Oh Sees “Jettison”

John Dwyer won’t ever let you down. If you come to an Oh Sees record looking for grooves and riffs and “wooo!” and relentless forward momentum, you’re absolutely going to get those things in some combination. Much like The Fall and Clinic before them, they know what their aesthetic is, and the variation is in the details. In the case of Oh Sees, they’re still riding out the possibilities of their double drummer lineup, and so a song like “Jettison” which would be just fine with a single drummer gets this added kinetic motion that emphasizes a restlessness in the guitar parts. The drums don’t really signal tension – there’s a relaxing swing to the groove – but they do give you this feeling that the music is in constant motion, like it’s a musical shark that needs to keep moving forward to survive.

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Mount Kimbie featuring King Krule “Blue Train Lines”

King Krule sings “Blue Train Lines” with an urgent, frazzled tone, as though he’s trying to fill you in on as many details as he can because there’s just not enough time. His heavily accented rasp sounds like a version of Joe Strummer raised on rap as he spits out lines about witnessing a girlfriend trying to kill herself. He sounds genuinely traumatized and rattled as he cycles through shock, fascination, love, guilt, and panic. His words are vivid and brilliantly constructed – “on the seedy floor in the back of a CD store” is an impressive internal rhyme – but his vocal is even more so, investing every line with raw feeling. Mount Kimbie’s track frames it all perfectly, giving King Krule space as he sets the scene, and then a quickening pulse as the stakes get higher.

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Margo Price “Paper Cowboy”

The character in Margo Price’s “Paper Cowboy” is the epitome of the old country expression “all hat, no cattle.” He’s what the late radio crank Bob Grant would call a “fake phony fraud.” If you take Price’s word for it, he’s a blowhard who only brings misery to the people around him. But as judgmental as this song is, Price still sounds warm and empathetic in her vocal performance, as though she can’t help but feel bad for the guy and wishes he’d be genuine rather than put on an act. The music also avoids a harsh tone, shifting from a soft ballad in the first verse into a groovy up-tempo country rock tune before eventually settling into an instrumental section that sprawls out into half of the song’s six minute runtime. This music sounds far too cheerful and relaxed to be the soundtrack to a grudge, and the song is better for that.

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Nine Inch Nails “The Background World”

“The Background World” starts off as a fairly typical late period Nine Inch Nails song, with Trent Reznor singing a very Reznor sort of melody over contrasting keyboard parts – some burbling, some bleeping, some like the electronic equivalent of the ambient hum inside a seashell. Reznor sounds exhausted and frustrated, he sounds ambivalent about connecting with a world that seems increasingly miserable and hostile. This would be a very good song if that’s all there was to it, but after four minutes the music takes an interesting turn as one chunk of music starts looping over and over. It’s a Disintegration Loops sort of thing, with each repetition degrading the audio so it becomes more dull and abrasive. I like that the loop doesn’t connect just right – there’s a slight stutter to the beginning of each cycle, but that gradually disappears along with all other detail. By the end it’s just hideous, oppressive white noise. A little over a decade ago Reznor put out a song called “Every Day Is Exactly the Same,” and I think of this as a Trump-era correction: Every Day Is Just A Bit Worse.

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This is the eighth in the 1990s survey mix series, which will come out monthly in chronological order through this year. You can find the previous mixes here. I’ve made a Spotify version of this survey which you can find here, though it is missing 15 tracks and has no sound editing for smooth listening.

Here we are now in the late ‘90s, exactly 20 years ago. There’s a lot of special and interesting things going on this year.

• This is a huge moment for English rock, with Britpop giving way to a series of grand, ambitious records from Radiohead, Spiritualized, The Verve, Blur, Cornershop, and Primal Scream. Oasis are not so arty, but I think Be Here Now is just as ambitious in its own way, and the title track is one of the best songs that band ever produced. All of these bands were on their own trip, but they’re united by a desire to make bold, adventurous music that’s also quite accessible.

• Experimentation is key in 1997. Eric Harvey recently described a dominant strain of music in this era as “recombinant pop,” the work of post-hip hop artists cutting and pasting ideas from a wide range of music into new forms. Stereolab, Björk, RZA, Aphex Twin, Missy Elliott and Timbaland, Mouse on Mars, Atari Teenage Riot, Plug, Roni Size, Tricky, Portishead, Daft Punk, The Chemical Brothers, Beck, etc – all artists whose music still sounds forward-thinking and futuristic two decades later. In Eric’s review of Stereolab’s Dots and Loops he notes that the notion of “omnivorous inclusion” became a popular mode of consumption for highbrow music nerds, and over the course of the next few years this mindset – one I embraced at the time and maintain to this day – gradually overtook a sort of rock-centric fandom fixated on authenticity and genre purity. This is the beginning of a sea change that has resulted in the music landscape we exist in today, in which omnivorous taste is a default position and rock music is erroneously considered déclassé or irrelevant simply because it’s not the utterly dominant cultural force it was through much of the ‘90s.

