Although she may currently reside in New York, multimedia artist Corrine Jasmin has strong Pittsburgh ties, having been a fixture in the city’s creative community before relocating.
Jasmin’s debut EP, Fever Dream Insomniac (released in November), explores themes of reckoning–with self, with grief, with love–through an immersive blend of spoken word, hip-hop, and electronic styles. Jasmin’s vocal delivery, pitched up and down throughout the EP, suggests a fragmented psyche, racing thoughts and personality facets jockeying for position within her head. This dramatic use of the human voice recalls work by Moor Mother and Matana Roberts, if those artists were to use insular ambient and bouncing alt-hop–as opposed to tempestuous free jazz–as vehicles. Early album track “Missed Connections” sees Jasmin, voice screwed way down over a wavy, bass-heavy beat, dub someone (herself, another person?) a “Leatherback baby/Turning corners, spitting in alleyways, tripping over potholes,” generally making a glorious mess of things while “thirsting for love.” She repeatedly poses the question, “Don’t we all wanna be adored?”. The answer seems obvious, but the song’s biting second verse, delivered in normal pitch after a brief, spoken interlude, outlines the downsides of adoration, as Jasmin lays into a former significant other who decided that post-breakup was the right time to make an effort. The track ends with Jasmin coolly taunting, “I bet you wish you knew me now,” secure in the knowledge that self-love is the most important kind.
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Bored In Pittsburgh 