sage - sweepy
Being a late 20-something is weird. I never really understood what a man/firstborn son was supposed to bring to the table, and I just let the energy of “I’ll do what I want” carry me throughout my college life. Partied, wrote and produced music, ran around Chicago, made friends, and really just enjoyed myself and the zeitgeist of the moment. Not really looking or thinking about “when the party was over” so to speak, but I never thought about my life after it, and I really knew that I won’t have this time forever. The “real world” was coming, and the anxiety and pressure were starting to get too big. Hell, one of my best friends, who I have looked up to both professionally and personally, says if she could go back to those days, she’d do it in a heartbeat. That was a gut punch. This girl has accomplished things that make her probably one of the best live sound engineers in the entire music game, and she’d give it all up. That really spoke to me, and in an odd way, it really scared me.
Whether it’s a yearning for nostalgia, a glimpse of the present, or a look to the future, there will always be something that speaks to you, and once again, the Twitch gods have blessed me with another incredible piece of work from the community. This time, from Denmark, it’s sweepy with his new single, “sage,” an infusion of Hip-Hop, RnB and Jersey Club that he uses as a journal entry to reflect on a love that once was. There are so many things to talk about with this song, but I’ll start with Skaiwater’s production. I’m based in the USA, but this beautiful display of that easy-going Euro countryside Electronic, with an arrangement made up of so many pieces, it keeps the music fresh the whole time. For the video, Edi Cliff made a fucking movie. With sweepy directing, Cliff sets up one incredible shot after another, using wide angles and lighting to create a visual that fit the motions of the music seamlessly.
Stick with me on this one.
Music and lyrics are different, right? Lyrics can provide context clues to what the artist is talking about, but the music is all feeling. Dancing is natural because it’s your body feeling the music, but if you start thinking about what you're going to do next while dancing, you might miss a groove and get out of sync. If you sit down and read poetry, your brain digests those words and expands on them, and they resonate with you in any which way. This song balances those two concepts in a bit of a mesmerizing manner. I listen to the lyrics and think about the times when I’ve had to start over, but I hear the music and see the video, and I feel hopeful? Like understanding that these things happen, and it’s a part of life and it’s just beautiful like that? Kind of fucked me up, to tell you the truth.
I keep coming back to the title. Sage has been burned by people across the world for millennia, for a multitude of reasons, but the one I’ve most commonly heard is that it’s a purifier. A purifier of your space and yourself that allows a position for deeper introspection and healing, while also acting as a protective shield, and that’s what ties this whole song/video/experience together. I’m a late 20-something, still trying to get my feet off the ground, and I don’t know about y’all, but that anxiety is a motherfucker, and this song really is that sage stick that I need to quell those voices in my head.
Watch the video for “sage”
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