• This is another huge year for rap, and especially for rap from New York City. At this point in time Puff Daddy and his family of Bad Boy artists have reached the pinnacle of pop culture in the wake of The Notorious B.I.G.’s murder, and the Wu-Tang Clan are enjoying their greatest mainstream success with Wu-Tang Forever. The NYC rap station Hot 97 is so powerful that two of their star DJs – Funkmaster Flex and Angie Martinez – appear in this survey as artists in their own right. A new underground is developing with the emergence of Company Flow, Mos Def, and the general Rawkus family of artists on the East Coast, and Latyrx and the Quannum family on the West Coast. Missy Elliott, Timbaland, and Busta Rhymes are bringing a touch of eccentricity to the mainstream, and Master P’s New Orleans-based No Limit label is disrupting the East Coast/West Coast narrative of hip-hop.

• The dominant mainstream trends of the next few years – nu-metal and shiny teen pop – begin to emerge in this year with early material by Backstreet Boys, NSYNC, a Max Martin-assisted teenage Robyn, Korn, Limp Bizkit, Slipknot, and Creed. I’ve mostly quarantined the shitty rock music on the final part of the survey.

Some fairly obscure songs I’d like to call attention to:

• The Funkmaster Flex freestyle cut in part one is astonishing, and pulls together a bunch of lesser-known NYC rappers from that period for a marathon posse track that draws on the joyful spirit of old school hip-hop while staying grounded in the grimier rap of the late ‘90s.

• The Geraldine Fibbers’ version of Can’s “You Doo Right” is one of the best and most radically reimagined covers I’ve ever heard, with Carla Bozulich recasting Malcolm Mooney’s poetic mutterings as a brazen, passionate declaration of love and lust while a pre-Wilco Nels Cline shreds it up on guitar. This is as good as rock music gets.

• The Depeche Mode song included here, “Home,” may be my favorite song in their catalog, and features a truly gorgeous and vibratto-heavy vocal performance by Martin Gore. I deliberately sequenced this song to be next to similarly excellent and ambitious tunes by their contemporaries The Cure and U2, in part to highlight how they each released fairly forward thinking music around the time they started to be considered legacy acts. The Smashing Pumpkins and Nine Inch Nails weren’t quite as established at this point, but they were also ahead of the curve in terms of embracing very recent trends in electronic production. They rarely get credit for this, but I think these acts were crucial in broadening the palette of rock music in the lead up to the 21st century.

• The Kylie Minogue song here, “I Don’t Need Anyone,” is her great lost classic as far as I’m concerned. Shudder to Think’s glammy “Survival” would be a well-known and widely beloved song in a better world. Ditto everything on Jonathan Fire Eater’s Wolf Songs for Lambs from this year. The songs by R.E.M. and David Byrne in this set aren’t particularly well known, but are among the most beautiful and empathetic works of either act’s career. The song by Ben Folds Five is the most elegant thing Folds has ever written and should become something of a standard. The songs by Veruca Salt, Atari Teenage Riot, The Make Up, and Papas Fritas are total bangers.

Thanks to Rob Sheffield, Sean T. Collins, Dan Kois, Paul Cox, and especially Eric Harvey for their valuable assistance in putting this set together.

DOWNLOAD PART 1

Radiohead “Airbag” / Sleater-Kinney “One More Hour” / Cornershop “Brimful of Asha” / Björk “Alarm Call” / Missy Elliott “The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)” / The Notorious B.I.G. “Hypnotize” / Wu-Tang Clan “Reunited” / Puff Daddy feat. Lil’ Kim, The LOX and The Notorious B.I.G. “It’s All About the Benjamins” / Busta Rhymes “Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Can See” / Daft Punk “Around the World” / Atari Teenage Riot “Destroy 2000 Years of Culture” / Blur “On Your Own” / Pavement “Stereo” / Shania Twain “Love Gets Me Every Time” / Hanson “MMMBop” / Robyn “Do You Know (What It Takes)” / All Saints “Never Ever” / Spiritualized “Ladies and Gentlemen, We Are Floating In Space” / The Verve “Bitter Sweet Symphony” / The Dandy Warhols “Boys Better” / Oasis “Be Here Now” / Veruca Salt “Don’t Make Me Prove It” / Shudder to Think “Survival” / Modest Mouse “Polar Opposites” / Jonathan Fire Eater “This Is My Room” / Primal Scream “Star” / Latyrx “Lady Don’t Tek No” / Mos Def “If You Can Huh…” / Funkmaster Flex feat. Boot Camp Clik, Cocoa Brovaz, Heltah Skeltah, O.G.C., Ranks, Ms. Twanie, Swan Da Boodah Junkie, and The Representativz “Freestyle #11” / Yo La Tengo “Autumn Sweater” / Belle & Sebastian “Lazy Line Painter Jane” / The Geraldine Fibbers “You Doo Right” / Ani DiFranco “Firedoor (Live)” / Ben Folds Five “Selfless, Cold, and Composed” / Wyclef Jean “Gone Till November (Pop Version)”

