NYC based prince of noise Yuzima Phillip speaks about inspiration behind his latest EP Living Off the Land
Atheist
This was the first single. I didn’t really let it out but one of the lines is about Donald Trump “A public demon god entertainment trickster.” The line was sparked by him but used to characterize a complicated relationship with god, devil, morality and entertainment. I also brought in a different guitar sound I’m using Biff Muff pedals through the whole record. I use my version of the Dylan writing approach where he goes for a stretch starting and stopping with verses and building to a crescendo. I felt we needed a modern day approach to examining religion and it’s become popular so I’m happy.
Would It Be Ok
I dreamt this one up, literally. It was vague in a dream and I was singing it. I woke up and then sang it into my recorder. It was actually inspired by a George Benson song and a Bee Gees tune – where the song in my dream was a mix of the two songs, but original. So when I woke up I sang it into my iPhone and put it together, It’s also a riff on the Beatles and that whole “Yellow Submarine” period, I did it in a more minimalist fashion over a drum machine. It’s about just getting away from the complicated, flawed world in good ways and in bad ways.
Living Off the Land
I mentioned earlier this year in an interview that I was getting into trap artists like Future, this is me mixing something like that with noise. And a kind of apocalyptic take on the founding of our country, the natives standing on the shore watching the settlers ships come in – a metaphor about the connection of things that started this country and still haunt us like violence – particularly gun violence. There’s even a line “You brought the guns on the rock and roll tour” which is ironic since there was a shooting at a rap show this week. So the song is in many ways prophetic.