Samplelov “Don’t You Know My Name”

Samplelov’s The Look of Adoration is essentially a meta neo-soul record: entirely earnest in its emotion and almost fetishistically rooted in an organic sound, but built from samples and dotted with just enough ironic winking to openly acknowledge its artifice and relative inauthenticity. It’s so consistently lovely and engaging that picking one song from the album wasn’t easy but I landed on “Don’t You Know My Name” because I love the rhythm guitar part and am always a sucker for the way a busy soul bass line sounds when it gets pitched up a little in the sampling process. That sort of James Jamerson bass is always flashy, but in context is more of a subliminal force guiding the movement of the music, but like this it’s more foregrounded as a flamboyant melodic flourish.

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Automatic “Is It Now?”

With only a few minor tweaks, Automatic have shifted from minimalist ESG vibes to icy romantic early New Order vibes, and the aesthetic shift suits them well. Like a lot of their material, “Is It Now?” is overtly leftist in its POV but a little unsure of how strident it wants to be about it. That tension moves from subtext to text in this song, which is about struggling to find the right balance between being angry about the status quo and trying to live a happy, fun life. As with some of their other songs, the core anxiety seems to be a fear of getting sucked into the black hole of consumer conformity. They know it’s seductive, they know how easily they could be sucked into it, they know how much they already are, but they’re still resisting the urge to give in to comfortable complacency.

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Erin Durant “Alone With You”

I don’t love leading with “recommended if you like” when discussing relatively unknown artists, it can feel like I’m diminishing them, but in the interest of being a service to you, a possibly impatient reader: If you like Joanna Newsom, you will almost certainly like this. I can’t imagine that Erin Durant is not a big Newsom fan; it seems difficult to arrive at a song like “Alone With You” without that being a crucial influence. And obviously this is 100% praise, because writing and singing like Joanna Newsom is a very high bar to clear. And other comparisons are similarly flattering: her vocal style is closer to that of Nanci Griffith and Sandy Denny.

As with a lot of Newsom’s music, “Alone With You” is almost too beautiful to handle. The production by TV on the Radio’s Kyp Malone is dry, earthy, and understated, but there’s something inherently fancy about this type of melody. To play it too often would be like the musical equivalent of always eating off the fine china. There’s an intense feeling in this music, a love that burns so bright that it hurts a little. But sometimes that’s exactly how you feel and this is what you need.

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Activity “In Another Way”

Activity’s first two albums both had a dense, dark atmosphere and general sense of unease, but their third, A Thousand Years In Another Way, feels a bit different. This time it’s more like a formless malevolence engulfing and permeating the music, encroaching from all angles and totally inescapable. It’s basically a record about trying to live with that evil presence – how it drags you down, how you push against it, how you try to get rid of it.

A lot of this comes down to guitarist Travis Johnson’s distinctive palette, largely produced using effects pedals he created himself for specific effects. Listen for the severe digital decay that arrives around the 4 minute mark of “In Another Way,” evoking cell phone interference, corrosive acid, and a slow, dull scrape. It’s contrasted with a far more delicate lead part, like this massive wave of indifferent destruction up against a small, plaintive melody that doesn’t quite have the strength to cohere into a proper solo. That’s the record in a nutshell, a weak and weary display of humanity standing up to careless cynicism and devastation.

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King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard “Deadstick”

One of the most interesting aspects of the more recent King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard records for me is that all six members of the band take turns singing. Not in a “this is a Joey song, this is a Stu song, this is a Cooky song” way, but more in a rap posse cut way with different members jumping on the mic for different sections of the same song. It makes the songs more dynamic – different personalities, different vocal strengths, contrasting vibes.

Stu Mackenzie remains the focal point of the band and Joey Walker is a rock and roll leading man, but the breakout star is most definitely Ambrose Kenny-Smith. Amby is part soul man, part heavy metal trickster, all oomph. He’s essentially the Ol Dirty Bastard of KGLW, and a short list of top shelf King Gizz songs where he steals the show includes “Gila Monster,” “Le Risque,” “The Dripping Tap,” “Field of Vision,” “Hot Wax,” “Iron Lung,” and now “Deadstick.”

