A human rights volunteer in Agbor, Delta State, Christabel Aminu, has been reportedly murdered in her home by an escaped prisoner identified as Micheal Ezeuwali. This was made known by activist Harrison Gwamnishu on Wednesday, who condemned the killing and expressed grief over the loss of the volunteer. He confirmed that the Delta State Police Command has already apprehended the…

I sat on the couch at 5:52 p.m. with a cup of hot tea held in both hands like a small child with a sip cup. Lord Huron Spotify Radio softly floated through the room, imploring me with its tentacles of sound to prance off into a midnight glen and play banjo in a top hat. I said, “No, Lord Huron Spotify! Tonight we’re covering the yet unreleased single ‘Life After Death’ by Prison Escapee! Be gone with your indie meet-cute music for two lonely people who bump into each other while apple-picking, spilling their bushels and clumsily mixing up their apples.”

Distressed that a haze of Lord Huron residue was clinging to me and attempting to lure me into a pumpkin patch of folk whimsy, I focused on the task at hand.

Erik David Hilde is Prison Escapee, a musician residing in Los Angeles with a heart that resides in his songs. I reviewed Prison Escapee’s album released early in the pandemic, aptly named 20/20, and could feel the melancholy of it, the musical representation of unprocessed grief and searching for the ability to feel again. There was also the striking resemblance of Erik’s voice to Matt Berninger of The National. His music is a cinematic blend that makes you want to night-drive through the city and reflect on loneliness.

“Life After Death” will be released on January 29th and I’m giving you a sneak preview of my esteemed thoughts on his new single. I haven’t listened to it yet – that’s about to happen now. All I know is from the single cover art (shown above), which leads me to believe the song is either an interpretation of the afterlife or possibly just a paparazzi snapshot of Greek party angels dropping acid on top of cotton candy clouds. It’s probably the first one. Let’s find out!

This is a real-time review of “Life After Death” by Prison Escapee.

Headphones in and volume UP.

I recognize the intro as kind of a signature of Prison Escapee songs throughout the last album. He’s notable for long, instrumental intros and the first 20 seconds of “Life After Death” are a shimmering organ reverb, like this is a funeral and we are now exploring his thoughts from the casket.

I do not have the lyrics in front of me for this four-minute journey, but the opening line is “Life after death/It’s real”. Hilde’s songs often intertwine a sense of heavy sadness with a firm foundation of faith, and I see a battle that goes on in many of the lyrics from 20/20, a struggle of, “well, I have a devastating existential loneliness, but my faith in God affirms my hope that after death there’s something better than what I’m feeling in this moment.”

Right around the 1:50 mark, there’s an unexpected upbeat tonal shift, like the sadness dissipated and suddenly an electro winter wonderland opens. It reminds me of the keyboard in “Be Still My Heart” by The Postal Service. There’s that extended instrumental signature again, as the interlude carries on for an extended moment, coating the song in a soft covering of electronic flurries.

His singing voice throughout this song is almost crying out, and he re-asserts the importance of having his soul at peace before death:

“I don’t wanna die from a heart attack I don’t wanna die like my grandfather did I don’t wanna die in the hospital I don’t wanna die with my sins unforgiven”.

So, this reaffirms that two-sided struggle that saturates his lyrical themes. There’s the internal battle between defying your own mortality and learning to feel again versus proclaiming that

no matter what happens, it’s okay, because there will always be life after death.

See what I did there? That was “Life After Death” by Prison Escapee. Listen to it tomorrow on all the streaming platforms and follow The Audio Glow for more musical commentary that makes you question your entire existence.  

1992 was the year of Home Alone 2, the G-rated blockbuster about a small child who attempts to murder two predators with house tools. A compelling and family-friendly story for all. There’s a scene in this classic, (I will growl and stomp my feet defensively towards any human who says it’s not really a classic) where Macauley Culkin walks out of the big city hotel, a fantastical limo awaits, and a Rob Schneider bellhop says “Mr. Mcallister, here’s your very own cheese pizza.”

The box opens, steam gushes from this fabulous cheese pizza and infiltrates the hungry nostrils of every New Yorker from Manhattan to Ithaca. This personal cheese pizza, so coveted by all, is the fantasy that we wish was the year of 2020. It has not been that. It has not been a steaming free 1992 blockbuster city limo pizza.

