Daniel Johnson
aliceyuanzhang
Nydia Hartono
Jasmine Lin
Tori Nicole
kimberly willis
vonwildsau
jackiericc
dji01
annabellemaginnismusicgeeks
BLee
Kenny Zhao
deflistens
trademark
zarcanzo
maryjohoftiezer
helenzheng
kenzakadmiry
viviettehunt
fuzzface
helenabrantley
ingsyeah
judiciouspedestrian
alicex39062
stacykwon
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Digital Album
Streaming + DownloadIncludes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.Purchasable with gift card -
Full Digital Discography Full Digital Discography
Get all 11 Zhao releases available on Bandcamp and save 20%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Present Tense, Hear My Mind (Zhao Remix), Hope, Kenny's Room, reCOLLECTION, Feeling Today, Car, Meltaway, and 3 more.
Purchasable with gift card$26.66 USD or more (20% OFF)
You own this
1. |
shimmer
01:25
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2. |
the space
02:03
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the space is hard to find
because it exists between the places we go on purpose
less a destination
than a place I found myself
have I been before...or is it new each time?
what is an old experience, but a new one with expectations?
I want to be here, and then the wanting takes me out
intention can really spoil things, huh -
no wonder then, that play should be taken playfully
rhyming words, riding alongside an unteachable moment
that they may outlive an explanation
is the property of life, cherished or not.
where then is the space for anything else?
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3. |
here (ft. def sound)
06:36
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The name of this poem is “Here”
The name of this poem is Haiti
The name of this poem is Palestine
The name of this poem is America
The name is Flint, Michigan
The name is China
The name is South Central
The name is Italy
The name is Johannesburg
The name is Panama
The name is Belize
El Salvador
The name is Here
Here is a strategy
Here we can’t run away from we
Here needs new imagination
There’s nothing performative about Here
Here has no guestlist or RSVP
We are here whether we want to be or not
Since I been here I’ve been reminded that freedom is health now
Freedom is breathing now
Freedom is not hating your roommate
You know the simple shit
Like a good meal
Here is the re-examining
The doing of the deep work of the unavoidable
Here is An everyday choreography of the possible
Dwelling in the wounds
The deconstruction of fiction of the stable
Here in messy entanglements of empathy and apathy
an assemblage of a fragmented people
Here
We water dancer of the mundane
We wake up
scribble scripture
scroll a lil bit
like a picture
sip a tincture
made a smoothie
watched a movie
and let the stillness really move me
we living life
through cell phone
accept cookies
before ourselves though
We laugh at meme’s but fear stuck to us like velcro
the world is so different
the veil has been lifted
this show is unscripted
but the camera’s are still rolling now
who’s hand are you holding
Restless in the wreckage
We
unravel
undoing
entangled
unfolding
All in the open now
Here we can see what your hairline REALLY look like
How much your mouth really do
In silence
Your whole range and personage
Here is a current event
Here theory takes place at home
This is what we are at play with
Imagining new playgrounds
Here we move must move the people while staying put
The revolution will be collaborative
Here the urgency in which one must express themselves,
an urge that one must remain artist even without an audience
The threat we face is invisible
A virus can’t vote
Can’t enslave
The virus has no race
The virus has no borders
The virus is here
the virus is a mirror
The virus is much like vibration
Although you can’t hold it you know it’s real
You know it’s here
When yourself threatens to smother you,
You will open your mouth
not to yell or to scream, but to find your way to song
Some way of breaking
Some way to
sonic tumult
upheaval
Some form of magic
Some form of music
Worth more than the streams you don’t get paid for
We have to imagine what we are if we are not producing products
If given a break
Here we break
We find sanctuary in new forms of family kinships used as resistance
Here is a form of improvised connectedness
New framework in a place of isolation
solidarity is a weapon
A support immune system if you will
If you won’t that’s fine this work necessary as much as it is invisible
A chorus, swarm and ensemble, mutual aid society
Louder than the endless record of struggle on repeat ready to be sampled, and resampled and resampled over and over
meant to be passed on like generational mixtape
Here is soundtrack to a history that hurts
We are interpolated
Intertwined
Here we chorus
the chorus is a blueprint
The chorus increases
When we move here we concert
We chorus
we propel transformation
We sit still
The best musicians listen more than they play
Here we hear the Black noise finding a listening in one another
Today is what I have
Here is where I am
Today is where I am
Here is what I have
From Here
Me and my mother hug from 10 ft away
Sighs filled w/ working from home
Me and my mother hug from 10 ft away
Eyes look like levy’s
Hearts weigh glaciers
Hunger for touch
Me and my mother hug from 10 ft away
Letting a smile peek through the uncertainty
Me and my mother hug from 10 ft away
Mouths miming I miss you’s through facemasks
Like words when you don’t poem enough
Longing for a time not so long ago
Me and my mother hug from 10 ft away
Like
Like
Like
last week
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4. |
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I want to think of quietude as an assemblage of bodies.
