029 ALTER.NATiON: weekly favtraX 06-04-2019

ALTER.NATiON #29

Lady Lamb, Sara Bareilles, Priests, Dumb, Big Eyes, Datura4, Lee Fields & the Expressions, Jimbo Mathus, Ratso, Nick Cave, Kiefer, Rozi Plain, Kendrick Scott Oracle
 

weekly favtraX
06-04-2019

Beguiling and atmospheric blend of folk, pop, and indie rock from Maine's Aly Spaltro.  

Lady Lamb - Oh My Violence from Even in the Tremor

Lady Lamb (aka Aly Spaltro) lists her influences as “the universe” and “pecan pie.”

The great Stephen Hawking warned about sending space probes out into the stars with our specific zip code, because, well, aliens on the receiving end of our map might well have more sinister intentions beyond a weekend in Las Vegas, tickets to Disneyland, and a fifty-yard line seat to watch Super Bowl Halftime entertainment.

So, I think we should have just etched onto any deep space probe’s message that we are in the universe, and we also enjoy a good piece of pie. That may be all anyone needs to know. And then we should have included this record with our message to the stars.

California singer/songwriter who melds pop savvy with powerful pipes and an indie rock edge. 

Sara Bareilles - Armor from Amidst the Chaos

...Appropriately, Amidst the Chaos feels as if it was born from the turmoil left in the wake of the 2016 election, wearing its scars proudly even as it hesitatingly offers glimmers of hope. Bareilles doesn't address politics directly, preferring to rhapsodize about the Obama era in the guise of love songs and donning metaphorical armor to combat the age of Trump, and such skilled obliqueness -- where the audience recognizes what's being said, even if the themes are never spoken out loud -- are a reflection of how Bareilles has sharpened her songwriting by writing tunes for the stage during the bulk of the 2010s. There are hints of theatricality on Amidst the Chaos, particularly when the tempo quickens, but Bareilles opted to cut the album with T-Bone Burnett, a producer who specializes in analog impressionism...

Frenetic post-punk quartet follows a long line of angular punk legends from its hometown of Washington, D.C. 

Priests - Control Freak from The Seduction of Kansas

When Priests' Nothing Feels Natural arrived in January 2017 -- just in time for President Donald Trump's inauguration -- it felt like it was summoned by a collective need for its outrage and contemplation. Two years later, The Seduction of Kansas reflects the changes in the band, and in America, since the release of their debut album. With the departure of former bassist Taylor Mulitz to play full time with his other group Flasher, Priests became a trio, a reconfiguration that allowed Katie Greer, Daniele Daniele, and G.L. Jaguar to experiment on their second album. To that end, they worked with producer John Congleton and multi-instrumentalist Janel Leppin, who contributed some of Nothing Feels Natural's distinctive sounds and textures. Where that album practically leapt into listeners' ears, The Seduction of Kansas is slower and more polished, telegraphing that Priests are in it for the long haul... It's a sentiment that captures the essence of Priests' music on The Seduction of Kansas -- while they're too nonconformist to be a traditional punk band, they continue to define themselves as something more challenging and encompassing.

Sharp, arty, yet unpretentious Vancouver punk band whose music belies their name. 

Dumb - Club Nites

You don’t go to a club without a goal, whether you’re looking to hook up, blowing off steam, or seeking social validation. We conceal these basic desires throughout the day and let them loose at night, in the company of other anxious humans. Collective hedonism is the fabric of the club. On “Club Nites,” Toronto rock outfit Dumb frantically wade through the crowd.

Lead singer Franco Rosino offers flashes of the evening: trying to buy someone a drink, witnessing a public make-out, seeing an old friend, tolerating a douchey pseudo-intellectual. “I get it you’re an artist, yeah you’ve got so much to say about the world and how it got here,” he intones over gnarling guitars. “Until I catch you dancing shut your mouth and take a seat, buddy.”

Armed with swaggering attitude and crunchy riffs, Big Eyes deliver a modern take on punk rock and power pop.

Big Eyes - Try Hard Kiss Ass from Streets of the Lost

2016's Stake My Claim was the first Big Eyes album to feature two guitar players, and it changed the band's direction. Kait Eldridge's group had a sound that was tough-as-nails garage punk with a nasty edge and a nice line in hooky tunes. Her guitar playing was whip-smart and left a mark. With the addition of Paul Ridenour on guitar, the duo began to explore the possibilities of having two guitars trading punches and ending up in a tangled heap...  Other bands doing similar things with AOR and hard rock may get more press or hype than Big Eyes, but Streets of the Lost shows that this band deserves to be in the conversation when kick-ass, non-ridiculous rock & roll bands of 2019 are discussed.

