Grocery store sushi
2025 Mix 36: A Real Pop Star denied her deserved gold medal, accelerating whodunits, Eastern Europe shines, and my new sixth-favorite album of 2001
Well, I’m discoursed out and a little sour about it (Monday’s final A-pop installment, an epilogue, is hopefully not reflective of this), so it’s Discogs divin’ time again, this time into the year 2001, where I was surprised to find that my initial list of favorite albums has not yet found a ton of competition. I would normally in this case point you to Chuck Eddy’s website since I always do a pretty thorough listen to his Top 150 series. But hey look at that, Chuck has started a newsletter so go subscribe to it!
2001 is a big year for albums I love personally but that I assumed would nonetheless get shuffled during a more concerted scan for new stuff. But nothing is really shaking the majority of my fairly middle-of-the-road music nerd top ten yet (Björk, Kylie, Dismemberment Plan, Missy Elliott, Daft Punk). All of these are albums I have a long history with, and nothing has really challenged any of their slots so far.
The closest competitor so far is New Problems by k., aka Karla Schickele, bassist and songwriter for NYC indie groups Beekeeper and later Ida (she joined the band in 1996). She made two full-length solo albums on Tiger Style and then put out self-released material afterward. I find her songwriting fascinating because of how prominent her bass lines are in driving the songs; she writes like a bassist even when she’s arranging for piano. (In that way, though only indirectly, she reminds me a little of Tori Amos, who composes like her piano is the rhythm section.) I can’t think of anything else that sounds quite like it musically within its alt-songwriter lane, each song somewhat austere but with a lovely perpetual counterpoint between bass and vocals.
In the wake of a tedious wave of “state of criticism” conversations waxing nostalgic for negative reviews, I was morbidly curious how Pitchfork rated New Problems, which to my ears is a minor masterpiece. Even for 2001-era Pitchfork I was taken aback by the meanspiritedness of its otherwise boring received wisdom:
If I could, I’d give this album a rating of 5.00000 to emphasize just how middling it is. …Things look bleak from the outset. First there’s the whole Ida/Lisa Loeb connection (need I explain?), and secondly, the song ‘Telegram’ is a Silvia Plath poem is set to music.
Need he explain? Um, yeah.
No need to pick on this one, though, just to point out that it’s much closer to the median music review published on the internet in 2001 than some rose-colored sense of bold criticism that wasn’t afraid to get a little bloody slaughtering sacred cows. Anyone who thinks we haven’t come a long way, and not just specifically at Pitchfork Media Dot Com, may be falling prey to survivorship bias and not digging into the average criticism of the time, as opposed to the best of it.
Unfortunately I’m not really up for a full engagement with k.’s album this week (I’m busy with other things in addition to my discourse fatigue). I have another crack at it below, though, because—as is the quirky cosmic nature of the things I find in these retrospective projects—what I believe is the first new Karla Schickele release available on a major streaming platform ever (a re-release of her side of a split 7” with Ted Leo from 2002) got a Numero Group upload this past January. Can you believe it?! (Not quite as cosmic as the Jane Child remixes coming out the day after I published my appreciation post.) You can also check out k.’s Bandcamp for a 2012 album not listed on her Discogs page.
1. ADÉLA: SexOnTheBeat
Slovakia
Adéla Jergová was a contestant from Dream Academy, the reality show that crowned Katseye the next…pop…something? Which is unfortunate, because Katseye are blah and Adéla, who didn’t make it past the first round, is great. The video for “SexOnTheBeat” is a whirlwind of acrobatic raunch, and I think the song shows off someone—let’s call her a Real Star—who easily could have handled the cynical anti-pop of “Gnarly” without turning it into the weirdly mismatched energy of the Pussycat Dolls doing Gwen Stefani’s “Wind It Up.” Get her a ticket to Eurovision already (probably not representing Slovakia, though).
2. xiangyu f. Sawa Angstrom: とか言って
Japan
Has been fun to go from xiangyu-curious to xiangyu diehard this year. On this one she’s not exploring any South African house crossover, but for hyperactive electro glitch it still hits pretty hard.
3. Zuziula f. Young Leosia: Mam plan
Poland
Young Leosia, maybe the first Polish rapper I noticed this decade (back in 2021 with “Szklanki”) joins on a track from opener and maybe friend(?) or protege(?) Zuziula that’s mining Latin American pop and meta about it. I have a hard time distinguishing problematic cross-cultural appropriation, let alone then forming a solid opinion about it, but I do know that it should probably be “Hola, Dominicana señorita,” not “Dominicano.”
4. badactress: Самотнє паті
Ukraine
Second electro-pop inclusion this year from Ukranian artist badactress, this time lite disco rather than Hook Me Up era Veronicas electrothrob.
5. Sofia Reyes, Luísa Sonza: Uñas Afiladas
Mexico/Brazil
Also second inclusions for both Sofia Reyes and Luísa Sonza. I gave short shrift to Sonza’s album last year, Escândalo Íntimo, which I didn’t return to enough to make my year-end list but probably should have been a contender.
