The Cure “Drone:Nodrone”

Robert Smith has been dwelling on his mortality since the start of his career, and as a young man seemed to operate on the assumption that he had to get as much done as he could before he ran out of time. This is why hearing him ponder his “one last shot at happiness” in “Drone:Nodrone” hits me so hard—it’s very dramatic but doesn’t sound hyperbolic. He seems genuinely concerned that he’s running out of opportunities to find peace and joy, and doubtful that it’s possible in the first place.

“Drone:Nodrone” is something of an outlier on Songs of a Lost World—an aggressive and relatively up-tempo song along the lines of 1997’s “Wrong Number” on an album that mostly feels like “Oops! All Plainsongs.” In this context it provides a dynamic shift away from grandiose expressions of grief and zeroes in on Smith’s frustration. He sounds exasperated by getting to his age without having “answers,” and warns the listener that the answers he does have “are not the answers you want” because the only conclusion he’s come to with any confidence is that he doesn’t know anything. There can be peace and joy in embracing this humility, but he mostly seems horrified by the pointlessness and endless mystery.

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Cleo Sol “Fear When You Fly”

The majority of people making traditional 20th century-style R&B music today are young enough that, almost unavoidably, their frame of reference for the music has been filtered through five decades of sampling in rap. I feel like this gets filtered back into the traditional music in different ways – Erykah Badu and Lauryn Hill keeping one foot firmly planted in hip-hop, or Amy Winehouse going full retro but with a post-rap attitude. This Inflo-produced track by Cleo Sol is a little more subtle – it basically sounds like a new soul song comprised entirely of the “good parts” of old songs that would’ve ended up as samples on top-shelf rap records. I’m not sure if this is a deliberate thing, if this is something Inflo is consciously thinking about in the studio. But it’s hard to imagine that on some level this post-rap filter is informing how the song is written, or how individual parts have been recorded so they feel more like a Madlib or Kanye West production than 60s or 70s soul records. It ends up sounding like a product of creative reverse-engineering.

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Lola Young featuring Lil Yachty “Charlie”

“Charlie” is, at its core, also a traditional R&B song, but the execution is much weirder. The production by Solomonophonic & Manuka makes the track sound like a Quiet Storm-era soul track with the middle torn out, leaving Lola Young sounding like she’s belting her vocal over a bigger sound that isn’t there. There’s bass and drums and guitars, but they feel slightly off and naked in the mix, like they’re deliberately drawing your ear to textures that would ordinarily get ironed out in the mixing. It sounds very cool and feels fresh to me – familiar but a little alien, and with lead guitar flourishes that have a little extra flamboyance and sparkle in this context. Lil Yachty shows up near the end to give voice to the titular Charlie, which adds some dimension to the lyrics, but given how often he’s appeared on R&B-ish songs with peculiar arrangements, it seems like he’s mostly come by to give his blessing to another artist doing something he’s into.

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Two Shell “(rock✧solid)”

Two Shell make exciting music about feeling excited. Like, if there’s any other point to a song like “(rock✧solid),” I can’t discern it. They want to make people excited, so they built a track that piles on exciting sounds so it sounds like the excitement is eternally escalating, and you can feel their excitement in the studio come through the speakers. Good energy is contagious. Also, it was only a matter of time before someone made a great track mixing that Go Team/Justice “kids chanting” trick from the 2000s with PC Music tricks from the 2010s. It works!

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Mouse On Mars “zeHrog”

This track is part of a score Mouse of Mars made for Werner Herzog’s film Fata Morgana, but was ultimately never approved by Herzog. I’ve never seen this film, so I can only hear it for what it is – music that Jan St. Werner and Andi Toma composed and performed in real time. It’s the real time aspect I find fascinating, particularly on this portion of the score which is relatively chill and groovy in context. It’s interesting to hear this knowing there’s a significant degree of improvisation going on, and that the two of them are switching up instruments and other gear while moving through the composition. I like the looseness, and I especially love when the song picks up tricks from dub reggae, most obviously on the reverb-drenched blasts of vocal sounds.

