on LOFN – a charming introduction – and other recent endeavors, they are a bunch to keep your ears and eyes on.
You can download LOFN for free here.