A pervasive scent of fertility
Mix 25: K-pop, German synth-pop, Finnish post-teenpop, Poland in ferment (and no one's talking about it), plus a bunch of of transnational posers pulling one over on me
Each week I skim through about 2,000 songs mostly from Spotify's company-curated New Music Friday playlists. Whenever I find 80 minutes worth of music I like, I make a CD-length mix and write a newsletter about it.
Hello again! Choppy Spotify listening this week but I managed to carve out a mix nonetheless. It’s about time for me to do album inventory, which with every passing year feels more and more like a chore. Núria Graham’s album has quickly skyrocketed up my personal charts to as high as any album not called Gag Order is probably going to get this year (#2).
Quick update from last week — I relented and checked out Headache’s Bandcamp page to confirm that their vocals were created with a machine-learning generator. A few days ago, they listed their credits as “Produced & mixed by Vegyn, all lyrics written by Francis Hornsby Clark and performed by AI.” (Can’t tell if “Francis Hornsby Clark” exists.) But since then they deleted that last part. You can still see the original phrasing in the description text of the google search, though:
Investigative reporting!
Mix 1 // Mix 2 // Mix 3 // Mix 4 // Mix 5 // Mix 6 // Mix 7 // Mix 8 // Mix 9 // Mix 10 // Mix 11 // Mix 12 // Mix 13 // Mix 14 // Mix 15 // Mix 16 // Mix 17 // Mix 18 // Mix 19 // Mix 20 // Mix 21 // Mix 22 // Mix 23 // Mix 24
MIX 25: A PERVASIVE SCENT OF FERTILITY
A good K-pop track that fell through the cracks — not sure how I missed it (Spotify new music playlists aren’t a great place to keep up with K-pop, even though most K-pop is available on Spotify if you search for it). But it showed up in a list of Billboard Top 200 entries from non-US countries, a playlist that’s unfortunately too laden with old songs to pull from reliably each week. Glad this came through, though: particularly love when the phrase “I’m a queen card” becomes vowel soup. Next up in my K-pop queue: the new NewJeans EP.
80s synth-pop from Germany, rhythm section generously supplied by the Cure.
Neither MUNA nor MUTYA but a secret (un deux) third thing.
4. Sirens of Lesbos: Run Run Run
The rare keeper from Spotify’s RIYL algorithm at the bottom of the playlist. Usually the “recommended” songs are a churn of the same dozen tracks I keep skipping (hey, Jam City — it’s never going to happen), but this Swiss band just makes it on with a bright 70s AM rock sound my wife says she would enjoy more if she overheard it in a shop.
This one has the movement and rhythm of Latin American pop but it’s Italian, a pretty good knock-off. Starts a mini-trend across the rest of the mix of me getting fooled by transnational approximations of regional styles.
6. Aiza: Kité
Another one that fooled me: thought it might be from Cameroon, but is in fact from Canada, from an actress and singer based in Toronto.
Mexican fuzz-rock that takes time out to do a rare half-time bridge, which I respect in our age of 2-minute songs, even though they don’t get sludgy enough to earn it.
J-rock that reminds me a little of Teddybears.
So many nominally indie rock songs I hear these days sound like they’re trying to be a Kristin Hersh song, so it’s nice to come across the real deal. And it has the added benefit of not trying to sound like Kristin Hersh in the early 90s.
10. Silversun Pickups: I’m the Man
Ah, I’ve found the center of a Venn diagram between me and Brad Shoup: Silversun Pickups go shamelessly power-pop in the service of a David E. Kelley streaming show that probably got a three season deal before anyone read the script. Netflix should have hired both of us as music coordinators while they were still setting steamboats full of cash on fire.
New Metric! Too good not to include, not good enough to lead off the mix.
12. POLA NUDA & bogdan sèkalski: Kuchnia Fusion
The first of two Polish songs this week. I cannot find anything about Poland’s music scene(s) outside of Reddit. Is anyone writing about it in English? Do I need to be the change I want to see in the world? I thought people just said that!
13. Belén Aguilera: LICÁNTROPO
Spanish pop more than a little indebted to Shakira (sorry, Shakira owns pop lycanthropy, with minor apologies to Patrick Wolf) but also incorporates some fume-riding hyperpop warble and weirdness that, so far, Shakira hasn’t touched, even though I bet she could totally pull it off.
14. SINI YASEMIN: Heittämäl Jatkoille
Post-teenpop rock from Finland. Can’t say this should have competed in Eurovision over “Cha Cha Cha,” but maybe next year?
15. Skrillex & Boys Noize: Fine Day Anthem
Skrillex has exhibited bafflingly good taste this year (I’m not complaining!). This is a team-up with Boys Noize for what’s got to be my favorite “Fine Day” DJ banger since Erlend Øye’s DJ-Kicks.
16. Notize & Splize: Know U Better
And on the shallow side of the popularity pool, I’m not sure anyone but me is aware this one exists? Pretty good, though!
17. Mc Pedrinho x DJ 900: Gol Bolinha, Gol Quadrado 2
This “sequel song” from MC Pedrinho is emblematic of the inscrutable naming conventions of baile funk—it seems to have absolutely no formal connection to the original from 2017. Not only that, it is start-to-finish a cover of “Low” by Flo Rida, and makes no mention of this at all.
18. Szamz: Tempo
Seriously, someone must be writing about Poland somewhere, right? Other people are hearing this? Yes?
It’s been a big year for Genevieve Artadi—her album is great—and here she is on a new Knower album with Louis Cole, doing their thing. I love that every Louis Cole song reminds me of my piano teacher scolding me for rushing the tempo, but unlike me he manages to make it seem like it’s supposed to sound like that.
20. the dresscodes 少年セゾン [“Shonenn Sezon”]
Rollicking rock from Japan with a bit of gloom surrounding it, like a bunch of goth kids covering “Walking on Sunshine” for the school talent show.
This band’s vibe is a little Up With People, but it’s Brazil, so despite that it sounds smooth as hell. You just can’t fully dork up a decent samba.
22. muva of Earth: High (Hagan remix)
The final “got the country wrong” guess of the week—figured this was amapiano (and it sort of is) but the singer and producer are both based in London, and Hagan claims inspiration from UK funky, which now makes me wonder if one of the draws of amapiano for me personally is how the groove template reminds me of UK funky, a style I fell completely in love with for about one (1) year back in 2009. (I’m not sure if that’s actually true, that the two templates are similar, but it feels true.)
23. Mr. Fingers: We’re Drowning
Mr. Fingers’s pioneering house music was new to me in the 1985 poll over at People’s Pop, where “Mystery of Love” was one of my favorite discoveries. Mr. Fingers started “officially” making music again a few years ago after a 25-year hiatus (he made unofficial tracks in the interim). This one takes its time to develop, unfurls leisurely rather than building up and breaking down neurotically like a Jenga tower, as “Mystery of Love” does.
Until next time I hope love does not remain a mystery in your own life—or if it does, only in the good way. You know: dynamic and unpredictable but not elusive and unknowable.
—Dave Moore (the other one)
Title from Sirens of Lesbos’s “Run Run Run.”