They put me in the hospital and learned me how to feel
Mix 41: Dawn Richard thanks me on Twitter, Suriname and Tamil songs from Radio Garden, and playing the alphabet picnic game with baile funk (new entries: H for "harmonica," Y for "yoooouuuuuu!")
Each week I skim through about 2,500 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.
I’m slowly putting together some best-of lists and playlists that I’ll start sharing out in December, for anyone who has been politely glancing at this newsletter, thinking “well, at least he seems to be enjoying himself,” and still not jumping ship (thank you!).
Halloween has passed, which means the holidays will only get heavier and more oppressive until the end of the year. (My kids went as their own versions of men in black: the one that’s really into puzzles and cryptology was a Man in Black — “not from the movie!” — and the one that’s really into death was, you guessed it, Death.)
Before the year-end blues are upon me — gotta know your trauma rhythms — I will try to keep the plates spinning to get this newsletter out each week until the end of the year. After that I haven’t really planned out what to do next, but I’m proud that I’ve been able to keep this ungodly enterprise going consistently for the full calendar year (fingers crossed).
Speaking of ungodly, please consider participating in the new season of the League of Extraordinary Tracks over at the People’s Pop website — the theme is RELIGION (a theme I got to pick after winning the last tournament) and the playlist is fantastic. And, true to said theme, someone nominated the very artist I was listening to last season when I first started thinking about suggesting the theme.
I am told that in times of transition, especially when you are in the long and difficult neutral zone between phases in your life (*waves*), you need to keep an eye out for these sorts of cosmic connections. I’m not sure they were talking about music playlists specifically. In fact it might be a good idea for me to get out more. But then what would you all listen to?
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 // Mix 26 // Mix 27 // Mix 28 // Mix 29 // Mix 30 // Mix 31 // Mix 32 // Mix 33 // Mix 34 // Mix 35 // Mix 36 // Mix 37 // Mix 38 // Mix 39 // Mix 40
MIX 41: THEY PUT ME IN THE HOSPITAL AND LEARNED ME HOW TO FEEL
1. Dawn Richard: Babe Ruth
Characteristic futurist disco-funk from Dawn Richard, with only one Elon Musk line that initially stuck in my craw, but I got over. Dawn Richard told me that she appreciated my tolerance.
2. Ulriek: Paranormal
My brief aural trip to Suriname compelled me to check out a few radio stations there via Radio Garden (I’m already thinking about finding more 2024 music via Radio Garden, but not sure if I can kick my Spotify habit). I immediately found Ulriek, who provides another iteration of the amapiano/Naija pop blend featured on Mix 39 by Psycho Maadnbad.
3. Toyé: Paper
More Naija pop with an amapiano strain, this one really gets close to a 50/50 balance. Maybe the most exciting musical mutation out there right now, like the whole world is opening up and everything will sound like this soon.
4. Awich: THE UNION
Outré Japanese hip-hop artist I first heard in 2021 and followed casually since then. This is more ambitious and less weird than I remember: choral, anthemic, impressive.
5. brazy: omg
Lagos rapper has just the right combination of nonchalance in her delivery and forward motion in the beat.
6. Gaëlle: Petit Boutchou
French up-and-comer with a late-00s teenpop R&B sweetness combined with more contemporary rhythmic complexity.
7. Toribio: No Pare
Slightly too-hip take on Miami bass, with a call-and-response that suggests a Spanish-language 95 South. But I’ll take that beat for a solid six minutes in any form, thank you very much, too-hip or no.
8. Abbot x Vhoor: Platinado
The Miami bass influence continues with a Belo Horizonte artist who brings a Soulja Boy “yoooouuuuu” to the baile funk party. You could play the “going on a picnic” alphabet game with baile funk: “I’m going on a picnic and I’m bringing…an accordion, a bullhorn, a car alarm, a donk, an elephant getting electrocuted, Foster the People, gunshots, horror-movie humming…”
9. Static: רונדלים
Israeli artist, more popularly known as half of the duo Static & Ben El, goes solo to hit-and-miss effect, but this one hits: music box, wood blocks, and car horn get the pop-rap fun across.
10. Wonderframe: เด๋ง (Deng)
Wonderframe’s transition from sugary Thai balladeer to gritty rap artist has been a good one, and this is my favorite thing she’s done after the Spring Breakers chic “จกตา (ตะมอย)” [“Jokta (Tamoy)”], the closest I’ve heard to a MILLI copycat that hits similar highs.
