Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Nighttime “When the Wind is Blowing”

“When the Wind is Blowing” is a pastoral folk song first and foremost but the most interesting parts of the arrangement are when the musicians of Nighttime emulate the sound and feeling of wind. They’re not going for a stormy sort of wind but more like a stiff breeze passing through the night, something that lightly rustles up the trees and messes up your hair. Eva Louise Goodman’s voice sounds a bit dour but also fairly serene as she sings about the night landscape with low-key awe and humility. She looks around and sees life mid-cycle, noting her place in it, and opening herself up to where the winds of life may send her.

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The New Pornographers “Really Really Light”

“Really Really Light” is something of a novelty in The New Pornographers catalog as one of very few songs co-written by Carl Newman and Dan Bejar, and is all the more intriguing in that Newman built the song around a Bejar chorus. I didn’t know this before I heard it and once I had that bit of information this was tremendously obvious – that bend of the melody around “my heart’s just like a feather” is extremely him, to the point that I feel like I’ve already heard him sing this somewhere before. They’re both playing against type and meeting in the middle here – Bejar supplying the pretty harmonized chorus, Newman building verses around an oddly shaped riff that seems to cut diagonally through the rhythm so everything feels slightly lopsided and disorienting. The verse lyrics by Newman are typically opaque and mostly signal an uneasy ambivalence, but that chorus is like deliberately opting into a “head empty, just vibes” mindset as Newman and Neko Case aim for something effortlessly lovely and, yes… really really light.

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John Cale “Night Crawling”

The most interesting aspect of “Night Crawling” to me is how much of the keyboard tones and beat patterns sound like the very early 90s, or maybe drifting out slightly further into mid-90s trip-hop production. I’m not sure whether John Cale was specifically reaching for that feel but it sounds great, particularly in contrast with his weathered voice. His lyrics express a frustration with someone he’s known for a long time and the perspective of his advanced age doesn’t seem to help him get through the confusion and grievance. There’s a lot of disappointment in his voice and in the general feeling of the track, as though the weight and tangle of history has only made things more difficult. Where’s the wisdom, where’s the clarity? In this song every conflict just ends up a stalemate, and everything becomes a game that became tedious many years ago.

Buy it from Domino.

Ice Spice “Bikini Bottom”

Ice Spice is striking in the context of the recent vanguard of female rappers led by millennials Megan Thee Stallion and Cardi B, who present as larger than life sexual superheroes with aggressive, dominating vocal styles. Ice Spice goes hard in the opposite direction, presenting herself as an extremely cool and attractive ordinary person with a very relaxed vocal presence, like some girl you might actually know or see in passing at the kind of unglamorous parks and bodegas that serve as the backdrop of her music videos. There’s no problem with what Cardi and Megan et al are doing but this feels like interesting counter programming that could also be a sign of a sea change in what the youngest end of the rap audience is looking for, like the shift from hair metal to grunge in the early 90s.

The fact that Ice Spice raps over drill tracks also helps differentiate her, as the production is one more aspect of this that feels removed from a more millennial aesthetic. But it’s her voice that really stands out – her tone is so unbothered and casual that the confidence expressed in her lyrics feel lived-in, not cartoonish. It’s all so matter of fact, it’s all so cool. And coming across as the coolest and hottest person you might now seems more powerful to me than an expensive over the top abstraction of self.

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NewJeans “Hype Boy”

There are countless songs about having a powerful crush or falling in love, and distributed among the endless variation on this theme across genres and eras you can find all the variations on this basic human experience. It’s a beautiful thing, and part of why I could never be bored with new variations. There’s always new contexts and complications, new ways of mediating experiences, new tools to communicate emotions, new angles on describing how it feels. I like the angles in “Hype Boy,” and the way the song plays around with what “hype” means through the verses and hooks. It’s hype as in hyperactive emotions, it’s hype as in hyperbolic notions about the situation, it’s hype as in this guy’s style, it’s hype as in cheering him on. The music is surprisingly low key for K-Pop and the subject matter. It’s bright and energetic, sure, but the groove is fairly mellow. There’s a cool and collected center to this that conveys a kind of certainty that you don’t always get in songs like this, which typically have some root of desperation in the face of high stakes.

