Drinking the latest mixtape from Silver Cup

Silver Cup is a musical duo composed of siblings Hadley and Logan Nelson. The two were born and raised in Salt Lake City, Utah, and began their music career in 2019. The name Silver Cup is derived from the feed mill established by their Great-Great Grandfather, which has been passed down through generations, making it a family legacy.

The album "Songs From a Broken Laptop" is a collection of nine songs that represent the culmination of Silver Cup's growth and development in the alternative music scene. The album explores themes of time, constancy versus change, growth, and reflection, and is inspired by a combination of the band's favorite influences from both their childhood and present-day experiences. Despite the influence of these various sources, the album remains true to Silver Cup's unique identity.

“Songs from a Broken Laptop” was a project that started with a feeling of

defeat and imposterism.” -Logan

The band feels that the mixtape does not fully sound like anything else out there, and we do agree. The patchwork collection of nine songs are a raw and honest representation of the band's truest thoughts and feelings, both lyrically and sonically. "Songs From a Broken Laptop" feels like a hopeful offering through and through, you can almost feel the band all puppy-eyed and anxious as they hand you this piece of work as if it contained all of their hopes and dreams.

The title of the mixtape takes on the literal meaning. The laptop that was used to create

the mixtape was run over while on tour. Although for many artists the incident would

force a do-over, Silver Cup used the accident as a way of recreating a new sound and

produce some of their most authentic work yet.

But why not an album? Isn’t 9 songs a bit beefy for an EP? What makes this a “mixtape”? Call it a happy coincidence or making lemonade out of lemons, the laptop story sort of forced the band to believe in themselves and their work. Releasing these songs rather than letting them be lost to time and their own impostor syndrome felt unfair, and that the only thread joining them together was the inconvenience of their precipitation is enough of a narrative tie. 

“This mixtape was written without overthinking, and writing straight from this

perspective of exhaustion. This feeling was clear even down to the physical

equipment. With a smashed display, and damaged CPU, we still aren’t sure if

some of the sounds on this project were cultivated on purpose”-Logan

The record feels put together in an arbitrary fashion exactly because that’s what led up to it, but far from feeling disjointed, the lack of an overarching theme conveys the message of its name in a far more organic fashion than any carefully thought-out plan could. These are all little bits and pieces that belong to different albums and EPs, but they somehow slipped through the cracks and landed in our present time - an unexpected gift to be sure, but a welcome one.

I think you can throw this mixtape on shuffle and let the randomness dictate how you take it in, ever mindful that you’re in for something that is stylistically cohesive but sinuous and challenging. Though there’s a definitive Indie-pop song structure to a lot of the tracks, nothing in the mixtape is cleanly one thing or another. With Songs like ‘Blue Bells’, ‘Kill For You’ and ‘Away’, Silver Cup delivers hard-hitting rhythms grounded in techno and D&B sensibilities, while the ‘Mid Tape Meditation’ also reveals a genuine interest in mood-setting and ambience. As far as songs like ‘2038’ and ‘Olly Olly Oxenfree’ we do get to hear more emotive and stripped-down ballads meant to slowly tease beautiful feelings out of you.

Overall, there’s a lot of Silver Cup’s sound that sent me reminiscing about the sort of music you used to find in games like Gran Turismo and certain arcade racing games in the late 90s, those expansive and lush soundtracks that spoke of a mix of bold adventure, introspection and an optimistic gaze towards an awesome future, it all feels like an organic and (perhaps) unintentional distillation of the Y2K aesthetic zeitgeist. I know this particular description may not mean a lot to most people, but for a particular set of readers, I think this is like the ultimate endorsement I can give; and on that note, let me be perfectly clear:  "Songs From a Broken Laptop"  is absolutely golden. Check it out.

Story By: Samuel Aponte