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Stereolab “Brakhage” / Janet Jackson feat. Q-Tip “Got Till It’s Gone” / Portishead “Only You” / Tricky “Makes Me Wanna Die” / 2Pac “Do For Love” / Mariah Carey “Honey” / Lord Tariq & Peter Gunz “Deja Vu (Uptown Baby)” / Lil Kim feat. Angie Martinez, Left Eye, Da Brat & Missy Elliott “Not Tonight (Remix)” / The Chemical Brothers “Block Rockin’ Beats” / Nine Inch Nails “The Perfect Drug” / GusGus “Why” / Aphex Twin “Flim” / Depeche Mode “Home” / The Cure “Wrong Number” / U2 “Gone” / Natalie Imbruglia “Torn” / Foo Fighters “Everlong” / Céline Dion “My Heart Will Go On” / Elliott Smith “Ballad of Big Nothing” / The Make Up “Pow! to the People” / Helium “Leon’s Space Song” / Company Flow “The Fire In Which You Burn” / Freak Nasty “Da’ Dip” / Usher “You Make Me Wanna” / Erykah Badu “Apple Tree” / Capone-N-Noreaga “T.O.N.Y.” / Scarface feat. 2Pac & Johnny P “Smile” / Camp Lo “Luchini (A.K.A. This Is It)” / Kool Keith “Sex Style” / The Prodigy “Smack My Bitch Up” / Rammstein “Du Hast” / Godspeed You! Black Emperor “The Dead Flag Blues”

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Bis “Tell It to the Kids” / Papas Fritas “Sing About Me” / Plumtree “Scott Pilgrim” / That Dog “Gagged and Tied” / Ween “Ocean Man” / David Byrne “Finite = Alright” / Backstreet Boys “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)” / Master P feat. Silkk the Shocker, Fiend, Mia X and Mystikal “Make ‘Em Say Uhh” / Mase “Feel So Good” / LL Cool J feat. Method Man, Redman, Canibus & DMX “4, 3, 2, 1” / Street Smartz feat. OC & Pharoahe Monch “Metal Thangz” / Armand Van Helden “Hot Butter” / Dub Narcotic Sound System “Bass Hump” / Dru Hill “In My Bed” / Jay-Z “The City Is Mine” / Mary J. Blige feat. Lil Kim “I Can Love You” / Pulp “Help the Aged” / Fiona Apple “Sleep to Dream” / Massive Attack “Risingson” / DJ Shadow “High Noon” / Buena Vista Social Club “Chan Chan” / Bob Dylan “Love Sick” / Green Day “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” / George Strait “One Night At A Time” / Leann Rimes “How Do I Live” / Garth Brooks “Longneck Bottle” / Bloodhound Gang “Fire Water Burn” / Blink-182 “Dammit” / The Get Up Kids “Don’t Hate Me” / Marcy Playground “Sex and Candy” / Sarah McLachlan “Building A Mystery” / R.E.M. “Electrolite” / Sonic Youth “Anagrama” / Mogwai “Like Herod” / Air “Le soleil est près de moi” / Broadcast “Lights Out”

