Some parties are just parties. Others feel like the first page of a novel, you didn’t know you were already living. Jackson Englund’s “Konichiwa” release party, the inaugural chapter of the Shadow Play parties, was the latter. A dim-lit, bass-thick gathering where the walls seemed to hum with anticipation and the crowd moved like they’d been waiting for this exact frequency to drop. If you weren’t there, the photos are your consolation prize.
The track at the centre of it all, “Konichiwa,” is a groovy little goodbye to the version of you that kept apologising. It opens with a beat that barges in. The bass is dirty enough to need a parental advisory, and the synths punch like they’ve got unresolved issues. It’s genre-fluid, decade-hopping, and somehow still feels like it was made for right now.
But let’s not pretend this track materialised out of thin air or divine inspiration. “Konichiwa” was born in the studio trenches, first sparked by Jackson Englund and Lee Curtiss, whose fingerprints are all over the song’s DNA. Then came Jean Michelle Lapointe, who added the kind of final touches that make good tracks great. Kim Bullard, yes, that Kim Bullard, Elton John’s synth whisperer, handled the keys, while Matt Bissonette laid down bass lines with precision and soul. These familiar names are essential to the song’s architecture, and while the release isn’t billed as a formal collaboration, crediting them isn’t just polite. It’s accurate.
Jackson, for his part, has been quietly building toward this moment. Co-founder of Gari Safari, voice and pulse of Mont Blvck, and a trusted name in the underground, he’s spent the past few years in a kind of creative chrysalis. The result? “Shadow Work,” an upcoming album that feels like a late-night conversation with your subconscious. It’s stitched together from solitude, doubt, and the kind of breakthroughs that only show up after you’ve stopped trying to impress anyone.
“Konichiwa” is the first hello. Shadow Play is the stage. And “Shadow Work” is the story that’s about to unfold, one party, one track, one truth at a time.
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