““I went to sleep/I went to sleep/Anticipating of dreaming,” Holley opens over delicate piano runs before blown-out drums, quaking synths, and violent, looped trombone disturb the haze. “I dreamed that I woke up/In a fucked up America,” he bellows, his soulful croon turning toward the guttural. In his other career as a sculptor, Holley has long made art from found objects, assembling refuse into immersive sculptures. Here, he pieces together a patchwork of American cruelty: connecting his childhood in Birmingham, Alabama in the Jim Crow-era South to our present moment, he laments the “breakdown of words,” Wall Street crimes, and digital “overdatafying.” But for all his despair, Holley speaks to ways forward, pleading for change and a recognition of dignity. In the dream-logic sermon of “I Woke Up in a Fucked-Up America,” Holley makes clear: It’s time we woke up.” Source
noisenursery 