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Roni Size & Reprazent “Railing” / The X-Ecutioners “Musica Negra (Black Music)” / Boot Camp Clik “Illa Noyz” / Destiny’s Child “No, No, No Pt. 2” / Timbaland and Magoo “Up Jumps Da Boogie” / The Orb “Toxygene” / Underworld “Pearl’s Girl” / Fluke “Atom Bomb” / Tha Alkaholiks feat. Ol’ Dirty Bastard “Hip Hop Drunkies” / Brian McKnight “You Should Be Mine (Don’t Waste Your Time)” / Plug “Subtle (In Your Face)” / Lords of Acid “Pussy” / David Bowie “I’m Afraid of Americans” / The Smashing Pumpkins “Eye” / Twista “Get It Wet” / Korn feat. The Dust Brothers “Kick the P.A.” / Organized Konfusion “Invetro” / Hieroglyphics “The Who (A-Plus Remix)” / The Firm “Phone Tap” / Sugar Ray “Fly” / Save Ferris “Come On Eileen” / Mighty Mighty Bosstones “The Impression That I Get” / Smash Mouth “Walkin’ on the Sun” / Live “Lakini’s Juice” / Built to Spill “I Would Hurt A Fly” / The Dismemberment Plan “The Ice of Boston” / Guided by Voices “Sad If I Lost It” / Kylie Minogue “I Don’t Need Anyone” / Beck “Deadweight” / Elastica feat. Stephen Malkmus “Unheard Muzik” / Matthew Sweet “Come to California” / Third Eye Blind “Semi-Charmed Life” / Chumbawamba “Tubthumping” / White Town “Your Woman” / SWV & Puff Daddy “Someone” / Mouse On Mars “Juju”

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The Flaming Lips “Okay, I’ll Admit That I Really Don’t Understand” / Clinic “Porno” / Smog “Ex-Con” / Texas “Black Eyed Boy” / The Pietasters “Out All Night” / Less Than Jake “Automatic” / Everclear “I Will Buy You A New Life” / Lonestar “Come Cryin’ to Me” / Tim McGraw & Faith Hill “It’s Your Love” / Steve Earle “Somewhere Out There” / Mindy McCready “Oh Romeo” / Whiskeytown “16 Days” / Ivy “The Best Thing” / NSYNC “Here We Go” / Ray J “Let It Go” / Common “Reminding Me” / Dionne Farris “Hopeless” / Zony Mash “Cold Spell” / DJ Vadim “Conquest of the I” / Coldcut “More Beats + Pieces (Daddy Rips It Up Mix)” / Crystal Method “Busy Child” / Merril Bainbridge “Mouth” / Bush “Mouth (The Stingray Mix)” / Mineral “Five, Eight, and Ten” / Luna “Tracy I Love You” / Lifetime “Turnpike Gates” / MxPx “Move to Bremerton” / NoFX “It’s My Job to Keep Punk Rock Elite” / Royal Trux “Don’t Try Too Hard” / The Beatnuts feat. Big Punisher and Cuban Linx “Off the Books” / Redman feat. Erick Sermon “Whateva Man” / Mobb Deep feat. Rakim & Big Noyd “Hoodlum” / Mia X “The Party Don’t Stop (Funky Mix)” / Jedi Mind Tricks “The Winds of War” / DJ Krush “Shin-Sekai” / µ-Ziq “Hasty Boom Alert” / Plaid “Kortisin” / Thievery Corporation “Weightless”

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Aqua “Barbie Girl” / Gina G “Ooh Aah (Just A Little Bit)” / Spice Girls “Spice Up Your Life” / INXS “Elegantly Wasted” / Blue Boy “Remember Me” / High & Mighty “It’s All for You” / Young Bleed feat. Master P & C-Loc “How Ya Do Dat” / Mystikal “Ain’t No Limit” / Mack 10 “Backyard Boogie” / Makaveli feat. The Outlawz “Hail Mary” / 112 “Cupid” / Keith Sweat “Nobody” / Mic Geronimo feat. DMX, Ja Rule, Tragey, and The LOX “Usual Suspects” / Gang Starr “You Know My Steez” / EPMD “Da Joint” / Reflection Eternal “Fortified Live” / Meat Beat Manifesto “It’s the Music” / KMFDM “Megalomaniac” / Morcheeba “Shoulder Holster” / Mouse on Mars “Juju” / Savage Garden “Truly Madly Deeply” / Duncan Sheik “Barely Breathing” / Shawn Colvin “Sunny Came Home” / Kenny Chesney “She Got It All” / Mark Chesnutt “It’s A Little Too Late” / Paul McCartney “The World Tonight” / Superchunk “Watery Hands” / Cursive “After the Movies” / Travis “All I Want To Do Is Rock” / Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci “Diamond Dew” / Old 97’s “Timebomb” / Ben Harper “Faded” / Knapsack “Courage Was Confused” / Sleeper “She’s A Good Girl” / Rainer Maria “Viva Anger, Viva Hate” / Lida Husik “Fly Stereophonic” / The Sundays “Summertime” / Deana Carter “We Danced Anyway” / Paula Cole “I Don’t Want to Wait”

