Bryce Luckie gets you high with his trippy new single Levytate — showcasing today on Tinnitist.
As the opening track from the Pittsburgh rapper’s recent debut album HYM, the hypnotic and narcotic Levytate aims to put you in a deep dark state of dreamy euphoria, wrapping you in a seductive sonic blanket woven from a slow-rolling 808 groove, atmospherically woozy keyboards, echo-chamber sonics, and Luckie’s understatedly insistent declaration of intent and individuality:
“I can tell that you’re runnin outa patience
You can tell that I came on a spaceship
For an invasion
Fuck innovation
Hit that thing then levitate
I guess I need some space
This how I medicate
This how I meditate.”
If it sounds like the tail end of a night at the club, that might not be an accident. “Up until this point, it had been quite some time since I had made a rap song,” Luckie explains. “But being so directly inspired by a night of bottle service, heavy bass, and dancing on couches in the section, I felt it was too true to where I was to avoid.
“Levytate sets up the theme of (HYM) perfectly. Every time we did a take, I was covered in goosebumps purely off the energy of the song. It’s raw, but it is an egocentric eruption that I am both proud and concerned about. It’s one of those things where I listen to it, I can’t believe it’s me. Especially when it is lined up to the rest of the songs.”
One listen through Luckie’s inaugural album uncovers a well of sonic pleasure. Staying true to minimalist productions in order to remain in tune with his true feelings, he chases the rawness that comes with simplicity. “The album was recorded over the course of about a year and a half. I was beating myself up trying to conceptualize a cohesive project, scrapping idea after idea. All the while, I was continuously creating new stuff; some of the ideas came much more naturally than others. It wasn’t until the second week of October I realized that the cohesiveness that I was looking for was rooted in these nine songs that I had created.”
Check out Levytate above, listen to HYM below, and follow Bryce Luckie on Instagram and TikTok.
