The Book Of Slayed

“After you come through a great trial like we have over the last several years, and slay the beast, you come out stronger… or “slayed.” - Yuzima Philip

Yuzima’s new album “The Book Of Slayed” is readying for release (TBA) and is a culmination of 12 months of recording and the realization months ago that the light was visible at the end of the tunnel when it came to the political state in the United States. And it was time to move to more personal and emotional songs. Yuzima’s last album: “Power” took on the state of the world directly with songs like “Resist” and “Black Supremacy,” a song that flipped racism on its head. With Yuzima’s new album, he steps away from the direct political commentary and creates a vivid glance at a world at the tail end of trauma.

This trauma has even touched Yuzima, who experienced severe anxiety and depression over the last four years, taking on the practice of mindfulness and meditation to cope and excel. Yuzima processes that struggle on the epic “The Evil Wings Of Love” a melodic one-sided pronouncement, mixing some politics in, but in a more personal manner with his own struggle. “52 birds on the ledge” is a lyric that refers to the 52 states and districts being on the verge of destruction. The song, and the album, are littered with all of these kinds of references to what we all just experienced. In that way, the album is the perfect cathartic piece for the moment: a musical way of processing the trauma of COVID and the prior fascist administration. Other songs include the one stand-out political burner: “Riots,” which Yuzima started writing months ago before the George Floyd protests, or the seditious Jan 6 attack on the Capitol. The song over a rowdy guitar shouts: “there should be riots,” metaphorically, also touting 15 an hour and a woman’s right to choose.

Yuzima also debuts his new medium the Readymade song, which he describes as a raw in-the-moment music experience recorded to tape. The first two are on this record, called “Hamburger Readymade 1” and “Tips Readymade 2”. Yuzima has innovated before with 2012’s “Sound Opera: Projected One,” which he described at the time as “an opera dedicated to sound” and earned him the title of “Rising Indie Luminary” by revered late rock writer Dan Lucas.

With the uplifting “Fierce,” the shout-out to his husband “My Husband Named James,” and the space-out psych jam “Light Years,” in just nine songs, all written, recorded, and mixed by the artist, Yuzima executes what it means to be slayed in 2021.

The Book of Slayed can be streamed on streaming services upon release and was mastered by Nathan James at The Vault.