pocket friendly vol.i by sudan
The Blog #11: a warm hug
The Blog features short writeups on short EPs. My thoughts and track-by-track notes are listed below. Listen to the EP. Discuss. Enjoy.
Place @original listen: kitchen, 6:30 am, 9/12/2025
Thoughts:
I wake up a little groggy and immediately pick up my phone. It’s 6:30 am. The kitchen is a little cold and the light is a dim yellow. pocket friendly vol.i comes on as I’m frying onions for a one-pot Sambhar rice. The strength of the EP is warmth, and the kitchen is now the setting for an aesthetic Get-Ready-With-Me video with the influencer melancholically frying vegetables. This is then added into the cooker with washed rice. The expectation is to hear three sounds, but if that does not happen, you manually release pressure and pray that the rice is not burnt. Track 3, lighthouse, comes on, and this is a good thing because it makes the burnt rice at the bottom a happy accident over a catchy tune. The mind wanders and stares out of a car window in a slice-of-life movie. The EP is only 10 minutes long, after which Spotify shuffle plays can you, and now it’s too sentimental for a Tuesday morning. Twelve hours later, I’m sinking into the bed and this time, pocket friendly emerges from my phone speakers. The synths envelope a long day inside a comforter. There is comfort in just being. The final track, a hiatus, is an escape from a long day, and for a 9-5 corporate employee, that can only represent the weekend. We escape from our notions using what we have, so that we can go out and get some more when recharge. The EP comes and goes in a flash, but even a fleeting memory imprints on us long after it has faded.
Notes:
:) : song builds gradually. Guitar strums probe as the horns sound in the distance after which the keys set in. The title justifies the song because as it progresses, you can feel a wave of happiness wash over as Gautam David’s sax forces the dopamine on you. Feels like the artists were also smiling as the song progressed, with the keys ending at a crescendo.
ghost: the guitar starts things again. The singing is warm. The atmosphere of this song is orange mood lighting. Frizzell is a warm Lizzy McAlpine. I love the skitzy drums, it really sticks to you and you can almost scratch at it. This song just makes you feel. I guess that’s the only way to describe it. Love this. Found me a ghost, won’t stop following me.
lighthouse: wet kick drum to start. Love the bounce. Love the synth as Anoushka’s vocals bounce along. The textures she brings makes the song both whimsical and melancholic. sudan’s hook makes this an instant earworm. Super smooth. Love the melody.
a hiatus: a hiatus from all these notions. This has a similar feel to ghost but is more upbeat from the get go keeping with the theme of escaping. As a closer, this track works because it repurposes all the elements used on the other tracks of this EP to craft a daydreamy track to kick off a lazy day.