A Billion Young • ABY & Friends EP
It'll be a cold day in hell when I don't properly document a release by Chicago duo A Billion Young. For the pair's newest offering, we get ABY & Friends, a seven song EP featuring A Billion Young, and, you guessed it, their friends. Jac Stovler sings on opening track “Escape City”, declaring that she loves chaos. She is found throughout the project on singing and on cello and she is announced as the official third member of the group. Does that mean that they are now A Trillion Young? I digress.
Teddy Jackson, who was found throughout their last album Glenwood, makes an appearance here on the track “Warm it up” (which might have a video down the road). The EP also features familiar names like female rapper AJ Peace (who gets friendzoned), producer Thelonious Martin, IceFace, Mike-Doan, and Knox Fortune. Linus is on guitar throughout, and the whole project sounds like an organic jam session within a lively daydream. Perhaps my favorite song on the project is “Oh Mama” which features vocals by John McDonnell, proclaimed in the SoundCloud description as being the godfather of ABY. The result is a bluesy number stuck in the clouds. Read all of the specific SoundCloud descriptions to follow the journey of ABY, as they cruise down the road and pick up their talented friends along the way. It would be cool to see this EP performed live all the way through.
“Simply, a tape made with our friends. Chicago love.””