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Katrina Ford “World On A Wire”

I’ve been writing about songs most days of my life for over 20 years and one thing I’ve learned from this is that a lot of the music I love most resists description. And of course it does – music is ultimately an abstract medium, something that exists to evoke and express things beyond words. There is something specific about the keyboard tones and Katrina Ford’s vocal performance “World On A Wire” that pull up very strong emotions in me, but I strain to describe these feelings that really ought to remain indescribable. But I can tell you what I hear: The voice of a woman who has experienced a lot, but is open to much more. Keyboard tones that are comforting but slightly alien, nudging the “adult contemporary” qualities of the song into a stranger realm. I picture bright colored lights filtered through misty air. I hear lyrics that are sometimes too obscure to parse, but mostly convey the feeling of knowing you’re in a precarious position but focusing on a sense of equilibrium to find your balance. She’s not focusing on how easy it is to plummet, she’s in awe of how many things don’t fall.

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Cameron Winter “Vines”

Cameron Winter’s first solo single outside of Geese isn’t just a Geese song released under his own name. It’s also not solo in the sense of him just making music with some other musicians. He sounds solitary and isolated on “Vines,” like he’s responding to the absence of bandmates. The palette is sparse, just his voice, his piano, and a string arrangement that kicks in midway through to add a touch of poignancy and miserable grandeur. But the song is really about Winter’s voice – all raw nerves and unfiltered emotion, soulfully undisciplined, unabashedly dramatic and romantic, but with just a little bit of a smirk. The lyrics are direct and a little brutal, he sounds like he’s spilling his guts about the most fraught relationship in his life. But there’s also just enough ambiguity that it’s unclear who that might be – I wouldn’t blame anyone for reading this as a romantic song, but there’s some lines that make me think this is more about parents.

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Kelly Lee Owens “Dreamstate”

There’s not a lot of lyrics to “Dreamstate” beyond variations on the phrases “feel the dreamstate” and “dream to live,” but Kelly Lee Owens gets a lot out of those words. It’s in the repetition, the re-arranging of the words, and how she seems to surf the waves of her synth grooves and keyboard washes. Most of all it’s in her vocal phrasing – mostly softly spoken with a sense of wonderment, or a little bit bolder, like she’s the spokesperson for a high-end product with some woo dogma attached to it. It’s all very calm until the end, when the music reaches a climax and she starts shouting with some passion. I love how at the end of the song, when it feels like you’re about to wake up, feeling the dreamstate becomes incredibly urgent and important as opposed to just a suggestion.

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Weak Signal “Chill”

Weak Signal triangulate a lot of top shelf influences – just in this song, you get a little Ramones, a little Jesus and Mary Chain, and the answer to “what if Calvin Johnson fronted Yo La Tengo?” But they have a very clear personality and point of view, a lot of which comes down to Mike Bones’ dry wit and droll vocal style. (“Everything is cool, everything is chill,” sung with maximum deadpan delivery.) They err on the side of minimalism, but not in the way that can seem like the best choice for amateurish players. It’s more in the way a good editor will push you towards consolidating ideas, streamlining structures, and chopping out anything that isn’t strictly necessary. The writing is high craft, the performance is totally…chill.

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The Hard Quartet “Six Deaf Rats”

I’ve been enjoying The Hard Quartet’s debut record, but was having trouble digesting it as anything more than a late-period Stephen Malkmus album that happened to include some other songs by Matt Sweeney and Emmett Kelly. Seeing the band perform at Webster Hall last night made it all click into focus for me, certainly on a formal level.

Malkmus, Sweeney, and Kelly trade instruments constantly, each getting a few turns as bassist, rhythm guitarist, or lead guitarist. As with The Smile, they all seemed delighted to get a chance to be the bass player, and Malkmus in particular was very interesting in that role. I recall some very busy melodic bass lines in the tradition of Paul McCartney or James Jamerson, but with his characteristic relaxed, slack physicality rather than their bold, assertive playing. In terms of guitar, there’s nothing too surprising from Sweeney or Malkmus, but I like the way Kelly’s bright leads and Byrds/R.E.M.-ish jangle constrasts with Malkmus’ approach. I can see what these guys are getting from playing with each other, and how a lot of these songs emerged from this particular set of players.