Blues, boogie, and hard rock in the classic lysergic fashion from this band of Australian rock veterans. 

Datura4 -  Evil People, Pt. 2 from Blessed is the Boogie

Dom Mariani says the goal for his third Datura4 album was "to just keep improving, really." And the veteran Australian rocker can certain make that case for Blessed Is the Boogie, whose title track is premiering exclusively below.

"I think the third album in we're probably starting to get a bit more momentum, songwriting-wise," Mariani tells Billboard. "I approach it song by song; I don't say, 'We're just gonna go down there and play boogie.' For me it's about songs -- as long as there's a riff or a melody that kind of makes us feel good, that's how we work. We don't have a preconceived idea of how we want to sound or how a song should sound. These songs really just come and we just enjoy putting them together. We have broad, very eclectic kinds of tastes in this band."

Veteran soul and funk vocalist and songwriter backed by the original house band of Truth & Soul Records. 

Lee Fields & the Expressions - It Rains Love from It Rains Love

He first made his name as a James Brown-inspired soul shouter in the '70s, but since Lee Fields became one of the leading figures on the retro-soul scene in the 2000s, he's subtly been evolving into a more nuanced performer, one who can still sing with grit and force but also brings the heart and passion of a Bobby Womack or a Wilson Pickett to his material. 2019's It Rains Love shows just how good Fields has gotten at putting a thoughtful lover's heart behind the expressive fire of his delivery, and it ranks with his best work, a combination of great songs and sterling performances that bring out their best qualities...

Co-founder of the Squirrel Nut Zippers, this Mississippi guitarist, singer, and songwriter carries the torch for Southern music traditions. 

Jimbo Mathus - Incinerator from Incinerator 

"Introspective" is generally not the first word people think of when they talk about Jimbo Mathus and his music. Much of his best and best-known work has been dominated by a bluesy stomp and a willingness to throw caution to the wind, both musically and lyrically. Although the swampy grit that won Mathus his reputation can certainly be found on 2019's Incinerator, most of the time it's overshadowed by more thoughtful material, late-night laments in which he ponders love gone wrong or decisions made poorly. While Mathus has never sounded less than passionate on his recordings, this time he wears his heart on his sleeve in a whole new way... 

The New York author, songwriter, journalist, screenwriter, and cult figure became a recording artist at age 70. 

Ratso feat. Nick Cave - Our Lady of Light from Stubborn Heart

Who is Ratso? Why is Nick Cave on his debut album? Ratso is the nickname for author, journalist, screenwriter, songwriter, New York persona, and septuagenarian Larry Sloman. He earned his bones penning On the Road with Bob Dylan, which documented the Rolling Thunder tour (where Joni Mitchell nicknamed him). A close friend of Leonard Cohen, Dylan, and many other songwriters...  "Our Lady of Light," with Cave, is the set's finest moment, with pillowy guitars in a vintage rock & roll waltz; it could be a companion to one of Cohen's own songs of unattainable amorousness (think "Suzanne"). Alternating with Sloman's reedy nasal instrument, Cave's croon adds balance, poignancy, and emotional heft...

Los Angeles-based jazz keyboardist and producer with a hip-hop and R&B-influenced sound. 

Kiefer - Sunny from Bridges

Los Angeles beat music maestro, Kiefer, has delivered two worthwhile LPs in as many years. Now, to follow-up 2017’s Kickinit Alone and 2018’s Happysad, Kiefer has announced the April 5th release of Bridges through Stones Throw Records.

Whereas his first two releases consisted primarily of piano-driven improvisations, Bridges hears Kiefer incorporate several new instruments, including a range of analogue synth, while also focusing on a structured approach to composition and more intricately orchestrated moments, according to a press release.

Indie folk musician with an intricate, quietly off-center approach to her often collaborative electro-acoustic recordings. 

Rozi Plain - Conditions from What a Boost

Collaborative U.K. musician Rozi Plain finished writing her fourth solo album, What a Boost, during a yearlong world tour as bassist for like-minded collective This Is the Kit. The leader of that project, Plain's friend and longtime collaborator Kate Stables, appears on the record, as do guests including but not limited to Sam Amidon, Joel Wästberg (aka sir Was), and members of such experimental groups as Zun Zun Egui and the Comet Is Coming. It's Plain's second consecutive album to be recorded at Total Refreshment Centre, a London club and rehearsal/recording space popular with local jazz musicians at the time, and her intricate, folk-inflected indie rock has a more conspicuous, gentle jazz presence here...

