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Translating to fake or fraud, Ginger Root’s latest EP Nisemono tells a familiar story of our relationship with time, identity, and the fine line between being both lost and found. Casting a rose-colored lens over his own turmoil, Nisemono romanticizes the inevitable quarter-life crisis. This project is an elixir of truth, but its retro soundscape helps it to go down like citrus sparkling water.

The opening track “Kimiko!” introduces us to the project’s centerpiece, a disillusioned runaway musician who we met in the EP’s lead single, “Loneliness.” Following the narrative of an unlikely star being born, its 1983 setting lends to the nostalgic sound of Nisemono. Beyond its cinematic approach, there’s a common sonic thread throughout the project, one continuous wave of bubbly euphoria. Ginger Root has managed to find merriment within delicate introspection and sobering surrender.  

"Loneliness” was born from an intimate conversation between friends, where they all mirrored one another's sense of anxiety concerning the overwhelming nature of life. But the true irony lies in how a song about isolation ended up serving as a safety net for so many of us navigating our own imposter syndrome. Meanwhile, its proceeding track, “Holy Hell,” explores the confusion of a breakup, where Ginger Root questions time as it both holds him hostage and slips through his fingers like sand.

You can hear artists like Toro Y Moi’s influence embedded in Ginger Root’s self-described "aggressive elevator soul,” but what he’s doing is truly of his own making. He’s experimenting as he goes, satisfying the different facets of multimedia expression that he’s mastered. Nisemono is a dance within Ginger Root’s inner playground, using characters to portray the lack of belonging he feels. While he may question how or why he’s on the stage, we’re just grateful he’s exactly where he belongs.

Listen to Nisemono below: