Highlighting Curious and Liminal Projects of the 2020’s So Far

Carter Guthrie 

Music Journalist 

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the term “Liminal” is a term used to describe the in-between. This feeling has been personified in music for many decades. In this article, I’ll be showcasing a few artists and projects from the 2020’s that take this feeling of unknowingness and run with it. 

Mk.gee, Two Star and the Dream Police 

Michael Gordon or Mk.gee’s 2024 album Two Star and the Dream Police was my personal introduction to this feeling of a liminal record. With spacy synths, Rockman-assisted guitar riffs, and booming drums, this album feels like it could’ve come from the future or been released alongside The Police’s 1980 album Zenyatta Mondatta. In an interview with BBC Radio in early 2024, Mk.gee describes the feeling of a “brooding, apocalyptic feeling or something very atonal.” Gordon wanted to create something “so recognizable, but at the same time, there is no possible way that there is anything like this out today.” Using an array of 70s guitar pedals and Phil Collins-like drums on this record gives a warm feeling of familiarity. Gordon subverts the listener’s expectations on tracks like “New Low,” “DNM,” and “I Want” by using these tools and bending them to his will. This is a recurring theme on the album. Arranging tools that are familiar and available, then elevating them to a completely different level. 

Other recurring themes of the record are getting lost in your own feelings and isolation from others. With Two Star, Mk.gee created a space that was extremely atmospheric and also incredibly personal and has already cemented itself within the most influential albums of the decade. 

Black Country, New Road, Ants From Up There 

Black Country, New Road (BCNR) is an English rock band coming from Cambridge, but they are so much more. BCNR used horns, strings, choir, and devastating spoken word from ex-lead singer Isaac Wood. Their album “Ants From Up There” creates feelings from entrenched despair in tracks like “Concorde” and “The Place Where He Inserted the Blade,” and a cheerful yearning in tracks like “Chaos Space Marine.” BCNR’s “Ants From Up There” sounds somewhere between an old-timey show tune and classic jazz rock anthems from Stevie Wonder. This album’s unique sound pushes and pulls at your ears, creating tension with the strings and horns used as the primary instruments. BCNR guides you through a heartbreaking journey through the feeling of being viewed from above in a relationship, a truly liminal space.  

Yves Tumor, Heaven to a Tortured Mind 

Heaven to a Tormented Mind is the fourth Studio Album by the infamous Yves Tumor. This album is experimental in nature and a collage of everything they have worked on thus far. Yves creates a feeling of swagger and beauty on this 2020 release. A concoction of psych rock, noise rock, and industrial hip hop is featured here, but sounds like a creation of something completely new and jarring. Yves uses a diverse array of samples, from compositions by Jimmy Page to sound effects from Metal Gear Solid on the PlayStation 2, to create an atmospheric and abrasive record. “Heaven to a Tortured Mind” forces the listener to sit in a chair of discomfort, not allowing them to wiggle out. Every track on this album is entrancing, with the sporadic kick drums and droning, repetitive lyrics, sending you into a liminal space of grooviness and sometimes horror. 

Chanel Beads, Your Day Will Come 

Chanel Beads is the stage name for New York City-based artist Shane Lavers. “Your Day Will Come”, Beads’ debut album, dropped in April of 2024 after a small dose of singles. Chanel Beads has a small internet presence with few details shared publicly about the project. Beads, however, signed with indie record label Jagjaguwar, which has sponsored some great indie projects like Bon Iver’s 2008 masterpiece “For Emma, Forever Ago.” “Your Day Will Come” features sweeping strings painted all over it, giving the record a sense of importance and, most of all, maturity. This record does not feel like a debut in the best way possible. Angelic backing vocals on “Unifying Thought” and “Urn” give a flair to the record that fits perfectly with the overall themes of grief and time moving too quickly. A blend of hard-hitting drums and light acoustic guitar drapes over “Your Day Will Come” and “Police Scanner.” You would think that a blend of so many different materials and textures would give way to a claustrophobic or overwhelming sound, but I feel that Chanel Beads does a great job riding the line between experimentation and listenability. The track “Coffee Culture” features the London Philharmonic Orchestra and is six minutes of instrumentation, allowing the listener to either reflect on the journey that is the first leg of the album, or giving the listener space to exist. Chanel Beads landed on something truly special with this album, transcending genres and traditional music tropes by facilitating true honesty in this project. 

James K, Friend 

James K is a New York City-area-based producer and musician who has been making waves in the experimental electronic scene since the early 2010s and making music since she was 5. “Friend” is James K’s third full-length album that builds upon “Random Girl” (2022) and “PET” (2016). Her signature angelic vocals and slick basslines join the listener on this ride, but some new tools in James K’s arsenal build a whole different world. Watery synths, choppy digital smashes, wooden clicking, and surfer guitar come together to make a lush smoothie of sound. James K investigates similar themes as Mk.gee on “Two Star and the Dream Police” here. Themes of being lost after a failed love on “Blinkmoth,” or being in a state of limbo on “Idea.2.” It is safe to say that after numerous collaborations with Yves Tumor and the release of “Friend,” James K has cemented herself as an artist who truly understands the idea of the in-between.  

These artists feel less like arrivals and more like beginnings. Liminality as a concept is difficult to put into words, but each of these artists portrays the feeling strikingly well, and they are far from finished.