The all-star drummer's longstanding post-bop-cum-spiritual soul-jazz-cum-contemporary jazz quintet that has appeared on all but one of his albums. 

Kendrick Scott Oracle - >>>>The Catalyst from A Wall Becomes a Bridge

The second offering from the Kendrick Scott Oracle on Blue Note may be motivated by a different inspiration than its predecessor, 2015's wonderful We Are the Drum, but shares its aesthetic. The "we" in the earlier album's title connects with Scott's motivation on A Wall Becomes a Bridge: his stated intention is to confront the fears and insecurities that hold us back individually and keep us from engaging collectively. In the run-up to the album, Scott was initially frustrated, unsatisfied with the dearth of ideas he had for new music. Producer Derrick Hodge, one of Scott's oldest friends and collaborators, cannily suggested documenting that struggle musically, confronting the subterranean emotional issues by creating art in direct response to them... "Catalyst" is melodic post-bop with Scott double-timing the band on snare and dropping breaks as Moreno delivers an elegant solo followed by the extrapolated, expansive chords of Eigsti, Ellis' tenor break, and a pulsing bassline. 

Lady Lamb, Sara Bareilles, Priests, Dumb, Big Eyes, Datura4, Lee Fields & the Expressions, Jimbo Mathus, Ratso, Nick Cave, Kiefer, Rozi Plain, Kendrick Scott Oracle

012 ALTER.NATiON: weekly favtraX / 21-12-2018

ALTER.NATiON
The Raconteurs, Marianne Faithfull feat: Nick Cave, Melissa Laveaux, Janelle Monáe, Aphex Twin, Marie Davidson, Meernaa, Kurt Vile, Okkervil River, Josh T. Pearson, Daughters

weekly favtraX

21-12-2018

The Raconteurs - Now That You're Gone  3:39
It’s finally happening! The last time we heard from the Raconteurs, they were still a White Stripes side project. Jack White’s band with Brendan Benson, Jack Lawrence, and Patrick Keeler hasn’t been heard from since the 2008 album Consolers Of The Lonely... Meanwhile, Brendan Benson takes the lead on “Now That You’re Gone,” a blues-rock jam with a squirmy riff and a big, slow central beat. It sounds like the prestige version of bar rock, and it gets in a big, molten Jack White guitar solo.

Marianne Faithfull feat: Nick Cave - The Gypsy Faerie Queen 3:40
Song You Need to Know: Marianne Faithfull’s ‘The Gypsy Faerie Queen’
...She also worked with Cave again for a track on her just-released, new album (and 21st overall), Negative Capability, and ironically it shows off more of her capability for positivity. Although there’s still a certain sadness to “The Gypsy Faerie Queen” (between Nick Cave and Marianne Faithfull, that’s inevitable), it retells Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream from the perspective of Puck, becoming a song of devotion as she sings of following the titular nymph into “the twilight in-between.” It’s a sweet fantasy, and with Cave singing along and his bandmate, Bad Seeds violinist Warren Ellis, adding some gravity to the melody, it becomes an ornate portrait of that feeling of loyalty. When compared with the song after it on the LP – a weighty redo of “As Tears Go By” – its lightness sounds even more profound.

Melissa Laveaux - Lè Ma Monte Chwal Mwen 3:32
There’s a beautifully bright sway to Mélissa Laveaux’s new track that instantly grips, the Ottawa-via-Haiti songwriter crafting something both tender and tremendous on her re-working of an original work by legendary Haitian artist Martha Jean-Claude, who escaped to Cuba after being imprisoned, whilst pregnant, by the regime for the militancy of her art. Laveaux’s take is a quietly magical piece... “The title of the song means when I’m riding my horse,” Laveaux explains. “In a vodou ceremony, when someone is possessed by a spirit, they are that spirit’s horse and the spirit is riding them. It’s also a reference to how vodou is, at times, very erotic.”

Janelle Monáe - Make Me Feel 3:14
On “Make Me Feel,” one of two new singles from Monáe’s Dirty Computer (the musician’s first LP in five years), the polymath unpacks a rubbery funk tune that recalls the likes of Prince and Sheila E. Her 1980s influences are clear, down to each massive synth line and the feeling of raw sensual energy woven throughout the song. Much like her previous work, “Make Me Feel” is a flashy mix of modern bounce and old soul that puts her dulcet voice on full display. Perhaps inspired by her recent success on the big screen—in films like the Oscar Best Picture-winning Moonlight and Oscar nominated Hidden Figures—the video for “Make Me Feel” is equally theatrical, taking colorful cues from “Black Mirror” (think Season Three’s exquisite “San Junipero” episode) and the wide-open feel of the Purple One’s “Kiss.” With its irresistible, sugary pop ethos, “Make Me Feel” could be Monáe’s most straightforward single. Yet at this point in her trajectory, where Monáe is the most visible she’s ever been, the song is a clear statement of strength, freedom, and continued evolution.

