The new solo endeavor from Chandler Kelley (True Blossom) is a narcotic take on dance music that deftly captures the early morning club haze while confronting the lack of justice in society. On his debut single “Debt of Love” Kelley inverts a typically bouncy songwriting style with downtempo, jazz, and chillwave elements that block out the sun. Melancholic guitar textures ache and find little solace in a muted hip-hop beat that never breaks through the grayscale.
Rarely has this nebulous genre of electronic pop been so effectively harnessed to convey grief, but throughout this song the sense of sadness is palpable. The grief is rooted in Kelley’s disgust at the toll of income disparity, and it permeated the bedroom sessions in which he wrote “Debt of Love” and other yet-to-be-released tracks.
Although Canopy Joc was birthed in the early stages of quarantine when economic oligarchs were running roughshod over America, the themes Kelley wanted to tackle on this project had been swirling around his mind since a landlord forced Kelley and his housemates to abandon their house while fearing financial retribution from the City of Atlanta. “It’s not like I had it tougher than most people,” he explains. “Probably not any tougher than you, or anyone else in the music scene, and it’s not like I have any insight into class, or socialism, or downward mobility or anything. I’m mostly just angry, and sad for my friends, and that’s what the songs are largely about.”
On “Debt of Love,” Kelley transforms the complexity of this trauma into a simple, tactile fantasy: razing a mansion with vengeful fire. It’s on this symbolic act that he lays his hopes for catharsis, but by the end of the track it’s clear that despite the retribution there has been no answer to his question: “Why would you take / Take away / What you can’t keep anyway?”
Listen below.
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