“Deadstick” is one of the most elaborately produced King Gizzard songs yet – a groovy rocker with 70s big band backing, like a more playful and carefree version of Steely Dan circa Countdown to Ecstasy and Pretzel Logic. Stu sets it off, Joey turns up the heat, and then Ambrose comes in like a fireball on the breakdown. He’s singing as a pilot trying to manage a crash landing, bringing panic and passion and a confident “let’s do this!” swagger as the song plummets to the ground. They’re calling him the Sully of rock.

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Michael Esper, Zoe Lister-Jones, and Kathryn Gallagher “Slanted! Enchanted! Finale!”

This ridiculous piece of music has made me cry.

It made me choke up the first time I heard it, in its intended context of the fake-but-real Pavement jukebox musical Slanted! Enchanted! in 2022. I teared up when I saw it in the context of the Pavements film premiere at Lincoln Center, and then a few times more when I was listening to the Pavements soundtrack on an elliptical at the gym and on an Amtrak train to Philadelphia. It’s happy tears, mostly.

I don’t cry to music easily, but this deliberately hokey swirl of bits from various Pavement songs seems like it was built specifically to light up my brain and tug aggressively on my particular heartstrings. Some of it is novelty and nostalgia – these songs run so deep for me, a pillar of my life since I was a young teenager and I was hearing it all come out in real time.

Alex Ross Perry’s Pavement musical is a joke, but it’s not a joke. It’s a major component of Pavements, which is a lot of different films at once. It’s a documentary, showing the truth of the band in their prime and in the recent past. It’s an intentionally terrible biopic, depicting a contrived and condescending media narrative about the band. There’s making-of-the-biopic footage in which actor and musician Joe Keery attempts to figure out how to portray Stephen Malkmus, which is essentially a meditation on the unknowable but unmistakable character at the heart of the music. It also features a fake-but-real Pavement museum, which celebrates the obsessive fan’s relationship with the band. (I’m in that part.)

The musical is in the mix to present an alternate take on the music itself that emphasizes the melodic craft and sentimentality in Malkmus’ music. It’s laying bare everything he’s made an effort to dial down or shrug off. It’s zeroing in on the real reason anyone loves this music, but it’s swapping some layers of irony for different layers of irony.

So what’s getting to me in this finale? It’s the way the “Major Leagues” chords are nudged fully into an “aw shucks” level of sweetness. It’s the raw disappointment in Michael Esper’s voice when he sings “success it never comes,” and the way Zoe Lister-Jones shifts the refrain of “You’re Killing Me” from dulled resignation to mild agony, and the unabashed earnestness of how Kathryn Gallagher sings “a shady lane, everybody wants one.”

But it’s mostly the ending that moves me, when the music drops out and the three of them trade off lines from “Ann Don’t Cry.”: “The damage has been done, I am not having fun anymore.” It’s all very manipulative and cliché in musical theater terms, but it works. Esper circles back to “Here,” dramatically concluding the musical the only way it could: “Come join us in a prayer, we’ll be waiting, waiting where…everything’s ending here.”

Those parts of “Ann Don’t Cry” and “Here” were already very open-hearted, even if Malkmus actually sings “my heart is not a wide open thing, I know” in the former. But in this arrangement, Perry shines a light on a vulnerability that’s always been in the band’s music even if Malkmus has made an effort to obscure or underplay it. These are moments when he was being very clear, in his way. I know these feelings and music motifs well, but this time they’re dialed to the max. You can’t shrug off the emotion when it’s this bare and sincere.

So, in other words, this gets me in the gut because their vulgar display caught me off guard. I can’t help it, because I’m a cold, cold boy with an American heart.

Buy it from Bandcamp.

Drugdealer featuring Weyes Blood “Real Thing”

“Real Thing” is a very deliberate musical homage to early 70s soft pop – Carole King most obviously – but the sound is even dryer than actual 70s soft pop, making it feel a little bit surreal in its clean precision. I assume that’s also a deliberate decision, leaning into the ways a digital recording can yield similar but fundamentally different results. But getting caught up in those details is obsessing on the frame rather than the painting. The real meat of this song is Natalie Mering’s vocal melody, lyrics, and understated phrasing. She’s singing rather plainly about finding a new love that makes her feel appreciated and understood after years of feeling like that might be an impossibility. A lot of singers might approach singing about this by focusing on conveying euphoria, but she’s so measured and calm. You get the sense that she’s trying not to jinx anything, but also honoring the ways this love brings her happiness and comfort in small ways she might not have ever considered. It’s a very mature and adult way of writing and singing about love.

