By: Big Flowers
If the name VRITRA fails to ring a bell, odds are you’re currently in orbit, tangential to his orbit.
VRITRA’s musical career, though in motion for what is likely a lifetime, greatly came to fruition with the inception of Jet Age of Tomorrow, a satellite outfit of Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All, one of the two groups signed to the label along with The Internet. I had known about JAOT but I was unfamiliar with VRITRA’s solo works until very early in 2019, with the single release Notch, which was in anticipation of self-produced project FEMME. After bleeding the track featuring Huey Briss and Redbag dry, I was immediately on the search for more. Not only did I find nearly a dozen releases under VRITRA, but also some under Hal Williams. Needless to say, VRITRA has been busy since the days of JAOT. The most interesting sonic breadcrumb left by VRITRA dropped under yet another alias, Wilma Vritra, the collaborative effort between VRITRA and composer Wilma Archer, titled Targets and Digits. Upon the final words of that song, I knew a large facet of my auditory dedication had its direction decided for me. Throughout the rest of 2019, release came after release, each with a new branch erecting itself from the evergreen that has become VRITRA. This man has many faces, all of them maintain the same utter honesty that he has promised and delivered from the beginning of his career. None of them are anything close to a mask.
On a night in NYC, outside of the venue H0L0 which was holding a Super Smash Bros. tournament, I spoke to VRITRA for a brief time, free of transcription or agenda, about his year. To recap, VRITRA released Burd as Wilma Vritra with Wilma Archer, FEMME as a self produced project, PC2 as a collaboration with N01SES, PV vs Redbag as a collaboration with LA rapper Redbag, and finished the year on NYE with instrumental project LARANE, In Christ…At mass. As a musician, it’s easy to fathom how much work 5 albums takes, even with some being collaborative efforts. The first thing I asked him was simply how he managed to release everything he touched last year. Humbly, he attested the feat to just working freely, and letting his life speak through his notepad and eventually his lyrical virtuosity and tonal construction. I had written down a few questions but promptly blackened the screen, obscuring the blueprint I had laid out, because a genuine conversation was brewing. Speaking with eloquence and familiarity, VRITRA described the processes underlying his releases.
With N01SES, VRITRA planned to begin writing PC2 in January, but time necessitated the project to be postponed until May, which was in the fallout of other releases VRITRA was associated with. This to me highlights the dedication of a man to his craft. VRITRA recanted the writing process shortly, but with sentiment, as we discussed the litany of stylings he tapped into throughout the year. PC2 tapped into a vein which was reminiscent of staying out way too late and possibly under the influence of something incredibly California. The discussion pivoted quickly however to PV vs. Redbag.
PV vs Redbag was released late in the year and above all else, it focuses in on one of VRITRA’s more obscured possessions: straight bars. With authority, both rappers lay out braggadocio, swagger, self-definition at the hands of starlit confidence. Without any filter VRITRA delivers his take on the subgenre Redbag lives within, while still hemming the style in with his own ethereal understanding of self. VRITRA told me how he had very little to do with the curation of the beats used on PVVRB, letting Redbag curate the foundational sounds. Redbag had his sights set on the abrasive, yet still smooth contemporary production of Xanpayne, another LA musician. VRITRA and Redbag both spill over onto the tracks, heartfelt and hardened, recording everything out of Xanpayne’s place in Long Beach. Wordplay is at its most clever and smile-inducing during VRITRA’s stage alongside Redbag, who VRITRA attributes some of his current perspective of performance to. The malleability of mode VRITRA supplies drifting from one subgenre to another brings reminder of Pharrell, who is conventionally regarded as one of the best collaborators music has seen. Still though, that’s a retrospective comparison. VRITRA has never been anything but VRITRA.
LARANE, In Christ…At mass had to be identified for me. I thought I had done my research, but I forgot to check the bandcamp. VRITRA brought up the album in response to me asking if he has plans to work with his toddler son, letting me know that it’s already been done, and it’s destined to happen again. This is where VRITRA really began to unfold: as a father as well as a creative. The track MAGGIE features production from VRITRA’s son along with orchestration provided by VRITRA himself to surround the laser lead composed by his son. The intimacy uncovered by collaborating with his child intoxicates, and this family is bound to create some truly vibrant things.
