beats for a back injury

Moon Boots! Soft Pink Truth! Rauw Alejandro! Palm! Sylvan Esso!

So I hurt my back pretty bad last week, the kind of hurt where you gasp while trying to put on socks and develop an unhealthy relationship with your heating pad. Don’t worry - I’m already on the mend - but I found myself dreaming of music the whole time.

Something about being stuck on the couch made music - and specifically the energy of making new music - tantalizingly far away. I ended up re-watching a lot of “Get Back” to feel the sensation of working out a song in a room with other people, and also spent time with this James Murphy Q&A with the Yale MFA of Photography, which was delightfully process-focused.

Back injuries aside, here are the week’s Good Links:

• RIP MEL Magazine - Again, venture capitalists who want to buy media properties seem completely unable to keep alive said (very great) media properties

• Bollywood and TikTok - Ria Chopra shows how the algorithm comes for us all, even Bollywood composers whose craft is changing thanks to TikTok and IG

• The Best of the Bounce - Philip Sherburne talks through the best DJ mixes of 2022 for P4K

• Ctrl+F “Cursive” Not Found SMH - Ian Cohen and Arielle Gordon rank the best emo song of every year since 1985 for the Ringer and I took the Saddle Creek erasure VERY personally

And now, on to this week’s tracks - as always, you can follow along on our playlist on Spotify and Apple Music, which update every Tuesday along with the newsletter.

THE UNSKIPPABLES #46

Moon Boots feat. Cherry Glazerr - Come Back Around

STRONG “Steal My Sunshine” vibes both from the video and tune care of Brooklyn producer Moon Boots and the sing-song vocals of Cherry Glazerr’s Clementine Creevy. It’s breezy and fun, barely straying from the simple refrain and a slithering bassline - because it knows it doesn’t have to.

Soft Pink Truth ft. Jenn Wasner - Wanna Know

The slap-adjacent bass solo at the one minute mark is all you really need to know about this new record from Drew Daniel’s non-Matmos alias. The single (and accompanying LP “Is It Going To Get Any Deeper Than This?”) is pure body music as it tries to answer the album’s question. Alongside Dan Snaith’s return as Daphni - and the much-publicized Drake and Beyoncé dance LPs - we may get a full-on forum on how deep we’ll go this summer.

Rauw Alejandro x Lyanno x Brray - LOKERA

I’m new to Rauw Alejandro, and no reggaetón expert, but unlike most offerings on the Spotify New Music Friday playlist, this is music that’s playful yet direct, but never pandering. The earworms abound, my personal favorite being the loping synth piano lurking in the verses and bridge, but every performance is bright and filled to the brim with charisma.

Palm - Feathers

Billed as an “undanceable dance song,” part of the joy of listening to Palm’s new single is trying to find a beat to steady yourself on, but the floor keeps shifting under your feet, always grooving but never settling.

Sylvan Esso - Didn’t Care

Bright, buoyant synth-pop from Sylvan Esso’s upcoming new album No Rules Sandy. Even if cute synth jams aren’t your thing, stick around for the bass entrance at 0:31, sure to make the summer heat a little easier to bear.

THROWBACK CORNER

Hot Chocolate - Let Them Be The Judge

"Let Them Be The Judge" is no less physical than Hot Chocolate's best known songs, but it’s a rare glimpse into a more ragged bar band vibe for the UK disco-funk rockers. The song’s dark, roomy mix and workmanlike horn chart puts it closer to Hi Records than Casablanca, more fit for a dive bar jukebox than a wedding DJ set. However, it's insistent and sneaky, and something about the way the plaintive smack of the snare sits at the middle of the mix makes it feel raw and vulnerable in a way their other music often doesn't.

And that’s all for this week, folks! Please subscribe if you’d like these opinions straight in your inbox. See you next week!