sadeyes by Kevin Rain
Displaying emotional vulnerability through poignant lyrics, 23-year-old Portland native sadeyes puts it all on the line. He’s ready to reflect his personal evolution through a new sound with EP ‘patient death,’ out on May 12th via Epitaph. While seamlessly combining elements of alternative, hyperpop and glitchcore, his lyricism is delivered with a vocal cadence brimming with painful honesty and intrepid sentiment. Pre-order here.
Ahead of the new project, today he also shares lead single “paperweight” and its accompanying music video. Visualizing a self-reflective journey through a mystical forest, sadeyes gives trippy Alice In Wonderland vibes with a glitchy twist, watch it below!
“paperweight”
Getting his start at 17 years old, sadeyes (Nathan Lewis) shot to popularity on SoundCloud, cutting his teeth releasing self-produced moody lofi hits. After signing to Epitaph, he dropped a debut full-length album, multiple EP’s and a prolific number of singles that his voracious fanbase eats up with every release. Now at over 140M+ streams and 820k+ steady monthly listeners, ‘patient death’ represents yet another side of the multi-dimensional creative.
Inspired by the environments he’s surrounded himself in, sadeyes uses maximalist production with distorted synths and reverberating bass for palpable energy. The six song EP is laced with earworm hooks and crunchy textures layered over delicate sprinkles of guitar and keys, grounded by intermittent moments of clean vocals that bring you back down to earth. Continuing to reflect his journey through his art while also acknowledging the long, sometimes messy road ahead, he says, “Progress isn’t linear. This EP is a reflection of me taking a new path to progression.”
After finding solace behind the infamous lofi “emo-rapper” persona as a teenager, when his interests and talents started to transcend the genre he was too afraid to break the mold. Acting almost as a crutch mirroring his own life, he had unintentionally put himself in a box by resisting growth artistically, as well as personally. His last project — alternative rap and trap heavy ‘molotov’ EP — found sadeyes switching up his flow while stretching his pen game for presumptuous rhymes. Now with ‘patient death’ on the horizon, he’s found a new way to vent.
‘patient death’ Tracklisting
1. identify theft
2. paperweight
3. toothfairy
4. bondbreaker
5. on one
6. this is suicide
