A bloom you can’t seize
2026 Mix 09: K-pop and J-pop both eclipse A-pop's ambitions, the best of February, and checking in with 3-step, hyperpop, and stuff that will alternately melt or moisturize your face
Haven’t formulated enough thoughts for a proper intro on a few topics of the moment: (1) the relationship between syllable sounds and meaning, and to what extent understanding the words in a song gives something an edge in the way I listen to it. (The short of it: sometimes, but not as often as I might have thought earlier in my life.)
And (2) the expansion of K-pop in the past few years, roughly post-NewJeans, into something not only competitive with American pop norms and ambitions, which it has been for a while, but so obviously eclipsing it. Brought on by Sam3K’s observation on Bluesky about the new BLACKPINK single: “I can't remember the last time pop music sounded or looked this expensive.” (That the single isn’t very good is sort of a moot point, but that does mean I’m less interested in writing about it this week.)
Then I looked at the calendar and hot damn it’s March already! So I can do a February round-up hot on the heels of just getting around to January. No big movers and shakers in the albums category yet.
11 Songs I Heard in February (unranked)
10 Albums I Heard in February (lightly ranked)
HANA: s/t
J-and-sometimes-K-pop group with a don’t-bore-us-etc. hodgepodge pop album that hangs together in a way I find oddly miraculous given the nature of such projectsWhodamanny: Onda Biloba
Italodisco revivalists include the kitchen sink, and its a farmhouseLiz Cooper: New Day
An indie songwriter that held my attention at album length!Hemlocke Springs: The Apple Tree Under the Sea
Love it the nerdier it gets, does not plumb the depths of nerdiness quite enough but I am still firmly team hemlockeWillow: petal rock black
Look, I’m not going to claim I loved-loved this album, but I do think Willow is a no-foolin’ genius and I also like the occasional jazz noise
Magic System: Dôni Dôni
Ivorian party music; does it maintain the party to album length? Maybe?
Dina Ögon: Människobarn
Swedish indie-pop is maybe the closest to a Golden Beatology album this week. I imagine many readers will like it more than I do (though I do like it and have featured Dina Ögon a few times)
Natoxie: Cout Scrub Riddim [EP]
A not bad shatta party with lots of good vocalists. Not really an album medium, but could be an EP medium?
Eem Triplin: a love song for u [EP]
This one is good, mostly annoyed that I missed his full-length from last year
Luka Salam: Hassasa [EP]
All-over-the-place Egyptian jazz-positive bedroom pop, thoughtfully patched together even if it’s still a mess
1. Zee Nxumalo, Dlala Thukzin f. Funky Qla, Shakees & Les, MK Productions: Awe Mah
South Africa
2. Tea White: Season
South Africa
Let’s check in on the status of 3-step, which in South African house subgenre years has what feels like a decade under its belt (it’s in circa year 4), which means it is a legacy style before I’ve even figured out how to properly stylize the genre name. From breakout star producer Dlala Thukzin and I-hope-still-breakout star vocalist Zee Nxumalo comes an attempt to fit Thukzin’s production into a contained pop package that I think works pretty well, though I’m not sure why the visualizer above cuts 90 seconds out of an already pop-length edit. They could have pushed it to 5 minutes and it’d still seem short.
Then from Afrotech-centric label Stay True Sounds, Atmos Blaq’s label, comes a producer I didn’t know before, Tea White, with the full 7+ minutes of lush instrumental bliss I’ve come to expect from these minimalist album covers. A producer to explore more — in 2026 alone he has already released a full Afrotech album along with this very different single (b/w also excellent “Cosmic Season”).
3. Justine Skye: Thong
US
A rec from Katherine St Asaph, who continues to write a fantastic monthly column over at Stereogum that you should be reading. Another production win for Kaytranada, who has been on a roll with R&B royalty and assorted heatseekers for several years now.
4. Kromow: Look at the Sky
Netherlands
Dutch rapper and producer with a solid R&B hook cut-n-paste and post-mumble sing-rap that has a certain sheen to it. I was not entirely surprised to see a deluge of YouTube commenters admitting that its placement in an ad on Instagram is where they discovered it. As for me, I often like the commercial music without even watching the commercials—when I was teaching high school, every time my head turned for a song I wasn’t expecting to hear in the classroom it was invariably for a YouTube ad before the real song played.
5. Danny L Harle f. PinkPantheress: Starlight [2025]
UK
Well, score another one for me liking something when everyone decides it is no longer cool or interesting. I’ve never been big on the first wave of hyperpop, but the selloutish pop album from PC Music’s Danny L Harle—featuring this song that came out last year—was more interesting to me than any of the golden age stuff. I could also probably give a lot of credit to PinkPantheress’s appearance here, even though it doesn’t really sound like she had much to do beyond throw her vocals into the song grinder.
6. Tenxi, Yung Caters, Jemsii: Liga Baru
Indonesia
7. Effie: Red Horse
South Korea
8. Nori, Kori: i_ain’t_fly (G6)
UK
9. Francis Jeremy, 1MillionU$D: Lazerdim
Uruguay
Four picks taken from or inspired by billdifferen this week. The blog appears to be back (this is why you keep bookmarks and blogrolls, whippersnappers!). He’s started posting a monthly roundup there—here’s January and here’s February.
The first two songs are leads from his best of 2025 list: Indonesian art&B from Tenxi and Jemsii, who both feature on a 2025 song from the hipdut scene (which I have never heard of). Whether or not this particular song counts as hipdut I couldn’t tell you—it sounds like Drake, but not in an entirely (derogatory) sort of way. After that, art-pop from South Korean artist Effie, whose name rang a bell and whom I apparently covered back in November, writing: “Butterfly meme, but it’s a fairy instead of a butterfly: is this fairy trap?”
