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Parts Towards Whole b​/​w A Crow's Smile

by S. Raekwon

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1.
As we drift like parts towards whole The screaming child within me Fits of doubt And rage And love All that lives within you too Remember when we first set sail? To places we could not have known Remember why we first adrift - To see it through each other’s eyes As we drift like parts towards whole All the love within me Can you feel it scream aloud? Can you hear it growing? Still there’s fits of rage and doubt To speak of which is knowing The reason why we first adrift - To see it through each other’s eyes As we drift like parts towards whole I will see it through your eyes As we drift like parts towards whole I will see it through your eyes
2.
I wanna be Better for me And better for you too All that I see Is clouded by me And all that I’ve been through Remember enjoy the life you choose With you I’m happy I hope that your happy I choose to be happy With you I wanna be Kinder to me And all those I meet I want to be free From hiding in me The poses you’ve seen Remember enjoy the life you choose With you I’m happy I hope that your happy I choose to be happy With you If even a crow can smile too Then I know I’m made for loving you Even if that is all I do If even a crow can smile too Then I know I’m made for loving you Even if that is all I do If even a crow can smile too Then I know I’m made for loving you Even if that is all I do If even a crow can smile too Then I know I’m made for loving you Even if that is all I do If even a crow can smile too Then I know I’m made for loving you Even if that is all I do If even a crow can smile too Then I know I’m made for loving you Even if that is all I do If even a crow can smile too Then I know I’m made for loving you Even if that is all I do If even a crow can smile too Then I know I’m made for loving you Even if that is all I do

about

S. Raekwon was born out of the need to create something beautiful during a period that felt colorless and transitory. Finding himself alone in a new city following graduation, Steven Raekwon Reynolds embraced his new-found isolation, throwing himself into his music, the only goal to create something both personal and beautiful.

Indeed, even the name of the project holds a great weight, the use of Steven’s middle-name ‘Raekwon’ an attempt to reclaim a part of himself he had previously tried to hide. “I have named the project after my middle name, Raekwon,” Steven himself explains. “Growing up I suppressed this name. I hid it from my friends and those I met. Being biracial and raised by a white single mother, questions of identity consumed me as a child. They still do. And while much has changed since then, I will forever be shaped by those feelings and experiences. I want to make songs that are honest. Releasing them under my middle name seems to be the most honest thing I can do.”

Finding moments of clarity after passing through a personal storm, the first fruits of Steven’s labour arrive in early 2020, his debut work released as part of Saddle Creek’s burgeoning 7” Document series. It’s also, notably, the first music to be released by Saddle Creek that arrived via the label’s online demo submission page, a leap of faith from both which kick-started this journey. Offering a striking snapshot of S. Raekwon’s considered craft, the two songs here were recorded in his small studio apartment, where he wrote, recorded, produced, engineered, and mixed everything himself.

Making for a wholly thrilling introduction to the artist behind them, lead track ‘Parts Towards Whole’ blends Steven’s musical inspirations, which range from James Blake and Frank Ocean, to Grouper and Nicolas Jaar, to create a meditative reflection on sustaining a relationship; on “the beauty and doubt at the heart of that feeling,” as Steven himself puts it.

Literary influences are also present in Steven’s work, and he cites Milan Kundera’s surreal and intimate ‘The Unbearable Lightness of Being’ as a key influence on the 7”, while b-side ‘A Crow’s Smile’ was directly inspired by Haruki Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore, which he read at the recommendation of a friend in order to help combat a crippling bout of insomnia and anxiety, and which pertinently shaped the songs final form.

Both loose in tone, but also immediately vivid, these introductory songs drift between crystalline moments of beauty and something altogether more ambiguous; a complicated map of self-acceptance and the desire to create, which linger long after their initial hearing.

credits

released February 7, 2020

Performed and written by Steven Reynolds
Produced, engineered and mixed by Steven Reynolds
Mastered by Paul Gold at Salt Mastering

Photos by Eddie Peng and Mario Malachi
Artwork Design by Jenny Conte

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S. Raekwon New York, New York

S. Raekwon is a singer/songwriter and producer from New York City by way of Buffalo, NY.

Sophomore album, 'Steven' is out May 3, 2024.

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