newsletter_final_v2_FINALFINAL_v13
sorrrrrrrry
Hi! It’s been a minute – I’ve been deep on finishing an EP for NYC artist vampireluvr, which I’m thrilled about and just went off to mastering this week.
I haven't been super deep in wrapping a project like this in a while – where you're swimming through endless mix versions, nitpicking and rebouncing (final_new_finalfinal!), and you wake up everyday wanting to try and take another stab at an edit or a mix. You send the WIP tracks to your collaborators over text with the confidence you might have made the best thing you’ve ever heard, praying for a text back. You're just under the gun from your own silly, but incredibly important, arbitrary deadline. It’s a tense, sweaty feeling, and I missed it.
So, to apologize, we have an XL Unskippables this Saturday, with a bunch more links and tracks from the last few weeks to bring all our excellent taste to the present. Thanks for your patience, and as a reward, here are the Good Links:
Bawitawhat? David Peisner’s profile of post-MAGAfied Kid Rock for Rolling Stone starts like a normal profile but then devolves as Rock refuses to let the writer leave his compound while he keeps getting drunker. Stick around for the last third.
Radical Floptimism – Loved the most recent Popcast Deluxe on Dua/Chappell Roan/Sabrina Carpenter, especially this clip that’s been bouncing around IG, and what the current moment in pop says about what we need from our pop stars
Euroderision – Charlie Sohne’s piece on the history of politics in Eurovision, and this year’s contentious competition and pushback on pro-Palestinian protest onstage is a fascinating read, and much (much) better than the winning song.
Son of Guitar Moves – Matt Sweeney is back with his (formerly Vice-hosted) series Guitar Moves talking to players about their background and tricks, kicking back off with Marcus King
Feel it from the inside! – Rob Sheridan shared this unreleased BTS doc on the making of NIN’s Mark Romanek-directed “Closer” video that he edited for its 30th anniversary.
Algogazing – Eli Enis went deep on Spotify’s human-curated shoegaze playlist, Shoegaze Now, to see what their staff are checking out from the genre’s latest and greatest
As always, you can follow along on our playlists on Spotify and Apple Music, which update every Tuesday along with the newsletter. Enjoy!
NYC Small Business Services – Hotline Theme Song
We absolutely fuck with a local commercial jingle here at the Unskippables, and the NYC SBS Hotline theme goes appropriately hard. Yes, it’s tongue-in-cheek, but the perfect R&B adlibs (“ya gotta caaaalll”) and staff-wide line dance segments are too good. The brief is very Mr. Spriggs BBQ, but whoever made this took it the exact right amount of seriously, and managed to find a killer earworm in the process.
New Jeans – How Sweet
K-Pop is often a little too anodyne and brutally efficient for it to get its hooks in me, but New Jeans' Miami Bass/Y2K-inflected "How Sweet" pulls its punches just enough to make it irresistible, at least to me.
Bibi Club – Parc de Beauvoir
On “Parc de Beauvoir,” Montréal-based Bibi Club put together a shaky skeleton of wiry guitars that frame up just enough of a pop song to land nicely between Clairo and early Blonde Redhead. The track orbits around a dry, intimate take from singer-keyboardist Adèle Trottier-Rivard, with goth-y lead guitar counterpoint popping up to bring just the right amount of darkness around the song’s bright melodies.
Shellac – Chick New Wave
A fantastically dumb, rant-y post punk gem from Shellac. It’s bittersweet to hear how much Albini was still in his lane musically and lyrically as the premiere indie rock crank across all of To All Trains, caustic and focused until the day he died. “I’M THROUGH WITH MUSIC FROM DUDES!!!!”
A.G. Cook – Bewitched
“Bewitched” asks the important question – what if 100 Gecs had a lovechild with Autolux?
Chief Keef ft. Tierra Whack – Banded Up
"Banded Up" is my favorite track off of Chief Keef's excellent mixtape sequel Almighty So 2, but Tierra Whack also sounds particularly sharp and fierce over the song's rolling subs, a double-time counterpoint to Keef’s chaotic verse energy.
Hana Vu – Airplane
"Airplane" is another delightful, driving track off of Hana Vu's new Romanticism LP. The song’s soaring 00’s indie optimism is balanced by a deadly, driving Los Angeles motorik that sounds like Brandon Flowers ghostwriting for Electrelane.
~~~thhththhhrowbaaaack~~~~
Ol’ Dirty Bastard – Sussudio 2001
Because of this tweet from Steven J. Horowitz, I had to hear this, and now you do too.