Howie Lee

The best thing about writing for Syffal, beside the lifetime supply of bacon, beard balm, and honey sticks in the break room, is that there isn’t any homework. Show up, learn the lesson, and then go do that shit. This shit. Writing about music. Any music. Just as long as it vibrates my cochlear’s cockles like my cochlear’s cockles like to be cuckolded.

I don’t have to know every little detail about the band. I remember a time when you literally couldn’t know anything about even your favorite artists. And most of the time that was better.

I don’t have to know if anyone else likes the music or not. I don’t care. I didn’t get like this by caring about what people think. I don’t think about what you think about when I think about what I think about. THINK ABOUT IT!? It’s liberating to be unafraid. 

I don’t know if you will like Howie Lee’s Mù Chè Shān Chū. I wasn’t sure that I liked it until 3:30 into the first track. But at that precise FUCKING moment the dam bursts open with Mulholland-esque force! The track is called, “The Gate” and it got me wiiiiide open.  

Mù Chè Shān Chū sounds like the score to an adventure movie someone needs to start making right the fuck now!

I won’t call Howie Lee exotic. But fuck that! He is from and does currently live in China. If anything, I wonder if his heavy bass and creative rhythm arrangements seem exotic to Chinese ears. I hear this album much like an ambassador to Low End Theory. It makes sense why Alpha Pup is involved and Los Angeles is the launch pad. Commence countdown because shit is about to lift the fuck off. 

There is an “as part of a balanced breakfast” thing happening. Howie Lee is combining disparate elements into one harmonious, commercial-ready spoonful of morning nutrition. Traditional Chinese elements don’t blend perfectly with his inventive production; they're their own delicious course. Then Howie Lee’s drops are often unexpected and radically surprising. One minute I’m day dreaming about terraced rice fields and the next I’m getting dick-slapped across my stupid face by some hella thick flapjacks of bass and kick, kick kick kick and bass. (See 44 seconds into track 7 called, "Sinka".) 

I really just want to end up in China one day on a trip abroad for whatever reason and stumble upon a venue that plays this record and subsequently brings out the fucking weirdo, beat-obsessed, production-fiend, night owl, zombie rainbow people. And I’ll smile real fucking wide when I do.