On Halloween weekend 2022, a small group of us gathered in a lounge above The Royale Food & Spirits to hear Stan Chisololm deconstruct his single “Smitten.” Later that night, Stan would play an all vinyl DJ set. To help set the scene, you might picture Stan sitting on a black leather couch wearing the Bjork swon dress from her Academy Awards appearance in 2001 back in her Vespertine days.

[“Hi I’m Stan aka 18andCounting…”]

[Theme]

Stan Chisholm, aka “18andCounting” is an experimental DJ and emcee. He’s also a graphic artist and muralist with a Bachelor’s in Fine Arts from The Art Institute Of Chicago.

[I’m a grimey art kid]

He’s co-founder of open concept arts venue Blank Space on Cherokee St. and a Board Member of the New Music Circle arts collective. He’s won numerous academic scholarships and music awards holds DJ residencies at places like The City Museum, The Royale and Spark and occasionally performs and records under the name “The Only Ensemble”, notably at Loufest 2017. Mid pandemic, he landed a track on fellow artist Nathan Cook’s afrofuturist compilation entitled AfroFuturism St. Louis. Last summer, his album Some Sort Of Future cemented 18andCounting as lyricist and emcee in the most complete way to date.

For this episode, Stan provided 61 individual instrument and vocal tracks (and 26 AUX buses) AND a track laying around from 2015 that would eventually become verse one.

Songs Out Loud breaks it down, instrument by instrument, lyric by lyric, and beat by beat.

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