About four or five years ago, when the new school of musicians in Nigeria forayed into the industry, their focus was successfully making attention-gripping music, which quite a number of them were able to get away with. With time, the focus has shifted and now, they’re properly plumbing the depths of their abilities, reneging mainstream dictates but moving instead with introspection and inspiration.
Despite being one of the early risers, Yinka Bernie never pandered to the dictates of the industry, for mainstream artists, the alternative community, and otherwise. With many months between his last solo release and a handful of years since his last project, it appears he’s had time to dig deeper into his creative well and on his latest, Euphoric Sounds From Within. On the ten-track project, in which visual artist, Niyi Okeowo makes his debut, he synthesizes value from his exploratory depths and passion to produce a never before seen immersive experience that can be termed as art found at its core.
Euphoric Sounds From Within is everything that makes up colours in our minds. From the opener, 1st June, a swirling synth rich experience that defines the source and purpose of the project, to the core atmospheric nature of Summer Of Love, that encapsulates passion at its core, by way of resonant keys that punctuates each line of the story being narrated to the consciousness-expanding experience that is Lovesong, the first track on the project that comes with bass trimmings, the striking story told on Family and finally, the bounce and zest that make up the final track, End Of The Tunnel, Euphoric Sounds From Within is truly a synthesizer of euphoria.
Perhaps a thing of the shortness of each track, but Euphoric Sounds From Within comes with a flitting quality that adds to its exquisiteness and leaves no room for doubt of its title or purpose. First, of its kind in the industry, it’s not an extension of creative processes for both Yinka Bernie and Niyi Okeowo or a gift to listeners who can now key into the euphoria; it is also a pacesetter.