2 weeks ago
10
The deeply relatable “illuminations” serves as the frenzied finale off the 31-year-old's self-written and recorded debut album scenes of a non-violent nature, made real through new record label and creative outlet trinket. Not unlike the noisy nightcore YouTube-to-MP3 rips of our youth, it’s a feel-good summary of a strong 12-track homage to bygone times. In low-bitrate fashion, the chaos of a gauzy electronica production is comforting for those who chase the high of happy hardcore vocal chops and distortions. It was “pretty prevalent” listening among the people BIG BAG hung around with growing up.
BIG BAG, aka photographer Maxwell Granger, based his album closer entirely on the childhood experience of being in the back of a cramped hatchback listening to loud, homemade mashup music soundtracked by DJ Ironik, DJ Cammy or MC Smally. “It’s kind of hard for people now to imagine how important and ballad-ish those songs were to people because everything now is such a fucking joke,” Granger expresses. “But the euphoria of that music really resonated with people, and I hate that people play that down.”
For some it’s “The Beatles or Leonard Cohen”, but for Granger and anyone who shares those genuine, heartfelt experiences it “might very well be the 9/11 remix of DJ Sammy’s ‘Heaven’”. “I know it’s funny, I’m not saying it isn’t, but it doesn’t mean it should be ridiculed. The truth is, I think those songs are important, they were important to me then, and they’re important to me now.”
“illuminations” is especially reflective of this sentiment, but to Granger, the whole album is, really, an earnest celebration of uninhibited 2010s EDM, chart pop and karaoke bar influences. “I think I am a deeply nostalgic person really. Not in like a Tamagotchi or emo revival kind of way, but just more romanticising past experiences, especially driving at night with friends listening to loud music.” Country just so happened to be another genre Granger was consuming during the album making process, but key influences are “maybe Darren Styles, and other fairground music. I think the fair is the closest you can get to artificially replicating being in a car at night with your friends, or alone.”
On the inception of BIG BAG, “I think me and my friend Josh came up with it just rattling off combinations of words. I used to make music under the name White Electric Guitar, but I started doing this instead. I don’t think about music every day or work on it every day, it’s just another outlet for ideas I have.”
His first single “everytime”, is a filtered interpretation of the Britney Spears track that would fit snugly on the soundtrack of Spring Breakers. With vocal samples from Bianca Scout, “take me to the light” features masked songwriter pigbaby, who was there for most of the album’s creation “as a sounding board”. Part-inspired by a brief obsession with Sham Rock’s 90s cheese anthem “Tell Me Ma”, it’s a cutesy love number with the same fluorescent hyperpop bounce as a track like Charli xcx’s “detonate”.
Other songs like “rest assured my heart is pure”, or Christian hymn cover “amazing grace” with HORNET, lean toward the hauntingly beautiful. They are euphoric and bittersweet, capturing the fleeting glow of a carefree existence. “I hope it sounds hopeful,” says Granger. “I’d like to think the sound is just ballads that you’d play very loud in a car at night, or music you’d hear when you’re trying to overcome the worst moment of your life, with hope that you’d manage it.”
English (US) · 