The key thing is Jim White’s drumming. Malkmus has never worked with a drummer who plays like him, more focused on creating ambience and building drama than holding down a steady 4/4. This band is a little out of White’s comfort zone too, much more of a regular rock group than his more typical avant lane. The most exciting and interesting moments come when either White makes atypical rhythmic choices in fairly straight ahead rock songs, or when Malkmus opens up space in his songs to let White create a little jazzy storm he can play around.

“Six Deaf Rats,” which going on audience response is most everyone’s favorite song on the record, is in the latter category. It’s very much a late period Malkmus sort of song both musically and lyrically, but White’s percussion gives it a completely different feel. I love all of Malkmus’ records, but White’s style makes me realize how tight Wig-Out At Jagbags and Sparkle Hard could get. This isn’t a complaint – part of why I love following Malkmus through the years is hearing him change – but White allows for a type of looseness that connects Malkmus with his looseness without dialing his progress and proficiency all the way back to Pavement era.

Towards the end of “Six Deaf Rats,” Malkmus sings the line “I’ll geek out on your amazing quirks.” This tickles me, becuase I can’t think of a better way to describe my relationship with his music since I was 13. I just never get sick of this guy’s amazing quirks.

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La Femme “Clover Paradise”

“Clover Paradise” would fit in very well on the What Was Schaffel? playlist I made earlier this year, which collected electro-glam music from the early 2000s. I’m a sucker for this aesthetic, particularly the way a severe grayish palette and ultra-precise shuffle beat complements a lusty, perverted vibe. It’s like the musical equivalent of someone dressed in latex fetish gear. In the case of this song, the lyrics are enticing the listener to experience some sort of psychedelic awakening, but with the caveat that not everyone can handle this and it must be taken very seriously. I like this twist on a classic theme – scary instead of welcoming, seductive in a dominant sort of way, and actually pretty sensible and responsible in its messaging.

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BigXthaPlug “Lost the Love”

BigXthaPlug is one of those guys blessed with a perfect voice for rapping. This can go a few different ways, but in his case, he’s got that Biggie Smalls/Tupac/Killer Mike type of BOOMING voice that signals grit and authority. There’s a sorrow in his voice too, some wounds you can hear through the bravado. “Lost the Love” is essentially a list of grievances – people who have wronged him, people he’s judging, people who’ve disappointed him, people who aren’t showing him enough love. Sometimes this sort of thing is all a big flex, a way to position your greatness, but BigX sounds bitter and frustrated. Sure, there’s some parts where he sounds grateful or humble, but the last line is a matter-of-fact bottom line for the whole song: “Rapping my pain, this is the shit y’all wanted.”

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The Smile “The Slip”

It’s unfortunate that The Smile records have to carry the weight of questions like “wait, is there never going to be another Radiohead album?” and “hold on, so is this basically Radiohead from now on?” But what can you do? Those are big questions for anyone who’d want to listen to this music, and as of The Smile’s third album, the answers seem to be “who knows?” and “kinda, yeah.” You kinda have to work through a few layers of confusion and disappointment to hear the music on its own terms.

As I’ve written before, it’s clear to me that a lot of the appeal of The Smile for Thom Yorke and especially Jonny Greenwood is in getting to indulge in formal experiments without the weight of Radiohead expectations bearing down on them. At the start, it was a way for Thom and Jonny to explore playing bass guitar without having to sideline or reassign Jonny’s own brother Colin. Now it’s Jonny playing around with the possibilities of playing guitar only with a delay pedal. Like a lot of artists, particularly lifelong artists, they’re enjoying self-imposed limitations.

