Albums:
10. Kids See Ghosts:
Kids See Ghosts (GOOD/Def Jam)
The key moment here is a reverse
Louis Prima sample sending Santa back up the chimney. Because despite references to Lacoste, Loewe, Miuccia Prada, Herzog & De Meuron, and Art Basel, a feeling of deprivation pervades this Kanye West/Kid Cudi entry in GOOD Music's line of EPs. In short (24 minutes to be exact), here's yet another reminder that a hip-hop life of luxury can cover up a lot of pain. What lifts it above standard-issue sad sackery is a generosity inherent in the myriad weird sounds and the latest tour through Kanye's sample bank. Most generous element: the 24 minutes.
9. Tal National:
Tantabara (Fat Cat)
My favorite hectoring disco of the decade remains
Dabke: Sounds of the Syrian Houran, recorded a mere 2,500 miles away from this Niger collective's latest, greatest album. But both provide shelter from a decade-plus of EDM's drop abuse. Finally - dance music with no give to it!
"Est-ce que tout le monde vous êtes chauds? Vous êtes prêts? C'est Tal National sur la place! On y va!"
8. Parquet Courts: Wide Awaaaaake! (Rough Trade)
Ok, sure, their lyrics are self-righteous. But it took about 15 listens to notice because this is where these hard-working Americans reach for broader appeal without compromising their punk 'n' roll one iota. Funk moves and keyboard textures and beer hall choruses and Danger Mouse's sparkly production all help the (I'd say) righteous anger go down. And yo - doesn't the world's currently reigning greatest English-singing/lecturing guitar-bass-drum combo deserve to be self-righteous?
7. Gazelle Twin: Pastoral (Anti-Ghost Moon Ray)
A pungent counterpart to the Parquet Courts album, Elizabeth Bernholz's latest slab of electro art-stomp out-Fever Rayed Fever Ray this year. Funny sometimes, enraged always, these hymns for the international underclass of precarious laborers evoke a world where "it's the Middle Ages but with lesser wages." It begins with Bernholz sarcastically intoning "much better in my day" 46 times in 2:50, a barn burner I will play/post upon encountering any empty nostalgia. It ends with a truncated, sardonic take on the traditional British army recruitment song "Over the Hills and Far Away." All throughout, hard work is no virtue and synthetic sounds wrack your nerves. Manna: when Bernholz maintains the Baba O'Rileyisms of "Little Lambs" into the next track with a only slight key change.
6. Cucina Povera: Hilja (Night School)
A pungent counterpart to the Gazelle Twin album, Hilja is what might happen if the KonMari Method were applied to an album. Or if an album were recorded at the end of the world. Or maybe the beginning of the world. Much of these spare, searching tracks sound like water chants from the dawn of humankind. Glasgow-based, Finland-born Maria Rossi's recitations seek life in spooked-out spaces. But for all its otherwordliness, the sonic signature feels rooted in a precarious present. Thoughtful definition of cucina povera provided. "A style of southern Italian traditional cooking associated with precarity and making-do."
5. Eartheater: IRISIRI (Pan)
Alexandra Drewchin's Eartheater project reminds me of a more songful, less shticky Lisa Suckdog. Here a pitch-challenged b-girl, there an ethereal space sprite, she persona-plays as a matter of course because "this body is a chemistry mystery / these tits are just a side-effect." Her ubiquitous harp glissandi find the outer limits of the universe. And she brought along my favorite art-music gals (Odwalla1221) for the flight.
4. Kali Uchis:
Isolation (Virgin)
"But why would I be Kim? I could be Kanye." And right before that, a Smiths reference! So damn right she could be Kanye with an album of such bent, what's it say
here on Discogs, "contemporary R&B, neo soul, bossanova, reggaeton, trip hop," whew.
3. Double Dee & Steinski:
Lesson 4: The Beat (
https://ddsteinski.bandcamp.com/)
The only time I get oldmanyellsatcloud.jpg with young folks (I hope) is when I remind them that it took me *three years* to find a bootleg of Doug DiFranco and Steve Stein's world-turning 1985 EP
The Payoff Mix/Lesson Two/Lesson 3. But now I feel all old man again because this 40-years-aborning follow-up elicited virtual tumbleweeds. Over eleven minutes of funk tumble, "Lesson 4" strings together the voices of preachers condemning the demon beat of various popular musics. But the three-minute "This Music" might be even better. Some dorky music expert claims to know a little bit about hip-hop (I think). But the mixmeisters take him to school by filling every nook with their sample wizardry.
