Author Archive

Bad Bad Hats “Detroit Basketball”

Kerry Alexander’s voice is precisely calibrated to deliver even measures of wry humor and frank emotion in her songs, the recognizable point of view of someone who’s in touch with their feelings enough to be quite blunt about what they want and need but has the appropriate distance to see exactly what’s funny about the slapstick collisions of those wants and needs. “Detroit Basketball” opens with a killer line – “gotta find a man who deserves my kissing and doesn’t blow my money on the Detroit Pistons” – but briskly moves from the punchline to a resolution to move on and a chorus that delights in freedom, even if it’s the direct result of embarrassment. Like all the best Bad Bad Hats songs the structure is a sturdy and efficient sequence of strong hooks, the result of a thoughtful craft-oriented band, but it’s played with just enough casual cool that the vibe is not precious or try-hard. Everything about the song is just-so, the way any interesting person you know is essentially dialed in to a specific disposition.

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Anna Fox Rochinski “Everybody’s Down”

Anna Fox Rochinski’s Cherry is a perfect example of the distiction between a debut and a solo debut – the songs display all the confidence of a seasoned professional, but also the enthusiasms and undiluted idiosycracies of a musician who’s no longer confined by the democratic processes of being part of a band. Cherry sounds like a very deliberate album, the kind where it’s a safe guess that each song went through many revisions, arrangements, and mixes before arriving at something close to perfect. This approach can suffocate some material but Rochinski gives her crisp, tight arrangements enough negative space to breathe and give her expressive voice some room to move.

“Everybody’s Down” is a particularly strong showcase for her vocals, which seem to glide around her grooves as she makes her way up from the lower end of her register on the verses up to near the top of her range on the chorus. I’m not quite clear on the POV in the lyrics – the lines about offers and contracts are simultaneously specific and vague – but I love the way the refrain “who supports this brand of violence? / leave it to me to get to the bottom of it” comes across as a joke at the expense of clueless and privileged white people who mean well but rarely offer more than shallow gestures when it comes to trying to help anyone but themselves. It’s hard for me not to take the song as satire of complicit people waking up to a reality outside their bubble, but it’s not so brutal to have no sympathy for its subject. If anything, it feels like it’s meant for a self-aware audience who’s experienced some version of this awkward awakening.

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박혜진 Park Hye Jin “Let’s Sing Let’s Dance”

“Let’s Sing, Let’s Dance” is built around a piano part that conveys an ambiguous feeling – from some angles it’s diluted melancholy, from others it’s more like diluted joy. The chords signal the calculated elegance of a hotel piano bar, but the actual tone is obviously synthetic and likely the output of a cheap keyboard. Park Hye Jin embraces the neither-here-nor-there quality of this part, essentially making it a neutral state that the rest of the song is trying to either nudge into something else with beats and bass, or escape through the proposal of the title – to sing, to dance. The composition never moves beyond this vibe but as an album opener of a dance record it’s very promising. It sets the scene for more ecstatic music to come while presenting a very recognizable empty but yearning feeling.

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Snapped Ankles “Shifting Basslines of the Cornucopians”

Snapped Ankles, a group of anonymous British musicians who dress up in what looks like ghillie suits designed by Matthew Barney, have an elaborate mythology around their new record which involves a character called The Cornucopian. This is their avatar of the capitalist glutton, the hedonistic striver who reaches for material luxuries they can hardly afford. The character is given voice in this song, a crazed carnival tune that sounds like it should be signifying a good time but actually feels sweaty, paranoid, and unbalanced. The vocals strongly resemble that of The Fall’s Mark E. Smith in tonality, phrasing, and sentiment as they spit bitterly sarcastic lines such as the opening “it’s a great time to be alive if only you’ve got some funds.” The ideas they’re working with could come off a bit too didactic in lesser hands but this lot stays on the right side of satire and wisely place their greatest emphasis on rhythm and texture. You never need to pay attention to the words or look into their context to understand exactly what kind of bad – but still fun! – vibe they’re putting across here.

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Zoee “No Great Endings”

“No Great Endings” is a fairly straightforward song that feels a bit bent and warped by the strange gravity of Zoee’s voice, which sounds something like a depressed faerie. You mainly hear this in a keyboard part that seems to wobble like jello at some points and in others more like a crude caricature of a harp. But it’s there in the rest of the arrangement too, which moves with a solid groove but projects a dazed and detached vibe. The lyrics are full of poetic descriptions in the verses, but chorus is quite plain and direct: “Where to put this pain? / It’s always the same.” The emphasis on pragmatism is interesting – she doesn’t sound like she wants bury it or deny the feeling, but is jaded enough to half-expect more is on the way. It’s less like an expression of denial and more like imagining a plan to carefully catalog it all in some kind of emotional library.

Buy it from Bandcamp.