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Sextile “Women Respond to Bass”

There’s a few different Jicks-era interviews where Stephen Malkmus says that some lyrics he wrote were just some nonsense meant to sound cool and fake-tough, essentially him doing his semi-ironic take on boilerplate 20th century rock conventions. That’s more or less what you get in this Sextile song, but in a bratty rude electroclash/Prodigy mode. And like, what would be the point of doing anything else with a hyperactive banger like this? It’s pure abrasive head-empty energy – lyrically, you’re just gonna have to change your pitch up and smack that bitch up. Also you can just say something true – yes, women do respond to bass!

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Tchotchke “Did You Hear?”

Pretty much everything about Tchotchke – their melodic sensibility, their vocal affect, their look, their slick but understated lead guitar parts, their lyrical POV – calls back to the late 70s and early 80s power pop scene I showcased on this playlist from a few years ago. And this is clearly by design, they’re working at a high level in a sub genre that was played out well before any of them were born. Beyond the impressive craft, the thing I find interesting here is how the lyrics about dating a man with erratic levels of interest make sense in any time period. And I think that’s the meta point here – the game of love doesn’t change very much, this type of guy will always lead on these sort of girls, and maybe this playful sort of tone is the best way to approach it.

Buy it from Amazon.

PinkPantheress “Girl Like Me”

I was always going to be an easy mark for this song, which substantially interpolates and updates Basement Jaxx’s classic “Romeo.” But I love where PinkPantheress goes with the underlying banger, making the Jaxx elements faster and more concentrated while adding a more melancholic melodic hook on the verses. Both songs cover essentially the same lyrical ground – realizing you’re unhappy with your relationship and want more than you’re getting. But whereas the implication of “Romeo” is that the person being addressed used to be incredibly romantic, poor PinkPantheress doesn’t even have that to look back on with some fondness.

Buy it from Amazon.

L’Eclair featuring Gelli Haha “Run”

Another song about a woman confused and disappointed by someone who is at least notionally their partner. A lot of that going around lately. This is also a dance song, but more in the 2000s post-punk revival mode. Which is to say, not so much the “lacerating angles” of first wave post-punk, and more of the gritty glamour and vague electronic patina of the sort of music I was covering towards the beginning of this site’s existence.

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Black Country, New Road “Salem Sisters”

It’s a little hard to grasp why Black Country, New Road decided to carry on with the name after the band was forced to radically reinvent itself after the departure of their original frontman Isaac Wood. But I suppose there’s some door-opening value in minor name recognition, and this sort of thing worked out fantastically well for Pink Floyd and Genesis.

The new iteration of the group leans into the formal fussiness that’s always been part of their aesthetic, and is led by a trio of somewhat prim female vocals. Tyler Hyde sings lead on “Salem Sisters,” a bright piano-centric number with evocative lyrics about an unpleasant upper crust cookout and deliberately confounding shifts in tempo. It’s mannered and artsy and extremely British – charmingly uptight, melodically satisfying, and maybe a little too much, in a good way.

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Nation of Language “Inept Apollo”

Ian Richard Devaney’s voice reminds me a lot of Brian Eno’s singing – a serene and handsome tone, a very relaxed sort of masculinity. He sounds a little aloof, but also empathetic and in touch with his feelings. “Inept Apollo” isn’t necessarily a step up from Nation of Language’s past material – it’s more of a lateral artistic move – but it’s a fine introduction to their sound, and their distinct balance of cold and warm currents.

Buy it from Bandcamp.

No Joy “Bugland”

Jasamine White-Gluz seems to get closer to fully realizing the sound in her head with every No Joy release. No Joy started as a fairly normal shoegaze band, but as it’s become more like White-Gluz’s solo project, the sound has become gradually more ambitious and genre-agnostic while retaining an essential spacey and ethereal quality that connects all of the records.

