Hey kiddos!
I guess the cat's out of the bag now. GUILLOTINE, Pt. 2 is coming out September 23rd!
That's in less than a month! Very excited about this release. With Guillotine, Pt. 1, I think it might feel very easy to get to the end of those four songs and assume, "Okay, I more or less know what RUST_VISION is all about and how his music is going to sound." This installment of GUILLOTINE definitely subverts a lot of those expectations.
The theme of the second act of GUILLOTINE is DECONSTRUCTION. These next 4 songs begin with me becoming so desperate to fulfill my dream that I try buying into the bootlicking, name-dropping thing—selling out, if you will—then hitting rock bottom when it doesn't work and coming to a profound realization. The reason everyone’s so broken is not because the people around me are the problem, or because the system is broken. The system works exactly the way it’s supposed to, but the world we live in is just systematically built on subjugation. My youthful disillusionment with Los Angeles was never actually about Los Angeles. It was about capitalism and imperialism and devaluing human beings because you know someone is desperate enough to suck your dick for exposure. It was about everyone devaluing themselves just to survive in a world that makes survival unnecessarily fucking difficult for most of us so that a few at the top can live like kings. There’s an eye-opening there, an awakening, and an attempt on my part to forge connections with like-minded people whose eyes are also open, which is what I went through in my early thirties. A directionless sort of “fuck the system, fuck Mark Zuckerberg, burn it down, be kind to each other” sort of philosophy. And there's a certain comfort in knowing that even though the world is terrible, you're awake enough to see the puppet strings on everyone. That realization is empowering. The problem is that sometimes that empowerment acts as a soporific and no one who's awake ends up taking real action with any sense of urgency. Which leaves room for the monsters at the top to make their move instead.
The next single will be a funky little jam called "Namedrop City." Musically, it feels like what might have happened if Flea had played on "Mechanical Animals." It will be coming out September 9th, the day before my birthday. Luckily, some very successful shoots happened this week, so a music video will be coming out for "Namedrop City" as well.
Looking forward to sharing with all of you. Stay tuned!
Love,
ЯV