I repeated the mantra until it worked
Mix 3: Bananarama returns, NewJeans inspires crackerjack mediocrity, Turkey goes dembow, Kim Gordon goes hypertrap(?), and Norah Jones...Norah Joneses
Surfing a wave of bummer vibes this week, though I’m trying to maintain perspective and not geopoliticize my personal blues — need to maintain a stiff upper lip in an election year. We all have our coping mechanisms. For instance, I’ve decided that I will maintain some semblance of control over my environment by getting two weeks ahead on mix-making. That’ll show ‘em.
MIX 3: I REPEATED THE MANTRA UNTIL IT WORKED
1. Bananarama: Supernova
Bananarama have been making comeback songs in fits and starts, first for a reunion (in 2018) and then a greatest hits compilation (coming out later this year). Of course, some of us purchased a box set of their first four albums for under $10 when a major music retailer went out of business in 2006 as God intended and therefore have no need for further compilations. So I can pick and choose the new songs freely — felt lukewarm about first single “Feel the Love” but this new one is more of a return to form.
2. GroovyRoom f. Huh Yunjin, Crush: Yes or No
This might be the most mediocre NewJeans rip-off I’ve heard yet that is nonetheless good enough to make it onto a mix. I love the period of development in a new sound or breakthrough where the absolute hackiest versions of it still slap, and I think we’re there. Praise to Erika de Casier, who for some reason so far can’t seem to recapture that lightning in her own bottle. Maybe she’s overthinking it — don’t be afraid to rip yourself off!
3. Yama: 偽顔
Upbeat J-pop from a singer with trademark blue hair and white “egg on your face” mask, pictured above. (Or is it?) A reminder that it used to be canon among fourth graders (in one informal study of one student in one fourth grade classroom) that Kesha’s lips were blue, as evidenced by the papier mâché heads they were making at the time. To my knowledge she never wore a drippy egg mask, though.
4. De Fam: Mula
A Malaysian girl group with a K-pop-indebted sound that just crosses the threshold from “outdated” to “retro.”
5. Les Amazones d’Afrique: Flaws
Malian “supergroup” founded by Mamani Keïta, Oumou Sangaré, and Mariam Doumbia from Amadou & Mariam.
6. Toya Delazy: Zulu Gabber
South African in London, does what it says on the tin. Asked my son what he thought of this one from the backseat and he replied, “it’s pretty wild.” Agree!
7. Aron & The Jeri Jeri Band: Jeri Jeri
A New Zealand jazz artist, Aron Ottignon, working with Senegalese artist Bakane Seck to create what they claim is inspired by mbalax but feels more broadly “cross-cultural” and cosmopolitan to me (yes I have a category for that!). You know…world music. (Meanwhile, I should be tracking mbalax more closely.)
8. Malvin R, La Sombra RD: Valor
Another week, another diminishing return for dembow that is less sonically interesting than the last few inclusions but is still well under the three minute mark. Good for them! This thing has five views on YouTube as I write this, so maybe it’s just Spotify New Music playlist placement? I can never tell and/or bring myself to care. Anyway, segues well into…
9. Mami, Ceyar, Uğur Öztürk: Ikon
A Turkish dembow track! Not familiar with this as a genre, though over on Rate Your Music, my favorite Turkish track of last year, “Darbuka” by Eftalya Yağcı, is listed as dembow for some reason. So maybe it’s a thing?
10. Akzim f. Mc Th: O vidro do bico verde
A subdued baile funk track that sounds good coming out of the dembow section, and into…
11. Restinga: No seas así
…A provocative track by a Spanish-Moroccan artist that hits shades of dissonant baile funk itself.
12. Kim Gordon: Bye Bye
Not sure how Kim Gordon found her way to hypertrap, but here she is free-associatively listing items for her go bag (“Milk thistle, calcium, high-rise, boot cut, Advil, black jeans”) while the fasten seatbelt chime goes off in her car, suggesting she’s repeating this list to herself while already speeding recklessly down the highway with tears in her eyes.
13. Sleater-Kinney: Needlessly Wild
I’m hot and cold on Sleater-Kinney generally; until recently my most contrarian opinion was that “their” best album is Cadallaca’s Introducing. But my wife finally sold me on them by playing me The Woods in the car, so now my most contrarian opinion is that their best album is The Woods. Have been shuffling the new one for good tracks; this was the standout.
14. La Messa: Noi no
I know I really like an Italian song when I mistakenly assume it’s in Spanish.
15. DellaXOZ: Come Again
DellaXOZ has not been conquering the world with my endorsement (I really liked her 2021 song “AHH!”) and she’s one of those artists like Salt Cathedral (see below) I only seem to ever hear in Spotify playlists. She’s nailed that trendy 90s post-grunge sound (heaven forbid anyone just calls it “indie rock”)—will it be enough for anyone to notice?
16. Nia Archives: Crowded Roomz
I’m also tempted to call this indie rock full stop—the sort of thing that would have really launched an iPod commercial into the stratosphere back in 2008—albeit with the stylized breakneck dnb that is Nia Archives’ bnb (bread ‘n’ butter).
17. Coals: Nowy świat
Haven’t found a ton of low-budget Polish pop so far this year, am encountering more professional-sounding pop and hip-hop that sounds more boring to my ears, but this one has a bedroom production charm to it. And a translation of it gave me this week’s newsletter title. (The mantra she repeats is “everything’s fine,” like the dog in hell in the viral comic strip. Then the tornado comes.)
18. Село Близнюків, sucilna_nevdacha.exe: Час
More glitchy electro moves from small places (read: Eastern Europe)—I’m sure that getting stuff like this from Poland or Ukraine automatically improves it in my estimation. Doesn’t hurt that Ukrainians know their way around a melancholy melody better than most artists singing in English who sound like this.
19. Salt Cathedral: Terminal Woes
For a group that sure sounds like they’re trying really hard to sell out, they haven’t sold very far out! I was able to get Salt Cathedral’s 2019 collaboration with Big Freedia into the Singles Jukebox, where I wrote that Big Freedia sounded “spliced in from a customized answering machine message Salt Cathedral won in a contest” before awarding the song a [7]. As far as I can tell, everything Salt Cathedral does is a [7], as long as (as I said in that review’s comment section) you’re really into music for Target ads. Guilty as charged.
20. Norah Jones: Running
It’s probably too much to expect another Little Broken Hearts from Norah Jones, let alone a Black Rainbows, but solid, dusty indie-pop is a welcome respite from the overbearingly tasteful duets I get each week from her podcast.
21. Mary Halvorson: Disderata
Great track from the new Nonesuch album by jazz guitarist Mary Halvorson. Lets its freak flag fly at about the halfway mark.
22. Jahari Massamba Unit: Massamba Afundance
Instrumental jazz/hip-hop fusion deal from producers Karriem Riggins and Madlib, who comprise the titular “unit.”
23. Oluko Imo f. Fela Kuti: Were Oju Le (The Eyes Are Getting Red) [1988]
A Soundway remaster/re-release of Trinidadian artist Oluko Imo collaborating with Fela Kuti in 1988. I’m glad they’re releasing it in better quality than vinyl rips on YouTube — really brings out the incongruous plinks of a piddling Casio SK-1 trying to make space for itself in the middle of a formidable ensemble. And, against all odds, succeeding! The little keyb that could.
****
That’s it! I hope that you too will continue to maintain a firewall between your hyperlocal and global vibes. I’m still looking for a decent mantra myself—“oh god, what now” hasn’t been working so great.
—Dave Moore (the other one)
Title translated from Coals’ “Nowy świat” (“jak mantrę powtarzałam do skutku”)