By: Mason Mattu, Correspondent for Rolling Stones
As the new school year starts, the halls of SFU are hustling and bustling once again with every SFU student’s least favourite thing . . . other SFU students. Don’t you just hate nodding your head slightly to that one guy who was in your class three years ago? Or being forced to exert your facial muscles to smile at someone who doesn’t smile back?
This year, we say no to forced social interaction. We wish to pave a new holy trek through SFU that allows us to avoid all people. Let us join together to stay dry during the winter, walk at our own pace, and be unapologetically us. Every great journey needs an even better soundtrack. Here are some of this year’s most underground and edgy albums to help you wander the less-populated paths that SFU has to offer.
Eternal Darkness by Smariana Brande
Smariana Brande is an emerging artist in Burnaby’s AQ 1000 music scene. As you walk through our new path of social isolation, you might be able to vaguely hear Brande’s ethereal sound — it’s almost as if her voice is coming from the heavens. Strange.
The album’s feature song, “Supernatural Stalacite,” creates the feeling of dripping water on the listener’s forehead. It’s so surreal that people report their heads actually becoming damp.
Did You Know that There’s a Tunnel Under Most Universities by Elaina Del ConCrey(T)
Did You Know that There’s a Tunnel Under Most Universities is a combination of ventilation fans, elevator hums, and generator sounds blended together to produce what Billboard calls “a piece that leaves an echo on the music industry.”
In the tracks “Don’t Let the Light In” ” and “Paris Catacombs, Texas,” ConCrey(T) reimagines the concept of songwriting by singing literal sounds and clanks. When listening to this album, you’ll likely feel as though the sound of your footsteps linger in your environment. This would be perfect for creating an intimidating personality and pushing through those first year losers in the hall. Though you won’t have to worry about those nerds on the path you’re going on.
I Barely Know Her (the Sky) by Sombreno Subterreneano
As you finish your trek, you can take a sigh of relief while climbing out of the sewer basin. You’ve made it. Wait — you didn’t know you were in the underground SFU tunnel system the whole time? That means my work here is done. You’ve successfully escaped the fake, social people above and joined your real pseudo-friends (because we don’t believe in the concept) in the sewers.
Have fun with this playlist and trek safely. As Sombreno Subterreneao sings in the album’s lead track, “Back to No Friends,” “SFU exists as a figment of our hyper-conscious imaginaries, one in which we can say goodbye to life above and join our comrades below, as this is the true meaning of living as a woke being. We are prepared to live in the caves.”
