“Relief (Solo),” off Heno.’s upcoming album I'm Tired Of Being Hypersurveilled, marks a turning point in the poignant narrative of the artist, producer, and innovator’s larger concept project. Accompanied by the "RELIEF pixel game" where arcade tickets minted on Zora unlock “power ups,” “Relief (Solo)” soundtracks Heno.’s character’s pursuit of an escape. “Dealing with a topic like surveillance, there's a lot of nuance, and a lot of ways to go–different topics or subtopics to speak on. But I knew escape, relief or pursuit of being free was a sentiment that needed to be on an album like this,” says Heno.
Motivated by Heno.’s personal experience as a black man in America–the project’s allegorical storyline was introduced by a three-part short film released last January in which Heno.’s character attends a PTSD Anonymous meeting that turns out to be a ploy for the S.Y.S.T.E.M. (Securing Your Safety Through Extreme Means) to spy on attendees. Eventually, his character is kidnapped (as depicted in the “Neybors” and “SIMMER DOWN” videos) before being thrown into a simulation seen in the interactive RELIEF pixel video game at which point Heno.’s character realizes he must find relief and escape. “This is the point where I recognize I need to get out of the simulation one way or another, even if it means I have to burn the establishment down. I needed to get out. And I wanted to capture the frustration and the feeling of being gaslit while dealing with surveillance and people invalidating your experiences.”
Written, produced, and performed by Heno., “Relief” (Solo)–the ninth track off HIGH FREQUENCY Volume 2–viscerally captures the feverish and exhausting feeling of being chased. “It started with the production–playing around with different synthesizers, and then I came across certain sounds that sounded like a chase. The beat sounds like I’m running from something, I'm literally trying to get the fuck out of there, and that urgency of being in pursuit.”
Both futuristic and retro, the industrial nature of the track is perfect for the addictive video game, while simultaneously drawing attention to the very real experience that fueled its creation. “You gotta make this shit make sense for you but for me, freedom from it all (as well as relief) is what I really want.”
Designed by DaCirkus, the pixel video game presents the “Instant Relief Simulator,” a commentary on modern day capitalism where the game’s objective is to “get as much money as possible, so you can buy your life and rise up the ranks.”
With a goal of onboarding fans to web3 and reaching the cross-section of gaming, music, and crypto, Heno. teamed up with Da Cirkus to make the vision reality. “There's synergy between music and gaming, so I've always wanted to explore that. To have someone like DaCirkus see the vision and go, ‘Cool, I get it. Let's build it out,’ is always a blessing.”
After releasing “Relief (Solo)” on DSPs alongside the arcade tickets and a tokengated version of the video game in September, Heno. presented the forthcoming VR experience of the game at his recent exhibition “The Edge of Surveillance.” Hosted at LA’s NeueHouse in partnership with Coinbase and Zora, the event featured a demo of the spatial audio VR experience designed by Taramoves, unreleased music from the album, and a panel on digital sovereignty.
Up next, Heno. will showcase the next iteration of the project at this year’s Art Basel at The Gateway with NFT Now and Lens where commissioned visualizers from incredible black artists like Andre O'Shea, Jah, Yosnier, Shay The Surrealist, and others yet to be revealed. It’s a full circle moment for Heno. after speaking on his future plans at last year’s Art Basel. “I remember saying that I want to branch out into building worlds and showcase that in all these different mediums, so to be here at this point this year with an album like this–having a VR experience, having a pixel video game, being able to create short films, being able to tell this narrative in this way, has been as experimental as it's been a joy to push myself creatively. It's kind of crazy and full circle.”
Intentionally patient, building and rolling out the project over the last year, Heno. has meticulously set the stage in order to contextualize the album. “The whole album is a loop. Essentially, it's the story of me becoming a person of interest, being put through these simulations of sorts, and trying to escape. The viewer is rooting for me, but I find out upon escaping that it was all a loop so it takes you back to the beginning. The music is very straightforward and on the nose. There's a song called “Gaslighting,” about being gas lit, there’s a song called “Question Everything,” about questioning everything that you've normalized.”
Tackling a heavy and often polarizing topic, Heno. wanted to prime his audience in order to facilitate a larger conversation. “This year of slowly unfolding this story has been one of extreme patience. We built this surreal world where there’s this story of me getting kidnapped and all this stuff, but at the end of the day, it's really rooted in real things. Sometimes you kind of have to create this offshoot, so people can look at something objectively, and then have a conversation that isn't rooted in personal bias.”
When we first featured Heno. in HIGH FREQUENCY in October of 2022 he had just released his single “Jansport Freestyle” off his 9-track EP In The Meantime, a project that served to introduce the topic of surveillance. The song details when police, who had the wrong address, physically intruded HENO.’s mother’s house without a warrant, kicking down the doors and wreaking havoc in the middle of the night. Announcing the larger project via a Mirror crowdfund campaign, he wrote that his artist journey has been a “safe haven from a world that constantly perceives me as a threat by simply existing in this country as a 6’4” Black man with dreads.”
The irony of being tired of surveillance and scrutiny while embarking on a project that requires him to speak on the subject publicly is not lost on Heno., but it’s a sacrifice he’s willing to make. “Good art is polarizing. You’re going to have to feel a way. You can't be passive when it comes to an idea like surveillance. You can either like what I'm saying or you can not like what I'm saying, but you're gonna have to ultimately decide how you feel. I'm not here to solve surveillance, but let’s talk about it, because I'm tired of it. I'm sure we all are. And here's why I'm tired of it. Let's have a conversation.”
Using the album and its related content as a catalyst, Heno.’s hopes the conversation will expand beyond the personal into a more global, collectively conscious discussion. “Surveillance affects everybody differently. You see it across cultures, we see it across nations when powers have the ability to control your resources, your internet access, and control the narrative, it's not just happening in America. I'm tired of it in America, for sure. And being a black man in America, the experiences that I have, but it's something across cultures. I'm Ethiopian and Eritrean, and my country is in conflict right now. And you have a similar situation with Israel and Palestine,” says Heno. “It's a polarizing topic, all of these things tied together. I just want to stand on something as opposed to being complicit. I don't think this is going to be the end all, but at least it’s sparking the thought that we should be talking more about how normalized this has become, and how we're all affected in our own ways.”
Intent on using his music to shed light on systemic issues and spark important conversations, Heno. continues to utilize web3 and experimental mediums as a vehicle for meaningful long-form storytelling. “My whole goal as an artist is to use personal context, story, and experience to have universal conversation.”
Collect Music NFTs from HIGH FREQUENCY Volume 2. “Relief (Solo)” is the ninth track to be released from HIGH FREQUENCY Volume 2. “Relief (Solo)” is dropping via Sound at 2pm PST on November 30, 2023.
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Article by Wallace Morgan for HIGH FREQUENCY, NOISE’s weekly newsletter. Subscribe for more.