@@@ Ailbhe Reddy: Time Difference (Friends of the Family, 2020) Friendly, upbeat rock with plenty of classic jangle sauce. This listen and the one below are from the Line of Best Fit email from last week. Reddy’s voice and the guitar sounds really serve as a way for coffee shop normal white people to wake themselves up in the morning. ‘Keep an eye on the time difference’ and the the distance between us or something like that are the vocal hooks. I like the drummer best, I like the parts here but the whole of it is a world or a state of mind I don’t really inhabit. This is for lonely folks out in the suburbs.
@@@ Anna of the North: Someone Special (300 Entertainment, 2020) Slotted as pop on the ol’ Apple Music it’s dour and restrained out of the gate with some reverbed female vocals over a keyboard part. It then morphs out into a section where the piano evokes more clearly a romantic ballad. You are, you are, you are someone special. Okay then, that’s the vocal hook so I guess some high school kids would send this track to crushes of theirs. It stays in this lane of dreamy, slightly melancholic flavors all the way through. I neither love it nor hate it.
@@@ Yves Jarvis: For Props (Anti-, 2020) I got to this via an email from Crack Magazine which I think it in the UK. I get a pretty steady stream of good musicians to listen to from this email. Retro sounding rock/soul with some really nice big guitar sounds, the electric guitar that is. Then lo and behold you get a Crosby, Stills and Nash throwback male harmonizing vocal extravaganza. It’s not as abashedly hippie as CSN but it’s not exactly a happy hippy feel, it’s a beauty thing. I like the singing but I alos like the ambient guitar sounds as well as the production style. I’ve checked out snippets of other tracks here and it continues as a blend of rock and ambient guitar and electronic sounds going on. Even though the vocal approach is a bit of a recycle job the smashing of that into ambient feels is really creative.
@@@ 21 Savage x Metro Boomin: Runnin (Epic, 2020) Some mainstream trap business with some really nice production flourishes, in this case an expertly chopped female vocal phrase that drills itself into your ear. I find the sounds here much more interesting than the lyrics which are peppered with a little murder and observations about his girlfriend’s breasts. You gotta prove by catchin’ a body, naimsayin’? It’s a continuation of the long association between manhood and violence and I’m not being judge-y and shit but putting some of these ideas out there for other dudes to absorb is bad karma. I can’t get with his incessant calling other dudes pussies, he’s just spraying beef all over the public space. The sounds aren’t good enough to suffer the lyrics.
YTD recordings listened to: 768
Good music, not list worthy: 416
Not good music: 327
Best: 4
Honorable Mentions: 5
Possibles: Retox, Defeater, Jonwayne, Okkyung Lee, Slidhr, The Chewers, Susie Iberra/Roberto Rodriguez, The Coral, T.O.M.B., Lozen, Erase Errata, Mastery, Hartley C. White, Weed, Cold Water, Luther Dickinson, Graeme Barrett, Fast Asleep, Goldlink, Cavanaugh, Satoko Fuji, Moken, Juan Atkins, Lantern, Twin Peaks, Djelimady Tounkara, The Oh Sees, Denny Zeitlin, MILF, Unfun, De La Soul, Carl Sagan’s Skate Shoes, Noname, Klara Lewis, Krullur, The Lowest Form, Hard Proof, Yotoco, Jungle Fire, Sandoz, Oddisee, RAM, Fiver, Succumb Succumb, Gloom, Priests, Propaganda, This is the Kit, Roberto Gonzalez, Integrity, Tuba Skinny, The Expanders, Criolo, Billy Strings, Flowers of Sulphur, Portal, Lawaii, Etran De L’Air, Ruby Karinto, Elysia Crampton, Parquet Courts, Moskus, Kendl Winter, Tkay Maidza, Barro, Daniel Khan, Tallawit Timbouctou, Sumac, Tropical Fuck Storm, Harriet Tubman, Ammar 808, Anais Maviel, Chaka Khan, Pom Poko, Fried Egg, Tarek Atoui, Saicobab, General Purv, Shipping News, Big Thief, Mariachi El Bronx, Pour Me a Grog, Sudan Archives, Lakou Mizik, Moodymann, Pharmakon, Alefa Madagascar, Janjao, Luge, Wiki, Mick Jenkins, Jeremiah Jae, Fera, Gambian Griot Kora Duets, Drama, Beatrice Dillon, Mass Worship, mmmonika, Les Deuxluxes, Tony Allen, Fra Fra, Nihiloxica, Hailu Mergia, Pokey LaFarge, Nico Gomez, Nohe and Sus Santos, Tiny Bit of Giant’s Blood, Pole, Naeem, Mekons, Santrofi, DJ Nigga Fox, Flor do Toloache, Alexander Hawkins/Tomeka Reid, Shy One, Protomartyr, Nnamdi, Ekiti Sound, Awa Fall, 25,000 Kittens, Anjimile, Superfonicos, Yves Jarvis
Deep In the Music 