_{By Michael Luce}

In 2021, I began my personal foray into hyperpop. The ultra-sincerity blended with synths and beats pushed to their breaking point instantly resonated with me, someone who loves music that just makes you feel stuff. It was a major shift in my listening tastes and marked a new step in my musical journey. Less a year later, hyperpop was at the core of another major shift, this time for one of my favorite local musicians. The result — Hypermnesia by DōngSoo.

DōngSoo is the moniker for musical maestro Sam Bradford, best known presently as one of Salt Lake-based band Glue Coast’s two lead singers. I’ve known Sam for years, and I actually credit him with a large part of the reason I remained involved with the scene. Both my last show before Covid shut everything down and my first one after things opened back up were ones where he was performing.

Like Glue Coast (who a fellow writer described as “if ska was painted black, wore weathered high-top Converse, and never left the house without a beanie”), Sam’s projects usually fall more into the ska and punk boxes, and the same is true for his DōngSoo alias. However, in mid-2022, Sam made one of the hardest left turns I’ve ever personally witnessed from an artist and gave the world a brilliantly home-grown, furiously paced album full of glitched-out video game samples, pitch-shifted vocals, and violently authentic production — all wrapped up in a blindingly retro hyperpop aesthetic.

The first half of the album blows by at blistering speed, with each track segueing into the next in the same way the days do when you’re either loving or hating life. “Can’t Keep Up” has been one of my favorite tracks for years, and I’m tired of keeping this secret to myself. It’s a smartly scathing tune that channels and focuses the chaotic energy of the first half into one fiery burst. The track was released shortly before the album as a single and completely blew my mind. I had it on loop for weeks, never failing to stank face at the tempo change halfway through. I’m betting you’ve never though the expression “fireworks and Adderall” would become lodged in your lobe, but it will be after just one listen.

It isn’t until the track six of eight where the frenetic surge of energy finally breaks, and you’re left with the acoustic-leaning “Every Tuesday,” the other standout track from the album and the closest Sam gets to his usual sound on this release. The track paints an adorable picture of a couple reflecting on what got them to where they are, thinking about the weeks as they’ve passed as well as the weeks to come. Despite the unusual implementation of pitch-shifted vocals, the track carries a genuinely sweet and tender undertone, and it never fails to make me smile as I belt along to the chorus.

Make no mistake, like most hyperpop-adjacent projects, this isn’t for everyone. The tones are aggressive, the structures unconventional, and anyone prone to overusing the word “overstimulated” would have a field day finding any other word to describe this album. However, that rawness is what makes this one of my favorites. I’ve consistently ranked it in my annual top 100+ albums of all-time list since release, and these lightning-quick eight-tracks hold a very special place in my heart. Although on the surface, ska and hyperpop have little in common, Hypermnesia helped me realize that both genres are built on a core value of unwavering authenticity, earnestness, and loving what you love no matter what others might say.

On a more personal note, this was one of the releases that got me through a particularly rough patch in 2022. Only a month before it came out, one of my siblings was hospitalized. Even though they were mostly fine by the time Hypermnesia came out, the chaos of these tracks drew out the internal chaos of my mind and helped me find peace, despite the circumstances.

Even if there isn’t a single other person who enjoys these songs (which I highly doubt), it feels as though they were created to make me happy, and I thank Sam for sharing them with the world. No matter if Hypermnesia isn’t your cup of cocoa, the earnestness and passion present is sure to be an inspiration to anyone striving to create in one way or another.

Be sure to follow Sam and his band Glue Coast on Instagram! Check out “Can’t Keep Up” below!