Waking Hours [LP]

Its 2020, and everyone is exhausted. Things are falling apart, and then theres the day-to-day stress of simply existing in the modern world. Screens are everywhere, were all tethered to our phones and social media; trying to keep up with it all seems just as impossible as unplugging altogether, especially when were all feeling that neverending push to always be productiveinspiration and motivation be damned. For NYC artist Photay (a.k.a. Evan Shornstein), none of this is particularly conducive to living a healthy existence, let alone being creative, but hes decided to face it head on. Waking Hours, his second full-length (following 2017s Onism), is a meditation on time and, more specifically, our obsessive need to fill every moment with activity. Its about getting back to a really simple notion of just celebrating your existence and not necessarily attaching this huge story of who you are and what you do, he says. Its about finding comfort in just being. Photays search for calm is at the very core of Waking Hours, and while he admits that making the album was therapeutic, it shouldnt be mistaken for some sort of healing ambient excursion. The LP is largely electronic, but frequently verges on pop and extensively features Shornsteins own vocals. The music is intimate and inviting, but it also suggests that Photay is perhaps at his best when hes blurring genre boundaries. I really truly love so many different types of music, he says, and for this album I opened things up and gave myself the freedom to go anywhere.