PREMIERE | Muggs Fogarty, "11th Hour"
Into the night with Muggs Fogarty; photographed by Rebecca Zilenziger.
Amid the throes of 2020, Nova One released one of the best records of the year with lovable and recently we learned that the Providence, RI queer icon Roz Raskin has launched a DIY cassette tape label aptly titled Self Luv Records. The imprint carries forward the eclectic styles, moods, momentum, inclusivity, queer positivity and all around celebrations of acceptance, self care, humanism and more that are intrinsic to Roz’s ethos both as a prolific artist, individual and impresario. Already a local Providence legend and known in enlightened circles from coast to coast — the Self Luv movement looks to bring an uplifting message of universal love for oneself, others, global communities and more on a worldwide level of ubiquity and notoriety.
The inaugural first artist on the Self Luv roster is fellow Providence local Muggs Fogarty with the Eventual Party EP, a succinct and woozy song cycle of dreamy soirees and fantasias of all tomorrow’s postponed events of ecstatic togetherness. Produced by Shayboy, aka Dan Shay, exotic and empathetic electronic atmospheres and environments are crafted with care to suit tunes that run the gamut from luxurious, lavish, hopeful, anxious, erotic, emotional, affectionate to strangely aloof. The title track sets the tone with dreamlike textures that gently nod and sashay like autumnal willow branches and leaves in the evening’s sullen lunar glow. The symbiotic synergy between both Fogarty and Shay makes for some mind lifting headspaces that lend themselves to the celestial places where specters and seraphim alike congregate.
Presenting the debut for “11th Hour” which arrives in time for Halloween, offering plenty of midnight ambience and all the ingredients to haunt the listener by way of being an ultra-hypnotic earworm. Muggs Fogarty trades in the tired traditions of trick or treating for a smoky, sinewy interlude that descends into blankets of fog for a surrender to absolute sensuality under the moon’s pale light. The delicately applied electronic treatments add to the track’s intoxicating mix that feels like exploring and getting lost in an elaborate and eerie condo estate designed by the mind’s imaginative eye. “11th Hour” immerses the listener into a realm that feels mortal, immortal, carnal, sultry, surreal and much more all at the same time. Muggs has perfected the craft of orchestrating a musically arranged alchemy that guides the listener to the deepest recesses of the mind that hypnotizes and unlocks a heightened sense of consciousness and feeling. The track finds that elusive window that opens up within the final quarter block of time where anything seems possible, anything can happen, where spirits can both material and disappear just as quick with gestures and allusions to privy exchanges, desires and expressions. The track transcends the barriers between life, death and the mysteries that extend beyond the great beyond in a mystic prayer to the souls that have slipped between the inter-dimensional borders to parts unknown.
Introducing Providence, RI’s breakout DIY pop star Muggs Fogarty; photographed by Rebecca Zilenziger.
Muggs provided some candid insights reflecting on “11th Hour” and its inception:
In 2019 my friend Evan died by suicide. When I began making Eventual Party in 2020 quarantine, I returned to this poem written about Evan and siphoned language for song lyrics. “11th Hour”, both poem and song, offered some space for me to express feelings of failure in the wake of this loss—of feeling too little, too late.
“11th Hour”
It’s like a tiny car crashing into the side of my head. Sleeping, forgetting, then waking—when it all comes back to me, what’s happened to you. Smacks me dumb into pieces, glittering in the street of my bed, in the blinding, yellow-happy morning. I wish to feel the earth turn each day and think less about this feeling. I wish for linear time to be a balm against the negative space of you—the white hot scar of your leaving. Helplessness. How little I’ve done and will do, can do now. How it aches the passage of time. Me, getting older. You, paused. The hand of love, once a magnet, now a fist. The futility of my wishes. I wish.
If I could I would
alchemize my blood
back into water or dust
for his to be lush with oxygen.
I'd jump.
I'd keep waiting.
Guess that’s what I’ll do.
It’s the beginning of winter all the time,
stark and bright like an overexposed picture.
All I need do is find warmth, keep it simple.
I’d give up my last match
& stop making promises.
Even though, I should
probably just try to keep some.
Such is my love in the 11th hour
of your light.
Love that sparkles deep underground.
That put lines all around our young eyes.
I’ve still got the kind of love for you
a dogs would sniff at and go
running.
Right now I feel vibrant
and miss my dead friend, shed
a hot, angry tear that he can’t see or hear
I am OK and he is not
here, a stain on my outfit.
Blood gown. I hear
it in the street,
birth with no cake,
death with too many flowers.
The future, any hour, already gone.
*
“11th Hour” (lyrics)
A hand becomes a magnet /
becomes a fist /
So what's the use in wishing? /
still, I’d alchemize my blood /
back into water /
back into dust (dust) /
Such is my love in the 11th hour (dust, dust) /
Such is my love (dust, dust) /
(2x)
Stark, bright /
like an overexposed picture /
I’ve done, will do, despite /
C’mon, pretty baby /
keep it simple /
Such is my love (in the 11th hour) /
Such is my love in the 11th hour (dust, dust) /
Muggs Fogarty’s Eventual Party EP will be available October 29 via Self Luv.