Bask in the Delicate "Flickering" of Tri Angle-Signee serpentwithfeet's New Single

I first heard the voice of the man born Josiah Wise in the midst of a storm of noisy samples and static. Serpentwithfeet, as he's better known, shows up on a pair of tracks tucked away on the SoundCloud page of Chino Amobi, who employs—as he often does—sickly bass synths and gunshot percussion in panicky compositions that mirror the terror of the modern world. Still, serpentwithfeet somehow floats above it, a delicate falsetto fluttering, calm in the center.

Almost a year later, I saw the Baltimore-born and New York-based artist in person for the first time, standing near a veiled Björk outside of a show that ANOHNI was set to perform at a giant armory in Manhattan. And it made sense, the cautious uplift and idiosyncratic vocalizations of musicians like those two informs much of serpentwithfeet's work, and especially so on his first single for Tri Angle, the still, assured, and delicate "flickering."

Produced by the Haxan Cloak, who also had a hand in Björk's heartrending Vulnicura, the track presents an alternate course for how to mirror the modern world, not to emphasize the terror, but to highlight the little moments of humanity that peek through the harshness. The track presents a few pessimistic observations, a recognizance that the things that bind us as humans can seem slight and tenuous, but its fitful conclusion suggests that you should press on anyway: "My light is strong / My will is strong." It's life-affirming, both in content and in its acrobatic delivery.

You'll want to listen here and keep on the lookout for more material.