Been a while—a full month, even—so I whipped up some twice-as-long playlists.
If you can remember way back to those last March playlists, I asked for suggestions about how to make this column more useful to you all. And you had some good ideas. For instance, someone said I should feature bands with upcoming shows, which I try to do though it doesn't always (usually?) work out.
A bigger issue for most people was the use of Spotify, which I get—it's a nasty business. I already link individual tracks to Bandcamp or SoundCloud whenever possible, but to further help accommodate Spotify-boycotters, I'm also linking to to YouTube now as well. The playlists themselves... well, Spotify is unfortunately still convenient. Please financially support the bands you find here in other ways!
Local Picks
Black Market Brass feat. Obi Original, “Battle Ready”
Highlife revivalist Obi Original is planning a big year, and he’s kicked it off with this ferocious collab with Black Market Brass. The propulsive, horn-driven Afrobeat group encourages his funky side, and this single captures his vocals at their rawest.
There’s plenty of drama here, as Dani Michaele’s flexible, breathy soprano all but demands. So much of it derives from how the musicians function at cross purposes without tripping over each other, and when the zigzaggy guitars straighten into a combined thrust they achieve liftoff. Happy Good Friday, everyone!
You could half-mistake this for a regular love song, what wth its easy groove and Clare Doyle lending sweet harmonies, not to mention Laamar’s own warm vocals. Then you listen up to lyrics that navigate a story of misplaced on-and-off desire that never quite works out.
Night Moves, “Hold on to Tonight”
Don’t be fooled by the (Richard) Marxist title—OK, maybe be fooled a little bit, since this midtempo ballad is stepped aplenty in ’80s soft-rock sounds, which they make me enjoy in spite of myself. The band’s first new full-length in six years, the Jarvis Taveniere-produced Double Life, will be out in July.
Kiss The Tiger, “Big Booty Scooty”
Though they’ve been gigging a-plenty, we haven’t had much new music from Kiss the Tiger in recent years. So it’s good to hear Meghan Kreidler on her Debbie Harry tip here, enraptured with her own rapture, even if this song title feels a little "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk."
SoulFlower, “By My Side”
Inayah El-Amin’s sensual murmur drizzles over guitar pulses that flow past a steady backbeat for a real neo-neosoul treat. And if you want to check the quartet out “live,” SoulFlower appear on TPT’s Stage with Gully Boys on May 5.
Alan Sparhawk with Trampled by Turtles, “Stranger”
I’ll admit I’m not the biggest TBT fan—like lots of technical-proficiency-based styles, neo-bluegrass is just not for me. But as a backup group, they’re aces, their aggressive sawing here a perfect foil for Sparhawk’s reluctant misanthropy. And the lyrics offer a daily reminder I can use: “You gotta clean your dashboard cupholder.” (I spilled the remains of a mandarin Jarritos in there the other day.)
SYM1 feat. moistbreezy, “Right 1 4 Me”
Local hyperpop princess SYM1 returns, submitting to the demands of the beat on this sleek, high-energy dance cut with an assist from NYC’s moistbreezy.
The Taxpayers, “At War With the Dogcatchers”
"I'm in love with the leaks from the rain gutter," declares Rob Taxpayer in a Weakerthan warble, before asking, "Where have all my oldest friendships gone?" With the depth of their open-hearted yearning, this partly local outfit is the kind of band that could (as we used to say) change your life if you run across them at the right time. Or at least get you through a rough patch of that life.
Toilet Rats, “Drug Bird (Synth Redux)”
How do you follow up an album like 2023’s Toilet Rats IV? Well, first comes Toilet Rats IV Deluxe a year later. And soon we’ll have Synth Redux Vol. 1, which recasts each track in electronic instrumentation that’s somehow just as grimy as their guitars. What more could I ask from a band whose name always makes me involuntarily clench my butt?
Non-Local Picks
Allo Darlin’, “Tricky Questions”
I adore this band and its gentle-not-twee strummy bounce; I return to its first three albums whenever I’m in a wistful mood. On this reunion single, Elizabeth Morris sings “It felt so good to be alive” like she means it, and like she knows it will feel that way again.