And then there’s the most obvious difference between The Smile and Radiohead – “small teams move more quickly,” as Jonny recently put it speaking to the NME. They can work fast, and they don’t have to mobilize as many forces to release a record or do a tour. Radiohead is a barge, The Smile is a speedboat. If you’re looking at this from the perspective of now grizzled veteran musicians who don’t necessarily need a lot of money, which setup do you think is more enticing?

But still, the context is the context, and the success of The Smile songs come down to “is this up to the standards of Radiohead song, as opposed to solo record quality?” I’d say the trio’s output is about half and half, and “The Slip” is in the “good enough to be Radiohead” bucket. It’s a pretty groovy one, and though it starts out in Thom Yorke synth-centric solo project mode, it ends up moving towards a more Jonny-centric guitar section that feels like a cousin to “Just.”

A lot of the appeal is just hearing Thom be so Thom and Jonny be so Jonny, and how their instincts overlap or gel. This is kinda how it goes when you follow artists for a long time – even if some of the songs are exceptionally good, I’m not coming to this expecting to have my mind blown. I just want to check in with these guys on their journey.

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Kassie Krut “Reckless”

My friend Molly passed this along to me, telling me “this feels Matthew-core.” And she’s right, this is exactly the kind of song I’ve been looking out for on this site for over 20 years. Let’s go down the checklist – catchy but abrasive, big heavy beats, random bits of noise, a playful but aloof vocal by some ultra-cool girl, the kind of dance music that’s actually better for walking. The lyrics split the difference between a musical theater “I want” song and the timeless “let me tell you how cool I am” type of song. One of the main hooks is just spelling out the name of their band, which makes them part of a tradition that also includes T. Rex and Pixies. It’s cool stuff. I like hearing cool songs like this. Molly is right.

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The Fiery Furnaces “Quay Cur” (Stuck In My Head version)

I love Matthew Friedberger’s endless delight in reinterpreting his songs. It seems like for him it’s mostly a formal game, but I think it’s also kind of a flex in showing off the strength and versatility of his melodies and musical motifs. The new Fiery Furnaces album Stuck In My Head is essentially a live-in-studio recording of the band’s 2021 reunion tour show in which everything was arranged for an array of keyboards, bass guitar, drums, and only Eleanor Friedberger on vocals. The Furnaces’ music generally focused more on keyboard than guitar, but the set includes a few very guitar-centric songs like “Chris Michaels” and “Don’t Dance Her Down” reworked for keyboards without losing their shape or energy. The more keyboard-based songs go through more tonal shifts, or in the case of “Quay Cur,” get boiled down to their essence. The “Quay Cur” on Blueberry Boat is a maximalist epic, this version is truncated and pared down, with the parts where Matthew would sing replaced with chaotic instrumental sections. The song still feels huge and dramatic, but far more direct and blunt. I particularly like the shift towards a groovier sound on the Inuit section, and the way they bring in a keyboard motif from “Lost At Sea” at the end, which on the record segues into another part of “Lost At Sea” anchoring the verses of “Tropical Iceland.” The mash-up works perfectly on a musical level, but it’s also a clever little joke – the character in “Quay Cur” is indeed lost at sea.

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Geordie Greep “Holy, Holy”

Congratulations to former Black Midi member Geordie Greep for writing the most Steely Dan-ish lyrics I’ve ever heard outside of anything Walter Becker and Donald Fagen actually made themselves. The Dan-ness carries over to the vocal melody and cadence, but the arrangement mixes in some aggro-prog flavor along with the suave Latin percussion to keep it firmly in Greep’s established lane. The lyrical conceit is brilliant – the first half of the song you’re hearing some freak narrate an encounter with a woman at a bar, making himself out to be some kind of international big shot Lothario, and the second half you’re listening to him set up that meeting in detail with a sex worker. He’s not interested in sex at all, he just needs people in that bar to see him as important and sexy. Greep’s grand but twitchy voice is uniquely suited to this concept, grandiose enough to sell the over-the-top pomposity but anxious and desperate enough to make you first notice that something’s off about this character and then make the leap into full-on comedy in the second half. He sounds so sweaty and skeevy and hilariously pathetic. It’s like when a character actor creates the perfect role for themselves.

