Folks, summer is no joke. Between my vacation, and everyone else’s vacation, and then the fair, I somehow have not had time to whip up any additions to the playlists since… the end of June?
That’s ridiculous! So let’s kick this mother back into gear now. If some of this week’s selections feel a little dated, well 1) good on you for keeping up without me and 2) I’ve had half of this column in the can for a month.
But enough apologies. I think the songs’ll make up for the wait.
Local Picks
As genre neologisms go, “jazz-gaze” is worthy of Simon Reynolds, and this Jazz88-approved quartet backs it up on their new EP, Lamps. The group’s overlaid Badalamentian melodies are at their most lulling here.
Some Can Relate, out last month, may be this Ethiopian-born Minnesotan's full-length debut, but his preceding EPs were hardly slapdash. Still, you can hear his tuneful flow maturing on this characteristically introspective track.
Riffin’ Trio, “Riffers Theme”
The lead track from their playful debut EP Introducing the Riffin’ Trio could be the theme song to an unjustly forgotten ’70s cop show. Nelson Devereaux’s sax and Jacob Hanson’s guitar state the tune in tandem as Ted Olsen’s upright bass hustles underneath, and then they all cut loose.
VIAL, “Creep Smoothie”
There will never not be creeps, which sucks, but also means non-dudes will never run out of reasons to scream things like “I'll blend up your brains and make a creep smoothie.”
Of her new EP, the genre-expansive singer declares, “I want to take you deep into presence, into reflection, into the world of IRON X. the Spiritual Awakening of the Self-Identified.” On this particular track, that means a thumpetty and ever-shifting pulse, slurred vocals that occasionally drop an octave, and a pinched guitar squeal, all of it enticing and disorienting and unique.
Non-Local Picks
Somehow, Amaarae just keeps getting hornier (title stands for “slut me out,” if you didn’t know/guess) as her music gets more rhythmically complex. This track, the highest peak on the formidable mountain range that is Black Star, rises from a moody base of South African gqom and incorporates a stabby synth bass that, like so much of its keyboard hookery, is pure Greg Phillinganes. Meanwhile, A’s own aggressively small voice, like Janet Jackson without the demure airbrushing, coos over a lover who “tastes like Lexapro.”
MOLIY, Silent Addy, Skillibeng, & Shenseea, “Shake It to the Max (Fly)”
A longtime skeptic on the need to anoint a victorious “song of the summer,” I’ve found many of this year’s nominees wan or opaque or just plain off-base. But this one just leaps out of the pack, its bass and keyboard hook pushing the singers forward as inexorably as a Spike Lee double-dolly shot. Like Amaarae, Molly (or MOLIY if you insist) is Ghanaian-American, but her collaborators—producer Silent Addy as well as Skillibeng and Shenseea—are Jamaican. The diaspora is out here doing the damn thing.
Has the solo success of guitarist Steve Lacy ended R&B band The Internet as a going concern? If so, let Syd thrive on her own, as she excels at voicing infatuation, with just enough of a carnal edge to let you know she won’t settle for a cuddle. It’s admittedly not a good sign that folks apparently stopped updating her Wikipedia entry three years ago, but as she’s opening arena tours for Reneé Rapp and Billie Eilish this year I’m not too worried about her.
L.A. by way of Cincy R&B violinist and all around visionary Brittney Parks has a follow up to Natural Brown Prom Queen in the works, The BPM, and this housey track is as upbeat as that title suggests. In case you’re wondering, her type is a gal who admits "I ain't never been from the Chi to Dubai/But I'm down for the ride."
Miimii KDS feat. DJ Skycee, “Sé Miimii”
Dominican bouyon ain’t nothing new but it’s finally having an international moment, and truly these galloping steel drums and rippling electronics (like someone strumming a cartoon skeleton’s ribs) are far from the digitized folk that birthed the hyperkinetic soca offshoot genre decades ago. Your girl Miimii can get slack and boastful (“Give me di respect on di pussy, yeah”) but she’s casual about it, content to bob along the groove.
Worst New Song
Kings of Leon feat. Zach Bryan, “We’re Onto Something”
“Well dang,” the Followill boys musta thought to theyself while listening to Post Malone, “We’re actual Tennesseans, we can dupe folks into thinking we’re country too.” And so, with Bryan lending cred and Harry Styles’s producer on hand, Caleb drawls something about never leaving the land before heading back to his VS model wife and “Bohemian 1930s Tudor Revival” in Nashville. But why is there so damn much harmonica? I mean, Postie would never.
Wanna get a local song considered for the playlist? To make things easy on both of us, email keith@racketmn.com with RACKET PLAYLIST in the subject header. (Don’t, as in do NOT, DM or text: If I’m in a good mood, I’ll just ask you to send an email; if I’m in a bad mood I’ll just ignore it.)