For some signature billdifferen face-meltage of the sort I usually admire more than I can stomach it, you will need to dive into the lists yourselves; my tastes are Lawrence Welk by comparison. I will, however, cosign the low-rent hijacking of “Like a G6” by UK rapper Nori, if only as an excuse to share this video about the original song’s creation. (Spoiler alert: the Cataracs accidentally put their synth line in the bass track and sold 5 million records.) I will also pass along, if not exactly cosign, the weirdest rap voice I’ve heard since South African rapper Vson’s strangled Death Muppet flow: Francis Jeremy, who is the only rapper I think I’ve ever heard that turns a nervous, tremulous wheeze into a real threat. He sounds like there’s soup dribbling out of his mouth, and he will definitely kill you.
10. DJ SEBB, Junior, Le Jèm’ss, YSN: Tiki Taka
Réunion/Martinique/Guadeloupe
Jonathan Bogart has also been sharing a best of 2025 list that also contains many songs I can pretty much guarantee you’ve never heard before. Interestingly, Jonathan’s picks often fall on the opposite side of my personal tastes—that is, the opposite vector from wherever face-melt is located. …Face moisturizer?
I can bet that almost nothing I single out on my newsletter lists will overlap—Jonathan’s carefully curated YouTube dumb-algorithm is as unintuitive to me as I’d bet my streaming dumpster-diving is to him. But music criticism is a team sport, and I always find new artists and scenes to follow as a result. My interest in Caribbean music, especially shatta, owes a huge debt to his work.
(All that said, I was going to pick this one regardless because they throw some Soulja Boy style “YOOOUUUUUU”s in there.)
11. Nikita the Wicked, Jkyl & Hyde, CREG: Horsepower
US
A song that in a quick snippet seemed like a sample I’d hear in an underground rap sorta track that gets through to me, but by all appearances this is a couple of EDM DJs moonlighting as hip-hop producer for a no-profile rapper whose bio just tells you to follow their Twitch.
12. Miguelle & Tons, Dav Julca: Quiero Decirte
US/Panama-Peru-US
Miami DJs keep things upbeat but the real star here is whoever supplies the vocals and the clumsy keyboard solo—I believe but didn’t confirm that both are from Dav Julca.
13. Morobeats, Dj Medmessiah: Di Papasakop
Philippines
Ragtag rap posse from the Philippines, can’t keep track of how many people are rapping, but I particularly like whoever is yelling like Zack de la Rocha.
14. Zoe Lucy, Meryl: An Lo Mal
Guadeloupe-Haiti/Martinique
Paused on this one for Meryl, who mostly adds color to a song by rising Haitian singer Zoe Lucy.
15. My New Band Believe: Numerology
UK
I’ve never followed Black Midi enough to know which reductive historical comparison songwriting duo to slot Greep/Picton into, so suffice it to say that I like both of their solo directions well enough, though I’m mostly using this as an excuse to share one of my more cursed mashups: Gracie Abrams vs. Geordie Greep’s “I Love You I’m Holy.” Petition to get both these guys more guest singers, or maybe a nice consulting fee for sneaking trickier charts into Gracie Abrams songs.
16. Natalia Catalan: Beat Up
US
No rhyme or reason to which hyperpop song-shards reach my brain or heart, I guess, but these ones did.
17. HANA: Bloom
Japan/Korea-Japan
Up-and-coming girl group formed through a televised audition process for newer J-pop label BMSG with Korean-Japanese rapper CHANMINA. I had a different song in this spot, but then saw this translation by Kimonobeat, whose translations I follow over on Bluesky for leads on Japanese pop. That got me listening to other tracks—turns out the whole album is great (see album rundown above). You can see what a difference a thoughtful translation makes when you compare the “color coded lyrics” in the YouTube to the Kimonobeat translation. The subtle distinction between the YouTube’s “bloom you can’t grasp” and the stronger “bloom you can’t seize” was enough of a smile to get the title this week.
18. Ranil Y Su Conjunto Tropical: Bahia [c. 1975]
Peru
Another comprehensive restoration from Analog Africa, whose incredible Roots Rocking Zimbabwe got a Grammy nomination for Best Historical Album last year. This time it’s a second compilation for Ranil Y Su Conjunto Tropical, a great Peruvian cumbia act apparently rarely heard outside the region.
19. Mei Semones, Liana Flores: Koneko
Japan-US, Brazil-UK
20. Willow: Ear to the Cocoon
US
Yes, I am a sucker for corny jazz arrangements from my favorite singer-songwriters, and yes I think I’m probably grading both of these on a curve. I seem to be really into what Mei Semones is putting down, even when she puts it down a little too gently. Willow, on the other hand, is a generational talent and I have become something of an evangelist, so you maybe shouldn’t trust me when I tell you this new album is good. I do think her stubborn one-woman-band self-production is impressive, for whatever that’s worth (not much, if I’m being honest). I’ll probably let the tangled web of melodic ideas on this song stand in for the rest, though.
21. Yasmine Hamdan: Mor Club (Deena Abdelwahed remix)
Lebanon/Tunisia-France
Never really warmed up to the whole Yasmine Hamdan album after loving “I Remember I Forget” last year, but this spare, skittering remix has piqued my interest to try again, or at least hope for a remix album.
That’s it! Until next time, try to figure out which way you’d like your face to go, on or…off.
—Dave Moore (the other one)
Title from HANA: Bloom.