SRSQ (pronounced “seer-skew”), the solo project of Kennedy Ashlyn, came in the wake of a tragic event: “the worst thing to happen in my life thus far,” she told Noisey. Ashlyn lost Cash Askew, her partner in the dream-pop duo Them Are Us Too, in the Ghost Ship warehouse fire in Oakland, CA, in 2016. As SRSQ, Ashlyn channels her grief into gray, gossamer goth-pop that ebbs and flows with the celestial allure of the Cocteau Twins. She calls it “griefwave” or “grating pop for the unfit,” and her 2018 debut album, Unreality, embodies just that. As much as making her own music has been a necessary therapy, listening to others’ is just as healing, and she’s shared a moody yet mesmerizing list just for us.Says Ashlyn: This is a “soundtrack for people who wear sunglasses or live underwater. Overstimulation overtime forces mitigation. Embrace a blasé-faire attitude; stay unhinged.”
