Hejai

Hejai (me) has been releasing music since 2017 but I have been making music since 2015 (give or take a year.) During that time I mainly created Hip Hop instrumentals. First it was through Garageband on my iPhone and then FL Studio on Desktop. I got into music production during the Lo-Fi Hip Hop boom of the mid to late 2010s partially inspired by Nujabes, J Dilla, and other contemporaries like Jinsang and Potsu.

I primarily make what some people would call Lo-Fi Hip Hop and/or Boom Bap. Among my other inspirations in the Boom Bap space are Stoupe, 9th Wonder, Pete Rock, Madlib, and Knxwledge to name a few.

I've also went into the Trap realm from time to time but I'm more inspired by individual artists. I'm the most comfortable producing stuff that old Memphis Rappers could go over like Three 6 Mafia or Tommy Wright III. Other than that, I guess I like BNYX, Pi'erre Bourne, F1lthy, and whoever produces for Babytron.

I'm primarily a beat maker but I've been behind the boards as a full-on producer and Engineer.

Other than music, I've made YouTube videos under Hejai. Nowadays I make "video essays" on subjects that interest me. Usually they're about music. I have gone under the name L-Dub HD when the channel was dedicated to gaming. Originally that went on from 2015 to about 2018 which is when I became bored with making gaming videos.

Active: 2015 - Present

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In Love With The Machine

In Love With The Machine (ILWTM) is a musical side project created by Hejai (me) in 2021. The project was initially created because I grew tired of making Boom Bap around 2021. Here I create a bunch of music which would fall under Electronic. This includes Drum & Bass, House, Ambient, Trip Hop, Breakcore, and whatever other labels you can throw on me after you listen to a project. The project would also fall under Vocaloid as I've used SynthV Kasane Teto in a handful of songs.

The albums in the In Love With The Machine series are all concept albums centered around a man (refered to as User) who gets engrossed in a virtual world called the Plastic Reality. In the Plastic Reality he meets the Machine, a Female AI created to fulfill all his desires. However this paradise was never meant to last. The User must confront his own faults and escape the Plastic Reality. There's a lot more lore to this so you can read about it through a link in this section.

The story of the project is influenced by a lot of irl things that I've experienced and is kinda my primary emotional output in terms of music. If anything this is an incarnation of me that's a full-on solo artist.

I was first influenced primarily by Daft Punk as they were my only reference at the time. I got into Drum & Bass through a YouTube recommendation for Chill Breakcore. xxtarlit - Frozen Fleeting Heart captivated me on first listen and flipped a switch and fully sold me into getting into EDM and other Electronic music in general. Here I learned of Sewerslvt, Tokyopill, Goreshit, etc. Maybe this was not the best group of people to base my sound off of and proclaim my appreciation for their art but it is what it is. I enjoy great art, artists be damned. This project has a stupid amount of influences outside of electronic so I won't list all of them. The project in general is a big hodge podge of influences that aren't Hip Hop. If I had to name some people, I'd thank Aphex Twin, Crystal Castles, Weezer, Darktrone, Alcest, Joy Division, Daniel Johnston, and Bjork as big influences.

Active: 2021, 2022 - Present

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Usikan

Usikan is a side project started by Hejai in 2023. This was a project I made to experiment primarily with Dungeon Synth and Ambient music in general. This is my contribution to the Black Metal scene as I hold a lot of admiration for the music. The people not so much. I can't really play any instrument other than the piano somewhat.

I guess I'd say I'm inspired mainly by Video Game music here instead of most Black Metal/Dungeon Synth acts. Think of classic dungeon crawlers like Elder Scrolls 2 Arena, Castlevania, or the more ambient tracks from Doom.
If you really want me to refer to actual artists I guess Burzum, Grausamkeit, Aphex Twin, and C418.

The title of the project is kinda arbitrary as it losely relates to the music. An Usikan is a type of Aswang or Witch in Filipino folklore that curses people through words. Kinda ironic since this project is fully instrumental. The albums are somewhat conceptual though. The story follows someone who was cursed by an Usikan. It details this person's mutation into a monster and their subsequent death.

Active: 2023 - 2024

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