2. Cupcakke:
Ephorize (Bigger Picture)
"Crayons" is the best-ever LGBT anthem (why, yes, we
are brave for takin' anal). "Spoiled Milk Titties" is the best of the two or three songs in popular music history to make me blush. "Duck Duck Goose" and "Cinnamon Toast Crunch" are the best songs to chant repeatedly and annoy everyone in your vicinity. "Total" and "Fullest" are the best songs that should have stormed
Billboard's entropic Hot 100 in 2018. And Elizabeth Eden Harris is the best damn rapper on the planet right now.
1. The Verboden Boys (Belfast Chapter):
Band From Reality - The Complete Demos (Doggy Bag)
OMG! You're not into extratone, the world's fastest new genre?!? Actually, it just sounds like gabber to me, at least according to the samples provided in
this useful Bandcamp Daily feature. Luckily, I scrolled down to the comments where I was informed that this album's speed setting was "absurd." Apparently part of a collective with chapters in Melbourne and Antwerp, these Verboden Boys manage to shape their noise assaults into song-like blats with discrete parts. I'll admit that some of this is mere sound effects if you admit that "Call the Police" belongs on a list of the wildest, most uncompromising hardcore punk blurs ever.
Singles:
10. Kacey Musgraves: "Space Cowboy" (MCA Nashville)
A rejoinder to Cole Porter, Neil Young, and, let's see here, Steve Miller, Clint Eastwood, Jamiroquai, The Jonzun Crew, and, why not, Space Cowboy (Sly Stone too?). And all because there's actually a comma between the two words of the title.
9. Cassie: "Don’t Play It Safe" (Bad Boy)
Cassie Ventura hasn't hit the R&B Top 40 since 2006 when her last (and only) album-not-mixtape was released. So the heft of this sleek noir is completely unheralded. Its modest drama and moody synths earn it a place on my forever-forthcoming sequel to David Toop's disquiet storm collection
Sugar and Poison.
8. Cardi B ft. Kehlani: "Ring" (Atlantic)
Such an adept already that she can make music out of sobbing to the sound of silence, i.e., the phone that won't ring. Crucial assist from Kehlani who tugs at our tear ducts. And like "Don’t Play It Safe," it's over in under three minutes. Punch out that ballad and move on.
7. Ravyn Lenae: "Sticky" (Atlantic)
Slinky-not-sticky workout from a R&B hopeful who changes vocal register every few seconds with a confidence belying her 19 years of age. Produced and co-written by The Internet's Steve Lacy who performed the same functions on the best (and funkiest) track from Kali Uchis'
Isolation.
6. Lil Yachty ft. Playboi Carti: "Get Dripped" (Capitol/Motown/Quality Control)
5. Chief Keef ft. Playboi Carti: "Uh Uh" (Glory Boyz Entertainment/RBC)
For one rapper on the way up and the other hangin' in there on a raft of mixtapes, I can understand the appeal of giving a guest spot to one of the most eccentric rappers of the era. But you run the risk of having him upstage you, especially since Carti's timbre gets even more eccentric in guest mode, something akin to Fire Marshall Bill as a toddler. Keef fares better in his hyper verse. But Carti owns the track by whining the title hook amidst an envelope of backward swirls. And on "Get Dripped," both principals get stuck in a winningly obnoxious video game loop.
4. Migos ft. Nicki Minaj and Cardi B: "MotorSport" (Capitol/Motown/Quality Control)
Under the influence of
Simon Reynolds' masterful auto-tune essay, I would place
Culture II on my top ten today. The key was this observation
from Sadmanbarty which Reynolds highlighted: "The backing vocals (not the ad libs) sound like murmurs from a Martian crypt." And now I cannot get enough of the tension between those presumably spiritual moans and the sinful ethos of never having too much jewelry, Saturday night and Sunday morning slammed together. But this lead single was an easy sell given that the two reigning queens of hip-hop go toe-to-toe here. No matter who comes out ahead, though, those murmurs throw the entire track into an epistemological tizzy. Where is thing this
coming from?
3. Travis Scott ft. Drake: “Sicko Mode” (Cactus Jack/Grand Hustle/Epic)
Like bartenders who overpour and restaurateurs whose dinners double as lunch tomorrow, recording artists who offer several songs in one provide the best (but not necessarily the healthiest) consumer value. "Sicko Mode" is no Beyoncé: "Countdown." But you feel almost as drunk/stuffed afterward. (burps)
2. Doja Cat: “Mooo!” (RCA/Kemosabe)
Not since Gino Washington's 1964 masterpiece "Gino is a Coward" has so much room been discovered in democracy. Washington proved his prowess by deeming himself a coward. Doja Cat boasts she's a cow and goes viral. Both risk ridicule on their soapboxes and reap sublimity in return.
