Flawed Mangoes
The brainchild of Evan Lo, Flawed Mangoes is a project that first went viral on TikTok and grew to achieve a dedicated and earnest fanbase. A progenitor of “hopecore,” Evan started Flawed with solo ethereal killswitch guitar riffs and evolved his sound over time to include full-band elements. Evan and I started working together early in 2024 when he was looking to record drum-set for some new songs that had a definitive shoegaze bent, which were all ultimately assembled on the Anomaly collection.
Since then, my collaboration with Evan has grown to include a nationally touring live show that includes the shoegaze songs we initially cooperated on, as well as re-worked versions of his killswitch material expanded to include a full band.
Human Mascot
Wrote / Recorded / Mixed / Mastered
I’m proud of this project because it truly defies traditional genre definition. I often think about how a modern listener can identify dozens of electronic-music sub-genres, but to a Baroque listener they would all sound like the same brand of incomprehensible noise. In that way, Human Mascot is simply “rock music.” To a contemporary sensibility however, it’s an effortless blend of Americana, British-invasion, Punk, Country, Prog, New Wave, Math Rock, and more.
If I’m being honest, I think these recordings leave much to be desired; tracked live over one grueling day in an empty auditorium, we had little time to dial in our sound. The kick drum in particular will forever haunt me. Even with our limited time, we were (foolishly) trying to capture more than these five songs, but the others never came together (some songs were left for dead, others are slated for future release). What is undeniably present in these recordings is a chaotic distillation that’s as thrilling as it is macabre; after the first track reprieves you can hear someone lamenting “I’ve never been so fucking stressed while playing music.”
Day Grazer
Wrote / Recorded / Mixed / Mastered
This project was recorded in a proper studio, The Record Co in Boston, with a proper engineer, Garrett Rose, running the session while me and my fellows performed. The streamlined workflow of recording in a proper studio with a dedicated engineer made a huge difference, and we were able to set up, track all 12 songs and break down all within an 8 hour session.
Jonathan Zonenshine 