angelhaze

Stream Angel Haze’s new project “Back to The Woods” – in full!

Speaking about their* first LP Dirt Gold, Angel Haze is quick to call it a learning experience. The debut album for the artist, Dirty Gold was released without the consent of then-label, Island/Republic Records following immensely frustrating delays. In conversation with Billboard, the singer/rapper observes that on that album, there were more writers and producers than there was Angel Haze. A new project, Back to The Woods, is almost the polar opposite. Angel Haze has penned the bulk of the LP themselves and enlisted just one producer, Tk Kayembe, to help bring the words to life.

Together, Haze and Tk have crafted a 13 track project which Haze stresses is not a sophomore release, but rather something for fans to sink their teeth into before a second album is dropped. Back to The Woods is a dark, hard hitting collection of songs that eventuated from a moment of clarity that was the result of a hallucinogenic trip at Joshua Tree National Park.  “We went to Joshua Tree with our exes and we did shrooms in the desert,” Haze comments, “And like, we sat there, ‘Yeah we gotta break up. We gotta break up with these bitches and we gotta make music.’” Break up they did. Haze split with their long-term girlfriend after a highly publicised relationship and went to work on new music.

Listening to Back to The Woods, its easy to chalk all the songs up to love songs. That’s something Haze acknowledges, and no doubt enjoys about making music. “I learned in music that you can express anything in the world under the guise of love…There are so many different songs on there that are about so many different people. But it doesn’t matter because they all sound like love songs. I think it’s cool because it makes it universal but it also gets me a catalyst to say what I need to about everyone in my life that I have feelings for.” Eulogy is a track about Haze’s younger sister, Gods about their relationship breakdown, and The Woods is about their bedroom; something Haze didn’t have of their own until the age of 17 when they lived in their first house. Until then, Haze had been virtually homeless – nomadic and disconnected. When they were kicked out of that home, Haze lived in the woods near that house and says its the only place they’ve ever felt  entirely safe: “Like I belonged there.” Which is where the name of the project has come from.

In true Angel Haze fashion, the entire Back to The Woods project is available to stream via SoundCloud. It’s immense and infectious. There is something evidently therapeutic in Haze’s approach to their art, with some confronting themes burried within the songs. Still, Haze describes the project as one of their best to date and it’s easy to hear why; the sound is enveloping, the lyrics vivid and anthemic. While it’s being described as a project between albums, Back to The Woods is meaty, full and uncompromising.

* Haze identifies as agender and prefers the use of gender neutral pronouns.