'Speaking of Music': Playytime

Playytime is an Atlanta hardcore band. “City Lights” heard from Playtime singer Obi, who once described his band’s music as “based off everything that we like.” The hardcore rock sound of Playytime diverges into echoes of the members’ diverse musical influences, including rap and punk alongside shoegaze, noise and post-punk.

Featured track “Windlike” features the band’s friend who goes by Stemlines, who Obi said was his “favorite artist of all time.” Written by Playytime guitarist and singer Travis, Obi admitted the track is featured largely because “it’s one of our only clean ones.” However, Travis’s wafting layers of distorted guitar keep the song gritty enough to drive home the track’s poetic images of looming darkness and disaffected longing.

Another selection, “Sink In,” charges forth with guttural bass notes and frenetic vocal keening, proclaiming “I will do everything that I can / To keep going just to spite you.”