Trace Kotik has released his new album titled ‘Everything Has Been Done By Now, So Now Everything Is Possible…’. What we have here is a travel companion in the form of music. This is one of those albums you press play on and let roll while you drive. There is enough individuality between the tracks yet enough similarity to define the artist his signature sound. My best impression of ‘Everything Has Been Done By Now, So Now Everything Is Possible…’ is that each song sounds as if it got its own love and nurturing during the creation process. No filler with every song wanting you to like it. And we do. Magical.
‘This album was meant to heal wicked heartbreaks & to help put my past behind, it was created while I was in a sort of a manic state, dealing with depression, my band breaking up & an inner breaking point of my own.
For me making this album was a way to lock myself with my thoughts & emotions & to force myself to distinguish between the two, which up to that point, I hadn’t even noticed were separate things.
It is a maximalist piece of art & work, full of ideas & doubts, drive & blockage, through which I expressed all I wanted to say at the time.’
Trace Kotik
About Trace Kotik
Israeli singer/songwriter Jonathan Kotik, better known by his nom de plume, Trace Kotik, first stepped into the local Israeli indie-music scene & gained praise for his powerful indie-rock & alt-folk voice & style with his previous band JON back in 2017. The band released a short debut EP that was shelved as the band came to some artistic disagreements & quickly broke-up. This led Jonathan to reinvent himself as Trace Kotik & to start work on his debut album “Everything has been done by now, so now, everything is possible…” (shortened title).
His work & style brings about comparisons to Bon Iver, Father John Misty & Wilco. Diverting from his previous band sound, his debut album adopts a more off-the-wall indie pop approach that evokes the spirit of Kurt Kobain all the while introducing a unique & vast modern sound, all produced by Kotik himself & recorded live in his home-turned-studio in the countryside, an hour ride from Tel-Aviv city.
Kotik grew up in Mishmeret near the sea & by the forest in the countryside of Israel. His mother, a psychotherapist with a passion for the arts & education. His father, an industrial designer, hobby guitar builder & tech enthusiast, who built together with Trace his custom made guitar.
“Everything has been done by now, so now, everything is possible…” is an honest & original piece of work that hits you hard & deep from the first note to the last bizarre psychedelic-poem-track, on which Kotik is reciting the full name of the album, a curious & somewhat philosophical look into his own mind & view of the world we live in, ending with the very powerful & ever so meaningful phrase for our present time “Think before you react”.
About ‘Everything Has Been Done By Now, So Now Everything Is Possible…’
“Everything has been done by now, so now, everything is possible. With this in mind, and the perception that anyone can know anything with a slide of a finger. This is the longest title I could think of, Trump was president for god’s sake, and I dream of America, maybe it’s because of the fiction of the American dream, or maybe everything is fiction, and nobody knows anything, although we all learn all the time, and time is accelerating itself all the time, and the tipping point of singularity is supposed to happen in 2045, and global warming is real as hell. This is scary, this is exciting, this is terrible, this is amazing, constant conflict, order In disorder, discombobulated notes As an art form, or not really, but maybe, just maybe, this will be enough for now. No, not yet, there are still things that haven’t been said, things that have never been done, saving planets, new species, loving each other for no reason, being a billion as one, minerals we haven’t found, seven elements that we are not aware of.
When the time comes, eat fake meat to stop the slaughter, buy new cyborg wings if you can afford it since flying is supreme, read my mind and I’ll read yours, super powers could be awesome and homo-deus might have some, we will probably be updated in some sort of way through the years and we might need to fight in and then we’ll relapse, or maybe not, no one truly knows what will happen. I find this exhausting, you’ll find this exciting, embark on a journey that no one knew that needs to happen, find reassurance in daily acts. Think before you react.”
Featured image by Yahav Trudler.
LINKS:
https://www.tracekotik.com
https://www.facebook.com/TraceKotik
https://www.instagram.com/tracekotik
https://open.spotify.com/artist/2bq4eXOkwcOlFdKGnHGsq1
https://tracekotik.bandcamp.com
