I'm so glad I get to go prospecting for tunes each week for this little feature. Sometimes it takes me a little longer than it should, because I want to poke and prod a little deeper, but it's always worth the effort.
Local Picks
Feeling her age (which doesn't seem all that old from where I'm listening), Andre preps for a night on the town during moody electronic choruses, while observing “No one’s in Uptown/Downtown is done now." And the release of the chorus suggests she gets the good time she's after. Her new album, Honeymoon, drops later this month.
A lot of cool people I know (maybe you!) are over Dessa if they were ever even down with her, and I get it—she’s very much of a bougie’s idea of a boho, and that's reflected the coverage she gets. But I don't care, I'm happy to tag along to this little apocalyptic function, where “desperate times call for desperate pleasures” and Lazerbeak supplies the beat.
Driven back home to St. Paul from New Orleans by that mean ol’ pandemic, Doyle took up songwriting, and even with only two recordings to go by, I’d say it was a good call. Here she sings of the kind of deceptively impermanent affair that turns out to be “a lightning bolt, not a band of gold” over a sympathetic country backing.
MMYYKK's July show at the Dakota was a highlight of my 30-concerts-in-30-days stunt, and his new album The Midst of Things doesn’t lose any of the good will, intensity, or commitment of his live performances. Each track stands out in its own way—this particular one features a falsetto indebted to Curtis Mayfield and a Dilla-style the-beat-goes-where? rhythm.
Fembot-next-door enters breathy infatuation/seduction mode here, inquiring over rippling electronics. “Can you feel it? Do you feel it?” Well, do you, punk?
Non-Local Picks
The Hives, “Trapdoor Solution”
The most fun and frenzied garage revivalists to emerge in the wake of the early ’00s RockIsBack hoopla flip out for just a little over one minute with Howlin' Pelle Almqvist’s as ridiculously distorted as ever.
Lori McKenna, “Happy Children”
Though a sought-after Music Row pro with go-to Americana producer Dave Cobb in her corner, McKenna somehow dropped another fine album earlier this month,1988, to almost no attention. Here she's in the modestly homiletic mode she handles well, and if she sounds too corny, maybe country music ain’t for you.
Sheer Mag, “All Line Up”
On their first new song since 2021, Philly garage rockers polish off some of their endearing scuzz without getting fancy about it, racking up their guitars and funking up Christina Halladay's fraught pool metaphor.
As further evidence that words now mean whatever you want them to, this Brit singer’s new single has been pegged by quick-hit blogs as “indie-leaning,” I guess because it has a backbeat and some guitar. Whatever. What matters is that it moves and Smith rides the beat with a fierce attitude.
Usher feat. 21 Savage and Summer Walker, “Good Good”
On this genuinely sweet message to an ex: “We ain’t good good, but we still good.” Usher's enunciation really does show up the way Summer Walker absorbs consonants into her sinuses.
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.)