Magdalena Bay “Chaeri”

“Chaeri” starts at a hot simmer but gradually builds up to a rolling boil, incrementally building the intensity of its longing and grief until it’s overwhelming and cathartic. Magdalena Bay, always great students of the history of modern pop, seem to be deliberately paying tribute to Robyn on this track but I think they delve into a darker emotional palette here. They’re also going into a very different sort of relationship drama, a platonic friend breakup that if anything is far more damaging and agonizing than the end of most romantic relationships. Mica Tenenbaum sings about feeling guilty, for not understanding that she was hurting this other person, for not getting she was being a “bad friend.” She’s torn up by complicated and conflicting feelings – she’s defensive, she’s self-flagellating, she’s empathetic, she’s concerned about their well-being and mental health. The lyrics start from the position that it’s all done and there’s nothing left to repair, and the pleading chorus is all coulda-woulda-shoulda. But she doesn’t sound like she’s entirely given up hope for reconciliation, even when that hope comes with the understanding that she must suffer for it: “Better crucified than alone.”

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Navy “LMK”

I’ve heard so many songs over the years that are about someone getting mixed signals from someone they’re attracted to and just wanting clarity on the matter and it’s interesting how such a basic idea can be interated in so many ways, this nuanced spectrum of experiencing the same thing. Navy’s “LMK” falls on the more relaxed end of things, and not just for its supremely chill Caribbean vibes and a central keyboard part that’s like a sonic command to loosen up one’s muscles. Navy seems concerned about her situation in as much as she’d much rather skip to uncomplicated romance, but she comes off as self-assured and not especially overeager to force something that’s not meant to be. She’s singing as a person with a very clear idea of what she wants, but is wise enough to not want a compromised version of that. There’s versions of this song where it’s like the singer could explode with anxiety at any moment, but here’s Navy just patiently singing “if you want me, let me know…”

Buy it from Traxsource.

DJs Pareja & Lupe “Nuestra Forma (Beats Version)”

Pareja & Lupe, an Argentinian duo who began their collaboration during the pandemic without ever having met in person, specialize in energetic dance music with a heavy, drowsy atmosphere. It’s an odd contrast that totally works for them as both aspects of the tracks emphasize sensuality and physicality. My grasp of Spanish isn’t great but as far as I can glean, the lyrics are specifically about physicality – the body in motion, dancing as an expression that doesn’t require an audience. “Nuestra Forma” makes sense as dance music made during lockdown, a moody and slightly spaced out banger that’s built for solitude but would nevertheless feel complete in a crowded room.

Buy it from Bandcamp.

Sault “Bitter Streets”

You could create a conspiracy theorist pinboard for Sault where you can connect the names of everyone involved, from the primary producer Inflo to regular singer Cleo Sol to an extended network of collaborators including Little Simz and Jack Peñate on the new record. You could try to crack the code of their oblique album titles and minimalist art, or speculate as to the politics that drive their lyrics and distribution models. But despite them creating a natural curiosity gap with their deliberately mysterious shtick, thinking about this misses the obvious point that they clearly want this music to be faceless and to speak for itself.

“Bitter Streets,” a song credited to Inflo, Cleo Sol, and Jack Peñate, is Sault in mellow and meditative mode. The arrangement is straight-up stunning – womb-warm bass gliding around a crisp pocket beat, a choral part that sounds like it’s being played on an old Melotron, and a string section part that’s almost but not quite understated. The music nods in the direction of melodrama but doesn’t go there, evoking a very movie mood without straining for a “cinematic” feel. Sol’s vocal performance is similarly low-key, investing her lament for a friend who “fell in love with the streets” with a world-weariness but not a heavy grief. She’s not singing like someone who is surprised by anything that’s happened. If anything, she sounds bored by the same story, over and over.

Buy it from Bandcamp.

Laura Mvula “Got Me”

Laura Mvula holds back on the verses of this song, singing at the low end of her register in a rhythmic monotone that slips right into the groove but conveys a slightly deadened feeling. She’s waking up, she’s remembering being with this other person, and now just feels a lack. It sets the scene, but mostly is just to provide contrast for when she sings in her fullest, most passionate voice in the chorus, back up by a very ‘80s R&B horn fanfare. It’s like the movie trick of changing color saturation or film stock to signal a drastic mood shift – the verses here are too rich and Michael Jackson-ish to come across as black and white, but think of it like cutting from a muted palette to bold, bright, super saturated colors. She sounds confident and joyful on the chorus, expressing absolute pleasure in submission – “I’m a slave to the sound of your command.” As Trent Reznor put it years ago, happiness in slavery.

Buy it from Amazon.

