heavensouls x stickerbush – darklight
darklight
heavensouls x stickerbush aka sidepeices
EP
Hip-hop
Liam Murphy
January 7, 2026
Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
.jpg)
There aren’t a lot of people who would/could rhyme “FL Studio” with “bootyhole” and get away with it, but in truth, there aren’t many partnerships out there like heavensouls x stickerbush. I mean… what other rap duo has never actually met before?
This is no new-fangled duo, now on their third release together. But if you’ve heard of them before this, it’s most probably from the gradual and deserved hype fomenting around their March 2025 release darkskin n*****s with lightskin problems. This buzz can be found in its most distilled servings over on RYM, and listening to the pair’s jarring internet rap style… that’s no surprise.
But somehow, on the new release, darklight, the instrumentals are even more edgy, the pair even more comedically candid, and there are at least 20 references to DAWs.
By way of context for the brain-rattling experience that is this new 20-track release, heavensouls and stickerbush compose almost entirely online through voicecall. While you’re chatting over Discord and waiting for the next game to load or, worse still, attending Slack meetings … they are pulling esoteric samples into place – or out of it sometimes – and uploading nonchalant takes. There is something about their laissez-faire character and chemistry that does feel “online”, fraught with humour and often delivered in an understated way, as if they are arranging the instrumental in real time while they rap.
Through this, it feels that the pair truly harness that “anything is possible” creative energy inferred by the slick nature of some communication platforms. The internet often feels like a place of limitless potential, so much so that we acquiesce to scroll and not much else. Here, the invocation of any sound or genre does feel realised.
Take the opening track, understand me, as excitable voices and synths are mulched through some DAW meatgrinder and then fragment into jazz-coded piano excursions. Things start in a seemingly austere manner: “I do this shit for my family,” heavensouls spits forcefully, following it up with “Fuck the north-south land me”, his smile almost audible. It’s indicative of a carefree verve that runs through darklight. Like clicking around a web browser, nothing serious is monolithic, but lightheartedness is shot through with deftly intricate and often hard-to-follow instrumentals.
The evident lyrical flair is not platformed dramatically, instead they deliver nonchalant lines through an obscure selection of genres, from chopped and screwed beats to more leftfield experimental moments. The second half of two way glass cleaning slasher sounds like it’s laced with some repeating moment from a World Star video, as shouts clatter out and the sample is spammed. It’s the musical equivalent of navigating a buggy, pop-up-ridden computer, but instead of malware and hot girls in your area, it’s kaleidoscopic motifs or hilarious skits about FL Studio.
That brings us on to the repeated namedrops of music software. Platforms like Ableton and FL have enabled so many to make music – for better or for worse. Though masterpieces are made on these programs, there is something kind of unserious about the point-and-click nature of music-making today. People often stand firm on their favoured platform and shit-talk the rest, which often feels a bit overblown. So when heavensouls pulls up the Hudson Mohawke-esque beat on drop a couple to say “Fuck those FL Studio n****s bitch we using Cubase,” there’s something really funny about it.
Similarly in the conversation, the two fall into about the potential of sampling your own tracks on able tu like.
“I just don’t understand what the point is … because you made it.”
“But at the same time, wouldn’t it be interesting to sound design and fuck with and manipulate something previous that you did.”
The hold music soundtracking this back and forth begins to melt; the interlude has devolved into voice chat inertia.
There are flashes of a more serious tone that emerge. The track listen is a sun-dizzy lament, using a repetitive vaporwave sampling format of a beautiful fuzzy hook. This leads into the understated donnie darko – ambient decon-club pads warm things up for the pair to trade whispered lyrics.
The last few tracks of the album feel more austere too, less skits peppered through clashing instrumentals – more interview samples over bells borrowed from The Album Leaf. The silly sandbox has been replaced with a more relaxed, atmospheric experience. Closer, its about that time, glows over its 10-minute duration, the pair dropping in R&B vocal trills over ornate pad chords. It’s as if they’ve arranged the scraps and off-cuts that didn’t make it into the previous tracks, but done so with care and an intention to see the listener off with one more unpredictable twist.
As if by fate, heavensouls and stickerbush have grasped hold of the audience that is just catching up with last March’s release and presented them with a 20-hit combo. The two have a chemistry over voice chat that far surpasses that of many real-life friends. If it’s not hilarious lyrics, it’s genuinely impressive instrumentals – and often, it’s both.
.webp)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpeg)
.webp)
.png)