lofi

svn4vr (“seven forever”) makes lo-fi folk–hip-hop hymns: fingerpicked guitar and quivering vocals pulled through the clipping, stray noise and loose structures of bedroom rap. Herts on fire is seven tracks of battered gospel, prayers addressed unambiguously to Yahweh, and it took me seeing “Hertfordshire” written in the lyrics to clock that “herts” is a home-counties pun; the accent sounds West Coast, not West Watford. The production is genuinely difficult. Things hiss and thud where you’d want them to settle, and the first pass is more confusing than rewarding. But the songs underneath are real, and the religious content is unusual enough (devotional without being either kitsch or knowing) that the mess starts to feel like the point rather than a failure of means. Qualified recommendation, and I’ll keep listening.