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Photo: Shy Louise

SEB has blessed us with a beautiful two-pack of pop records. The dreamy and ambivalent "moving on," featuring Khary and "sugarhoneyiceicetea." Truth be told, I’ve been audibly parched and craving some new SEB. A perfect pairing for the spring season, as well as possessing an uncanny knack to create unique, visceral music, the Los Angeles-based artist continues to differentiate and set himself apart from his contemporaries.

With "moving on," SEB unpacks a carousel of honest emotions to a love that was lost. The record also features what is unequivocally one of my favorite bars of the years in, “That's why I keep two phones, shorty; one for love, one for the money”. It takes a special artist to be able to wear his heart on his sleeve while unflinchingly maintaining a Miles Davis level of cool throughout the process. Then there is the slam dunk, alley-oop feature from Khary. Truth be told, the pairing goes together like PB&J. Frankly, chemistry like that is special. “Maybe I'm talking too much and there's simply nothing I can say / I would rather be the one that you lost than the one in your way, yeah” Khary spits, before passing the rock back to SEB. 

"sugarhoneyiceicetea" arrives as my favorite of the two offerings. SEB does a flawless job constructing an odyssey of a song from a simple phrase. “You always hold me down, but now why you on top of me.” There is a minimalistic style of songwriting contained within each section, which is reflective of SEB’s acumen. The second half of the record is where SEB truly flies, transitioning into a jazz-swing segment that sounds like it could be a descendant of Erykah Badu’s magnum opus "Mama’s Gun."

If you’re similar to me, you probably first became familiar with SEB from his colossal hit record "seaside_demo." If you’ve stuck around for the ride since, you know that SEB has continued to challenge himself and evolve with each and every record, and these two new tracks are simply further evidence of that fact.

Listen to "sugarhoneyiceicetea" and "moving on" below: