Oxy Music

In Oxy Music’s design – its music, lyric and track list – lies the journey a person can take, if the circumstances present themselves – down the road of heavy drug and alcohol abuse.

I will say – this album is a work of fiction – much like Forced Witness. Though I am no stranger to substance abuse, this is not autobiographical. I’m comfortable getting personal in the promotion of the music, I think it’s something we should keep in mind when talking about the album’s release. There are some heavy moments lyrically, so the tightrope we’ll be walking will be to ensure that we’re presenting the music as a much needed realistic story of substance abuse, and not some careless foray into the glamorisation of junky tourism. The album is also not completely anti drug – this isn’t a public service announcement about sober living.

The album is a story. Mostly from the perspective of a man, Starved of meaningful attention, confused about the state of the world, and in dire need of a reason to live – a person can, and according to the latest statistics, increasingly will, turn to opioids. This is one of those people.

The opening two songs – Best Life and Sara Jo, give the context for a need to use drugs to distort the confronting nature of contemporary reality.

Prescription Refill could be heard as a siren song performed by pharmaceuticals to an unwitting victim. Too pretty and comforting to resist.

In Hold The Line we have an addict in full flight – gloves off.

And then there’s the trough – a triptych of ballads – Breakdown, K hole and Dead Eyes – each serving to symbolise the impossible realisation that a person has gone too far down the path of self medication.

Cancel Culture is just pure bat shit insanity, I’m so sorry about this song, but I love it, I had to include it. Lloyd, who raps on the song, is a skateboarder who I met in a bodega. He got the concept straight away. The song serves to define both the need to uphold, and destroy cancel culture. The way white culture works is to take from ethnic and sub-cultures – liquidate them, and destroy them once it has everything it wants. And so, ‘cancel culture’ becomes the actual cancellation of culture.

And Oxy Music, the final song is both the lowest moment, and the one that provides the most hope. The acceptance of self-destructive behaviour, the only thing left to do – is to offer advice to others, so that when they come across their own versions of a similar situation – they have that advice to carry with them.

-Alex Cameron