Sargeant x Comrade - The Elephant In The Room

Alberta: Top 10 of 2021

by Ben Boddez

Bridging both hemispheres of the world and musical eras old and new, this Calgary duo made up of Caribbean singer Yolanda Sargeant and Russian producer Evgeniy Bykovets blends together dusty jazz-club aesthetics, boom-bap hip-hop beats and classic dancehall elements with modern neo-soul and electronica. As the tracks bleed into each other with the sound of turning the dials on an old-school radio, Sargeant’s lyrics address some very contemporary social issues.

Bo Burnham’s transcendent comedy special isn’t the only great piece of COVID-adjacent art titled Inside released this year. The indie-rock quintet’s latest opens and closes with the sounds of the 7pm clanging pots and pans that once heralded the essential workers, and many of the tracks find them grappling with introspective thoughts while trapped in a room – being stuck inside one’s own head being an even worse fate than the physical boundaries.