Josh Shaw adoringly calls his project a “sad boy indie rock band.” With inspiration ranging from The Antlers’ Hospice to The Strokes, Blvck Hippie – the band’s name derived from the childhood nickname given to Shaw by his mother – explores similar themes of grief and longing, first explored in their debut self-titled EP released in 2018 after expanding to a four-person band, and now continuing with their newest single “Bunkbed.”
Opening with guitar melody that sounds like it’s engulfed in flames, the rest of the track follows suit and explodes forward with Shaw’s incendiary vocals, that, ironically, center on vulnerability and desire, on lost youth and reconciliation – at the most volatile, cathartic moment in the bridge, marked by the same fervid guitar, he yells “promise me / we won’t change in a year or two / and promise me/ I won’t stop missing you” before the entire track seems to shatter into a million pieces, the equivalent of heat hitting glass at just the right angle.
Along with premiering the track, Shaw also stated he importance of making indie music as a Black artist, which he explained in further detail to Afropunk, who premiered the track earlier in July:
“As a Black indie artist I find it necessary to examine how my identity affects the creation and perception of his music. Blvck Hippie falls somewhere between Indie Rock and Post-punk, both genres saturated in whiteness where Black-fronted bands are difficult to find and often tokenized…I want to see more Brown and Black kids picking up a guitar and making any kind of music they like without being pigeonholed into a genre. I make Black music that just happens to be indie rock because it’s pretty simple – if you’re Black any music you make is Black music.”
“Bunkbed” is out now.
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photo courtesy of artist
kid with a vinyl 