Mopher - East Side Bay (Single)
EAST SIDE BAY: AN ANIMATED SONIC ODYSSEY OF ART AND INDUSTRY FROM MOPHER.
Somewhere between a jazz club at closing time and the fever dream of an overworked artist, there’s East Side Bay. A song, yes, but also a map of the industrial creative rat race—its ghosts, its illusions, its unforgiving truths. It is the latest offering from an artist who straddles two worlds bridging music and illustration in a way that feels entirely new and deeply necessary; melding them into a singular vision that is as much about sound as it is about spectacle.
Set to release on April 2nd, 2025, East Side Bay is a hypnotic blend of woozy guitars, jazz harmonies, and soulful vocals, co-written, co-recorded, and co-produced with Sol Paradise. But to call it just a song is to undersell the endeavour. This is a world meticulously built by hand—literally. The accompanying hand-drawn animation, composed of over 4,500 individually illustrated frames, breathes life into a surrealist realm where daydreams stretch and distort, where reality bends to the will of a pen.
It’s a bold, deeply personal project, but one that isn’t born from a vacuum. Mopher has long moved in the shadowy intersections of music and visual storytelling, lending his artistic touch to the works of Maxi Jazz, Vintage Culture, Nectar Woode, Sophie Faith, and Kuleeangee. His previous single, It’s Eaten Everything, found its way onto BBC Radio 1 via Jess Iszatt and onto Selector Radio with Mo Ayoub. It was a glimpse into his world—a prelude. East Side Bay is the plunge.
What does it mean to create, to push through the walls of an industry built to exhaust you? The song doesn't provide an answer so much as a feeling—a slow-burning catharsis, a quiet rebellion against the machinery of it all. It is as much about the cracks in the system as it is about the artist trying to slip through them, refusing to be just another cog. The animation, a labor-intensive act of devotion, reinforces the message: there is something sacred in the struggle.
So what happens when you take a song and a vision, hammer them together with the weight of time and obsession, and send them out into the world? Mopher is about to show you. East Side Bay stands as a certified statement of intent—crafted with patience, designed to endure.