Aphex Twin - T69 Collapse 5:22
Richard D. James has a way of grabbing one’s attention—and that doesn’t just mean stunts like the recent Aphex Twin logos that popped up in Turin, London, and Los Angeles, painted on a metal grate and semi-hidden in foliage. Given such campaigns, it would be easy for the hype to eclipse the actual product. And for the first two minutes of “T69 Collapse,” the first single from Aphex Twin’s forthcoming Collapse EP, the music does seem somewhat subdued... Not, at least, until the timer ticks over to 1:55: A dissonant synth lead cuts sideways across the tune and the beat seems to quake beneath it, the drums heaving like objects on a ship’s storm-tossed prow. Chaos takes the reins; the kick drum zippers back and forth. It’s as close to heavy metal as James has ever come—and he still has one more card up his sleeve. A false ending gives way to a third part of the track that’s gentler and more bittersweet than either of its predecessors: an acid-tinged coda that jettisons some of the squirreliness and slips into a sleek, head-snapping groove.

Marie Davidson - Work It 4:20
If Marie Davidson is ever looking for a side hustle, she should consider becoming a life coach. As “Work It,” the second single off her upcoming record Working Class Woman shows, the Montreal producer understands there’s no shortcut to success. “You wanna know how I get away with everything?” she politely asks before bluntly divulging the hard truth. “I work, all the fucking time.” Built atop a layered kick drum, skittish synths, and sharp, robotic jolts of noise, Davidson’s menacing techno mantra of work and sweat leave no room for half-assed efforts...

Meernaa - Wildest Eyes 4:33
Beyond being the most sensual kiss-off of 2018, Meernaa's new single "Wildest Eyes" is a master class in synth wizardry that manages to bow before the throne of analog gear geekdom without ever sounding fussed over, or getting bogged down in its own minutiae.
"Wildest Eyes" shifts subtly, its long sonic planes moving at a seemingly glacial pace (which, fun fact, is also twice the rate of the neurons in Mike Pence's skull). Yet from the staggered plunkydunk synths in the first verse onwards, Meernaa make clear that they plan to fill every nook and cranny of the song with sumptuous surprises - whatever sounds like sand sliding down a metal door in the second verse is a particular delight.

Kurt Vile - Rollin with the Flow 2:59
...There is even a cover of Charlie Rich’s "Rollin With The Flow" half way through the album which acts as the work's beating heart, unifying and highlighting that use of chirpy yet soothing guitar and poetic, wide-eyed lyrics that are synonymous with Vile’s writing, as well as the country genre that he holds close to his heart: "It just all falls in line with all the books I was reading. I was just consuming tones of country music and that Charlie Rich cover just from a random, used Best Of CD, and his version is really awesome, it’s a bit cheesy with the girls singing and these syrupy strings like it goes a little far with the cheese [laughs] but still the root of the song is sick! I presumed it would be the very last song on the album, that was part of my original concept but the record evolved."...

Okkervil River - Pulled Up the Ribbon 4:11
...In fact, “Pulled up the Ribbon” could be one of Will Sheff’s grandiose compositions ever. Guitars ring out like giant bells, their vibrations crashing up against intent bass and percussion like swelling waves upon the shores...

Josh T. Pearson - Loved Straight to Hell 5:29
...The Straight Hits! features multiple different flavours of country, rock and all points in between, taking in blasts of goofy shit-kicking country-punk (opener ‘Straight To The Top!’), cataclysmic rock’n’roll playing its romantic drama at high-stakes (‘Loved Straight To Hell’, which compresses the elemental power of Pearson’s previous band, Lift To Experience into five and a half minutes of symphonic turmoil)...

Daughters - Ocean Song 7:28
...The song’s title, “Ocean Song,” made me think it was going to be calming and smooth, maybe with some soft piano in the background.
I was very wrong.
At the beginning, the intense guitar and drums almost made me jump. Then the band’s frontman Alexis Marshall begins to tell the story of Paul. It seems that Paul is a character made up for the song and he’s going through some kind of frustration. He’s fed up with his life and he wants “to go, to run” and find a new life outside of his own...

The Raconteurs - Sundey Driver 3:39
The first of the two new songs is an absolute banger called “Sunday Driver.” White takes the lead on that one, and it’s a rip-snorting Camaro-rocker with hooks for days. In director Steven Sebring’s video, the camera spins vertiginously around the band as they play. Jack White recaptures that old rock-star swagger, and it’s a cool thing to see.