11. Yuki Hsu: 達爾文步伐 (Ti-Ti-Ta)
Taiwanese pop that captures some of the effortless fun of golden era 10s K-pop. Really need to start paying more attention to Taiwan’s pop scene.
12. Seachains: Chó Chạy Ngoài Đồng
Saccharine pop-rap from Vietnam that somehow doesn’t bug me as much as it probably should — something about the syncopated “ooh” in the chorus wins me over. Or maybe between this and the Menudo reboot I’m just craving things that remind me of early Justin Bieber?
13. GALE & Bruses: Movie
Puerto Rican/Mexican (respectively) mall-rock to soundtrack a CW show in the mid aughts. (Compliment.)
14. Carla Geneve: Jesus Take the Wheel
Australian singer-songwriter with a bit of an Aimee Mann affectation and a very well-crafted song that would fit right in with this week's League of Extraordinary Tracks theme (see? Religion!).
15. Maggie Rose: Underestimate Me
Nashville artist with a blue-eyed-soulful rhythm section and a voice that reminds me of someone specific I’m not thinking of. Refreshing not to waver on including something from the weekly country playlist.
16. Xexa: Assim
Joshua Minsoo Kim recommended Xexa’s album on Twitter this week, but this showed up on its own (everything from the Princípe label does now, thank god) and I was immediately drawn to it — keeps some of the woozy cut and paste of other artists on the label but isn’t afraid to add some lovely drone.
17. G.V. Prakash Kumar: Dowlathana Rowdy (From “Kathar Basha Endra Muthuramalingam”)
Another serendipitous Radio Garden find, this one from a Tamil station. This song is from an Indian Tamil-language action film and its video suggests a cross between the new Matilda musical and RRR (at least, the couple videos of each I’ve seen, since I don’t seem to watch any movies anymore).
18. Yaba Buluku Boyz f. Harmonize: Lala
Gruff amapiano track from Mozambique. I’ve been missing the shouty flavors of amapiano, which seems to be less popular in South Africa these days from my sampling.
19. Ms Cosmo f. Blxckie, Kamo Mphela, Rudeboyz, & Nobantu Vilakazi: Woza La
Rumbling, infectious pop from South African artist Ms Cosmo.
20. Lua Preta: Tipo de Moça
I’d assumed from the Portuguese that this was Brazilian, but it’s a collaboration between Polish and Angolan artists. I don’t think you could describe a pedigree with three countries that would make more interested to hear it. (On paper, anyway, the track is merely good.)
21. JIRAYAUAI f. Mc Tarapi: Hoje Tem Rodeio, Baile de Favela
Frank Kogan thought I’d tipped him to this one, but I’m glad that as it turns out he tipped me to it, as I’m not sure I’ve heard any blues harmonica in baile funk (a good “H” for my picnic game!). Sez Frank:
I don't have a name for this track's musical style – Google Translate says "Today there's a rodeo, a favela dance," and perhaps the cowboy hats are meant to signal sertanejo, a rural-identified genre I have no sense of. The music on this seems pretty radical and experimental. What puts this in the funny category is its folkish-countryish tendency, the snaking gtr line and the two (!) harmonica parts (one sucking in and the other blowing out). And to call the guitar "folk" or "country" fails to communicate the psychological sense it has for me: it's the sort of line I'd have sold my kidney to write in 1979 when I was listening hard to Miles Davis's On The Corner and even more to "Give It Up Or Turnit A Loose"–era James Brown and trying to twist those into something stranger and more destabilizing, aspiring to create a kind of no wave that wouldn't necessarily be abrasion so much as the feeling when you suddenly go into a roller-coaster drop.
He wrote about a bunch of other 2023 songs at that post (go read it!), and also shared his ongoing playlist of 2023 songs.
22. My Magical Glowing Lens: Sobrevoar
Mix cooldown commences with Brazilian composer/singer Gabriela Terra. Lush trip-hop.
23. Katie Von Schleicher: Montagnard People
And to close things out, a wispy indie artist savvy enough to buoy her vocals with strings and a horn section, who promises five bucks to anyone who can hear her pet bird Ursula singing in the background.
***
Meanwhile, did you catch the bird hiding in the middle of this post? If so, I’ll give you five dollars, provided you lend me five dollars first.
—Dave Moore (the other one)
Title from Carla Geneve’s “Jesus Take the Wheel”