If I were to do that, I would be very much invited to notice that it can happen here. This space of slowing down, this space of achieving rest. This space of critiquing or diffracting modernity, right in the belly of modernity - right in the city.
Enchantment is never in short supply. Most of us are caught in the habit of thinking of escape as a way towards the sacred. That is, "the sacred lies in the distance." If we can leave the mundane and the banal behind, then we will find the sacred. But I think the sacred is more pervasive - more fugitive - than just something that is exterior to the conditions we want to live behind.
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5. |
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I noticed last night that certain events are persistent and noteworthy. That certain people make their marks on many circles, and pervade with their stories. It had me feeling that an impactful life may be less about glamour or chance, and more about attentiveness, persistence, and curiosity.
In watching "13" and a fungi documentary yesterday, the 70s and all its social and political upheaval were marked as changing times for both the prison industrial complex and research/development of psilocybin.
What is changing now? It's rarely just one thing. The ripple effects of our actions and words throughout this time feel more noticeable in the still waters. The changes coming our way too feel more visible from afar.
Last night I had a dream of an ambient instrumental performance on a slightly floating cube, above the water that was still in every direction - uninterrupted by the promise of land. The sun shone down from the entire sky evenly - not creating shadows - and the sky was a complete warm yellowish cream, that reflected the same color onto the entirety of the water.
I can't grapple with exactly what it means, but in such a space I felt supported, warm, comfortable, and in possession and need of absolutely nothing. In coming out of this incubation slowly, I hope to preserve the feeling of clarity and the capacity for vigilance. I'm wary that in returning to whatever motions come next, we may need it.
What changes will this time be marking? What is already creating intersecting ripples and waves, and how much of it will I have an impact on? How much of it will impact me? I'm in effort to shift from thoughts of control - which can be domineering and expectant - towards notions of impact.
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6. |
give up! (ft. Jess Joy)
03:18
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grief - I lost that moment of purpose
fell off the horse
lost sight of my star
does not seeing it negate its existence?
ego - you will never be enough
look at all you've done, it doesn't matter
you don't matter,
give up!
desire for justice, desire to serve, desire to rest
desire to break windows and scream
desire to escape from myself
transcend my structure
destroy my safety nets
desire to love
desire to nurture
to be touched, tenderly
to be given compassion from an external source, as if feelings come from anywhere besides my body.
discomfort
unease
if I can release my old ways of thinking
if I can be still
if I can grieve the idea of "enough"
maybe I can find liberation
no
contentment.
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7. |
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I feel everything that I hoped I would, and above all I am thankful. The sky is the same size wherever you go, but here it has a way of reminding me just how small I am.
I can already feel the way that our current collective separation has warmed the few I've interacted with, giving me an optimism that this time will allow us to return to a curious and childlike state.
This is a place that asks nothing of you, where the past isn't so distant, and time is measured in layers of sediment. I am overwhelmed by the voices of welcome that accompany my homecoming. Trouble does feel further away, though it is not.