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Eliza Rose feat. M4A4 “Delectable”

“Delectable” is such a food word, one I’d associate with a restaurant critic or copy associated with food marketing, and I’m not sure if I’ve ever heard it used in a pop song. It’s an inspired choice in this song – it suggests that Eliza Rose’s desire for the person addressed is not some ordinary lust, but rather the refined taste of a connoisseur. The word also rolls off her tongue so naturally, like these four syllables have always been right there waiting for the right jazzy inflection bouncing off the right UK garage beat. Rose’s phrasing in this song is lovely and delicate and heavily indebted to the likes of Ella Fitzgerald, but her voice has just a touch of house diva punch to it, if just to stand up to the intensity of the groove.

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Little Simz “Gorilla”

I didn’t realize that this new Little Simz record was entirely co-written and produced by Inflo of Sault at first, but I did notice the loose and organic sound of the music, which often comes close to the sound The Roots get when approximating studio-centric rap aesthetics as a live band. This is a perfect sound for Simz – the tight pocket sound matches the discipline of her writing and the “live” feel highlights the raw presence of her performances. “Gorilla” has classic rap aesthetics but is skewed by Simz and Inflo’s particular finesse. It sounds a million miles away from most anything else going on in mainstream rap but doesn’t strike me as either contrarian or conservative, just two artists clicking together and feeling totally comfortable in who they are and what they do. It’s defiant yet laid back, and reminds me a bit of how in her prime Lauryn Hill could sound like she was chastising the listener while also conveying that she was entirely above the fray.

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ITZY “Boys Like You”

“Boys Like You” is an unrelenting juggernaut of sugar-rush pop, a breed of pop single that was ubiquitous in the 2000s but seems almost alien now unless you’re plugged into the K-pop scene that birthed ITZY. At this point in time K-Pop is massively successful in the United States but seems to mostly exist in parallel with mainstream pop, this thing that you can either opt into as an alternative or actively ignore. Given that “Boys Like You” is sung entirely in English it seems deliberately aimed at cracking the American market on its own terms, but the aesthetics of the song do not budge even a little bit to fit in better on the US charts. It’s bright and bold and unafraid to be obnoxious and cutesy, and like a lot of the best K-Pop it reconfigures the sound of 2000s pop culture in a way that makes it feel slightly off, but also super-charged and weaponized. My favorite thing about this one is how it seems to pile on its bratty little hooks like a Jenga tower, and the most thrilling moment is when they sing the title phrase pushing up towards the song’s highest notes and it all seems to wobble slightly for a moment but it never collapses.

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RM featuring Erykah Badu “Yun”

“Yun” is a tribute to the late South Korean abstract painter Yun Hyong Keun, one that draws on the meditative quality of his works but also takes direct inspiration from his ethos – “he always said ‘be human first’.” I like where RM goes with this idea, letting the notion of being a human ground him as an artist despite his massive success as a crucial member of BTS and coming to the creation of pure hip-hop records from a position of humility and genuine passion. RM seems accutely aware of his outsider status in rap but doesn’t produce or perform with any noticeable insecurity or eagerness to please. He has a natural affinity for the more mellow and spiritual side of rap to the degree Erykah Badu seems totally at home on the track, and his blend of English and Korean lyrics flow together with a relaxed grace rather than seeming awkwardly glued together as a matter of commercial concerns. Despite a lot of pressure, he sounds totally…human.

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Brakence “Argyle”

Brakence songs sound like very inventive and glitchy remixes of the most petulant emo boy songs you’ve ever heard – none of the boring off-the-rack musical conventions of that genre but all of the tortured white guy self-pity, if not more somehow. “Argyle” is a breakup song from the perspective of a guy who anyone would be correct to get away from, which seems to be the point, as I think portraying himself as an obnoxious loser is part of the self-flagellation process. There’s no subtext here, just a guy speaking plainly about wanting to die but being “too fucking cowardly to off myself,” and then snidely singing “good luck with your next boyfriend.” It’s interesting to me how his voice and the music conveys a real pain, but he articulates it all in words that invite you to lose empathy for him. But he’s a 21 year old guy, and I can see the worst of myself at that age in this. It’s an extremely 21 year old guy kind of song.

