Ayjackson Fuses Vancouver into his Sound on Standout Debut Album Earth Below
Music often draws inspiration from the physical surroundings it’s created in, it’s a part of the artistic process, so one would imagine a city as beautiful as Vancouver would have a defined sound drawn from its environment, but it’s not quite there yet. On December 14th, 2019 that sound began to take shape with the release of Ayjackson’s debut album Earth Below - a genre-fused project that uses great technical ability to create a unique and natural listening experience that you’ll want to re-live over and over again.
cover art for Earth Below
Ayjackson(IG: @ayjacksonmusic) is a 23-year-old producer and engineer from Port Coquitlam, British Columbia who got his professional training from Nimbus School of Recording & Media and has had a lifelong passion for music. Ayjackson’s roots to the area he was raised in are exhibited very well in Earth Below, with unique synths, fitting samples, diverse instrumentation, and great musical touch making the album feel as if you’re taking a trip through his environment. Earth Below also maintains a Vancouver feel by having vocalists and writers from the area on every track. This review is going to go through all 8 of the songs on the album, and it will also feature some input from Ayjackson, as we reached out and he was kind enough to reply to our questions with excellent answers. So in the immortal words of the Black Eyed Peas, let’s get it started.
One of the first things I asked Ayjackson was how the environment around him inspired the sounds of Earth Below, to which he replied :
“I enjoy as much nature as I can in Vancouver. I’ve had such a close relationship with the environment and the elements, and it’s undeniably a part of us here. I wanted an album that sonically brings you to the middle of the forest, and that was the tableau vivant of this work. “
The connection he has with the spaces around him are very apparent on Earth Below’s first track, titled “Signs”, where the intro brings you into nature with ambient sounds like rain and crackling fire, accompanied by soulful and sonic vocal tones from d.r.o.n.e.r(IG: @d.r.o.n.e.r), as well as clean Gonzzy(IG: @gonzzy_) vocals that are layered by Ayjackson to create an absolute vibe going into the rest of the song. From there the track smoothly turns into a synthed electric guitar melody over a Toronto-inspired, tonal hip hop beat, with rap verses from Jaq Havoc(IG: @jaqhavoc), Holo Ingo(IG: @holoingo) and Jnsn Ily(IG: @jnsnily) that make the track bump.
Gonzzy is the lone vocalist on the following track “Memories”, where the soft xylophone and keys-based melody is the perfect fit for his voice, which I’d describe as similar to Toronto’s SAFE but with a higher vocal centre, all while maintaining a distinct sound. Ayjackson spices up the track by adding a catchy bassline and a shaker to make the track bounce, but his ability shines through on the vocal arrangement of the track, as the multidirectional and layered use of Gonzzy’s voice, as well as a female background vocal that’s found in the chorus, create an emotional and rhythmic environment for the track that can be listened to time and time again. Making music with a replayable experience is not always easy to achieve, so I asked Ayjackson which song on Earth Below was the most challenging to make? His answer lied in the album’s next song:
“18 Shots has this feeling to it, that just belongs in this city. Joey and I were working back and forth with the song, with a slightly different mood to it. There was something in that song, that was just asking to be let out. In the final weeks of last summer, we both sat down and realized the calling. That’s where we turned it into something people can dance to, finalized the rhythm, and from then on we were producing full gas until it reached its final form.”
Ayjackson
The song creates that Vancouver feeling Ayjackson is referring to with a flowing melody of synth and keys over rain sounds to create a natural listening experience, and when the dancehall style drums and xylophone riff hit the beat it has you ready to move. “18 Shots” also features a great vocal performance from Joey Yip(IG: @joeyyip13), as his soulful yet smooth voice pairs perfectly with his catchy lyrics to create an emotional aspect that brings the listener in. This track is composed of an international variety of instrumentation & sounds that make it incredibly true to Vancouver and it’s a HIT, so it was definitely one of the most memorable and personally streamed songs from Earth Below.
Fusion is the theme of the album’s fourth song titled “Talk To Me” as Kai Bravewood(IG: @kaibravewood) is featured for their authentic & contemporary pop/soul sound, which wasn’t expected to be heard over the reverberating low end and trap drums of the song, but Ayjackson added a rhythmic guitar melody to make it all come together. This song is probably the album’s best emotional display as the strategic instrumental pauses and vocal intensity, that begins as calm yet consistently rises to an emotional outpour, pulls the listener in. Who would have thought a balladesque cry of “I need you to talk to me” would fit so well over a hard ass trap beat with a bouncy hi-hat? But it works so well. “Talk To Me” is definitely a marquee track from Earth Below for its ability to accommodate so many different sounds so seamlessly. With an album full of diverse & replayable songs, we were curious to find out which one Ayjackson enjoys going back and listening to the most, this is what he had to say:
“Third Eye brings me to this place every time I listen, which actually isn’t that frequent since I released it. Once I share my songs, I’ve accepted that I’ve given life to the audience’s imagination, and it belongs to them now.”