Colleen Green “I Wanna Be A Dog”

“I Wanna Be A Dog” could’ve simply been a Weird Al style parody of the Iggy and the Stooges classic “I Wanna Be Your Dog,” but Colleen Green really goes all the way with the conceit, essentially using that simple joke as the starting point for an extended metaphor for discussing her neuroses. Green has always been at her best when approaching anxieties and hang-ups with a bit of self-effacing humor, resulting in songs that are open about issues without the sort of ultra-earnest seriousness that pushes so much contemporary “let me tell you about my psychological issues” music into full-on cringe territory. Green’s song craft here is excellent too, piling on simple breezy hooks with a casual ease. The crisp production keeps it light and clean, and also has the benefit of calling attention to her similarities to like-minded ‘90s alt-rockers Juliana Hatfield, That Dog, and Belly.

Buy it from Bandcamp.

PinkPantheress “Pain”

PinkPantheress’ arrangement for “Pain” contrasts a very ‘90s sort of breakbeat programming with a very chill keyboard part, which makes the song feel like a very caffeinated version of trip-hop. Her vocal cadence is more contemporary, falling into that nebulous zone between vaguely indie and vaguely R&B/pop – somehow vulnerable and aloof and casual and intensely emotional all at once as she sings about a relationship that seems similarly ambiguous. The lyrics are very plainly stated but it’s still hard to parse exactly what’s going on between these two people, but that’s definitely the point. When she just gets to the “la la la la” chorus, it’s like she’s just trying to shrug this all off.

Buy it from Amazon.

Alicia Walter “Prelude”

The thing that startled me about this Alicia Walter song – yes, startled! – is when the song moves into the chorus and it’s suddenly firmly in Animal Collective territory, with the hook accurately simulating one of their signature moves. You know that thing when they do that staccato bashing, a little like a whole bunch of people clapping together metal garbage can lids, and a lot like robots jumping on a trampoline? It’s abrasive but also whimsical and childlike. It’s that thing, but in the context of a song that’s sung with an elegance and grace that’s closer to, say, Anohni or Regina Spektor. (Though when she wilds out a bit, it’s more Tune-Yards.) Walter is combining a lot of sounds that were fashionable in the late ‘00s and arriving at something that sounds fresh and new, as though she only ever heard the similarities in these things but not the differences. And the shared spirit she’s tapping into here is really about a boldness of sound and a refusal to hold back overwhelming emotions. It’s full expression without restraint, and a willingness to get colorful and ridiculous in the service of the feeling.

Buy it from Bandcamp.

95 Bulls “Young Love”

“Young Love” starts by introducing two key musical hooks – a dirty guitar riff and a Farfisa part straight out of ’60s garage rock – that take up almost the first full minute of the song, as if to formally herald the arrival Em Ash’s vocal performance. Ash has a huge voice and holds nothing back, like Kathleen Hanna in her ferocious Bikini Kill prime but with the power and range of Beth Ditto. It’s a voice so wild and forceful that some of the words get lost in the din, so while I feel confident saying that this is a song about romantic and sexual confusion, I’m not so sure about the exact scenario. But this is the kind of song where you don’t need lyrics to get what it’s about – all the feeling you could need is right there in that vocal blast, the raunchiness of the groove, and the way the keyboard part is both shrill treble and an element of cuteness that contrasts sharply with the wild intensity of everything else around it.

Buy it from Amazon.

STAYC “ASAP”

“ASAP” bounces between sections like tapping through a feed, cycling through cartoonishly boppy pop to rap sections to plaintive balladry every few measures. It all holds together smoothly partly by the logic of feed curation – elements may be different, but there’s an internal logic of aesthetics and taste. All the K-Pop that I enjoy basically works like this, a new variation on the ADHD pop maximalism that was bubbling up in the 2000s and fell out of fashion amongst the cold minimalism that dominated the 2010s. The pendulum is clearly swinging back in favor of this style, and it seems like increasingly like the power of the K-Pop machine is great enough to force pop in general to snap out of its malaise and move towards this sort of energy, if not necessarily the relentlessly cheerful hyperactive genre-mashing of a bop like “ASAP.”

Buy it from Amazon.

Hether “Oidar”

I know it’s unfair to Hether to say this, but I’m pretty sure you could trick people into believing this is a Tame Impala song. There’s some subtle differences, but for the most part the performance and aesthetics of this song are so closely aligned with Kevin Parker that it feels weird to not mention it. “Oidar” feels a little more peevish than what Parker usually gets up to though, particularly in how the lyrics express a dismissive and passive-aggressive vibe in a relationship dispute. The sentiment of the words is softened by the relaxed feeling of the music, which I think is part of the point. Not in terms of going for a contrasting irony, but in telling someone “right now you’re driving me crazy” and deliberately trying to soften it so it doesn’t overstate what is only a faintly negative feeling. The sound feels affectionate, and that’s not just sugaring the pill – it’s the main emotion.

Buy it from Bandcamp.

