To Make A Dream Come True

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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