Vince Staples has been on a nautical kick for a while now, so it’s appropriate that his upcoming full-length album is called Big Fish Theory. Following the Life Aquatic world tour, the logical next step simply had to be Vince rapping on a sinking sailboat.
Thus, the setting for his new single, Big Fish. As with his prior videos, it’s a worth slice of visual art. The song is a low-key banger, too:
New Order is one of the few bands I’ve loved since childhood and continue to do so well into my adult years. The band’s nervy, dystopian take on synth pop was almost a template for my nascent tastes, mixing deep bass grooves, crystalline synthesizer tones, frantic guitar work, and abstract lyrics about love, loss, society, and other fun nonsense.
In my humble opinion, 1985’s Low-Life was the pinnacle of this style, mixing hard dancefloor impulses with sweeping romanticism to unbelievable perfection. The lead single, The Perfect Kiss, came with an appropriately deadpan video directed by Jonathan Demme. Behold:
R23X is about to make a much larger name for himself in the nebulous sound world curated by the Dream Catalogue label. VELTAHL is a striking moment of clarity sustained over 20 tracks of kaleidoscopic digital fantasia. It’s an explosion of crystalline tones and warped samples, adventure music for kids who grew up on pixelated visions of the future.
It’s that time of the year, so I’m sharing one of the few Christmas themed tunes that I actually enjoy. Hell, I love this song.
Here’s Christmas At The Zoo, a classic Flaming Lips tune from 1995:
Yes, I’m posting one of the most famous songs of the last half century. I don’t care if it’s well known. The video, created by Aardman Studios and Brothers Quay, is one of the most original and exciting music videos ever crafted.
Despite all the acclaim and the “you should have already seen this” atmosphere, it’s a vital, wild, uncompromising vision of music in motion. This is one of the greatest short films of all time.
My favorite musical discoveries often appear on the most unexpected detours. As I leapt from one Twitter feed to another last week, I was surprised to learn that Robert Glasper recently crafted an entire album of reinvented Miles Davis tunes.
Even better, there was a music video for his take on eternal jam Maiysha, with new vocals courtesy of Erykah Badu.
Subways is the jam of the summer, if not all of 2016. It’s one of those eternal grooves that will echo in your mind forever, whether you like it or not. It’s a key piece of The Avalanches‘ 15-years-in-the-making masterpiece Wildflower, and I’ve mentioned it before.
But this video is a whole new adventure. Holy shit, it sure is.
Optimistic Underground 