With his latest album ‘Psychedelika Pt.1’, The New Citizen Kane unveils a labyrinth of shimmering emotion, restless thought, and neon-lit confessionals. In an era where most albums fight for passing attention, ‘Psychedelika Pt.1’ demands your full presence. It is maximalist, multi-sensory, defiantly ambitious, and deeply, unmistakably human.
At the centre of this sprawling cosmos is a story of rebirth. The artist returns with an ecosystem of sound, moving image, scent, gameplay, and meditative practice. It’s an outrageous concept on paper, yet in execution it feels strangely inevitable.
The music itself? A kaleidoscopic breakdown and breakthrough. ‘My Muse’ lights the spark. It’s the quiet moment the songwriter wakes up inside his own life again. There’s a tenderness here that sets the emotional tone for the entire record.
Then the world tilts. ‘Heads Are Round’ is a dizzying whirlwind of ideas, a mind spinning so fast it almost detaches. It’s witty, disorienting, philosophical, like trying to meditate during a meteor shower. Kane bends thoughts into sound, using confusion as choreography.
On ‘Well, Damn! Here You Are’, the confessional tone turns seductive and self-destructive all at once. It’s the 3am text you know you shouldn’t answer, delivered as a late-night disco lament. Few artists can make weakness feel this charismatic.
There’s social commentary with swagger too. ‘Push the Fear Out’ glides between satire and uplift, offering a playful reminder that the boogeymen we imagine are often projections of our own unease. It’s danceable solidarity, and activism with a grin.
But ‘Bite the Bullet’ is the knife wound at the heart of this record, unvarnished and almost uncomfortable in its truth-telling. This is heartbreak with the lights on, delivering the kind of emotional candour that stops you dead in your tracks.
And then the light returns. ‘Afterglow’ floats like a breath let out after years of holding it in. If the album has a thesis, this might be it as it offers a fragile glimmer that tells you you’re still here.
Across its 17 tracks, ‘Psychedelika Pt.1’ navigates love, disillusionment, identity, burnout, escapism, desire, and spiritual renewal, but with an intensity that makes the whole project feel alive, pulsing, and ever-changing. The New Citizen Kane has created a project too unruly, too emotional, and too sprawling to belong anywhere but the independent music world, where vision outruns commerce and the brave build their own architecture.