FEMME is a project which divulges much about VRITRA’s stance on gender. VRITRA mentioned that he didn’t even know if he wanted to release the project, reasons undisclosed, but he ended up allowing this project to see light, and doing so was important. In a time where equality among our species is paramount, yet still all too lacking on a global scale, this album serves as a lesson on how to be accepting. VRITRA spoke about how he wasn’t writing from the perspective of self, but the perspective of people. VRITRA’s father was present at first, but absent for what he considered to be his formative years, during his ventures into his musical career. This came as a fallout of his parent’s separation, and shortly thereafter his father’s passing. Subsequently, VRITRA’s maturation was influenced heavily by the presence of his mother, laying brick for his nature, as well as his nurture. He reminisced about a live session he had posted for his album HAL back in 2013, which sported VRITRA in lipstick, nail polish, and all the trimmings of a more feminine guise. He received comments, one in particular, which illustrated how the listener heavily enjoyed the music but showed aversion to engaging with it because of how VRITRA presented himself. We both lamented for a short while along the lines of how in this time, in one of the most liberally progressive metropolitan centers the world has to offer, this attitude manifested itself in the ugliest ways. It’s not about the appearance, it’s about the art. Gender identity does not dictate the value of the artist, and that is what makes FEMME so integral not just to VRITRA’s 2019, but music as a whole in this ecosystem of acceptance. Beyond the messages, the production is sanguine, albeit raw. The album also scratches more at the surface of how tapped in to the LA scene VRITRA has allowed himself to be. The features on the album, Tequila Mockingbird, Redbag, Huey Briss (who VRITRA worked alongside during his time at Stones Throw), are all LA artists, and VRITRA takes it upon himself to act lens to what Los Angeles is producing musically. None of it is bought though, VRITRA spotlights these artists out of love and respect, from genuinely appreciating their craft in context of his own.
Finally, we spoke about Burd. Burd is completion, a masterpiece in its own right. Immediately, you realize that Wilma Archer doesn’t make beats, he creates compositions. VRITRA went into detail about how the project has been in the works for several years. Archer had sent the instrumentation for Shallow Graves, and within a day or so, VRITRA had sent back his verse. A year then lapsed without any communication, and near the end of 2018 they linked back up to complete the album. The production is orchestral, intimate and crafted with not just passion, but precipitated emotion, which serves as a bedrock for VRITRA to build a planet off of. Lyrically, the darkest, most true fragments of self arise from VRITRA, as well as the most optimistic. VRITRA spoke about his writing process in a way that implied that there never existed one. He just wrote. There was no ethos behind it, he just let self flow, and it broke through any obstacle like whitewater rapids. The conversation at this point had departed from a year in review, and morphed into a life in review. This album was as painful as it was beautiful for VRITRA to write, as he reminisced about drives spent contemplating his ejection onto the freeway, while going freeway speeds. Where depression could have forced his hand to an early demise, he persevered. Where substances took precedent to responsibility, VRITRA learned to be more himself, and to embrace that. This shows within one of the most appropriate one-liners I’ve heard in modern times: “how else are you supposed to live in times like these?” VRITRA answers his own question with his own penchant for progression, and the ever unfolding labyrinth inside the pyramid. Eventually he will reach the sarcophagus, but treasure lies at every turn along the way. With an album produced by California beatsmith Leon (who laid instrumentals down for VRITRA’s late year single BOIL), a concept album depicting a parent/child split perspective trip to hell, and a second installment to the Wilma Vritra collaboration all in the works, 2020 seems to be just as immersive for fans and newcomers of VRITRA alike. More than a creative, more than a father, I respect VRITRA as a universal human being. He is real, in a sprawling desert of dry fakes and carbon copies.
In an effort to breed a community of mutual exposure, I asked VRITRA to put me on to his favorite underground act out of LA, and I did the same for upstate New York. He recommended to me Laneocinco, a brilliant psychedelic instrumentalist, and I recommended to him Seth’s Ego Garden, a young and intense synth-pop poet. Both are linked below.
6/6
Best Tracks:XTC (PC2)
POWER MOVES (PVVRB)
BOIL
MOTHER (LICAm)
Inertia (FEMME)
Vroom (Burd)