Captain Highside Releases LP, & New Music Video
Captain Highside, the alter ego of Prashant Raghavendran, is an Atlanta-based emerging artist blending a rich tapestry of genres. Ever evolving as a human and artist, the Captain Highside project offers a creative respite to the day to day of being a pediatric hematologist.
Today, Captain Highside is sharing SAGITTARIUS II, the first of two short LPs that he will be releasing in the coming months, followed by SAGITTARIUS I. These works are a culmination of a prolific 15 months of work, in which he has been releasing tracks and short EPs almost on a monthly basis. Why release in this order? SAGITTARIUS II thematically explores Captain Highside’s foray into modern genres and at times has a more experimental sound. The vibes of this album align with hip-hop, R&B and electronic music, genres that have maintained significant popularity recently. The album is at times brash and in your face, and other times chill and sultry. SAGITTARIUS II draws inspiration from artists such as Daft Punk, Pharrell, J Dilla, Maxwell, D’Angelo among many others including the popular artists of today.
Alongside the release of SAGITTARIUS II, he is highlighting the track “TECHNICOLOR REWIND.” Reflecting on how the collaboration with Marley Angel came about, Raghavendran recalls, “Marley created a beautiful funky, soulful, smooth vibe with amazing solo guitar and so I just took that and ran with it. The instrumental made me see all sorts of colors, so I figured why not write a song about colors? And that’s how “TECHNICOLOR REWIND” came to be. John Osborn did a great job mixing my vocals to the instrumental. From start to finish, it took about 48 hours.”
SAGITTARIUS II is an album of 8 songs, ranging from electronic instrumental tracks like “MIRROR FIGHTS” to contemplative dark hip-hop in “CHASING ALLEYWAYS” as well as smooth neo-soul with “TECHNICOLOR REWIND”. The tracks of this album maintain a more polished finish than previous releases by Captain Highside, but still hold on the lo-fi roots of his early work in the late 2000s and early 2010s. The tracks on this album are co-produced by Captain Highside himself along with many other rising talents, including London-based Juan Contento (JVENENO) on tracks such as “MIRROR FIGHTS”, “OPEN LETTER”, “CHASING ALLEYWAYS”, “BETTER” and “DOPAMINE”, NYC-based John Rivera (Serene) on “LET ME BREATHE” and “SKYLINE CRUMBLES” and St. Louis-based Marley Angel on “TECHNICOLOR REWIND”.
“I’ve been on a grind between working as a doctor and making music for the last year… I arrived in Atlanta really knowing no one, so being on that kind of island, it motivated me more to create so I could find more people. I’m very lucky I did, and because of that work in my basement with GarageBand, my piano, guitar, bass, microphone and with social media, this album exists,” Raghavendran recalls.
“SAGITTARIUS II is my tribute to the electronic music, hip-hop and R&B I grew up on in the 1990s and 2000s. It’s a love letter to music of the urban landscape. I’m a December baby, so the album title reflects my Zodiac sign and is meant to represent all of that sign’s traits: emotional intelligence, independence, restless, easy to take advantage of. All of the traits of the sign inform the subject matter behind the songs and lend to the variety in the album.”