Love Is A Brawl

Vince Staples featuring Jhené Aiko & DJ Dahi “Lemme Know”

“Lemme Know” has a strange, just-slightly-off feeling to it, partly because Jhené Aiko and Vince Staples rap all the verses in unison. The effect is pretty similar to when Tricky and Martina Topley-Bird did this trick back in the ‘90s – there’s an implication that the two voices are at odds even if they’re saying exactly the same thing. Aiko’s voice is stronger and more expressive than Staples, who raps with a cold, aloof tone. At different points in the song, the overlap of their performances implies different things – mockery, flirtation, intimacy, a struggle for dominance. It’s all very hazy and ambiguous, but it’s a very seductive sound.

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Bed Rugs “Drift”

There’s so much beautiful treble in this song – the soft clatter of the cymbals, the vaguely dizzy melody of the lead guitar, that ghostly tenor vocal. It’s held together by a gentle but sturdy bass line, but for the most part the music just drifts on by. (Accurate title, then.) The song reminds me of that strangely pleasurable feeling of light-headedness when you get a head rush, or when you’re sick enough to feel a bit out of it but not enough that you’re in any sort of pain.

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