A Track by Track Breakdown of Night Helix's New EP

"I'm not always the best with words, but am really thankful to excise and exercise the spectrum of noise in my head if even just for myself," says Ben Ross Davis, the artist behind music project Night Helix. Davis' new EP Plural was recorded between Berlin, Brooklyn, and Woodstock, NY. "The EP attempts to discuss my relationships, identities, pressures, escapes, studies, travels, battles and dancing," says Davis, who gave OUT an exclusive track by track breakdown of Plural.

"HiWU"

Night Helix: This is my outer space underwater ambient escape track. I wanted to make a track that I could escape into quite literally from the world today and also as a nod to Japanese ambient composers I admire. My last record was pretty political in nature and I feel like I exercised a lot of aggression within it so I decided to go the other route for this record a bit. Everyday seems a bit overwhelming politically and I think the discussion of what's happening is important, but it's also important to be able to have time to breathe and imagine alternatives for a better tomorrow.

"Steady Descending"

This is my attempt at a pop track about relationships. I was going to write this really angry track about how terrible this person was and how I felt the choices they were making were so fraudulent and wrong, but instead this sort of respectful melancholy tune came out about actually caring for them. I thought of it like what would be playing in the bar when you grab a drink with this person and start laughing and have this moment of shared respect of this weird journey. How you both still want each other in the others life in some sort of capacity but you know things have evolved for the both of you sometimes in different ways.

"Heavy"

This is the house track I wrote with my friend Tenshi Fan in Berlin. I always wanted to make this sort of chill house pop track with a slight industrial influence. We were both living together and made about 4 tracks total. Most of them were either super dark or insanely happy. We were going out a lot and having all these crazy experiences then we'd always come back to our flat and catch up and talk about things. The climate in Berlin was a jungle all summer and rainy most of the days so we'd literally have to bike thru tumultuous rain most days to the studio and then we'd have this deep meditative time where we could scream shout and express ourselves in this recording booth together.

"Plural"

This is my dirty techno track about pluralism and defense. I reflected and reversed a lot of sounds and created this sort of Bowser in the snow techno build to compliment it. It also walks a weird genre line of tech house, techno and my own sort of style. I was afraid of it for this reason, it's confrontational and confident but also the reason why I felt the need to put it out. If I don't put out work like this who will? It's feminine, masculine and equally angry, happy, light and dark which I also thought was important.