The approach he has to the release of his music is natural and honest, which are also central themes of Earth Below’s 5th track “Third Eye”, as the ambient and reverberating harp melody flows perfectly with the tonal and upper-ranged vocals of Joey Yip and Eden Stewart. This song creates a wavey sound space while keeping you moving with well-executed dancehall drums. The honesty factor of “Third Eye” is displayed with commonly-relatable lyrics like “please, come here to me, I know when I’m right but I’m lonely tonight”(Eden) and personal favourite: “you see the black in my soul, don’t act like you didn’t know, can’t give my all to a hoe”(Joey), and the production of the song in whole is honest to Ayjackson, shown in his ability to revisit that place every time he listens.
If there is a single song on Earth Below that encompasses Ayjackson’s technical ability and musical ear its the album’s lead single “Red Sky”. First of all, there's a solid-flowing rap verse from Jnsn Ily, a contemporary pop vocal from Ashley Fields and a super catchy hip hop hook with a unique tone and great cadence from grandavian(IG: @grandavian). On top of the variety and execution of the vocals from the featured artists, the transition ability of the song is incredible. “Red Sky” sounds like a Mura Masa track with more of an ambient feel in its intro, then uses unique percussive sounds and a funky bassline to create an EDM-like build-up to a bouncing trap beat at the drop that is full of echoed synths and a heavy low end, but the best part about the song is that the genre-blurring instrumental elements are so smoothly put together that they take nothing away from the enjoyment of the song at all while holding great musical value.
On the final two songs from the album, Ayjackson teams up with grandavian to make 2 trap-fusion tracks, with the first one being described on the song with “this a Kodak type beat, on my bro shit”, and grandavian wasn’t lying about when referring to “16”. The trap shaker is one of my favourites from the album for multiple reasons, like the pairing of the echoed acoustic guitar melody and clean 808 bass line, the congo drum fills that add so much feel to the song, or grand’s execution with his lyrics and flow, so overall the composition and catchiness of “16” make it memorable and replayable. The second song of the two definitely carries more fusion elements, and for good reason.
“Roll Up” brings the listener into a peaceful space with its echoed harp melody that fills your ears, and with the addition of percussive synths and clean trap drums, the beat creates a unique listening experience for a hip-hop song that smoothly incorporates non-traditional hip-hop elements. The unique sounds of the beat did not stop grandavian from doing his thing though, as he does an excellent job of accenting the percussion with his flow while giving us bars like “you was raised to be a victim and you know it too, fuck complaining in this bitch what you gonna do?”, which gives the track its identity. Ayjackson closes out the song with an echoic & haunted piano solo over a tonal synth arrangement, to end the album in a cool natural environment.
Ayjackson going to work
Earth Below is an album that defines Ayjackson’s sound and brings the listener into his backyard. The unique and nature-influenced sound selection is executed perfectly over a variety of different genres throughout the album to make it feel honest to a fusion city like Vancouver. The listening experience of the album has so many elements but is so seamlessly executed, which is proven in the replay value of Earth Below, as well the fact that such a diverse listen was cohesively attained in 8 songs, with no interlude tracks either. The cool part about Earth Below for me was that the soundscapes of the songs progress to feel like an entire day, with “Signs” starting the album with bird chirps and a feel of emergence, and “Roll Up” closing it with eerie piano & synths to give it a nighttime feel, where the songs in between progressed in their soundscapes to achieve this feeling.
After creating an album with such a unique variety of artists, sounds and meaning, I asked Ayjackson how making Earth Below changed his creative process, where he had this to say:
“Since I finished the project, the tunnel vision opened up, and I felt my time to grow. I’ve gone many directions musically since, and its been an unforgettable experience working in many genres, with amazing artists all around. I’ve been painting with a palette I’d never touched before.”
Overall, Earth Below captures the Vancouver environment in an album with diversity and execution, and from the sounds of it, Ayjackson has let the experience help him grow and has no plans of slowing down.
Stream Earth Below here
Favourite Tracks: 18 Shots, Talk to Me, Red Sky, 16