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Broadcast “Please Call to Book”

“Please Call to Book” is a song that Trish Keenan wrote and recorded on her own as part of some fan contest built around fans sending in lyric ideas on postcards circa 2006, and it was found by her collaborator James Cargill after she passed away in 2011. I don’t recall this contest happening or if any songs from it were officially released, but it’s amazing to me that she’d keep something as good as this on the shelf. It’s a very simple acoustic ballad but I actually hear a lot of Paul McCartney in Keenan’s melody here, so it comes across like a spooky yet sweet cross between English folk and early Beatles. As with most of the material on the two recent Broadcast demo compilations, the recording highlights how extraordinary Keenan was a musician on her own, and while it’s a blessing to get to hear some “new” Broadcast songs, it just makes losing her so young hurt a little more.

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Kate Bollinger “Postcard From A Cloud”

I love the simple little trick Kate Bollinger pulls off in this song – singing near the bottom of her register in the verses, and at the top of it on the choruses. It’s not heavy-handed at all and it took me a little while to even really notice, but it’s very effective in marking the broader contrast between those two sections. In the verses, which chug along on a relaxed rhythm guitar part, she’s addressing her friends and assuring them “I think about you more than I’m showing.” The chorus is extremely airy, and feels like she’s rising up into the heavens. Her lyrical perspective shifts, she’s not grounded at all, but she’s experiencing something from on high. Pretty good metaphor for the experience of a fairly normal young person who’s suddenly pulled into a life of touring and minor stardom, right?

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Sex Week “Angel Blessings”

“Angel Blessings” is pretty firmly rooted in alt-rock and shoe gaze genre conventions, so it’s more cozy and familiar than musically interesting. (Which is fine, you don’t always need to be original to be good.) But there is something intriguing going on here – oblique lyrical references to living in squalor, fraught sexuality, obscure mysticism, and some lines that suggest drug addiction with some degree of plausible deniability. You can connect the dots a lot of different ways, but the main feeling I get from this song is someone so overcome by desire and need that it’s become a little disgusting to them.

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The Army, The Navy “BBIDGI”

The Army, The Navy are a folk duo with the same basic set up as Simon & Garfunkel – two singers, one guitar. The interesting thing with them, most especially on “BBIDGI,” is how their melodies and vocal harmonies are much closer in style and tone to mid 90s through mid 00s R&B than typical folk. It’s a little like if an R&B girl group did an unplugged record, right on down to the lyrics about being flummoxed by a very confusing sexual relationship. I hear this as like a reversed version of Lauryn Hill and D’Angelo’s classic “Nothing Even Matters,” which has a somewhat similar melody – instead of two people with such intense intimacy the world disappears around them, this is one woman trying to understand why her connection and intimacy with someone seems to come and go inexplicably. Even with the harmony vocal, she sounds so cut off and alone but so eager to get to where Hill and D’Angelo are in that song.

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Thandii “It Only Takes 2”

Thandii are funk minimalists in the tradition of ESG and Liquid Liquid, though I think their grooves come out feeling less tightly wound and neurotic. “It Only Takes 2” in particular strikes me as being like if Swim-era Caribou made an 80s freestyle song. The stark arrangement keeps your ear focused on the most functional elements of the groove, but it also implies a sweaty, close-counters intimacy that amps up the lust and eroticism at the core of the song.

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Błoto “Shitaake”

There are some things that just sound extremely cool, and I’m not sure if trying to describe or explain it would do anything to help my – or anyone else’s – experience with the music. Sometimes you just have to let the cool, mysterious sounds be cool, mysterious sounds that move your body and your mind and not ask a lot of questions. A sufficiently advanced groove is indistinguishable from magic. I could be talking about most anything in “Shitaake,” really, but the part that gets me going comes in almost right away, about seven seconds in. Just put that on.