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Nova Twins “Choose Your Fighter”

Nova Twins sound like a collision of turn-of-the-millennium aesthetics – imagine glossy girly pop commandeering nü-metal riffs, spiked with a bit of crunk and screamo. It’s a synthesis of extremely bold styles that comes out sounding more extreme and bold than its genre components, and you can feel how much fun they’re having making this ultra-catchy cacophony in every moment of every song. “Choose Your Fighter” alternates between bouncy and thrashing energies so effectively that it seems impossible for an audience not to instinctively click into its implied choreography of pogoing and moshing. The lyrics sound like they’re from a video game set in a series of increasingly violent mosh pits, tapping into a bit of real anger but blowing it out into a cartoonish fantasy of cathartic aggression.

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JVKE “This Is What Falling In Love Feels Like”

What does falling in love feel like? According to JVKE it’s like a little bit of melodramatic strings, some major key twinkly piano, and a lot of big blasts of distorted keyboard chords that sound like the affirmative version of a WRONG buzzer on a game show. The melodies is “This Is What Falling In Love Feels Like” fall into a pleasant middle ground between musical theater aesthetics and extremely vague hip-hop adjacent cadences of modern pop, and it’s all packed into a tight two minutes like most music that comes up on social media platforms now. I would not have a problem with this song going on another minute or so but the jingle-ish brevity suits it well, particularly as falling in love can often be a rather fleeting moment.

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Rauw Alejandro “Dime Quién???”

I think when people look back on the early part of this decade one of the key sounds that will spark nostalgia will be this driving, ambiguously melancholy quasi-synthpop style that manifested in mega-hits like The Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights,” Harry Styles’ “As It Was,” The Kid Laroi and Justin Bieber’s “Stay,” and Rauw Alejandro’s “Todo de Ti.” The latter is the most interesting of the bunch, mainly because Alejandro grounds this vibe in reggaeton aesthetics and arrived at a mutant sound that was genuinely unique. “Dime Quién???,” from his new follow up record, goes even deeper into this sound, though it’s structurally and tonally closer to actual ‘80s synthpop. You lose maybe 20% of the novelty of “Todo de Ti” but the trade off is a high level of focused craft. This is an absolute nuke of a pop song, it’s the kind of tune that makes you yield to its charms, its emotional gravity, its hooks, its sheer momentum. It’s sung entirely in Spanish but even before checking for an English translation I was picking up on its romantic angst loud and clear. You can just feel this guy’s jealousy and yearning in that chorus, the specifics of it – which involve BeReal, a thing that will really ground this in 2022 for all eternity – are besides the point.

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Dummy “Mono Retriever”

I’ve been wondering for a while why there aren’t more bands just shamelessly imitating Stereolab, particularly as I think artists can do that with relative impunity as Stereolab built their own sound out of shamelessly absorbing and reinterpreting ideas from older records. Dummy clearly is on the right track here – “Mono Retriever” owes a massive debt to the groop circa Mars Audiac Quintet/Refried Ectoplasm, but has enough of their own character and flavor to keep it from feeling like a weak impression. A lot of this comes down to the central voice being masculine and cold, but there’s a different kind of color palette to this. If Stereolab is more like bold primaries, this is a little more muted and blurry, particularly as the song nudges a little closer to shoegaze. Anyway, I’m an easy mark for this. I’ll take more, please.

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PinkPantheress “Do You Miss Me?”

PinkPantheress started her career attempting to make music with a Kaytranada feel to it, and here she is on this song actually collaborating with him. She says she missed the mark on her own, but her instinct was always correct – his elegant grooviness meshes perfectly with her taste for jumpy late 90s beats and complements the cool tone of her singing voice. It makes me think of food – a very hot and spicy dishes cooled by a bit of cream, or something sweet given more dimension by a sharp saltiness. Her lyrics take a similar route, contrasting a genuine lovey-dovey feeling with intense possessiveness and jealousy that comes through midway in the song. The dark turn only makes sense with the stakes set by how deeply she’s into the person she’s addressing, but the sweetness doesn’t quite stand up to the sourness by the end.

