There's something about the way music can bring you home, even if home never was yours. That's precisely what happens with Cypress Key's arrival and the release of "Monday Afternoon," the debut offering from New Orleans' own Mazz's new project.
Cypress Key is not just another creative endeavor for Mazz. After a decade of establishing himself in New York City's music underground, he returned home to the Crescent City with a mission to document his heritage and the moments that shaped him during his upbringing in the deep South. With "Monday Afternoon," he delivers on that vision by spinning a tale that is both intimate and universal. Cypress Key draws on many parts of Mazz's diverse background, albeit given shape with a reflective quality. Soundwise, his past is a varied one, from rapping in hip-hop troubadours Panda City, to playing guitar in punk/grunge noise merchants The Pests, to laying down grooves for Afrobeat imprint AlfeAde Records. Each chapter leaves a fingerprint here, too. It pulls neither too much stylistically one way nor the other, being neither a hip-hop cut nor a punk anthem nor really a world-derived, so much as a combination that feels lived-in. You can feel decades of experimentation congealing into a sound that's warm, earthy, and deeply tied to storytelling.
What makes "Monday Afternoon" so winning is its relatability. Even if you did not grow up in New Orleans, you might know the pace of those weekday rituals, the haze of the after-school house, the kitchen smells, the steady rhythm of the family routine pretty well. Cypress Key finds a way to make this intensely local tradition sound universal, confirming that when music is sincere, it reaches the listener's heart.
The track is grounded in a simple, close-to-home slice of life, a Monday after school, when the house is thick with that unmistakable scent of beans and rice. For folks from New Orleans, this Monday tradition is a deeply ingrained reflex, a quiet liturgy of community and solace. And, for listeners outside the area, Mazz's storytelling is as much an invitation as a reminder that for all the big drama of life, the small, quiet elements of everyday experience may be just as significant.