Towards Transcendentalism, Sacramento’s The Philharmonik is as expectedly wide ranging in his musicianship as he his focused with his message. When he released his self-titled debut album in 2018, an image came into focus of an artistically fluid soul with a vibrant ferocity for his stances on socio-political and racial issues. And through each subsequent single release, he has built on exactly that direction, growing even more broad as an artist and driving even more clarity into the thematic lanes of his work.

 

With his new album’s first two leading singles, the world has never been more prepared for the directionality of an artist that has been focused on the realities of marginalized communities since before the beginning. Hand-in-hand with music’s place in modernity as a transcendent spectrum of unspecific grey areas, there has never been a time more fitting of The Philharmonik’s music; never been a musician more fitting of the times we find ourselves in.

 

The anthemic rock and funk founded Which Side You’re On kicks off the A-Side / B-Side two pack with a punch. Layers of guitar, bass, and vocals bleed together to stir up emotions also evoked by 60’s protest music and 90’s Lenny Kravitz. And if you think that range of delineations edges on the cusp of absurd, you clearly haven’t studied The Philharmonik’s music. But if you’re just now tuning in, there couldn’t be a better time.

 

By the time the jazzy, experimental Power comes on – highlighted by one of the most adept synth flexes in recent memory – it becomes obvious that The Philharmonik has only progressed as a musician and a pedestal of necessary leadership. The track folds in the uniquely soulful vocal register we fell in love with in 2018, albeit surrounded this time by a deeper, more layered, more composed array of impossible instrumentalism for one artist. But impossible as it may seem, here we are.

 

And as difficult as the times may be, we’re present in them, fueled to do what’s right by the likes of Philharmonik, pushed forward by the need for Transcendentalism.