Smoking wit Sylvia Plath (mixtape)

Smoking wit Sylvia Plath is the second mixtape from American hip hop artists Plot Holes. It is set to be released October 27, 2017.

Background
Just days after releasing their debut mixtape Basement Fire, Matthew Little and Eli Burkley wanted to continue recording new songs. Little had wanted to try having their beats and instrumentals lo-fi, sticking with the usual grainy aesthetic he had used for his own music as well as most of Basement Fire. Burkley enjoyed the idea.

During the night of February 22, 2017, Little had seen a post on Tumblr titled "smoking a blunt with Sylvia Plath", which had been a fictional humorous exchange between a person and Sylvia Plath while getting high. Little really liked the title, and when he spoke it aloud to Burkley and his then-roommate Paul, both reacted very positively. Little has stated that Sylvia Plath is his favorite poet, and has influenced his own works in various ways, so the mixtape could seem like something of an ode to her. That night he posted on their Facebook like page the hashtag #SmokingABluntWithSylviaPlath, cementing the theme, and former title, of the project as well as hinting to their fans that they've started something new.

However, the title was changed at Burkley's insistence due to job security to Smoking wit Sylvia Plath, which at first Little wasn't happy about, but later grew to enjoy.

Recording
On February 23, 2017, Little posted on their page supposed lyrics to nameless track. A few nights later he wrote that he had been experimenting with a new beat and also had layered it with an audio track of Plath reciting a poem, which fit "perfectly".

Unlike Basement Fire's production, Little and Burkley been recording separately due to Burkley moving from her apartment across from Little to one further in the city. Burkley shared with Little a track she had recorded in her bathroom titled "Bleed"; she believed her apartment had been haunted, and a number of things occurred while recording. About a minute and forty-five seconds into the song the door to a cabinet by her feet swung open, and around the beginning there are strange, atmospheric sounds that she didn't remember hearing while singing. Little didn't edit anything out, and layered her voice to make it sound slightly stretched and vibrated, and later said knowing what the track had on it already gave him a thrilled, yet uneasy feeling.

In May, Little moved into an apartment in the building he grew up in with his boyfriend. This gave Little more artistic freedom and made it so he wouldn't have to work around his roommates' schedules. In his first weeks there he had begun recording his next solo album, ''Cult Music. ''Burkley visited Little's new place, and they both shared and discussed their music. During that first visit Little had Burkley rerecorded a song she had on her phone, and hinted at it in a cryptic Facebook post that had some of their fans react disconcertingly. The rest of the mixtape was recorded and mixed in Little's office in his new apartment.

Style
The music, sonically, is different from their first release; the instrumentals are mainly lo-fi and downbeat, compared to the more banging beats used in Basement Fire. This was made evident when the duo released their first song from the mixtape, "Honeybee". The song introduces listeners to a different flow only touched upon in their first release, which mixes freestyling with R&B; the R&B transition was Burkley's suggestion. This also gave Little more of an edge to try singing either chorus breaks or whole verses himself, while at the same time both keeping their similar aesthetics in sound coherent.

Before they had started on Smoking wit Sylvia Plath Little had brainstormed about conveying a melancholy sound in terms of music and theme. Burkley was game for anything, so the two decided to focus on their inner demons and tap into their current mindsets. They each found beats from various producers on YouTube; they sought mostly for grainy, 90's era instrumentals that had record player or boombox quality. Little sometimes would alter the beats to add wavy textures or whatever they both thought fit the track's mold.

Lyrically, there are both songs that convey hopelessness and erratic, paranoid ideals, while at the same time other tracks share the same feeling but also try to remain hopeful and resilient. Little's lyrics particularly stick to self-deprecation and emptiness, while Burkley's have equal parts sorrow and promise. Little's vocals come in forms of unusual spoken word "raps", as well as half-singing; Burkley raps less than she did in their previous release, but nonetheless delivers an abundance of freestyles in both R&B and hip hop.

Release
Singles from the mixtape were released sporadically during its production. The first single, "Honeybee" was released on Facebook on March 2, 2017. In May, they released "Bleed", the supposed "haunted" track, not as a single but as an example of the tape's mood. The next track released was "Looking 4 Change (I'm A Failure)", which released June 7, to coincide with the "hopelessness and helplessness of the graduation season". Burkley requested to release the guitar track "Lady Lazarus Read and Performed By Plot Holes" barely a day after "Looking 4 Change" as a way to mess with their audience.

On June 20, 2017, Little uploaded to their group's Facebook a teaser trailer for the tape, which briefly mentions Sylvia Plath's influence on Smoking. The clip previews several seconds of the album, which consists of most of its tracks being played at the same time in a barrage of sound. The video gives the date of release as October 27, 2017, to coincide with Plath's 85th birthday "had she not commit suicide".

Music videos
With this release, Little and Burkley have had the opportunity to release music videos for their tracks, as before with their previous release they had some constrictions regarding time and location. In June, Little released an "unofficial" video for the song "There I Go Again" which features just him in his living room lip-syncing from his couch. Their next video, for the track "Miles High", features both Little and Burkley, which was released July 23rd on Little's 26th birthday. Both videos are black and white and were edited by Little. They also plan on producing more videos in the future.