This isn’t a review because I’m just listening right now myself. I’m just letting everyone know that, despite all the Kanye hype this week, Future is the rapper you can actually listen to today.
I’m also publishing this because, as of one full listen, EVOL is fucking fire.
Have you ever heard of Fishmans? If not, that’s okay, because you’re here. I’m sharing their most incredible album. Uchu Nippon Setagaya is pure dub nirvana from Japan.
As a true believer in dub in all its permutations, I wholeheartedly consider this one of the best examples of the genre. Fishmans lit a constellation spanning the night sky from Kingston and Tokyo, mixing lush electronics, deep, wobbly bass lines, and the utterly distinct, androgynous vocals of lead singer Shinji Sato. Their final album may be the purest expression of this unmistakable sound.
11 years ago, this song became one of my favorite things ever, for an entire summer and a little bit longer. Part of LCD Soundsystem‘s self titled debut, it ended the bonus disc collecting their massive dance singles. Yr City’s A Sucker is absolutely unfuckwithable.
Any one of the lengthy tunes on that disc could be held up as the vanguard of 00’s disco punk, from hipster lament Losing My Edge to ecstatic rave-up Yeah. Every single one is a club stomping classic, packed with more funky swing than entire albums’ worth of dance music. This one, though. Yr City’s A Sucker always stayed ringing in my head longest.
It wasn’t just the fact that it was the final track; it’s the point where the record’s sarcastic hedonism curdles into a nihilistic snarl. But a sense of humor creeps in, the whole endeavor played for laughs. It’s the band laughing at its own shtick while still kicking in high gear.
Every once in a while, a great album by a favorite artist slips right by me. Nightvision is a perfect example. Mark Van Hoen released the album in November of 2015, and I stumbled upon it only this week. Van Hoen’s work has appeared on my best of lists and his former band, Seefeel, created some of my favorite music of all time. This was a huge oversight, as it turns out.
After just a few listens, I really wish I’d heard the album a few months ago. I have no doubt that it would have appeared somewhere on my best of 2015 list. Nightvision is frankly incredible.
Dream Catalogue has quickly become one of my favorite music labels. Their aesthetic is a utopian ideal for tomorrow’s world. The music they release is futuristic, wrapped in a warm emotional embrace, full of nostalgia and hope. Everything I’ve heard is, naturally, painted with a deeply dreamlike palette. Edges are blurred, time vanishes, and the listener becomes unmoored from tactile reality.
For a week now, I’ve woken with this song stuck in my head.
Modern Love takes off like a bottle rocket, perfect as the lead tune on David Bowie‘s 1983 pop opus, Let’s Dance. It’s about as get-up-and-go as any song has ever been. I feel an electricity pulsing through me the second those first guitar stabs hit, and it doesn’t let up even when the melody fades a few minutes later.
If you’re not already in the mood for this kind of energy, I present a pair of films that absolutely nailed it. I can’t help but get caught up when seeing either of these scenes; the positivity is infectious:
I just read on twitter that Colin Stetson, one of the greatest saxophonists alive, is working on a new version of one of the greatest symphonies of the 20th century.
Here’s the trailer, featuring a minute of the newly recorded composition:
Optimistic Underground 