“Bugland,” the title track of a new record made in collaboration with the musician and producer Fire-Toolz, is a leap beyond where White-Gluz left off with 2020’s Motherhood. The sound is more “electronic” than ever, but also more direct and aggressive in its guitar sound, and more lush in its vocal harmonies. Everything is dialed up, and no artistic bet is hedged.

It sounds like a lot of familiar things from the 90s and early 00s, but also like nothing else. Listening to it is like hearing a cross section of layers, like a fossil record of music history that’s not quite in chronological order. Or maybe it’s like slipping out of relative time, and chronology doesn’t matter as much as how it all fits together. And is that such a strange thing? That’s basically how anyone experiences the past 70 years of popular music on streaming services now.

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Guerilla Toss “Psychosis Is Just A Number”

“Psychosis Is Just A Number” is an aesthetic curveball from Guerrilla Toss, a band who’ve spent a lot of time developing a distinct style based on heavily saturated keyboard tones. This song is more like their version of classic post-punk, with most of the musical emphasis placed on a thick and twitchy bass line and bursts of abrasive guitar. It still sounds like Guerrilla Toss – exuberant, vibrant, cheerful in spite of bleak lyrics – but with the instrumental emphasis reversed. Theoretically this version should feel more “normal,” but it doesn’t. They’re just too quirky for that to ever happen.

Buy it from Bandcamp.

Car Seat Headrest “True/False Lover”

Car Seat Headrest’s The Scholars is a dense concept album with several very long songs on it, and it’s sung from various characters’ point of view, but mostly by Will Toledo. That is very confusing, and I haven’t had enough time with the record to form any sort of opinion on the rock opera of it all. That could take weeks, months, years. But “True/False Lover,” the brief up-tempo rocker at the end of the record? I can tell you right now that this one rips. When that synth riff hits after the first verse, sounding like a burst of neon pink against a grey backdrop? When the beat gallops forward while Toledo sings about getting out of court custody and being excited to see someone again? That’s the stuff. I don’t need to know the whole story to understand the stakes of this music, and while it feels like sprinting towards freedom. It’s all right there in the song.

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Um, Jennifer? “Went On T”

The big question in this song is basically, do you know yourself well enough to predict exactly what will happen when you deliberately make a huge change in your life? In this case, the change is going on testosterone and transitioning, and worrying about how that might impact a new relationship. The song is under two minutes but there’s some big time jumps – starting the transition without knowing how drastically they’d change, cutting to six months later when they feel like the same person but stronger and sexier, and then to some other point when it’s clear the guilt and anxiety was largely coming from their partner. It ends on a very bitter note in lyrical terms, but with the music, it’s cathartic and freeing.

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Valerie June “Joy, Joy!”

I’m trying to get as much mileage out of this song as possible right now before it inevitably gets licensed to death. It’s at a very widely accessible intersection of soulful, funky, and rocking, and the chorus feels like a burst of sunshine with simple, direct lyrics: “You’ll find that joy joy in your soul.” Do you get what I’m saying here? This is going to be in ads and trailers and everything, sooner than later. It’s a ticking timebomb of commercial potential, and I recommend getting in now before it explodes and runs the risk of being more annoying than joyous. Because it really, truly is joyous.

Buy it from Bandcamp.

Jenny Hval “The Artist Is Absent (89 Seconds Rewrite)”

This is kind of a “Outdoor Miner” situation, if you know what I mean. The “89 second rewrite” version of “The Artist Is Absent” is a minute longer than the proper version, which is basically the same but more terse and a little less emphatic. In the context of the lyrics, which list a series of artistic notions that are left incomplete, I get why Jenny Hval would favor the brief version on her album. She wants to make you feel the parts that are missing like a ghost limb. I appreciate the concept, but I simply prefer the version that gives the music space to spread out and resolve a bit.