6. Snow Tha Product: Sabado
US
A big highlight of Snow Tha Product’s somewhat rocky career to date, which I’ve followed for almost a decade. Set to banda accelerating to breakneck speeds until it achieves liftoff (i.e. layers in a Jersey club beat), it’s a whodunit with the extended family: since someone already committed a federal crime by opening the envelope, we might as well get to the bottom of which one of you motherfuckers dunit (voted for Trump). By the end you fear it might be a Murder on the Orient Express sitch. (Spoiler alert?)
7. Fausti, Dziarma, Mercury: Na Party
Poland
More Latin American/Polish crossover, this one with some (very) lightly funk-inspired clave. I don’t know how many other ways I can keep saying “A-pop theory in action” and I really will try to stop harping on it after the epilogue finally drops.
8. chi: Life of the Party
UK
An interesting song from Chi (pronounced “chee”) that sounds like it was originally conceived for a Charli-style club classic but then slowed to half-speed and turned into something much slower and more thoughtful. Think it works.
9. PRA, Smur Lee: Juju Pro
Nigeria
In a year where I’m really struggling for Naija pop representation, occasionally something will stand out even as it continues to get bogged down in somewhat bland amabeats fusion.
10. Ata Kak: Yasi Town
Ghana
Ata Kak is a Ghanaian electro artist whose all-but-unheard 1994 album (three copies sold!) became a minor sensation after Awesome Tapes from Africa rereleased it in 2015. He is now releasing his first music since then—it has the same Casio party charm with some of the trappings of a larger recording budget.
11. Nu Genea: Sciallà
Italy
12. Fatih Bulut: Rappo
Turkey
Two ebullient cosmo-pop numbers, the first from an Italian duo who, as “Nu Guinea,” released an album with Tony Allen and had an acoustic release with lyrics in Neapolitan dialect before changing their name in 2022 to “Nu Genea.” The second is a world-beating novelty dance tune from a Turkish folk singer that’s racked up about 3 million views.
13. Wednesday: Bitter Everyday
US
Can I really include a Wednesday song solely because it opens with the phrase “grocery store sushi”? Of course. Does it help that their borrowed alt-rock occasionally bends toward My Bloody Valentine without getting all smearily windowpane about it? Hell yeah.
14. k.: I Wouldn’t Mind [2002]
US
This might give you a sense of k.’s sensibility: two bass lines wobbling around each other like skeptical dogs sniffing it out, the lower frequencies pulsing and guitars bending like tape warp — like if Pavement tried to cover “Portrait of Tracy” but with the guitar line functioning as the overtones. And this is before I’ve even parsed the words, which seem like they’re probably pretty good and I’m sure I’ll get around to some day.
15. Rún: Strike It
Ireland
Irish post-punk band strikes and strikes like they’re strumming on live power lines before settling into Sabbath sludge.
16. Mira Ray: Lust
Sweden
I think this is the second track I’ve featured this year that modulates down a key just before the singer comes in. The verses remind me of something specific—maybe the Hollies?
17. Glad Sisifus: Vśetko naokolo sa mení v prach
Czechia
Commencing an extended cool-down, largely instrumental and mostly from Bandcamp artists. This (non-instrumental, but still cool-down-ish) soft Czechian jangle-pop isn’t up on Bandcamp yet, but a few other songs from his catalog are.
18. Sam Gendel: I Strongly Believe in the Power of Making the Bed
US
Jankier and more academically electronic than I remember Gendel being, with no sign of even a heavily processed sax, but I’ll be damned if I don’t enjoy listening to vibes and synth put through a time-signature wringer for a minute and change.
19. (((O))): Power
US
Can never seem to remember anything about (((O))), the second-most difficult name to google this week. But I often like it, in this case the vocal sounds kind of like a Little Dragon acapella.
20. Belle: 04:30 voor de vogels
Netherlands
This one is also reminding me of something specific, I think Juan Maclean’s “I Robot,” a song I put on a robot mix many years ago, but less chromium and more foliage. It earns its crescendo of found sound seagulls. (Spoiler alert?)
21. ||||||||||||||||||||, Tyger Blue: Tatooine Hut Cry
Germany
Ah, the hardest to google track this week, twenty vertical lines that I have just learned are referred to typographically as “pipes,” and in this band’s case pronounced “barcode,” to which I can only say that the resulting song better be pretty damn good. [Listens] Oh what the hell I’ll put it on anyway.
***
That’s it! Until next time, go listen to at least one k. album and let me know what you think. Gotta use my periodic evangelical zeal for something.
—Dave Moore (the other one)
Title from Wednesday: “Bitter Everyday”
"Life of the Party" is my favorite from this week's playlist.
2000s Pitchfork's arrogance was matched only by the clunkiness of their prose.
The Mira Ray track is giving me 2005 Martha Wainwright.