the past slips away but the future is unwritten! plus jessica pratt on a rap beat!!!
the week's best feat. A$AP Rocky, Jane Plane, Tony Vaz and more!
Helloooo welcome to the Unskippables where we have no idea how this guy is playing the Archangel beat
Stephen Thomas Erlewine was let go by “Xperi,” who acquired AllMusic and decided, somehow, that the legendary reviewer was no longer necessary. As someone who came of age just on the cusp of the pre-Napster internet era, reading AllMusic was a critical way to explore music from home and with a teenager’s budget. I distinctly remember reading everything I could about Iggy Pop and The Velvet Underground way before I could actually get my hands on their CD. The amount of time I just spent imagining the music before I could ever hear it was formative, learning to love the thrill of chasing down your new favorite bands.
On the flip side, Drew Daniel of Matmos and Soft Pink Truth managed to invent a genre last week by just tweeting about a dream he had. NPR and MusicRadar have done excellent pieces about all of the producers that answered the call to make this dream genre “Hit Em” come true – in 5/4, at 212 bpm of course – and I’ve reviewed one track below that I particularly love below, but there is something truly wonderful about a producer like Daniel just tweeting out a dream he had and it driving one of the most fun conversations in electronic music I've seen online in months, if not years. So even as shell companies mishandle the people and archives responsible for real music history, it's nice to know that the future of music is still happening online.
A few other very good links
No strays taken – Thomas Hobbs talked to the bodyguards charged with keeping your favorite rappers alive, and the psychological toll it takes defending these stars from threats at shows, on the road, and at home.
From Yonkers to NPR – the LOX Tiny Desk set is something special for fans of the group and NYC rap in general.
As always, you can follow along on our playlists on Spotify and Apple Music, which update every Tuesday along with the newsletter. Enjoy!
jane plane – hit em
As mentioned above Jane Plane's “hit em” is one of the many tracks that answered the call of Drew Daniel's dream genre prompt in 5/4 at 212 BPM; Jane Plane's track throws the texture of major key hyperpop and over the woozy new time signature of Hit Em; something about the off-settling nature of 5/4 makes all of the melodic consonance feel extra manic and sweet and strange, as your feet never really hit the floor as the song knocks away in five. Dave Brubeck could never!!
A$AP Rocky feat. Jessica Pratt – HIGHJACK
I was able to squint and imagine what an A$AP Rocky/Jessica Pratt track might look like – grabbing her for a lithe, soft-focused chorus amidst Rocky's flex-filled verses – but the reality is actually weirder, and better for it. The first half is all Rocky stomping over a perfectly serviceable beat, but the song does a Hail Mary throw in the second half to Pratt singing a gorgeous ballad over a looped refrain from the first half of the song. His verses didn’t thrill me, but “HIGHJACK’s” compositional confidence has me hyped on where Rocky's head is at going into his new album Don’t Be Dumb.
Ginger Root – All Night
Ginger Root describe themselves as "Aggressive Elevator Soul™" and they're close – the VHS sheen of their electro-funk has elements of high school science video soundtracks, with a winking dash of bass-face instrumentalism. The song's theatrical multi-step key change points to the band's acumen writing for big stages alongside Omar Apollo, Khruangbin, but they suceed in being warmer and less goofy than Vulfpeck, and less harmonically obtuse than Unknown Mortal Orchestra, but built for fans of either to find something they’d love here.
Pop Music Fever Dream – Questions
“Questions” sounds like NYC’s Pop Music Fever Dream is playing opposite corners of a very large warehouse, pushing hard to stay locked in but teetering just on the edge of falling apart. Their charming Parquet Courts-esque groove is matched by an excellent chorus – “Am I living just to die???” – that rides atop the song’s pinning top arrangement. When it all falls apart at a scant two and a half minutes, it’s hard not to start it back up again to watch it hold together.
Tony Vaz – Strangers
“Strangers” is a bleary-eyed broken country-adjacent ballad from New York singer songwriter Tony Vaz finds the same desperate solace as Adrianne Lenker’s record from this year as well as shades of Songs:Ohia’s bleak melancholy. Vaz's vocals may be the main character, but the emotional heft of the track comes in at the margins, thanks to heart-wrenching backing vocals, violin, and a sax solo that bring to life the song’s central plea.
throwback
Modern Talking – Cheri Cheri Lady
I’m still flummoxed by the way TikTok chooses and elevates older tracks and turns them into viral sounds – I thought “Cheri Cheri Lady” was a strange FYP find, only to realize it’s been used by hundreds of thousands of videos on the platform. Regardless, it’s a really delightful 80’s New Wave track, with a soft rock-meets-freestyle beat and slightly hilarious falsetto-powered chorus.