Queen Deyonna by Shishi

For fans of Wet Leg, Chemtrails, Artificial Go, zolo, and the paralyzing responsibility of individualism, Queen Deyonna by Shishi invites us into the court of a fictional queen as she unwinds from a long day of royal duties to perform some strange progressive post punk. Meandering grooves on both bass and guitar intersect with an extremely catchy songwriting style to keep us singing along to all sorts of off-kilter melodies, maintaining a welcoming atmosphere into an environment unashamedly defined by otherworldly weirdness. We’re initially led to believe that this brief EP’s narrative protagonist really suffers from work-related stress in her job managing a kingdom, but as these tracks unfold we increasingly doubt the reliability of our narrator, instead seeing this story as an intense delusion devised to cope with a wide array of other stressors. However, given our already established absurd willingness to hum along to nonsensical tunes, we may as well accept this story as something of spiritual truth if not material reality, connecting to the little monarch in all of our minds in a constant state of disarray.