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Louis Fontaine “Mousse au Chocolat”

I don’t know much about this Louis Fontaine record except for that he’s playing every instrument on the track and every song on the album is “inspired by childhood culinary experiences.” I have no idea what his specific childhood experience of chocolate mousse might have been like, but I can hear how this instrumental signals something sweet, rich, refined, and vaguely campy. There’s something a bit childlike about the brighter piano notes and staccato chords that carry the verses, and there’s something distinctly fudgy about the bass tone. I feel like I’m at least halfway towards parsing Fontaine’s synesthesia.

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Bathe “Avalon”

“Avalon” is a song about wanting to be somewhere else. You can go a few different directions with that idea – like, you could focus on conveying discomfort, dissatisfaction, a burning desire to get out of your current setting. The R&B duo Bathe opted for evoking the place they’d rather be. The music is calm, the vibe is positive, the mood is romantic. They’re setting intentions, they’re visualizing a better way of living. There’s still a bit of tension where can hear how the song is tethered to reality, but the beauty of the song is in how they focus on desire.

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Balthvs “Like Coconut Water”

The Colombian trio Balthvs draw on pretty much the same pool of eclectic international influences as the American trio Khruangbin, to the point that a lot of their music could pass as Khruangbin. But of course, most Khruangbin music sounds just like recordings by artists scattered around the globe who aren’t nearly popular enough to play amphitheaters, so is it actually fair to say they sound alike? I think it’s fair to say they’re fellow travelers, and the success of Khruangbin has opened some doors, which is unambiguously positive for vibey groovy musicians around the world. In any case, “Like Coconut Water” is an especially lovely and relaxing piece of music with a gorgeous reverb-heavy guitar tone. There are some words sung in a gentle voice, but they’re very much lyrics in the “subtitles for the music” vein – images of flowers, fruit, perfect summer days.

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Daniela Andrade “Biking”

The keyboard and percussion parts the verses of “Biking” are so soft and subtle that it sounds like they’re nervously and very carefully tip-toeing around the vocal. This suits the lyrics perfectly, as Daniela Andrade is essentially confessing that she’s in love. She’s addressing the “you” that she’s fallen for, but I think a lot of the lines are really about her processing the emotions and being honest with herself. She pushes back against the parts of herself that might be skeptical or embarrassed – “it sounds so needy, but yes, I need you” – and admits that being terrified about this relationship actually feels good somehow. Andrade allows the fear and the elation to sharply contrast but also swirl together and blur as the song moves along. It ends up sounding more lovely than angst-ridden once you reach the ending, which is what you’d hope for in a situation like this.

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Lunar Vacation “Sick”

I had to see the lyrics of “Sick” in print to pick up on some crucial context – my ear didn’t catch the phrase “luxury apartments” because the melody wraps around the very Wilco-esque chords in a way that puts those two words in separate lines. I initially took this song pretty much at face value – she’s literally sick, she’s in an apartment – but it’s more about looking at real estate for the rich as a harbinger of the apocalypse. And as with a lot of King Gizzard songs fixated on the devastation of climate change, Lunar Vacation are rooting for Mother Nature and not humanity here. “The Earth is finally taking back her children,” Grace Repasky sings, sounding vaguely relieved.

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Jungle “Let’s Go Back”

One of the most distinctive elements of Jungle’s style is the way they stack vocal harmonies so it feels like a warm breeze or like being submerged in hot water. It’s cozy and calming, but also enveloping and elemental. You get a lot of that in “Let’s Go Back,” a new single that isn’t very far off from where the trio got to with “Back on 74” off their most recent record. I hear it more like refinement than retreading a previous song – they’re even more dialed in to this R&B aesthetic that gestures towards mid-20th century nostalgia while having a very 2020s sheen. It’s an interesting contrast with their fellow Brits in Sault, who put a similarly modern gloss on soul and R&B forms, but generally land in much darker territory than the fairly sunny and reassuring vibes of Jungle’s work.

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