Selection from AllMusic Loves 2018

The Raconteurs, Marianne Faithfull feat: Nick Cave, Melissa Laveaux, Janelle Monáe, Aphex Twin, Marie Davidson, Meernaa, Kurt Vile, Okkervil River, Josh T. Pearson, Daughters

30 trax / Pitchfork: The 100 Best Songs of 2016 PnM.MiX

Selection from Pitchfork's The 100 Best Songs of 2016

In 2016, everything felt more intense. The most visible pop music was also some of the most political. The saddest songs came from people who passed away days after releasing them. Debut singles from some of the most anticipated releases sounded broken. One of the best songs of the year received its studio debut 15 years after a live version was released. Insanely catchy, meme-driven hits reached new levels of ubiquity. This is our attempt to make some sense of it all. As voted by our staff and contributors, here’s our list of the 100 Best Songs of 2016.

Leonard Cohen - You Want It Darker 4:44
But from the opening seconds of “You Want It Darker,” the title track of his forthcoming album, the synagogue choir that animates Cohen’s new single seems to know that this tune won’t be turned into a heavenly petition quite so easily. The bass groove that accompanies the world-weary chanting is too brisk to be mistaken for a profound elegy. Cohen’s wizened voice and sharp lyrics aren’t in the business of uplift, either. The narrator’s gaze at mortality here is a welcoming one: “I’m ready, my Lord.”

Radiohead - Daydreaming 6:24
...It should not be surprising then, in “Daydreaming,” a gorgeous ballad released to coincide with their long-awaited album announcement, how little actually happens. There’s a simple, sad piano motif; some spooky backmasked vocals; and, of course, Thom Yorke’s devastated wheeze floating above it all like an omniscient narrator...

Bon Iver - 33 ‘GOD’ 3:33
...Among the songs that have been released from Bon Iver’s upcoming 22, A Million so far, the surfaces have been cool to the touch, alien, yet phantasmagoric with lush electronic sound. In “33 ‘GOD’,” Vernon has crafted a piece that lives within contradictory states of privacy and open-hearted bombast...

David Bowie - Lazarus 6:22
...There is no resurrection in “Lazarus.” The song arrives as a moment of tension: a lumbering melody tugged along by mournful saxophones and guitars that sound like heavy doors slamming shut. In it, our narrator finds himself in danger. He drops his cellphone and heads to New York City, desperation never too far behind. He has a fleeting vision of himself in the not-so-distant future: “I’ll be free, just like that bluebird.” After a chaotic squall—the kind of wild, jutting rhythm that Bowie used to ride toward the heavens—things abruptly fade, giving the song an eerie, elliptical end...

Esperanza Spalding - Earth to Heaven 3:49
This latter quality manifests beautifully into sounds reminiscent of mid-‘70s Joni Mitchell and Steely Dan, particularly in the rhythm section, on “Earth to Heaven.” But it’s Spalding’s view of faith's uncertainty and morality's virtue that makes the song her own. There’s a playful push and pull vocally that mimics her philosophical back and forth on matters of heaven and hell, bright flourishes underscoring weighty questions over man’s quest for salvation. In her most poetic verse, she sings of kings who “die ringed in gold” while “slaves die consoled,” surmising, “On the other side/ A meek’s reward/ Is better/ Like a pearly resort/ Except without a report from hell/ How on earth can you tell…”

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - I Need You 5:58
“I Need You” is the stirring core of the Bad Seeds’ devastating new album, Skeleton Tree. Here, Cave is at a loss for words. “Nothing really matters,” he repeats, leaning on the hard R of “matters,” as if to further pronounce the distinct lack of poetry in the phrase. The words bend and break the more he uses them; Cave continues saying more with less, the tenderness in his voice filling all the negative space. “Nothing really matters when the one you love is gone,” he sings at one point, honing in on the song’s gravitational pull: the void left when our love is no longer directed at a living thing but rather at a memory. Though just a moment later, Cave subverts that notion as well: “We love the ones we can/Because nothing really matters.”

Radiohead - True Love Waits 4:43
...Gone are Yorke’s vehemently strummed chords, replaced by a duo of pianos that reinterpret the melody in a meandering, nearly polyrhythmic fashion. Whether purposeful or not, this new slowed-down, swirling direction speaks to our sense that an older, wiser man is singing “True Love Waits.” Perhaps he’s lost a little of his fight, or he knows now that the youthful plea that typically accompanies an earnest acoustic guitar line is not how one wins a battle of the heart with this much history. This doesn’t suggest that the song’s narrator means it any less; I almost believe him more now that he seems resigned to haunting the afterlife, eternally longing for the one who didn’t care to weather the storm together...

