ICE Is One of This Year's STL 77

This year ​the RFT recognizes ​St. Louis' ​stellar music scene by presenting the STL 77, ​our list of 77 acts who did big things in the last twelve months. From now through June 17, the date of our huge annual music festival ShowcaseSTL, we'll be announcing two ​honorees per weekday on our music blog. For more information on STL 77, as well as the complete lineup for ShowcaseSTL, go here.

Before she was ICE she was Black James, and before she was Black James she was Jennifer James McDaniel. Whatever the handle, McDaniel continues to plumb the weird, Technicolor depths of her subconscious, with an artistic vision that encompasses dance parties, pixelated artwork and social activism. A pair of 2016 releases, Scream Club and ICY2K, showed that, as ICE, McDaniel is rooting her musical output in glitchy, hyperspeed rhythms and mutated, candy-coated vocals. McDaniel prefers to use the term “underwater” to describe her work — a fitting description for the murky, blurred dance music she creates. No one element of ICE’s output contains all of McDaniel’s reach. It’s best to keep one ear to the ground and one ear underwater to track her next move.

Recommended if you like: Big Freedia, sun-warped cassette tapes, Casiotone beats at maximum BPM

Official: https://blackjames.carbonmade.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/BlackJamesMusic/
Bandcamp: https://blackjames.bandcamp.com