Viskus started his 2023 off just the way we all wanted, with a brand new EP titled Purple Data, featuring its title track, along with, “Losing Viscosity,” “Racing Satellites,” and my favorite “Livest in the South.”
Livest in the South is a super hard experimental track with callbacks to hip-hop drum kits and vocal samplings. Could I catch myself at a venue someday getting silly to this? Of course. But Viskus told me that wasn’t his goal for this track–it was a passion project. ‘Livest in the South’ came from a part of Viskus that knew he had a duty to give people a place to come, let loose and get down. But answering the call ain't always easy! Viskus talked himself into putting in the work day in and day out, not always knowing what exactly was.
It was a constant struggle to show up for himself. On this track, you’ll hear Viskus putting in the work and plugging away, not because it’s easy, but because he knows he owes it to us.
The whole idea of Purple Data is a simplified expression of what Viskus is doing–he's compiling data. He's taking his thoughts and feelings, emotions and struggles, and turning them into music with the intention of moving the listener. But not without the help of a computer that won’t ever understand the depths of what it's communicating, no matter how sophisticated the AI becomes (AI, which designed the cover art, by the way.) Emotion is shared from Viskus to the listener, who has an emotional response, who shares the music with their friends, meanwhile, the sharers (the computers) have no idea what emotions they’re communicating. To the primary distributor, it's just sharing data, and that data feels purple, don't it!
You can follow our boy Viskus on his ig and his Twitter, where you’ll surely be inundated with more previews like this one, because Purple Data, thanks in large to Livest in the South, is about to make this boy busier than a cat coverin its crap on a marble floor!
And if you're following Solace Family already, maybe you’ll be hearing more music from Viskus very soon ;)