David Bowie - I Can't Give Everything Away 5:47
It was the shortest Bowie or his followers ever reveled in one of his mysteries; two days after Blackstar’s release, he passed away. And so we learned that this beguiling, openhearted performer had created a gracious farewell with his final album, and particularly this song—the last this shepherd of the fringes would ever sing to his flock. It’s a gentle confirmation of what we knew: that he still had worlds within him, and that he would never have time to express them all. Because every time the song ends, Bowie is gone again.

Cass McCombs - Bum Bum Bum 5:00
...But “Bum Bum Bum,” from his just-out album Mangy Love—another opening track, another point of surpassing language—could be a new McCombs go-to. His current band helps epitomize the low-key, lived-in luxuriousness of his sound, with neatly polished electric guitars and burbling organ streaked here by an occasional zap of synth, while the cryptic singer who once proclaimed that “pain and love are the same thing” manages to sound simultaneously laid-back and seized with logorrhea. Syllables collide as McComb somehow ever so calmly issues prophecies about topics gleaming with grim sociopolitical intent: rivers of blood congealing, “whitebread artists,” letters to Congress, the Ku Klux Klan...

Savages - Adore 5:03
..."Adore" creaks like a colossal ship, and spends most of its first three minutes pooling in dark circles; it's closer to post-rock than any of Savages' prior frenzied assaults. The spartan sound offers a chance to see the four-piece's stirring dynamic as if through a microscope, as Gemma Thompson's guitar, veering between tremulous and stormy, creeps around Ayşe Hassan's funereal bass like algae on an anchor. Thompson's instrument rises to a dirge in the choruses, where Beth's tone turns triumphant and operatic—bringing an unexpected Queen influence to Adore Life, and underscoring the raised fist on its cover—only for it to all fall away again....

PJ Harvey - The Wheel 5:38
...The first song to emerge from her long-awaited ninth LP might illuminate the intention. In "The Wheel," some 28,000 children have disappeared, and all we do is watch. We see them play and die violent deaths, witness their public memorial, and "watch them fade out," as Harvey sings over 20 times at the end. The figure has no attribution: a crass search of "28,000 children disappear" brings up figures pertaining to gun crime, child street labor in Kabul, or the number of NATO troops initially sent to Kosovo in the late 1990s. The wheel turns and one tragedy swiftly replaces another, seizing air-time and attention...

Car Seat Headrest - Fill in the Blank 4:04
...Toledo’s first lines cut straight to the heart of the matter: his frustration with himself and the world around him. You can practically hear an apathetic eye roll in his voice as he dryly explains, “If I were split in two I would just take my own fists/ So I could beat up the rest of me.” Others tell him he has “no right to be depressed,” that he manifests his own unhappiness with unjustified world-weariness. After yelping his way through a full cycle of resistance, realization, and rejection, Toledo howls out “I’ve got a right to be depressed!” amid a rush of driving guitars and banging percussion. You might not believe in yourself by the end of “Fill in the Blank,” but you will certainly believe in Car Seat Headrest...

Pinegrove - Old Friends 3:27
...Pinegrove’s lineup shifts depending on time and place, but frontman Evan Stephens Hall remains at its core. "Old Friends" finds him dipping in and out of his head, his footsteps breaking up "solipsistic moods." Led by a lumbering bass offset by the faint twang of a banjo, "Old Friends" evokes early Wilco, post-Uncle Tupelo, with an emotional directness. Over sprawling electric guitar, Hall reflects, "I knew it when I saw it/ So I did just what I wanted… I knew happiness when I saw it." Pinegrove straddle a fine line between country revival and sunshine pop, between melancholy and optimism, but their focus is strong: a sweeping heart...

Frankie Cosmos - On the Lips 1:49
...“On the Lips” finds Kline believing in something as illogical as a David Blaine stunt: love. “Why would I kiss ya?/ If I could kiss ya?” she wonders, questioning the existential purpose of touching lips. As usual, the songwriter instinctually deflates her big ideas, sounding both over it and into it all at once. A grand lyric like “sometimes I cry cause I know I’ll never have all the answers” is not played to dramatic effect with strings and swells. It is stated plainly, accompanied by simple strums and the faintest hint of heavenly synth, and followed by a line about the modest woe of New York City subway transfers. For Kline, the prospect of an underground kiss and the mysteries of the universe belong in the same breath. As they should...