1. Childish Gambino: “This Is America” (mcDJ/RCA)
This is pop too where a song can get refracted into discourses without end. That "This Is America" seems designed to engender that effect matters only insofar as the ploy works. On that front, the sometimes Donald Glover succeeds. The song's most life-affirming aspect is that a black man has inspired a cottage industry dedicated to interpreting his ambiguities and, with a # 1 hit, he can enjoy all that money grandma told him to get. Miraculously, however, "This Is America" succeeds as music too. I fell in love with its rumble on my brother-in-law's shitty car stereo before I saw the discourse-multiplying video and I continue to discover all manner of pleasures in its supposedly skeletal mix. And it's all about refraction in the end. Like "Sicko Mode," song gets refracted into several songs, a form suitable for a new Gilded Age in which American workers get refracted into flexible labor, most definitely including the rapper/actor/director/writer/etc. up top.
Albums:
1. The Verboden Boys (Belfast Chapter):
Band From Reality - The Complete Demos (Doggy Bag)
2. Cupcakke:
Ephorize (Bigger Picture)
3. Double Dee & Steinski:
Lesson 4: The Beat (
https://ddsteinski.bandcamp.com/)
4. Kali Uchis:
Isolation (Virgin)
5. Eartheater:
IRISIRI (Pan)
6. Cucina Povera:
Hilja (Night School)
7. Gazelle Twin:
Pastoral (Anti-Ghost Moon Ray)
8. Parquet Courts:
Wide Awaaaaake! (Rough Trade)
9. Tal National:
Tantabara (Fat Cat)
10. Kids See Ghosts:
Kids See Ghosts (GOOD/Def Jam)
Singles:
1. Childish Gambino: “This Is America” (mcDJ/RCA)
2. Doja Cat: “Mooo!” (RCA/Kemosabe)
3. Travis Scott ft. Drake: “Sicko Mode” (Cactus Jack/Grand Hustle/Epic)
4. Migos ft. Nicki Minaj and Cardi B: "MotorSport" (Capitol/Motown/Quality Control)
5. Chief Keef ft. Playboi Carti: "Uh Uh" (Glory Boyz Entertainment/RBC)
6. Lil Yachty ft. Playboi Carti: "Get Dripped" (Motown/Quality Control)
7. Ravyn Lenae: "Sticky" (Atlantic)
8. Cardi B ft. Kehlani: "Ring" (Atlantic)
9. Cassie: "Don’t Play it Safe" (Bad Boy)
10. Kacey Musgraves: "Space Cowboy" (MCA Nashville)
New to me:
Loud Sun: "Teen Pyramids" - Mysterioso dream chug with lyrics that mention Tom Petty. But who does that filtered voice remind me of?!?
Minihorse: "Slow Song" - Deadpan cover of a song off the first Sleater-Kinney album, all the better to highlight S-K's songwriting genius.
Spiny Normen:
Spiny Normen - Never-released mid-1970s hard psych from Houston with ooky Mellotron hooks. Even the flute works. Fall in love with "Arrowhead."
Oh Yes We Can Love: The History of Glam Rock - Where the new, intermittently incredible
All the Young Droogs collection burrows deep, this five-disc 2013 box treats glam as a mode instead of a genre, casting a hair net from Noël Coward to Goldfrapp. Includes a track from Gay Dad's hyperbolically underrated (not an oxymoron)
Leisure Noise.
San Francisco Disco Preservation Society (
https://sfdps.org/https://sfdps.org/) - A repository for historic live DJ mixes, some reaching deep back into the 1970s. They're up to 209 right now and the ones I've heard have done what great mixes always do - introduce me to new classics or recontextualize old faves in the mix. The best so far come courtesy of DJ Wendy Hunt. Her
Live At Prelude - One Car Crash 10-14-80 contains an astonishing mixing moment at 54:25 when she lays the superior Disconet remix of Poussez!: "Never Gonna Say Goodbye" over Kano: "It's a War." The most eclectic is
Old Disco - May 20, 1981 which moves from power pop (The Elevators' "Girlfriend's Girlfriend") to Broadway-bound DOR (The Quick's "Sharks Are Cool, Jets Are Hot") to str8-up new wave (the Night Version [!] of Duran Duran's "Planet Earth), then a few masterpieces (Yarbrough & Peoples' "Don't Stop the Music" into Taana Gardner's "Heartbeat" into Billy Squier's "The Stroke"), then twenty minutes of disco ludetopia (Magnifique's "Magnifique" into "Lime's "Your Love" into ABBA's "Lay All Your Love on Me") and, towards the end of the evening, it climaxes where it must with The Skatt Bros.' sado-disco chestnut "Walk the Night." And more!
Labels: Pazz and Jop
