As The Moon Glows

Lance Skiiiwalker “Lover’s Lane”

Lance Skiiiwalker’s music has an odd wooziness to it that falls somewhere on a continuum between “way more stoned than you intended to be” and “coming down with a flu.” A lot of his first album, Introverted Intuition, is built around ambient tones, audio scuzz, and beats that seem as though they could collapse or disintegrate at any moment, but by the time you get to “Lover’s Lane” at the end of the record, the sound has gelled into something more sturdy and elegant. The string sample at the center of the song carries a lot of the tune, but it’s still very much about atmosphere – the negative space around the beat, the particular crispness of the snare hits, the way Skiiiwalker’s lover-man vocals feel slightly slow and off-kilter. It’s surprising that there aren’t more songs that conflate romance and disorientation in this way.

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Pusha T “H.G.T.V. Freestyle”

Pusha T’s style has always been well-suited to this sort of bare bones minimalism. It’s like cooking something with a distinct, highly nuanced flavor – you don’t want to drown it out by adding too many other elements. You want to showcase the character of the thing, and highlight nuances with subtle additions that frame rather than obscure the flavor. Pusha isn’t breaking any ground for himself – to keep going with that analogy, it’s more like a carrot just being a carrot, or a really excellent example of a carrot – but Mike Will’s production reminds you of how menacing and seductive his voice can be. The punchlines in the verses land perfectly, you can sense how carefully he controls the weight of each syllable, and you hang on his every word.

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