Sonny Boy Sage “Ecdysis”

Born out of the most difficult times in Sonny Boy Sage’s life, Ecdysis is a concept album that revolves around the theme of transformation, death and reborn. You must go through the process of dying before you die. In those darkest, most painful moments, one also become the closest in touch with life and death, and Sonny Boy Sage aimed to capture these rare moments through music. Ecdysis is an epic, intimate, and intense project that intuitively sees the dark and light intertwined together in its most nuanced form.

Ecdysis takes place in electronic landscapes, expanding to other territories like progress rock, pop and avant garde. Sonny Boy Sage experiments and examines sung and spoken samples, chanted Buddhist text and a diverse combination of instrument throughout this project. The composer gets really inventive in this project, but there’s also the unraveling of nostalgia that are connected with memories and the past while sonically taps into the unknown.

“Gone, Gone” opens the album with a uniquely intuitive genre-bending blend, tackling the beauty and fragility of life in its most transparent form as it fades away. Though at times, the electronic channels intense feelings and emotions, but the tenderness in it shows resilience and light. It’s immersive and reflective. It’s fascinating how Sonny Boy Sage plays with the existing rhythm within a language, weaving it seamlessly in this atmospheric, electronic landscape that addresses both broad and concentrated feelings.

“Dead Now March” sets its scene in a flickering dark atmosphere where the feelings are being highlighted and passed across the surroundings. It’s haunting and unique, a listening experience that can’t be experienced elsewhere. In the shimmering sound, “Where is the One Without You Things Fall Apart” spirals intensely in dim whirlwind and misbehaving beats, but in between those turmoils, moments of peace seems more precious than ever.