Home and safety can exist wherever we are. I give myself the freedom to be creature. It brings me joy to water my relationships, which makes me thankful for my own community - which remains strong. Strong and consistent in the present of world-changing times. I'm thankful of each alignment that got me home and in the window of joy and relief. I think about my last quarantine group, and can't believe I'm not waking up there. It's been hard to sleep.
I know I spend so much time with you all - and I"ll have more - but being apart makes me wish I'd spent more when I could. You realize how much people mean to you - not that I needed reminding. My biggest fear is that you will all realize how awful I am, or that you feel abandoned by me.
Alas I am a scorpion, a sun-child, a dirt baby...a dirt baby who sought out her desert, looking for a place to process, regenerate, and wait out the storm - an instinct in action, and embodiment, which is all I ever wanted to be.
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8. |
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I've been asked about anger a lot this week.
I've been asked:
"how do I move through this world with this knowing
this knowing...through a paradigm that is designed for my destruction?"
I believe the knowing that I am not supposed to be here is a daily middle finger to those notions
I refuse to put my already vulnerable people in more danger by arming my music with more aimless anger, activating that -
activating them -
without taking into account that ammunition and violence is not taboo.
Anger is one stop on a train that is a range of emotions
it can be a start, but not the destination
I'm angry
I'm angry
but what do I need more of to exist?
I need love.
I was asked what love is this week.
and I spoke a maze to an answer that I believe in at this moment
that love is a synonym for all things that allow you to see another tomorrow
I've been turning sorrows into sonnets
like Mos Def said on "Respiration," "my narrative
I rose to explain my existence"
and to know that explanation isn't for anyone but myself, first.
the desire to heal is as strong as the will for a rose that must breathe through the concrete
it's an exercise.
and I'm learning that I don't have to be the solution, but to know that I have an effect no less.
today is not performative, we're showing up for ourselves if nobody else
I love to know that all the fungi that I've consumed in my life is still actively activated through me and probably in communication, still
in drawing me to my family
communicating beneath this soil of the shells that are these bodies
which is why I'm here, which is why I'm thankful
that I didn't die in my sleep
alive in this dream.
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9. |
pressure
03:09
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~ Opening verse ~
I feel inspired again
I feel a fire w/in
my ancestors FaceTime me
talk through my pen
they use me as limbs
I’m so tired though Kenny
I am tired of strength
a hundred thousand thoughts a minute
spinning in my head like
I spit the dream and live the thing
my purpose here to spread light
This is melanin and moonlight
x2
Scrolling through
Scrolling through
all of lifes misery
laugh in a ceilings face
I posses inner g
came out the other side
South and I’m centralized
Crenshaw & 54th
south of the city be
more than just home to me
That’s my geography
I make the movement move
universe listening
its enough of be who I am
so why just pretend to be
we talk about lifes ills
but who got the remedies?
I know what it is
because I know what it isn’t
I know what I am
I know thats an image
I been living my lyrics
no limits
i get it
my life is a limerick
I’m growing
I’m glowing
I’m crying
I’m triggered
I’m feeling
(Time & Pressure)
Closing verse::
we cooking w/ thee grease now
All the lynchings done by police now
Ayyyye
I let the truth speak
I see the future
I read the tea leaves
I got no ceiling
aye
I got a meeting
Aye
Cancel that meeting
Aye
board w/ it ojie
I’m thinking free today
I feel this deeply
Wait
so I’m fearless w/ this message
all My records are reflections
so I mirror every session
I am here and i am destined
I got songs I got theories
I’m the glass
never empty
cuz i’m thee water you feel me?
do it for my ppl
let em know that they ain't see through
I am here and I am with you and I feel you
I every chance I get I free em
Sparring w/ my demons every single weekend
that's on God Morgan Freeman
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10. |
slippin
02:54
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Get up on your tippy toes
And yell while you can
I know its a lot
To understand
If everything is frozen
are we still droppin sand
in the hourglass
tied up by the minute’s hand?
