Honey B McKenna is a renaissance woman. A DJ, singer, songwriter, lyricist, actress, videographer, mixer and producer – she is the best thing that came out of Herefordshire since the famous Kemble family. She is as brilliant as she is hardworking. With numerous plays on the national radio stations, DJ slots at the biggest festivals and an impressive acting resume – Honey is releasing her newest single “Alien” to universal acclaim. And our review is here, hot as almond croissants straight out of the oven at 5 am.
Single and EP cover
Official bio: Music lover by day, slightly long sighted music lover by night. Love anything dancey. Pop is not a dirty word. Honey (B) McKenna is from South Wales and loves writing about herself in the third person. During the COVID-19 lockdown she started to properly focus on producing and writing music and looks forward to inflicting her questionable-but-strong taste in sonic choices upon the world. Her influences include disco, electronica, bubblegum pop, musical theatre (her day job, along with video production), new wave & video game soundtracks. And yes, that’s her real name.
Time flies when you have a blog to run. It’s been two years since we last reviewed Honey’s music (“Lofi Hip Hop Beats” from March 2023), but she usually gets an honorable mention whenever we write about our favorite, Frankie Wesson, for whom she directs videos. Honey’s latest release, very aptly titled “Alien”, comes as a triple sided single and in short – it’s bloody brilliant. You haven’t heard of triple sided singles yet? Well, it’s a new name for an old thing, but I will explain in a moment.
“Alien” comes out at a time when everybody feels like they don’t belong anywhere. Social media divides us, the political landscape is polarized like never before and common sense and reality are warped to the point of absurdity. There is a genocide going on in Gaza, it is live streamed to our phones but somehow Western Governments are not noticing. We are watching it all thinking: what in the Milky Way is going on? Do I want to be a human anymore? Am I even human if I don’t accept this apathy, senseless cruelty, overwhelming hate towards others? Maybe I’m truly an alien? A member of another, more tolerant race that values peace, diversity and equality? A starseed, an interstellar traveller from the depths of the galaxy, that crashed on Earth and is now condemned to exist among the savage, virus-like species? This is of course a form of escapism, a mental diversion from the lunacy that late stage capitalism unleashes on our world. The brutality and stupidity of what we see around us is so exhausting that we start to disconnect from it all to remain sane.
Honey B McKenna picture by JJ
When you listen to the lyrics, you hear Honey singing that she has felt like an outsider since the day she was born. This sentiment is shared by many who since childhood were not able to find themselves a place to fit it. All alternative subcultures (punk, goths, metallers, rave among thousands of others) are safe havens for those non conforming with rigid societal expectations or narrow moralistic worldview. The appeal of being special, unique or rare can be quite overpowering, but Honey approaches it with simplicity and a sense of humor: she is an actual alien lost in the human world waiting for her mothership to pick her up. And just like that, in the middle of the song, an announcement comes up about flying saucers approaching major Earth cities with the speaker asking everyone to remain calm and vigilant.
“Alien” stands at 3 minutes and 9 seconds. It can be classified as alt pop, electronic pop with lofi elements and electrobeat. There are several tempo changes, vocals are high pitched, rhythmic and well harmonized. I mentioned that I will be explaining the meaning of triple sided singles. Well, it’s basically the main track (side A) plus another track (side B) and a remix, now called side C. I have seen a lot of discussion online and majority of experts now consider three sided singles a digital version of multisided releases. In this particular case the three sides of the single consist of “Alien” radio edit (Side A), “Alien – Sped Up” (Side B) and “Alien – Slowed + Reverb + Bass Boosted” (Side C). All three songs were released together on 19th of June.
Honey didn’t stop at that. Several days later, on 23rd of June, she uploaded several new versions of the original track to Spotify, this time in the form of an EP. In its final version, the EP contains all three sides of the original single plus three new mixes: “Alien Instrumental”, “Alien Instrumental Sped Up” and “Alien Instrumental Slowed + Reverb + Bass Boosted”. Now that’s out of this world collection of remixes that could power up the next Welcome Space Brothers convention.
Honey is truly an alien on the Herefordshire/South Wales scene – a solitary voice transcending rhythms, beats and genres creating music that can move your very soul. She has been casting her sonic spells at the biggest festivals this summer, rocking crowds like a proper goddess. I sometimes wonder, how on Earth, a sleepy historical market town in rural England could produce someone so otherworldly? Something in the Wye river water perhaps? Or is it the strange lights that tend to appear over the neighbouring Monmouth shire? This looks like a case for Mulder and Scully, Catatonia style of course.
With spins from BBC Wales and BBC Introducing, “Alien” is out now independently.
You can follow Honey online:
https://www.facebook.com/honeybmckenna
https://www.instagram.com/honeybmckenna/
https://twitter.com/HoneyBMcKenna
https://honeybmckenna.bandcamp.com/
https://www.mixcloud.com/honeybmckenna/
https://soundcloud.com/honeybmckenna
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ui9IcULifcw
https://www.tiktok.com/@honeybmckenna
https://open.spotify.com/artist/3CQNARylI3AzF3kt6pbciP
https://www.traxsource.com/artist/658444/honey-b-mckenna
Rita Dabrowicz
Indieterria 