brotherkenzie - NATHAN '2022

Tracks list

       Brotherkenzie is the solo output from Minneapolis producer and songwriter
Nathan Stocker –and, through the project, lives in the shadows, operating
on the outskirts of the music industry, something he’s grown increasingly
less interested in as he ages. Brotherkenzie’s music is a chasm carved
from honesty and earnestness, the result teetering between catchiness and pop,
but with sharp edges.

On the cover of Nathan, Stocker is about to be enveloped by an enormous black
box in a deadened Minnesotan sprawl, framed by the eeriness of placid blue
skies, the suggestion of a cold wind. It’s like a snapshot of calm caught
in a moment before something bad happens, but you don’t know quite what
that bad is yet. The looming black mass is a physical manifestation of
narcissism –and Nathan is an exhaustive exploration of that. It’s
an artifact of what happens when you listen to, and obey, your demons. A final
look-a-round at the dirt you’ve known your whole life before descending
to the eternal what-have-you.

The record is a re-introduction to Stocker’s solo output as
brotherkenzie; his last release, 2020’s BIG WHAT closed the first chapter
of the project, while Nathan explores the afterlife of a creative death. The 12
songs collected here are intended to signify a new brotherkenzie era: one
embracing sex and heathen ideals. Even the title vies for blasphemy;
Stocker’s attempt to divorce his first name from its loaded religious
meaning and instead take ownership of it. It’d be easy to say it’s
in response to Stocker’s deeply religious upbringing, but that’s
too simple –instead, it’s an exercise in “what
if’s?,” leaning into the dark side, interested in exploring what it
means to be satanic without ever mentioning a devil –or any type of God,
or religion –by name. Instead, Stocker wonders what happens when you die
and are reborn as a demon. When you operate without goodness in mind. Is that a
mode for something true? Even if it’s evil?

Stocker wrote these songs from March to November of 2020. It was isolating in
the usual ways for that time, of course, but he was also juggling a number of
relationships that were unhealthy for a myriad of reasons. He was stuck in a
cycle, unable to escape, and every time he sat down the self-loathing and demons
came out. Here he examines that self-destructive tenderness, observant of the
way he was then but not fraught over it. Instead, he’s like a
documentarian of trying times; of what it feels like to grow a new epidermis
instead.

Tracklist:
1.01 - brotherkenzie - WAKING UP TUNE (3:35)
1.02 - brotherkenzie - DADDY (3:23)
1.03 - brotherkenzie - DIE BROKE (1:47)
1.04 - brotherkenzie - SPRING PEELS (3:38)
1.05 - brotherkenzie - OVERGIVER (3:42)
1.06 - brotherkenzie - BIKE NO MORE (3:02)
1.07 - brotherkenzie - WORLD BURN (3:19)
1.08 - brotherkenzie - POKEY (3:34)
1.09 - brotherkenzie - MAZZY (6:29)
1.10 - brotherkenzie - MOMMA (2:07)
1.11 - brotherkenzie - GET ON IT (2:04)
1.12 - brotherkenzie - STARS ABOVE (4:02) 

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