Slippin
Through the
finger
Tips I
Feel it
Slowly
Losin’
Grip, I’m
Slippin
Through the
finger
Tips I
Feel it
Slowly
Losin
Grip, I’m . . .
Tired of buildin bridges
Are ya changin’ your plans?
Are ya clankin’ around with
bottles and cans?
Swallowing your tongue
Or is it tied with demands
Is it time for us to just expand?
Slippin
Through the
finger
Tips I
Feel it
Slowly
Losin’
Grip, I’m
Slippin
Through the
finger
Tips I
Feel it
Slowly
Losin
Grip, I’m . . .
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11. |
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I tend to notice due to the demands placed on me by my own body that even getting included is a form of violence. Even becoming a citizen - if I were a refugee, like my sisters and brothers are, knocking on the doors of America, or knocking on the doors of Europe - even with all of this, even to get accepted is a form of violence. There is a Procrustean bed dynamic that cuts away the flesh of the refugees and the immigrants, and makes them adapt to a way of being that is not theirs.
So I wonder if there are not fugitive justices, fugitive hopes, fugitive spaces - unspeakable apophatic realities that are outside of this performance of power that we can notice, that can be scandalous to the modern ear. Like saying for instance that Esú traveled with the slaves, condoned all that suffering - and yet was using that as a way of ritualizing other bodies into being.
And so this is my question, this is the question that animates my work with the Emergence Network: what if the way we respond to crisis is part of the crisis? What if there are other spaces of power? And what if we can touch these spaces of power, and be touched in return? What happens?
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12. |
to be continued
01:46
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about
companion website - kennyzhao.com/kennysroom
digital download comes with hi-res photos of original pen drawings for cover art, as well as additional artwork, liner notes, and samples.
payments will be split among all artists involved - Kenny Zhao, Annabelle Maginnis, def.sound, Twolips, Jess Joy, and The Emergence Network (on behalf of Dr. Bayo Akomolafe)
digital download comes with hi-res photos of original pen drawings for cover art, as well as additional artwork, liner notes, and samples.
payments will be split among all artists involved - Kenny Zhao, Annabelle Maginnis, def.sound, Twolips, Jess Joy, and The Emergence Network (on behalf of Dr. Bayo Akomolafe)
credits
released September 4, 2020
produced and arranged by Kenny Zhao
additional voices (in order of appearance)
def.sound, Dr. Bayo Akomolafe, Annabelle Maginnis, Jess Joy, Twolips
special thanks (in no particular order) -
my wife and soulmate SJ, my parents Alice and Kevin, Donna Haraway, Lynn Margulis, Bruno Latour, Joseph Campbell, Adriene Maree Brown, Jen P. Harris and Rachel Kauff, NAVEL, Virtual Care Lab, Frienzone, artist support group, our “third space” Google Drive folder,” Penny and Arthur, our houseplants, weed, funghi, Elektron, pATCHES, the Tao Te Ching and all its translations
produced and arranged by Kenny Zhao
additional voices (in order of appearance)
def.sound, Dr. Bayo Akomolafe, Annabelle Maginnis, Jess Joy, Twolips
special thanks (in no particular order) -
my wife and soulmate SJ, my parents Alice and Kevin, Donna Haraway, Lynn Margulis, Bruno Latour, Joseph Campbell, Adriene Maree Brown, Jen P. Harris and Rachel Kauff, NAVEL, Virtual Care Lab, Frienzone, artist support group, our “third space” Google Drive folder,” Penny and Arthur, our houseplants, weed, funghi, Elektron, pATCHES, the Tao Te Ching and all its translations
license
all rights reserved
tags
about
Zhao Los Angeles, California
Kenny Zhao is a composer, artist, and digital tinkerer who is exploring the relationship between compost and creative practice.
discography
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Oct 2022 -
Apr 2021 -
Mar 2021 -
Sep 2020 -
Mar 2020 -
Feb 2019 -
Oct 2018 -
Jun 2018 -
Feb 2018 -
Oct 2017 -
Jun 2015