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Tool “Ænema” / Marilyn Manson “Tourniquet” / Metallica “The Memory Remains” / The Lady of Rage “Some Shit” / Mr. Complex “Visualize” / DJ Muggs & Mobb Deep “It Could Happen to You” / Next “Butta Love” / Allure “All Cried Out” / Amon Tobin “Stoney Street” / Pizzicato Five “Love’s Theme” / Laika “Almost Sleeping” / David Holmes “Don’t Die Just Yet” / Mr. President “Coco Jamboo” / Yvette Michelle “I’m Not Feeling You” / Bone Thugs N Harmony “Look Into My Eyes” / En Vogue “Don’t Let Go (Love)” / Chantal Kreviazuk “God Made Me” / Abra Moore “Four Leaf Clover” / Kenickie “Punka” / Deftones “Be Quiet and Drive” / Morrissey “Maladjusted” / Filter “(Can’t You) Trip Like I Do” / AZ Yet “Hard To Say I’m Sorry” / Something for the People “My Love is the Shhhh” / Changing Faces “G.H.E.T.T.O.U.T.” / Warren G “I Shot the Sheriff” / Tela “Tired of Ballin’” / Diamond D feat. Pete Rock and Phife Dawg “Painz & Strife” / R.A. the Rugged Man “Till My Heart Stops” / Rampage feat. Busta Rhmyes “Wild for Da Nite” / Archers of Loaf “Jive Kata” / Toad the Wet Sprocket “Come Down” / Sister Hazel “All for You” / Fivel “Convict Grass” / My Drug Hell “2 A.M.” / Aerosmith “Pink” / Pulsars “Tunnel Song” / At the Drive-In “Give It A Name” / Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments “Lightin’ Rod” / Gene “Where Are They Now?”

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Cherry Poppin’ Daddies “Zoot Suit Riot” / Primus “Bob’s Party Time Lounge” / Slipknot “Slipknot” / Creed “My Own Prison” / Limp Bizkit “Counterfeit” / Insane Clown Posse “Halls of Illusions” / 311 “Beautiful Disaster” / The Offspring “Gone Away” / Incubus “New Skin” / Silverchair “Abuse Me” / Days of the New “Touch, Peel, and Stand” / Tonic “If You Could Only See” / Matchbox 20 “Push” / Edwin McCain “I’ll Be” / Guster “Airport Song” / Summercamp “Drawer” / Placebo “Nancy Boy” / Smoking Popes “I Know You Love Me” / Real McCoy “One More Time” / R. Kelly “Gotham City” / Will Smith “Men In Black” / Da Brat “Ghetto Love” / Coolio “C U When You Get There” / Joe “Don’t Wanna Be A Player” / Mark Morrison “Return of the Mack” / Gravediggaz “Dangerous Mindz” / Mansun “She Makes My Nose Bleed” / Death In Vegas “Rocco” / Photek “KJZ” / Diamond Rio “How Your Love Makes Me Feel” / Atmosphere “Sound Is Vibration” / Big Mike “Burban & Impalas” / Total feat. Timbaland “What About Us” / Boyz II Men “4 Seasons of Loneliness” / 98 Degrees “Invisible Man” / Bob Carlisle “Butterfly Kisses” / Barbra Streisand & Bryan Adams “I Finally Found Someone” / Elton John “Candle in the Wind 1997”

Octo Octa “No More Pain (Promises To A Younger Self)”

This is a great example of an artist giving an abstract work of art a title that gives you some loose instruction on how to interpret it. The first 30 seconds of “No More Pain (Promises To A Younger Self)” is ambient and vaguely melancholy – not overtly sad, but an indication of some sort of absence. Like being aware that you don’t have what you need, but not really knowing what it is just yet. When the beat kicks in it’s like suddenly finding what you’ve been missing, and when the vocal sample comes in it’s like hearing a voice that’s speaking directly to you. And holy shit, that voice is Mariah fucking Carey! I love what Octo Octa does with Carey’s voice here, chopping it up so you can immediately recognize her glorious tone but distorted enough that there’s no words, just an ecstatic feeling. It’s the raw essence of Mariah, and it’s presented here as the sound of an epiphany and self-acceptance. It’s perfect casting.

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Rhye “Please”

When Rhye released their first few songs back in 2013 there was a manufactured mystery about them – where did this gentle, sexy music come from, and who is this woman with the silky, gorgeous voice? This was clearly setup for the big reveal: That’s not a woman at all, that’s some guy named Mike Milosh! I get it. It’s a good story. It’s probably the only manufactured mystery around the identity of a new indie act that actually was interesting and made sense. It’s usually just a coward move.

