London’s WGMC – William McLaughlin by full name – dropped “Dragon Hentai Tears” on April 14th, his second single. The pitch is straightforward: no instruments, just recorded vocals that have been altered, modified, and mapped to a BPM to build every single layer of the track. McLaughlin is a chef by trade and a self-described passionate creative, and this one is very much a personal statement – the kind of thing someone makes because they genuinely wanted to see if it could be done.
From the title alone, you immediately get the impression that this is going to be an eccentric sonic ride, but there is a very high chance that you did not guess what it was going to sound like correctly. It’s actually tamer, more subdued, and more musical than you’d think, and the transformed vocals that make up every instrument give every layer a very interesting timbre – one that is very rewarding to listen to as a music nerd.
As a second single, it’s a confident left turn, and the all-vocal construction is a genuine constraint that produces genuinely interesting results. Limitations breed creativity, and for this kind of music, where there are no rules, it’s genuinely fresh to listen to because it’s pure self-expression. There are no boxes to tick, there is no label to please, no quota to fill, it’s just childlike curiosity basically, which is always great to experience. Whether WGMC keeps pushing this direction or takes it somewhere else entirely, this is the kind of release that’s hard to forget once you’ve heard it.