More food for thought: Medium Build reimagined with 'takeaways'

In a new three-track package, Medium Build returns to his expansive discography, to give tracks that may have gone missed by fans, old and new, the space to truly shine under the current spotlight he's under. In stripping these songs back to their purest state, Medium Build allows his intricate songwriting to be heard loud and clear.

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Official cover art for Medium Build's 'takeaways'

white male privilege

This track is a perfect opener to this mini-project, its verses take a retrospective and thoughtful stance looking at one's wider lifestyle. 'white male privilege' is a reflection of self-absorption, identity and inheritance. Paired with a soft strummed acoustic guitar line, listeners are truly placed face-to-face with reality, not sugarcoated and shown exactly how it is. Raw lyrics like 'I been sleeping with a woman / Says I'm too much like her dad / Too in love with my own head / The product of white male privilege' make the song feel like a late-night confessional, after some heavy self-examination. The core line of 'I don't know where I went wrong' when paired with a feeling of repetition and cycles is bitter and sticks with you long after listening to the song. Despite its sonic simplicity, this song carries such weight and depth, truly a compliment to Medium Build's strength as an artist.

bigger

Taken from his 2019 album, 'Wild', but reshaped with a new title, 'bigger' is a timeless track. Previously, this song was more electronic and synth-infused -- the kind of song that the sound sucks you into a groove, until you are faced with existential questions... Just us? With a heavier presence of his country influences, lyrics like 'Looking at my phone nearly gave me a panic attack / I think I need to teach myself boundaries / Sometimes I get high and start wondering who I am' take a whole new tone. The rework of this strips away the production and takes what felt like a fall down a rabbit-hole and twists it into an exhaustive reflection on the self and our relationship to the internet. Again, we are transported into Medium Build's subconscious, with the quiet yearning to escape ('I feel guilty wishing it could all be done / Run out to the woods and be simple with my hands / Be someone somebody simple could love'). It certainly feels like since its first release just over five years ago, the world has become even more obsessed with screens and the digital world, meaning this song has beautifully remained its prominence.

Photo credit: Silken Weinberg

miseryy

By the time you make it to 'miseryy', you can't help but let the sadness sink in as you approach the end of the trio. Originally sonically melancholic and found on Medium Build's 2018 album 'softboy', this subtle ballad levels this up even further. The inclusion of the beat, missing from the previous tracks, takes you step by step through the relationship being described: 'And I don't know exactly / When we went downhill / You started drinking in the morning / I stopped taking my pills' . We take a trip down memory lane with Medium Build here on the digression to fallout and heartbreak, and with its haunting chorus of 'Cause baby / Loving you is misery', the story lingers with you as if it was your own. Medium Build's vocals really shine on this track, he's a one-of-a-kind talent that you could easily pick out of a lineup.

This three-track project was a genius move by Medium Build, giving fans a chance to rediscover -- or simply discover, for newer listeners -- songs with a new life in their simplest forms. 'takeaways' serves as a reminder that reflection and keeping past work close to your heart allows you to keep moving and developing as an artist. The trilogy of songs show the evolution of time for the artist, listener, and wider world, while also identifying subject matters that remain. It's clear that Medium Build's artistry does not fade, but only deepens.