john tesh is hunting me down

plus the week's best from marinero, zement, jason isbell, self esteem and flyingfish

Welcome back to the Unskippables! Is anyone else getting a bunch of Instagram ads from John Tesh promoting Roundball Rock? No? Just me? Okay! I’m not even sure why he’s paying for ads but they’re haunting me on IG, which is as good a sign as any to get off there ASAP.

Hey at least there are some Good Links this week:

• An impression maybe only I care about – James Austin Johnson of SNL has talked about his unwanted David Fricke impression in a few interviews, and I’ve been dying to hear it as a longtime Classic Albums documentary watcher, and he finally dropped it on the SNL 50 red carpet. Unsurprisingly, it’s great.

• The cost of content – I really appreciated Carla Lalli Music breaking down all the costs and revenue from her YouTube channel, and why she’s walking away from making more videos. Transparency like this is fascinating – though not as good as her recipes, so it’s still our loss. Make her mushroom fat noodles ASAP! Love u Carla!

• Nessuna Onda – Someone on Discogs is collecting a Rough Guide To Italian Avant-Garde Underground, and also documenting it on Spotify – a cool fountain of deep cut gems, found via Deep Voices

• For no reason, really – Just a really good live video of Outkast from 2001. I’m really happy André has found peace playing flute, but damn if he wasn’t the baddest rapper alive onstage for many years.

• Do NOT jam econo – Nick Sylvester on the importance of inefficiency in art and government.,

On to the new music! As always, you can follow along on our playlists on Spotify and Apple Music, which update every Tuesday along with the newsletter. Enjoy!

Marinero – Sea Changes

In need of sonic sunshine to cure your late-onset seasonal affective disorder? Marinero’s new LP La La La is a sumptuous, lite FM-soaked psych record that absolutely reeks of LA sunshine and strange afternoon light. Produced by Jason Kick, who brought the same Mort Garson-meets-Jeff Lynne touch to Healing Potpourri’s Paradise in 2022, Mariano finds a luxe lane through soft psych, easy listening, and gentle crooning. Bonus points for the reference to Robby Dupree’s “Steal Away” in the verse!

Zement – Station to Station

Sometimes all your afternoon needs is propulsive post-punk grooves – ZEMENT are a German duo who blend spacey krautrock, disco, jazz and funk on their new LP Passagen. If that sounds like genre overload, one spin of “Station To Station” shows the band knows when to keep it dead simple and just dumb enough.

Jason Isbell – Foxes In The Snow

Isbell opens "Foxes In The Snow" with disarming jazzy voicings and bounce that quickly give way to his usual stark, dust floating in a wooden room storytelling, watching his lover from a creepy distance. Its a song built in small sketches that don’t quite add up, adding to the song’s skeletal sway.

Self Esteem – 69

Posting this mostly to shout out the all-time song about the world’s most contentious sexual position, Breeding Program’s “No Time For 69.” Both songs seem to mostly take issue with the time involved, though Self Esteem also stack up all the other ways to stack up, while BP remains dementedly focused on what forces might be behind 69.

flyingfish – pitching stones

flyingfish is the alias of 16 year old Sam Fishman, and I was shocked to hear his age as I listened to the first half of “pitching stones,” with its assured shoegaze cruising. However, the back half of the track careens into Saddle Creek-esque impassioned that could only come from someone of teenaged spirit, delivering a satisfying dismount in a way most hip, aloof current shoegaze couldn’t fathom.

throwback

James Ingram – Try Your Love Again

My love language is sharing deep cut smooth 80’s pop, and this track is my go-to reply when someone sends a particularly good jam. “Try Your Love Again” has the rare correct combination of extremely slick guitar hook, vocal performance, and correct BPM, which is often the downfall of a slightly too-slow and too syrupy album track. Stick around for the bridge-into-solo section, which feels like sliding into a table at Spago at 8pm in 1988.