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Emjay “Flash y Pose”

“Flash Y Pose” is a sexy and unhinged banger about being sexy and unhinged, rapped mostly in Spanish over a frantic beat and grinding electronic noise. Emjay switches to English briefly midway through the song to introduce a list of “3 very important lessons to become what you’ve always wanted to become – the bitchiest bitch ever.” She switches back to Spanish for the list, but it includes “if my nails are longer than your dick, I’ll cut it off.” Yeah, pretty bitchy! But incredibly charming, and essentially the Spanish language equivalent to Yelle’s classic “Je Veux Te Voir.”

Buy it from Amazon.

Lexi Jones “Along the Road”

I enjoyed listening to this song several times over and decided to write about it before ever learning a major biographical detail about Lexi Jones: she’s the daughter of David Bowie and Iman. I suppose this is the dream scenario for the “nepo baby” – to be heard entirely on their own terms as an anonymous artist; to be approached without resentment or comparison to their artistic family members. I know I’ve ruined that for you if you haven’t heard this yet, but trust me, “Along the Road” is a song that succeeds on its merits, and there’s no more Bowie-ness in this than any other sort of arty rock song that’s been released in the past 50 years. If anything, this sounds more plausibly like the offspring of Electrelane or Cass McCombs.

“Along the Road” is built around a relatively simple descending piano figure that seems to roll like a wheel while the rest of the arrangement either glides along with it, or passes by like scenery. A string arrangement and Jones’ somewhat androgynous voice carry the drama, but even that’s low-key. There’s no big feeling or revelation here, it’s more about accruing little bits of wisdom and minor epiphanies on the path to some unknown destination.

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Sault “R.L.”

If you’re only paying attention to the chorus of “R.L.” – and it’s plausible that you would, given how much it’s repeated through the song – you’d definitely get the impression that it’s an unambiguous love song: “Nothing beats your love / no, nothing can come close to you / real love, real love, real love.” It’s sung very sweetly, and the track is so smooth and funky. It sounds like real love, real love, real love. But go a little deeper into the song and it’s more complicated. The lyrics in the verses seem more like a negotiation, like she’s talking this other person into letting their guard down and accepting this real love. And the grooviness of the music is offset by a tightness in the arrangement, where the minimalism of the track comes across like holding back bigger, warmer feelings.

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Addison Rae “Headphones On”

It’s funny how it now feels more transgressive for Addison Rae to sing “I need a cigarette to make me feel better” than to hear Charli XCX sing about cocaine or any number of rappers mumbling about gobbling pills. Rae is basic, but in a high concept way. She’s not necessarily an ordinary girl now, but she would’ve been when I was in my late teens/early 20s and skinny diet soda-sipping, chain smoking white girls were arguably at a cultural apex. “Headphones On” sounds like that Y2K era too – the more introspective end of TRL pop, but with a touch of St Etienne/Pizzicato 5 sophistication spilling over from the mid 90s. I suppose I could have some vain anxiety about my actual youth being a far away romanticized era for young people now, but I mostly just feel happy to have certain sounds come back in style. This is simply an ideal palette for a song about trying to stifle sadness and wishing your parents were (still? ever?) in love.

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Chime Oblivion “Kiss Her or Be Her”

You may not know David Barbarossa by name, but if you’ve ever heard the classics by Bow Wow Wow or Adam and the Ants, you’d immediately recognize his drumming style right away on “Kiss Her or Be Her.” It’s a very distinctive feel – boppy but busy with fills, both tribal and urban, tumbling yet graceful. The chaotic and up tempo sound fits perfectly with the gnarly, tightly wound guitar parts by Osees’ leader John Dwyer and H.L. Nelly’s manic vocal. She’s singing about a confusing crush that’s both exasperating and exciting – is this actual lust, or just fascination? What is she supposed to do with this feeling? It all clicks together to sound a lot like The Slits, and you can sorta feel the ghost of Ari Up looking down from the heavens like “just go kiss her already!”

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Neggy Gemmy “Mysterious Girl”

“Mysterious Girl” has a wonderful weightlessness to it, as though all the trebly elements are floating in discrete layers high above the bass line. It evokes the lightheaded sensation of getting too high, the butterflies feeling of having a new crush, the loose physicality of being utterly carefree and in the moment. The lyrics are basically another “kiss her or be her?” scenario, with Lindsey French getting lost in a reverie after spotting a beautiful and stylish woman on the street. She fills in some of the blanks of her existence, but only in the most romanticized ways – she smells like lilac, she sees through you, she’s only going to break your heart. You get the sense that it would be better for this girl to remain mysterious, unknowable, and untouchably perfect in her mind. She’s turned her into a piece of art.