Willi Carlisle, “Work Is Work”
Remember how your dad would tell you “That’s why they call it work” when you complained about your summer job? Well, mine would anyway, and here this conscious working-class troubadour puts his own spin on that maxim. Carlisle endures the contempt of wealthy vacationers and empathizes with the scene girls turned sex workers; “A bitter morning/The sun is dope sick/And all the world is/Tied off for its fix” might just come off as cynical if the jaunty bluegrass backing would allow it.
I try not to think too deeply about Haim, so I’ll leave it to amateur sociologists to determine whether these lyrics disclose any notable truths about Younger Millennial love and lust while I groove to its vague and summery vibe.
Hey there, it’s me, likely the only person in your life who keeps telling you to listen to Jlin. The Indiana footwork maestro’s contribution to a new compilation from the Planet Mu label is an excellent display of her extended rhythmic logic. Call her the Henry James of rhythm, stacking beatwise clause upon clause to extend meaning and defer closure without ever losing control.
The world’s greatest living singer (I mean, how many challengers are left standing?) drops albums so frequently it’s not even news when a new one hits the streamers—this single materialized in January and I never heard a peep. Here the pride of Dakar is in declamatory mode, the beats offering punctuation rather than percolation, with some decorative ngoni adding to the ceremonial feel. The album’s called Eclairer le monde - Light the World, and you should check it out. Oh, and one of N’Dour’s few peers, Salif Keita, also released a solid new record this month, So Kono. Best to appreciate the old guys while they’re still with us.
Previous Industries, “Adriana Furs”
The album I underrated the most in 2024 was Previous Industries’ Service Merchandise, a collaboration between Open Mike Eagle and his pals Video Dave and STILL RIFT. Well, I’m not making that mistake again. The trio’s new EP, Evergreen Plaza, is a generous late pass. From free associative rhymes to woozy beats, this lead track offers a blueprint for what underground rap could be doing better.
A hit-to-be the minute Roan premiered it on SNL last November, this “girls do it better” come on is the giddy follow-up to “Hot to Go!” that we “Good Luck, Babe!” doubters were waiting for. With fiddles more trad than Shania, all that’s keeping it off country radio is an entire industry invested in the lie that there are no queer country fans.
Yes, it’s perverse to single out one track from F*CK U SKRILLEX YOU THINK UR ANDY WARHOL BUT UR NOT!! <3, a comically extended 46-minute mix that pretends to consist of 34 individual cuts. But I always perk up when the squiggly synths of this little techno-Riverdance parody give way to out of place wobble-wobbles, so I’m calling this a single. As for Warhol, ask Tom Wilson about his production skills.
I pegged The Current’s favorite industry plants as a one-album wonder, but damn if those skewed instapunk guitars and toughest-girl-in-the-art-school mutters don’t sound as freshly derivative the second time around. This probably won’t be as big of a hit as “Chaise Lounge,” and maybe that’s a good thing.
Billy Woods feat. Kenny Segal, “Misery”
The most consistent MC in the game right now drops an MF Doom quote over stuttering drums and druggy horn blare, then goes on to tell the tale with a gal who’s just too much for him.
Worst New Song
Kristin Chenoweth—“Live Like That (from The King of Kings)”
I avoid potshots at Contemporary Christian Music because the elements I loathe—the larger-than-life sentimentality meant to engulf and smother any lingering thoughts—are its reason to exist. The kitsch is the point. But the opening lines here are bad enough to deserve a call out: “A childlike faith is all it takes for a miracle/And god, I pray you wash away my cynical.” Yes, that’s cynical as a noun. Were I still a practicing Catholic, I’d argue that reason is a gift from god and used properly works in harmony with faith. Agnostic that I am, I say we should treat any religiosity that believes otherwise with contempt. And the movie looks like shit too.
Wanna get a local song considered for the playlist? To make things easy on both of us, email keith@racketmn.com with MONDAY 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.)