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The Cool Greenhouse “Hard Rock Potato”

“Hard Rock Potato” is a lyrical snapshot of an odd pandemic moment – Redditors playing the stock market game as a goof, trading apps making it all feel like a video game. Tom Greenhouse speak-sings it all with an arch deadpan – you’d never mistake him for being serious, but he’s committed to the bit enough for the sarcasm to hit just right. As with the band’s previous song “Alexa,” Greenhouse is in interesting thematic territory by fixating on how new tech trends become most absurd the moment they become widespread enough to become fairly mundane. Greenhouse pokes at the absurdity and has a laugh, all the while his band lock into a very mid-80s The Fall kind of groove.

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Roc Marciano & The Alchemist “Quantum Leap”

The Alchemist’s track for “Quantum Leap” has such a strong nocturnal vibe that it feels wrong to listen to it in daylight. It’s mostly in the keyboard part, this warm and rich tone that evokes the amber hues of city street lights. Roc Marciano is well suited to a track like this and performs with a casual grace, giving off the energy of someone who’s very confident and comfortable in their skin and knows they have the upper hand in a situation. Marciano’s bragging about his stature and success through the song but he sounds thoroughly relaxed and often very deadpan, particularly when he opens a verse with “uhh, I made murder sexy.”

Buy it from Roc Marciano.

Whitmer Thomas “Most Likely”

Whitmer Thomas’ primary lane is comedy but he’s an accomplished songwriter whose songs flirt with comedic premises and punchlines but mostly veer away from novelty territory. This sets him apart from the likes of Bo Burnham, whose music is always a pastiche of some kind in service of a joke, and puts him firmly in an indie rock tradition. If you squint your ears a bit “Most Likely” could pass a Wilco song – a little brighter in tonality than most Jeff Tweedy compositions, but with a similar grain of voice and a Charlie Brown-ish mix of humor and melancholy. The song is basically Thomas running through sad sack sentiments – What if there was a room at every party where you could just watch a movie? What if he’s too sentimental for when he was too broke to get a therapist? How do you get over imposter syndrome? The song is overflowing with neuroses but the phrasing and tone make it clear at every moment that he’s making himself the joke here, and he’s doing so because he’s got enough perspective on himself to know when he’s being silly. And in showing himself being silly, he’s giving people some room to laugh at themselves a bit too.

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Muni Long “Crack”

Songs like “Crack” are annoying to write about because I will feel like a dork no matter what angle I take in describing or even acknowledging the very explicit lyrics. I figure pure descriptive bluntness is the best path: This is a song in which a woman tells her new partner that they’re about to become hopelessly addicted to her pussy. It’s been done before, but Muni Long nails the tone by dialing it in to about 70% confident sexuality and 30% subtle vulnerability. The latter comes through more in musical moves and Long’s phrasing, these little touches that indicate some lightly percolating fears – Is she overselling this? Will they agree with her assessment of her skills? Does she seem desperate? But none of that is close enough to the surface to undermine the overt sexiness of the song, it’s all just layered in to make it feel human.

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Spoon “The Devil & Mr. Jones” (Adrian Sherwood Reconstruction)

The only thing that’s surprising to me about Spoon having Adrian Sherwood create a dub version of their most recent album Lucifer on the Sofa is that it’s taken this long for Spoon to actually have a dub version of any thing. You can hear the influence of dub on their studio work going back to Kill the Moonlight, to the point that the final mix some songs in their catalog sounds like a dub version of a more normal rock recording. Sherwood, one of the great icons of dub, does some great work with Spoon’s raw material and in the case of “On the Radio” and “The Devil and Mr. Jones” pushes the songs to become something much better than on the original record. The latter song takes on an entirely different character with Sherwood at the boards, unlocking some ska vibes that were only lurking beneath the surface of the original arrangement. There’s a lot of heavy reverb and psychedelic warping in the mix but the song is pretty much intact, even if Britt Daniel’s voice often gets abstracted to the point of pure sound. It works as a Spoon song, it works as dub – pretty much the ideal for a remix.

Buy it from Bandcamp.