Photo courtesy of hERON

hERON’s Desolate Paradise is a deliciously short, five-track EP that’s about 15 minutes long, following the instrumental hip-hop duo’s full length, self-titled album released in 2017. The EP is something you’d put on to slip through a rainy Saturday afternoon, a wonderful soundtrack to do some light brooding to.

The opening track, “Cruel Intentions,” is the jazziest of the EP, making it the perfect soundtrack to lounge back to. The sultry saxophone is playfully interspersed with the dense beat. The next song, “Into Darkness,” is a great track to freestyle to, with its nice, driving beat, but it’s slow enough to come up with lines off the dome. Wind instruments also make an appearance toward the end, giving the track a very textured feel.

“Human Extinctions” is where the EP’s hypnotically cinematic undertones emerge. There is something about the liquid beat that is slightly unnerving: this track seems to best embody what a “desolate paradise” sounds like. It sounds empty — not in the sense of the actual music itself — but in the space it takes up. Sonically, “Human Extinctions” is what is softly playing in a vastly empty desert, filling up a void that somehow manages to suggest the sound of extinction. It’s a slow apocalypse, serving as a good segue into the next track.

“Keep Drowning” continues the distinctive lush, unrushed theme of Desolate Paradise. It takes its time, and you can hear each crisp layer of synth and keyboard and guitar. This track is something I would listen to if I was still in college cramming for finals — a good song as background music that helps you focus in its oddly dark sounds of deconstruction.

“Hummingbird,” the closing track, is also mesmerizingly dark, with what sounds like the chirping of birds rhythmically laced throughout the haunting dance track. But, this is a dance track with an asterisk: this song is not one you’d encounter at a club on a Friday night, but there is an indisputably sensual swaying cycle to it.

Desolate Paradise proves to be a deceptively complex EP that demonstrates intent talent in its instrumental sad-hop interspersed with a retro low-fi sound, creating a sonic illusion of a dystopian utopia.

By Miran Kim

9

Instrumentation

10.0/10

Mixing

9.0/10

Production value

8.0/10

Layering

9.0/10