There’s a bold and frank conversation to slimdan in this track – it makes the listener feel like they’re in some sort of pep-talk for the self. Like you’ve just walked into the bedroom of young man trying to hype himself up. It has a Judd Apatow come-to moment presented with authenticity and nervousness but also bold intention-setting.
Opportunities must be sought out and made themselves. It’s a lesson people have to learn and relearn over the different courses of their youth. As a teenager, in college and post college there’s a constant push and pull of the psyche that believes in you and believes you can do wonderful things but also knows that the person you are in that moment may not always be the one that is capable and changes are in order.
This message is given in quick-witted remarks with the sound having a lightness and airy quality to it. The keys pound hard then pull back, even the music has the apprehensive feeling that comes with leaping into truly believing in oneself. There are many qualities that slimdan does well on this track and one is to partner the honest and spoken word efforts that are somewhat reminiscent of a Mountain Goats track with the pop production of a Lover-esc Taylor Swift song.
After four years at college in Boston, he returned to Los Angeles and “had every intention of working in a coffee shop and trying to tour in an indie band, but I started getting invited into pop sessions,” he recalls. “I was bored of guys with acoustic guitars and didn’t think the universe needed another one, so exploring the way other artists create was really interesting to me.”
His first collaboration, with singer songwriter Sasha Alex Sloan—one of his best friends since the age of 15—was the ballad ‘Older’ which kickstarted his career and led to work with artists like Diplo, Ethan Gruska, and King Henry. “Before I knew it,” Silberstein says, “I had several years of pop writing under my belt.” Writing his own songs though, wasn’t really on his mind.
“For a while, I felt like I didn’t have anything to say,” he muses. “I didn’t want to release music just for the sake of doing it.” But when an artist he was scheduled to write with canceled her session at the last minute, he decided to meet with his collaborator Bryan Brundige anyway to “just write from the heart and see what happens.”
“I started writing in my own voice, songs that I knew no one else would want to cut.” As this voice emerged and evolved, he assumed the slimdan moniker — a throwback to his fourth-grade screenname, which he chose after memorizing Eminem’s “Mockingbird” in homage to Slim Shady - and the result is his forthcoming 5 track EP on Communion.
By Amanda Collins
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