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Spill Tab “Assis”

The bass in “Assis” feels firm and strong, but still has a bit of slink to it. Pretty much everything surrounding it feels soft or loose – a vocal sung in French in a near-whisper, a keyboard part that seems largely improvised and mixed so the higher notes tickle like a tongue in your ear. It’s an extremely sexy composition that’s clearly recorded to feel as sensual and intimate as possible. As near as I can tell, the lyrics describe a scene between two lovers that’s sexy but a bit sad, as it’s from the POV of someone who’s in love with someone who seems to be losing interest in her. The lust comes through in the instruments, the longing is obvious in her voice whether you understand French or not.

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The Marias “Back to Me”

There’s a few lines scattered throughout “Back to Me” that nudge you towards interpreting the character in the song as delusional or stalker-ish in a lightly humorous way. I’ll be real with you – I think that’s just hedging, or a shake of salt and pepper to cut through the overwhelming sweetness of the music. They can dial back the earnestness a little bit, but it’s still an extremely earnest song about being jealous of your ex’s new partner and pleading with them to take you back. And crucially, it’s not about that in some dark or creepy way. It’s all genuinely achingly romantic, and there’s a touch of innocence to how María Zardoya sings it that I’d compare to how Susanna Hoffs sang The Bangles’ “Eternal Flame.” The lyrics don’t give you any reason to believe she’ll be successful in wooing them back, but there’s hope and real love in her heart.

Buy it from Amazon.

TV Girl and George Clanton featuring Magdalena Bay “Messy Hair”

We’ve been trained as consumers of culture to expect novelty in art and fashion, and to conflate newness with quality. And while it’s always exciting to experience innovations in art and design in the moment – almost always enabled by shifts in technology – the consumer’s pursuit of novelty is more about marketing, packaging, and commerce than it is about appreciating artistic expression. The flip side of this is the knee-jerk dismissal of “retro,” eye-rolling at either the seeming return of older aesthetics or the continued success of popular styles. I can sympathize with being sick of old styles, and feeling bored by predictable cycles of aesthetics going in and out of fashion. You can get jaded easily by this, but a lot of the time that’s just congratulating yourself for noticing a pattern.

It’s better to think of the accumulation of styles as the gradual creation of a canon, a pantheon, a palette for future creation. “Nostalgia” isn’t always the point, particularly when artists reach back to times before they were alive. Ideas will be rooted in cultural moments and become shorthand for those eras, but ultimately it’s the same as new phrases and vocabulary become part of a shared lexicon – useful tools for expression.

I bring this up because “Messy Hair” is a great example of a song that uses an old style to great effect without necessarily being a “retro” piece. Listen to the breakbeat drum part that enters the song around 30 seconds in – it’s a very late 90s sound, and I think on some level it’s meant to signify a bright, stylish, and upbeat future. A lot of late 90s/Y2K sounds have this effect now, particularly for listeners who were either children or came of age in that period. So it isn’t just “futuristic,” it’s a sound associated with youth and innocence, a “simpler time.” Hearing that breakbeat hit as Mica Tenenbaum from Magdalena Bay sings about realizing she’s in love gives the song a nice jolt of excitement and relative weightlessness. It’s like she’s hitting a stride, and feeling all her burdens disappear.

Buy it from Amazon.

Wet Leg “Catch These Fists”

I had some vague worry that Wet Leg may be one of those bands who burn bright early on but taper off as they go along, but that concern has been dialed down quite a bit after they dropped this song earlier in the month. They’ve still got their spunky weirdo charm, but the mood is darker and the attitude is more spiky than silly. That main guitar riff reminds me of Brix-era The Fall, but the vocal hook and general vibe reminds me of Elastica’s second record. (High praise.) It’s a song about having a bad time confronting creeps at a club, but they make it sound like a very good time.

Buy it from Bandcamp.