The funny thing is that despite this being common knowledge now, the music itself still has this mysterious quality to it. Milosh’s voice is still lovely and extremely feminine – it’s not a matter of someone affecting a falsetto, it goes a lot deeper than that. How did Milosh arrive at this vocal style, and is it deliberately meant to convey vulnerability and fragility through that femininity? Is this a rejection of masculinity, or a way of expanding and adapting it? I’m not sure if I actually want the answers, I enjoy this vague tension in music that otherwise sounds rather relaxed and smooth. I also love the way Milosh and his partner Robin Hannibal create a feeling of intense intimacy in their music – listening to “Please” can feel vaguely voyeuristic, as though you’re getting access to some unguarded moment between people who truly know one another.

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Monster Rally & RUMTUM “Raindrops”

I’m not sure what song is being sampled here, but I love the way Monster Rally and RUMTUM bend this honey sweet voice so it forms a coherent phrase – “heaven offers the raindrops.” It’s like those activity book games where you fold the paper so different lines connect to reveal an answer. It fits perfectly into the music too, in which the atmosphere of it and the shifting elements recall the uncertain weather just after humidity breaks and produces a sudden summer rainstorm. It’s an interesting sensation, like “oh, so this is what relief feels like.”

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Patience “White On An Eye”

It’s funny, this is essentially retro early 80s synth pop – the New Order and Vince Clarke fandom is right out in the open – but it makes me nostalgic for the early days of this site in the early ‘00s, when embracing this aesthetic was fresh and a bit contrary. “White Of An Eye” sounds like the work of someone who has immersed herself in early New Order and late ‘80s twee UK indie to the point of completely internalizing the best artistic instincts of that music. It’s an exceptionally charming tune, and structured for the ideal balance of cuteness, angst, and bop-ability.

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Sudan Archives “Come Meh Way”

Brittney Denise Parks, who records as Sudan Archives, is an untrained violinist and plays her instrument in a way that sidesteps a lot of conventions. It’s a naive approach, but also focused and inventive – she’s using a complex and tonally rich instrument to approximate the style of West African music typically played on one string. “Come Meh Way,” with its sawing violin melody, skipping beats, and rhythmic vocal hooks, is immediately fascinating and attention-grabbing. Its roots in the past are apparent, but it feels very modern in the way it tilts toward rap without necessarily being a hip-hop track. It sounds like a combination of ideas that are ripe for exploration.

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Tyler, the Creator featuring Rex Orange County “Foreword”

Part of what makes Tyler, the Creator so interesting to listen to on his new record Flower Boy is that he seems like he’s settled into his adult self but is uncertain of who he’s supposed to be in the world. He’s moved away from the trolling antics of his early music, but has replaced that with a sort of “fuck you” vulnerability that serves a similar purpose of weeding out anyone who isn’t ready to accept him exactly as he is. “Foreword” opens the record with Tyler at a crossroads. He seems unsure of how he fits into his culture, and ambivalent about his level of success – rich enough to be removed from some elements of black life, but not wealthy enough to embrace all the usual clichés of a rap star. I like the way this song falls into a space between introspection and indecision, and how it’s like he’s almost figured out who he wants to be but can’t quite shake some insecurities. He’s right on the edge of fully realizing something Stephen Malkmus articulated succinctly on the first Pavement album: “Between here and there is better than either here or there.”

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Tricky featuring Martina Topley-Bird “When We Die”

The very fact that this song exists feels like a miracle. This is the first song Tricky has released featuring Martina Topley-Bird in nearly 20 years, and I think most everyone had just come to assume they simply were never going to work together again. Sure, they played a few shows together to celebrate the anniversary of Maxinquaye, but that seemed to be mostly motivated by money and they have a kid to raise. If you don’t understand why this pairing is special and important, you should read this post from ten years ago in which I wrote about their unique chemistry on Tricky’s first two albums.

The classic Tricky/Martina songs foregrounded their intimacy and let their uncomfortable power dynamic play out on the track. “When We Die” does that too, I suppose, but for a very different effect. They sound very removed from one another, and their voices barely overlap. Tricky’s lyrics suggest that he’s trying to make sense of why their relationship fell apart and figure out what they are meant to be to each other now, but Martina just sounds sad and resigned. There’s no catharsis in this song, and it ends somewhat abruptly with a sense that there’s no resolution to be had here. I’m not sure if they really have more they can do together after this – it feels less like a new beginning and more like the epilogue to a story that ended a long time ago.