Cate Le Bon - Wonderful 2:36
...It's an anxious caper, all twangy guitar and skittish marimba, where Le Bon grasps at memories and tropes that remind her of a failing romance—red letterboxes, bad television, 10 pin bowling—only for the pace to lurch and stall when she confronts the extent of her scrambled senses. "Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful…" she muses, sounding distracted and adrift as a saxophone unleashes an ominous squall. Perhaps Le Bon's knack for precision isn't so far in the past: It's easy to make music that sounds chaotic, but rare to capture the sense of disintegrating stability as acutely as she has here...

Anderson .Paak - Am I Wrong 4:13
Dancing and self-consciousness make for one of the uneasiest combinations in music. But Anderson .Paak makes it work on “Am I Wrong” by sneaking it in under the cover of a supremely self-assured performance, shooting off about free time being precious and social effort not going to waste. As far as deflections go, Schoolboy Q playing retro-disco “Love Boat” guest star is a major one; you'd be excused for thinking it's the heart of the track, all no-worries party liberation. And that electric-piano glow sparks daydreams of unheard circa-In Our Lifetime Marvin Gaye/Donald Byrd collaborations, but still pulses like it’s too wavy for ’80. ..

Kendrick Lamar - untitled 02 | 06.23.2014. 4:18
..."Untitled 2" feels of a piece with To Pimp a Butterfly: It exists in the same interior world, where the lights are low and we can’t always tell up from down. Success, fast money, lost time, God, drank, women, self-love—the images chase themselves through "Untitled 2" with dream logic. The music, meanwhile, pushes determinedly further into jazz and away from commercial rap...

A Tribe Called Quest - We the People... 2:52
...Tribe are political rappers the way New Yorkers are political—matter-of-factly, and between and among the business of living. They love to talk, but they don’t love to hear themselves talk, a minor but massive distinction. “All you Black folks, you must go/All you Mexicans, you must go/And all you poor folks, you must go/Muslims and gays, boy we hate your ways,” chants Q-Tip sadly in the chorus, not sounding like a protester as much as someone on the neighborhood corner, repeating what they can’t believe they’re hearing...

Solange - Don’t Touch My Hair [ft. Sampha] 4:17
...Having your hair touched may seem like a microaggression to some, especially in proximity with the other mentioned gestures. But for black people, and black women in particular, it is rooted in the same ideology that treats black as ‘other’ or worse—as lesser. It is an attack often launched subconsciously, an act that alienates and also devalues black space. Plus, it’s just plain rude. Solange’s “Don’t Touch My Hair” can be read as an explicit rejection of this behavior, as a simple establishment of boundaries, or as a powerful pledge of personal identity...

Blood Orange - E.V.P. 5:43
...Dev Hynes might as well be a poster child for the city as far this goes. The precision with which he renders his adopted home is one of the many things that makes Freetown Sound so remarkable. If the rest of Freetown Sound explores New York’s alleyways, clubs, and parks, album centerpiece “E.V.P” looks out from the observation deck of the Empire State Building. On it, he flashes his uncanny ability to make disparate elements gel. “E.V.P”’s hook is among his catchiest—and yet, were it to formally break out, it would be one of the most melancholic choruses on pop radio...

Moses Sumney - Lonely World 4:47
...At first, “Lonely World” seems to fit this pattern. There are the strums, the echo, the hesitant ache. “And the sound of the void flows through your body undestroyed,” he muses, as if he’s the last astronaut looking back at an imploding earth. But suddenly, he’s no longer alone. A bass drum starts to thump on time. Hi-hats flare and flutter. Pointillistic synths and guitars whirl. Thundercat’s bass pushes ahead. Then Sumney’s voice refracts into an endless mirror and starts to chant the word “lonely,” making it sound anything but. Everything crests...

Whitney - No Woman 3:57
Max Kakacek and Julian Ehrlich, both formerly of Smith Westerns, left Chicago last year and decamped in L.A. to record their debut as Whitney, a sly retro outfit they started after their old band dissolved. Their lead single, “No Woman,” is a gooey and aching country ballad that meditates on one of dad rock’s most hallowed themes: the melancholy of crossing city limits to escape everything about your old life and old loves. Ehrlich, who's also done time in Unknown Mortal Orchestra, sings in an unvarnished falsetto that carries this drifting song. The reticent piano, trumpet, and strummed guitar begs you to close your eyes and let Ehrlich sadly whisk you away: "I left drinkin' on the city train to spend some time on the road/ Then one morning I woke up in L.A."...

