We first wrote about Sun Kin, the recording project of Bombay-born, Los Angeles-based artist Kabir Kumar, with Adoration Room, a split release with Miserable chillers. The album introduced both Sun Kin’s “polished pop” style and some of Kumar’s prevalent thematic concerns, with tracks like ‘Neglect’ exploring the trappings of social media. The result was truly evocative, “the intangible or transcendental instrumentation always balanced by something more real and banal.”
Now, Sun Kin is back with a brand new single, ‘Doom Scroll’, and the track continues this distinctive aesthetic. “[The song] was inspired by IG infographic culture,” Kumar explains, “by the recent idea being pushed on us that we can find community just by correctly diagnosing our friends and buying their goods and services.” There’s a gentleness to the sound, acoustic detail and subtle beats supporting the almost Sufjan-esque delivery, though one rendered wry by the cutting vocals. “The infographic / said don’t be sad / you will be handled,” Kumar sings. “Buy from your friends / the ones who aren’t dead yet / care for yourself and save the economy.”
What emerges is strangely haunting representation of the forces beamed at us every day by a pseudo-compassionate corporate internet. Kumar performs the warm, polished voice of this beast, the wafer-thin mask of humanity which fronts a cold system of digital numbers. A system, Kumar concludes, which is “meddling in our friendships and separating us even further from each other via dissection of every minute interaction.”