However, Prison Escapee (the musical pen name of Eric David Hidde) released his new album “20/20” the first week of June. I have not yet listened (obviously), but my razor-edged instincts tell me it will be much more heartfelt than a Home Alone pizza.

I empathize so greatly with musicians who spent immense swaths of 2019 working on an album, only to have their album release sneezed on by a pandemic. So, we will treat “20/20” as the alternate redemptive 2020 we can all live in for seven tracks and 23 minutes. It is a sliver of expression from an artist who continues to grow since his 2015 debut “Braves”, and lives in a genre of what I call “dreamscape heartache”.

This is a real-time reaction review for Prison Escapee’s “20/20”. Listen along through the Bandcamp player up top if shared experiences turn you on.

Sound good?

Volume UP. Headphones in. Enjoy.

*** 

Track One – A Figment of Your Imagination

When I said Prison Escapee continues to grow two paragraphs ago, well, here’s evidence. I really noticed his voice open up more on the last album, “You Only Live Twice”, but before that record, vocals were often distorted electronically, or ached out, like it hurt just to sing them. “A Figment of Your Imagination” is declarative and bold, even with the lonely lyrical content. It’s impossible not to notice the tonal similarity to Matt Berninger (The National), whom we wrote about last Friday for the “Warrior” soundtrack atmosphere.

It’s cinematic. It’s heavy, and driving. It belongs as the backdrop to a scene of say, Michael Fassbender running through New York City at night.

Track Two – Empty Wishes/Feeling Light

I can only speculate on the lyrical content, and that’s what I’ll do. I know that Erik David Hidde lost a close friend years ago, and it resonates throughout his music and the melancholic nature of his sound. This, to me, has the nostalgia of someone missing the way things were:

I need 1999 again/2020 is too much time, my friend

If you have to pull a theme from the varying tonal shifts between the first two tracks, it’s that whatever the sound, you know the lyrics will be introspective truth and completely transparent.

Track Three – The Art of This

We shall call this…high drama. There’s a clear theme to produce a sound that’s cinematic and heavy. You often hear the cliché “the music is a way to escape the pain”. Or maybe you don’t hear that – I’ve heard that. But here, there is no escape. It is complete immersion. As he sings “I don’t want to feel your pain”, that pain still feels fresh. It has not detached or grown numb. It’s striking to me, as someone who has gone through the phase of “I’ve been numb so long and I want to re-immerse myself in that sadness just to feel”. Here, the initial pain is still close enough that he may be trying to find his way to the numbness.

Yeah, I know, we’re gettin’ heavy in here!

Track Four – Patience/Human Interaction

Many of his songs have a tendency to not start singing until well over one or two minutes into the song. It happens here and gives the song kind of a contemplative entrance.

Let’s lay it out like this: Put this in a movie with two long-lost loves. They see each other from across the boardwalk, and for a minute and 20 seconds they just stare at each other, and just as Prison Escapee sings the first verse, they run into an urgent embrace.

Track Five – Too Soon

It’s clear that faith is paramount to all else in the tracks. You notice the stream of consciousness element to his songwriting here, as he reflects on feeling lost, but then ends the song with “Praise your name, father”, as he remembers where lies his anchor.

Track Six – At the Bottom of the River

If you stripped all the vocals out of this album, there may be some songs where one may ask “Is this The Album Leaf?” This is one of those songs.

Track Seven – The Holy Wild

I’m going to walk out on a suspiciously bendy tree limb and call this song a hymn. I don’t know if my labeling assertion will break the limb off, or if I can stand here for a while after listening, bounce on my feet, and say “I was right, it’s a hymn.” Yes, this hymn is a lo-fi, electronic proclamation of faith, but the music is a backdrop for the self-reflection.

Thus concludes 20/20 by Prison Escapee AKA Erik David Hidde.

I feel like I just spent time in a room with him as he recorded it. That’s the intimacy that comes through – the searching, the loneliness, the reflections on faith and loss. Should you play it over the loudspeaker at your neighbor’s six-year-old son’s birthday party? Maybe hold off on that.

Put it on in the car at night and drive around under the city street lights, like this is your movie and you’ve chosen the soundtrack?

Well, that’ll do just fine.

Artist Links:

Prison Escapee Website Prison Escapee Bandcamp Prison Escapee Insta An Artist Takeover by Prison Escapee for Indie Wavves Blog

Songs by Prison Escapee to get you bothered:

Street Fighter (official video) Not Enough Love Stop Killing Black People

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*Smooth Criminal*