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This Is The Kit “Moonshine Freeze”

“Moonshine Freeze” has a witchy feeling to it – some of it is in the odd, foreboding atmosphere of it and its melodic roots in English folk, but it’s mainly in the lyrics, which seem as though they’re outlining some sort of ritual. There’s not that many words to the song, but what’s there is very evocative, and for me suggest a collapse in the perception of time. On one hand you have the chorus, a clapping game for children that Kate Stables recalls from her youth in England, and on the other, you have her speaking about cycles and change and the natural order of things as though she’s looking on her life from the outside. The music moves in circles, but vocal parts begin to overlap, and it’s as though you’re watching cycles of behavior and feelings loop and stack in a time lapse.

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FKJ “Joy”

FKJ’s debut is remarkably slick and sophisticated in its composition, effortlessly sliding between funk, soul, jazz, and house without ever feeling like a series of forced juxtapositions. “Joy” is the climax of the record, and ties together many of the musical threads through the set, while leaning hard on jazz elements in particular. The electric keyboard holds down the groove and sets the tone for soloing, but the horn parts are fabulously emotive as they swing between delicate, pensive phrases and bold, expressive soloing. I know some people have trouble with saxophones and jazz in general, and associate it with either cheesiness or inaccessible meandering, but this track is a particularly good ambassador for both. FKJ sugars the pill of jazz a bit by situating it in this elegant dance track, but lets the solos unfurl with incredible feeling and melodic grace. The vocals in “Joy” are all chopped up samples, and while they’re quite expressive and joyful, it’s just there to accent the beat and frame the leads. Words can just get in the way of a big feeling like this.

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The Lo-Fi’s “Don’t Worry About It”

The Lo-Fi’s is kind of a misleading name for this band. The name sets you up to imagine something fuzzy and distorted, or twee and homemade, but these young dudes mostly make music that feels suave and sleek, with crisp chords and a brisk beat. I saw this band open for Wolf Alice earlier this week and was immediately charmed by them – they have an effortless groove, and come across as very cool without seeming particularly affected. Kaleb Cajas, the dude who sings this song, is especially handsome and magnetic, and sings everything with this low-key “hey, whatever, babe” tone. It seemed like the girls in the room were really feeling it. I wouldn’t be surprised if these guys became a thing.

Buy it from Bandcamp.

Soccer Mommy “Benadryl Dreams”

Practically every bit of this song has a lovely lazy dreamy quality to it, but the part that really gets me is the gentle gear shift in the “it’s always the same thing” refrain. She’s singing about drugging herself to sleep in an attempt to keep her mind of a crush or drifting off into depression, and that moment feels like the exact midpoint between angst and oblivion. It sounds just like the feeling of the drugs kicking in, and the strange pleasure of keeping yourself awake for a little bit as the artificial drowsiness hits you, just to savor the feeling of being exhausted. I should clarify that the music itself isn’t super drowsy – there’s a slight jauntiness to Sophie Allison’s guitar playing and a simple, brisk beat. It’s wonderful summer music – chill in vibe, if not in sentiment.

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Vince Staples featuring Kenrick Lamar, Kućka, Sophie, and Flume “Yeah Right”

Vince Staples’ Big Fish Theory has a constant jittery energy, with mostly EDM-identified producers delivering tracks that accentuate the anxiety and paranoia in his verses, and situate his rapping in somewhat alien musical territory. It’s a very adventurous record, and sounds at least a year or two ahead of the curve. Maybe that’s why Staples always sounds a bit impatient on the mic – he’s moving at his own speed and waiting for everyone else to catch up. That said, it’s not much of a surprise that Kendrick Lamar sounds entirely comfortable on “Yeah Right,” one of the most out-there and interesting tracks on the record. He’s a remarkably adaptable rapper, and seems to approach every feature as a technical challenge. He and Staples are in synch here, both picking at rap tropes with a critical eye and a high degree of self-awareness. They both seem to be wondering what a rapper should or could be, and considering what parts of the tradition to keep, what to leave behind, and what clichés they don’t mind embracing.

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Jay-Z “The Story of OJ”

Interesting how Jay-Z’s discography since the late ‘90s ping-pongs back and forth between good albums and weak albums. It’s a clear pattern at this point. I have no theory about this, but I would offer that this suggests that he’s an artist who thrives when he’s got something to say. He’s certainly got something to say on 4:44. Sure, yes, some of that is an admission of guilt and shame for cheating on his wife. That was expected, and gets the attention because people always care about celebrity gossip. But that’s just a bit of what he’s saying on the record, and even that is tied in to a deeper meditation on what’s been driving him all his life, this burning need to elevate his station.