Pom Pom Squad “Crying”

“Crying” sounds like a sentimental breakup ballad but Mia Berrin doesn’t seem hung up on anyone but herself in the lyrics. It’s all self-flagellation for failing in attempts at relationships, castigating herself for making “a game of breaking promises,” feeling nothing, losing arguments, and obsessing on people who she thinks hate her. Berrin sings it all with convincing feeling, but it’s also clear she’s playing up the melodrama and winking at the audience a bit. The song effectively has it both ways – it indulges your self-pity, but also gently nudges you to notice that maybe the reason connecting with other people has been so hard is that even aside from all the ways you self-sabotage, you’re just too caught up in yourself to really notice or care about how anyone else feels.

Buy it from Bandcamp.

Sleater-Kinney “Path of Wellness”

Sleater-Kinney are in an unenviable position in their career where if things had not changed for them musically whatever they released would be “ah, ok, another Sleater-Kinney record, sure whatever” since the novelty of their return had already been played out. But then, of course, when they changed things up musically they ended up losing Janet Weiss as their drummer and so Path of Wellness arrives buried in the context of her absence.

Corin Tucker and Carrie Brownstein are talented enough to carry a record on their own – they did make their first two albums without Weiss, after all – but it’s still very hard to hear Path without thinking of what would be different or the same if she had stuck around. Having spent some time with the album I’m inclined to say it probably would’ve been mostly the same with Janet, particularly as the drummers on the record play in a fairly similarly muscular and fill-heavy style. In some ways that comes as a relief and in others it’s disappointing, as the new songs are neither a jump into totally new territory they couldn’t have explored without Weiss or, if you’re a Weiss partisan, proof that they can’t be a good band without her.

“Path of Wellness,” a song built around a clangy busy rhythm and a distorted bass groove, is the track that moves furthest from the band’s established aesthetics with Weiss. It’s also maybe not coincidentally the best and most exciting song on the record. “Path” pulls off an interesting trick of sounding unlike any previous Sleater-Kinney song while also tapping into a loose, atmospheric quality I don’t think they’ve had since The Hot Rock came out over 20 years ago. There’s no effort put into thickening the sound here, the starkness of the clatter and buzz is the point. Tucker’s voice, always the most unique and exciting aspect of the band, is at the center of the track. She’s not fully cutting loose here, but she does work through a lot of her best vocal tricks as the song moves from sly, winking verses towards a classic S-K climax in which Brownstein’s snaky riffs and Tucker’s raw emoting weave around until they converge at just the right cathartic moment.

Buy it from Amazon.

Lorde “Solar Power”

“Solar Power” is a song of low-key joy in which Lorde casually sidesteps the widespread expectation that she continue to play the part of the “sad girl” rather than explore less fraught elements of human existence. There’s a weird impulse for many to assume that singing about pleasure and fun and shirking responsibilities is vapid, but I think that comes from people not believing happiness can be as nuanced and deeply felt as a million shades of misery. “Solar Power” is hardly a dumb song – there’s a lot of evocative little details in setting the scene, some witty asides, and a belief in the healing power of feeling close to the natural world that borders on religious fervor. The second half of the song borrows from the ersatz gospel of early ‘90s songs like George Michael’s God Tier classic “Freedom ’90” and Primal Scream’s breakthroughs on Screamadelica, and that sort of secular spirituality really works for the themes here. Join her in praising the sun!

There’s no shortage of young artists who now, intentionally or not, sing with the peculiar and specific inflections Lorde sang with on her first two records. The most obvious and famous example is Olivia Rodrigo, who is at this moment one of the most successful and hyped pop stars going. It’s notable that the sort of affectations these singers have internalized aren’t really on this new Lorde song, though she still sounds exactly and unmistakably like herself. I don’t think this is accidental, either in the sense of her avoiding sounding like her own imitators or in that she’s a thoughtful singer who was never going to stay in one gear. But I hear this and get the impression that she’s essentially telling the rest “fine, you can keep that affectation – I’ve got a lot more phrasing tricks to work with.”

Buy it from Amazon.

Wolf Alice “Play the Greatest Hits”

Given that “Play the Greatest Hits” is the only song on the new Wolf Alice record that taps into the wild alt-rock energy I loved so much about their first two albums, I feel like the title is taunting me somewhat: “Oh, we he had to move on artistically, but here’s one for those of you who want the old Wolf Alice.” But then again, they throw themselves into this song so intensely that I don’t think they’re actually bored by this sort of song at all, but rather poured every bit of frazzled energy they had into this one very fast and loud song about the “fast life” that sounds like a car careening towards a brick wall. Ellie Rowsell has a versatile voice but I love her this sort of bratty and frenzied mode – it gives the snarky lines the right amount of venom and makes the lyrics about self-destructive habits come off as more nihilistic than self-pitying.

Buy it from Amazon.