The unequivocally remarkable EP, Holograma, from alt-pop rock artist and songwriter Chaz Cardigan spells out his innermost provocative thoughts, while simultaneously coaxing the human spirit to remain hopeful with buoyant tempos and meditative excursions.
The eight-track EP, released on Oct. 22, is led with the single “Room,” a musical elixir recapturing the moments of a past teenage romance shared in a room. The single is an introduction to the level of artistry and transparency Cardigan brings to the project. During one part of the song, Cardigan evokes the emotions of a love lost when he takes a beat to reflect.
“Don’t know where you are, heard from friends of friends that you moved on,” Cardigan sings. He pauses, as if his heart stopped beating, just before singing, “You found someone, but I’m in your room.”
It’s the type of raw energy and sense of release needed at a time when the world is tense from the escalating trigger points that are leading up to the climatic presidential election due in November.
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In Holograma, Cardigan captures the shifting dynamics of his relationships after realizing how clingy he could be to the euphoric emotions that derive from the initial stages of developing a new relationship or love.
To Cardigan, Holograma represents “ideas shifting” and “perspectives changing” as each song on the album symbolically represents a color of the rainbow. It’s science meets fiction, where listeners get exclusive access to the true life events of Cardigan, who is operating in his highest vibration; truth.
In the array of songs that include “Losing Touch,” “Kamikaze,” “Jesus Christ I’m Lonely,” “Change Your Mind,” and “Let It Rest,” the Nashville artist manages to channel a relatability consistent with the coming of age story of growing from youth to adult.
In one of the songs, “Everything’s Wrong,” he expresses, “Guess it isn’t all Rosé and roses, everyday can’t be avocado toast.” Cardigan explores the dichotomy of life, reveling in the fact that even when everything is going incredibly wrong, he’s still ok. It’s an experience he knows all to well.
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At the age of 25, Cardigan has never been to college, yet his conversation is that of one who has achieved the apex of academia. Though he would not obtain a formal education through the conventional institutions many know so well, by no means does that suggest that he was not exposed to another realm of education so often labeled as the “school of hard knocks.”
Not only did he have to figure out his lane in the creative world of music, but he also had to support himself in the meantime. Cardigan would get by making music for local pop artists and rappers. He even had a stint as a bass player in a band. As a teen, much of his time was spent traveling to and fro to pursue his career in Nashville.
“I would go to writers’ rounds or I’d study songwriting, all the things that have really shaped me now,” Cardigan said. “But, moving, I mean, that’s just the real pressure test. I worked every dead-end job you could think of, ended up sleeping in my car for a bit, and at the time, there just wasn’t a scene here for what I was doing and it’s pretty much exactly what I’m doing now, but alternative music was very different at the time and there wasn’t a pop infrastructure in the town. There really only was country world and christian music world, and I very much existed outside of those paradigms.”
Inspired by creators Stevie Wonder, Beck, Prince and Michael Jackson, Cardigan knew that he would have to master his craft using a well-rounded approach to music, including producing, writing, and playing instruments, especially living in a town that didn’t have the support he needed, at the time.
Now, that the “Middle of the Road” singer is seeing musical success, the skills he picked up along his journey has served him well in presenting authenticity in his music.
“I don’t have the patience for artifice, at this point,” Cardigan said. “What I come back to all the time is that I have to die at some point and I would way rather, whether I die tomorrow or when I’m 80, know that I didn’t try to do anything that I wasn’t doing authentically.”
Holograma is available now across streaming platforms, including Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, Pandora and Deezer.