Noname - Yesterday 3:09
Noname is here to remind us of Chicago’s most lasting hip-hop tradition, one that provides a throughline from Chance to Kanye to Common to No I.D., leading all the way back to the city’s history as an incubator for jazz and soul. Her debut mixtape, Telephone, hearkens back to these roots; its sound is warm and sepia-toned. Fittingly, the album’s opening number, “Yesterday,” is all about remembrance. Noname memorializes a departed grandmother and brother, longs for her own childhood, and wonders who will remember her when she’s gone...

Parquet Courts - Human Performance 4:15
Most of Parquet Courts' songs are about some kind of disconnect: between expectation and reality, social pressures and priorities. But seldom have we heard them shoot so directly at heartbreak, every other songwriter's favorite rupture. The title track of their forthcoming album finds Andrew Savage in the wake of a break-up, wracked with self-doubt. He's singing as we've never heard him before, reeling in his usual jut-jawed bark and coming out with a surprising, blunted croon that recalls Orange Juice's Edwyn Collins. Its art brut quality makes the unusually childlike, simple rhymes of "Human Performance" feel all the more canny and affecting...

Porches - Be Apart 3:05
...As Porches, New York's Aaron Maine typically writes from the perspective of a sordid loner. Right on cue, the hook from "Be Apart," off his upcoming LP Pool, goes, "I want to be apart of it all." It's very much in character, and it subdues any speculation that his Domino debut might be a starmaking endeavor. Thematically, "Be Apart" seems to contradict its form—a synth pop song mixed by Chris Coady (Tobias Jesso Jr., Beach House, Future Islands) in L.A.—but it's still 2-D, nearly monophonic. This is a mockup of dance music made on Mario Paint for people whose dance moves have as much rhythm and range of motion as those of Toad...

Maxwell - 1990x 4:44
...As “1990x” quietly peaks, the music's slow-burn aligns with the pointed lyrics. “We will climax with reason cause we’re grown and we own it,” Maxwell croons.  On “1990x,” he yearns not for the spark of initial romance so much as the day-to-day familiarity of something that, with patience and commitment, lasts. And in the final minutes of the song, it becomes apparent that Maxwell is singing not of a steady love he has, but rather, about a steady love that he wants. Ultimately, “1990x” is less about a single moment than a series of repeated ones—which make for the most perfect moment of all...

Olga Bell - Randomness 3:26
...But one of the things that makes "Randomness" so charming is the way it deviates from its inspirations. Where '90s dance-pop was sleek and efficient, "Randomness" is a little bit clunky: Its piano-house chords sound dissonant and a little drunk here, and the sawtooth bass melody is just a hair more boisterous than is called for—particularly when matched with Bell's own quiet, conspiratorial coo, and the silvery trance arpeggios that bring to mind the Knife's Silent Shout. The song sounds a little like a tribute to early '90s dance-pop written by someone who hasn't actually heard those songs in a long time—like a copy based on the memory of a memory. It's a strange, fanciful kind of mutant pop, with the most fortuitous kind of randomness built right into the equation...

Deakin - Golden Chords 6:29
...It’s a record not without controversy, creative blocks, and self-imposed hardships. Like most artists finding both themselves and their footing, one suspects that Dibb was getting in his own way. “Golden Chords,” though, is disarming in its honesty and beauty, his voice finally heard away from his more famous band. While the backdrop sounds like field recordings from his travels in Africa from many years back, there’s an intimacy here that’s immediate. Dibb seems to be looking at his own reflection: “You’re scattered ever lonely buddy but so full love/ Please stop repeating your terror you choose what you see/ It’s always 'what if?' and 'why not?'/ Man you gotta just be.”

Aphex Twin - CHEETAHT2 [Ld spectrum] 5:53
...The title of his latest, Cheetah, turned out to be a wonky pun, one that “CHEETAHT2 [Ld spectrum]” masterfully delivers from the start. This lumbering creature won’t chase down any antelopes; the Cheetah in question instead is a retro synth with a reputation for difficulty, and the synthesizers here have an appropriately queasy, mutant feel. The result, though, works seriously well, strutting along in a vaguely unwholesome way that surprisingly evokes not only ’80s goth-pop but also a genre that itself began as a joke: chillwave, y’all? Even when Aphex Twin is at his most restrained, he can’t seem to restrain himself...

Huerco S. - Promises of Fertility 6:55
...It's easy to imagine “Promises of Fertility” playing during the fashion exhibit instead of Eno, or in those films and commercials. The pieces share a similar quality of beautiful sadness, the type of music that is appropriate to play at a wedding or a funeral. Does that say more about the music, or about those emotions themselves? How can simply feeling deeply be represented by one type of sound? What power do long tones contain? In the hands of most musicians, these ideas are about as boring as they sound, which is why so many people keep reusing Eno's music. Hopefully they'll find Huerco S soon...