LOONY – JOYRiDE
9/10
It’s quite an accomplishment to have your music enjoyed and praised by Sir Elton John: “I love that LOONY”.
And in the case of Scarborough R&B songstress Kira Huszar, it is well-deserved. Under the moniker LOONY, she released her 2018 Part 1 EP and a handful of singles over the last year or so. Now, Huszar has shared her 6-track follow-up EP JOYRiDE.
Every note of the release demands your attention. The 17 minutes from start to finish comes at you from different angles, getting a glimpse at the complexity of LOONY as an artist. Punchy, edgy, and sharp on tracks “iN CODE” or “WHiTE LiE”, angelic and velvety smooth on “SUMMERTiME / CiGARETTES”, and even backhandedly sharp on “NO !”, a song she once described as “fucking mean” and “strangely joyous”.
And this multi-layered complexity is what gives JOYRiDE its personality, transported through the vessel that is LOONY’s artist ability.
“JOYRiDE is youth, irresponsibility and a way for me to go back and revisit – and even re-contextualize – certain moments or phases of my life,” says LOONY. “It’s really like a little love letter to a few things that have left some sort of imprint on me, for better or worse. And I want to honour and immortalize them, but also leave them alone for a bit. Essentially I’m like hijacking my memories, using them to create something new so that I can move on. And then if I choose to look back on them, I can do it in this curated and re-imagined way that makes it a more pleasant experience for me. Where it’s me owning it, rather than it owning me. Or at least, it’s my attempt at that. An attempt to organize chaos.”
The strong bass lines and tight percussion feel almost a revival of sorts, as the ghosts of ’60s soul take a new shape on JOYRiDE. Jhene Aiko, SZA, and H.E.R. come to mind as she sings overtop the hip-hop and soul-infused instrumentation. If you haven’t already gotten lost in her voice, her band will surely do the trick. Bringing out elements of gospel on “iN CODE” and electro-R&B on “WHiTE LiE” help to give a real suburban grit to the contemporary genre.
In just 17 minutes, LOONY has built enough anticipation for a full-length that some bands take years to accomplish.
Stream the full EP below and for Apple Music users, you can experience a TRACK x TRACK release.