“The Story of OJ” hits this head-on; the reality that no matter how successful he is, he’s still black, and that’s always going to be a barrier. He’s addressed this before – with contempt on Watch the Throne, and with a touch of bemusement on Magna Carta Holy Grail – but now he sounds entirely resigned and exhausted. This is, for me, a more interesting contrast with Beyoncé’s Lemonade than the he said/she said angle – there’s an optimism in her “the future is female” call for solidarity and action on a track like “Formation,” but all you hear on “OJ” is realism and pessimism blurring until they’re totally indistinguishable. Jay-Z was always a guy with a cynical view of humanity, and he doesn’t sound pleased to discover he was right to feel that way.

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Washed Out “So Hard to Say Goodbye”

An interesting thing about Washed Out is that the entire project – mostly music, but now also a “visual album” that goes along with the new record Mister Mellow – is seemingly designed to have its deepest resonance when you’re not fully paying attention to it. Ernest Greene is an expert at setting up a seductive vibe, but the music itself resists close attention. It’s like the music has a force field that deflects everything and bounces you back towards a groove, a feeling, an aesthetic. I get the sense that a lot of music that recedes into the background is made by artists who would actually like you to pay more attention, but this sounds like the work of a guy who wants nothing more than to blend into your good times. It’s the music a shy, anxious introvert makes to please chill, outgoing extroverts.

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Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks “Gardenia” / The Mountain Goats “Lovecraft in Brooklyn” / The Long Blondes “Too Clever By Half” / Robyn “Be Mine!” / Goldfrapp “A&E” / Olga Bell “Videotape” / White Hinterland “Dreaming of the Plum Trees” / Yelle “Tristesse/Joie” / Au Revoir Simone “Through the Backyards” / Ted Leo “Bottle of Buckie” / The Slits “Love Und Romance” / Maxi Geil & Playcolt “Makin’ Love in the Sunshine” / Dirty Projectors “Rise Above” / James Rabbit “George Gershwin” / Childballads “Stuart Hassle” / The National “Start A War” / Silje Nes “Dizzy Street” / Bob Mould “Hardly Getting Over It” / Dean & Britta “Strange”

This is a collection of songs from live sessions recorded for the public radio show Fair Game back in 2008. I was a writer and producer on the show, and produced the music segments. Don’t let the word “producer” fool you – all the serious recording work was done by the engineer, which was almost always John DeLore. I did the booking though, which I think is pretty obvious if you know anything about my tastes in the mid to late 2000s. There’s a few acts here who rarely if ever got any attention outside of Fluxblog.

A few notes:

• All of these tracks are from sessions that generally included 3-5 songs. (Robyn and Goldfrapp were exceptions, they only did two songs in their sessions.)

• Yes, that Olga Bell track is a cover of Radiohead. That was still a pretty new song at the time, so it was a bold choice for a fairly unknown artist at the time on a national radio broadcast.

• The piano that you here in many of these sessions is a gorgeous old Steinway grand piano. You could always tell that keyboard players were really excited to get to get a chance to play it.

• My favorite moment in any of the sessions we did is in the James Rabbit recording here, when Tyler improvises a funny story in the middle of the song. You could see that the rest of the band weren’t sure where he was going, but they played along really well. There is one moment where he gestured to one of the female members of the band to sing after mentioning Meredith Monk, and after she shook her head, the piano player did it for her. “George Gershwin” is already a joyous song, but this bit just makes it feel even more magical and alive. It’s a shame everyone ignored this band; they were really special.

• Getting the chance to meet Ari Up at The Slits session was a great experience. She was such a larger than life character, but also incredibly generous and kind to everyone around her. I remember getting this “oh my GOD” jolt when they started playing “Love Und Romance,” which is my favorite Slits song. I didn’t expect them to play any oldies at this session.

• The Childballads song has never been officially released, which is a shame. It’s based on “Street Hassle” by Lou Reed, but Stuart Lupton rewrote all the lyrics to be about his own life. It’s a heartbreaker.

• The Robyn and Long Blondes sessions were never actually aired because the show was abruptly canceled.

Matthew Dear “Modafinil Blues”

Matthew Dear sings “Modafinil Blues” like a man who is extremely distressed but trying very hard to keep that feeling under the surface. His words are bleak yet oblique, suggesting some catastrophe is imminent or already underway. There’s a sense of grim inevitability in the music, like you’re caught in an undertow that felt like a gentle pull at first but is now dragging you down along with everything else around you. The most intriguing thing about this song is the way it falls into some ambiguous space between goth romanticism of sorrow and a far less sentimental depiction of grey, flat depression. It’s mostly erring on the side of the former, but the most resonant moments convey the latter.

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