Off The Meds - Off The Meds

November 20, 2020 - Studio Barnhus

The latest combination platter offered up by longtime favorite Studio Barnhus is here to wind down the year with style and substance. Off The Meds is 1 album of 14 tracks composed by 4 people from 2 places. Adrian Lux, Carli Löf, and Måns Glaeser all hail from Stockholm and have spent the past decade or so flowing in and out of the Swedish club scene, providing tight production on projects that span the genre gamut. A chance encounter with Kamohelo Khoaripe who’d recently moved to Stockholm from Johannesburg led to an impromptu jam session, and as they say, the rest happened. Though it’s easy to get wrapped up in the fairytale story of their meeting, the years of individual work that led to this project shines through brightly.

The release of Off The Meds was no doubt hampered by the 2020 pandemic, but, also as they say, things found a way of working themselves out, and this project came to us at the right time. It has not been a year for clubs and dancing and sweating, but instead a year of introspection and silence and vitamin D deficiency. The tracks on Off The Meds flow in and out of each other, tension building and releasing internally. There are highlights for sure, but no standout this-album-exists-because-of-this-one-track tracks. The quad has managed to bridge that elusive gap between the Listening Album and the Dance Anthem, providing a more personal experience fueled by emotion and feeling. 

Khoaripe showcases his lyrical talent through hauntingly beautiful singing, whispering, and rapping in Zulu, Tsotsitaal, and English, often interchanging all three styles and all three languages in single bars. It works as both main ingredient and special spice on many of the tracks; the shifts in language and short, repetitive lyrics become quickly abstracted and more of a mood, but often that mood is the core of which the rest of the track is built. It’s a wonderful use of human expression. For the moments in English, Khoaripe’s sentiments offer slightly sardonic but sympathetic slice-of-life observations. More often though, the emotion is more palpable than the individual words; dark, cool, capricious, uncompromising, loose. It’s the energy that fuels lonely walks through busy metropolitan areas or long midnight subway rides. 

That energy is magnified by the impeccable production and instrumental efforts presented here as well. Tracks such as ‘Bheka Mina’ and ‘Vice Versa’ slam forth with heavy beats and tingling polyrhythms. Various percussive elements form most of the melodic structure of many of the tracks, leading the mind to scenes of barefooted sweaty dancing in the caves of Zion à la The Matrix Reloaded. It’s a contained feeling though, the tracks coming together like a party pocket world that only exists between the headphones. The second bonus track ‘Belter’ nearly breaks containment, throwing non-stop tension between Khoaripe’s muted musings and a runaway bass. Not to fear though, these tracks will fill real clubs with that same energy soon enough. 

Off The Meds has a solid first full outing in Off The Meds. The quad has put in the time where it counts before and it shows up in the quality and intensity of this project. Though these songs will soon fill clubs and rooms alike, I’ve been keen on this time of dance albums to sit with and enjoy, feet up, in front of a fire, with a glass of something warm. 🍍