I could do with a little ha ha ha
2026 Mix 22: May round-up featuring Myaap, North West, and the album Detour (no, the other one), then Golden Beats from Portugal, Pakistan, and Syria
Who needs another long essay about melody in contemporary pop music when you have a best-of-the-month installment to write! I’ve added a section for the monthly roundups on the main page, too.
This was a really strong month for Albums I Have Heard and Liked — a new #1 of the year to date and a bunch of good ones just below it.
11 Songs I Heard in May (unranked)
10 Albums I Heard in May (lightly ranked)
Myaap: Pixie Dust
Think this one might just be a masterpiece in miniature—Myaap huffs and puffs through a thicket of avant bounce beats like an underdog against an imagined reigning champ, more floats like butterfly than stings like bee but she gets plenty of sharp ones in, Little Mac KOing Tyson in a flurry of punches and punchlines.North West: N0rth4evr EP
Sorry not sorry, this thing is absolutely stunning and would maybe be in the top slot if it were long enough to satisfy the Beatles Second Album rule: at least 11 songs in at least 26:25 minutes.1 (Myaap stuck “Fairy” on as a bonus track to beat the clock by exactly forty seconds.) Patrick St. Michel has a good post on the incorporation of Vocaloid on the EP—I can attest that preteens these days are extremely into Hatsune Miku; not all of those preteens are capable of making this album, but who knows, maybe they would be if they had the right opportunities and resources.Robounoishi (路傍の石): Album 13
A recommendation from Ryo Miyauchi, who described this only as “indie rock / Vocaloid,” a combination I haven’t run across before and sounds so good in this particular formulation that I may have to rethink my whole approach to music-making (mostly because I can’t sing to save my life).
JayJayy: Detour
If you find yourself totally lost keeping up with any of my musings on South African dance music and amapiano, this album is a decent sampler to dive in—JayJayy has threaded a needle between spotlight and texture as a vocalist in a texture-heavy genre so there’s a bit more to hang on to if you’re looking for pop hooks, but it’s also just got a huge roster of many of the best amapiano producers all doing great work with her.
LinLin: Disco Inferno
French pop heatseeker LinLin is playing fast and loose with the Beatles Second Album Rule—12 songs in 29 minutes, but padded with a bunch of atmosphere and interstitials to pad it out. It’s not a terrible strategy, CD-era album bloat for streaming-friendly maxi-singles.
Tayna: Genesis
Need to give this one another listen—on first pass it takes on the Whatever, Just Be Rihanna project more successfully than most attempts at this, but it still feels a little anonymous. I prefer it when it’s doing more formalist South African crossover stuff even though I’m glad that the album expands beyond that.La Joaqui: Electra
Less electrifying than it needs to be, but a strong qua album as neo-reggaeton goes, mostly Gusty dj productions.63OG: 63PROBLÈMES
No better way for me to pay attention to your album than to remove it temporarily from streaming while I’m trying to put a newsletter together! I would say this one doesn’t really hold together across its indulgent hourlong/23-song runtime but it’s an interesting grab-bag of styles: hypertrap, coupé decalé, Afrobeats, and more, but too much ho-hum trap beat filler.Uncle Waffles: 4 Da Streets! EP
Dependable collection from Uncle Waffles in collaboration with Royal MusiQ. Satisfies only one of the Beatles Second Album criteria (over 26 minutes but under 10 tracks, plus it calls itself an EP) and is most promising for a few of its singer pairings—JayJayy, Zee Nxumalo, Cowboii, and new-to-me rappers BarbieSZN and BXKS.Ako: Lovely Moments
My first thought was “huh, J-pop Addison Rae,” but this really only refers to Ako’s vocals, which sound like they’re sloshing around in the mix in a similar way, i.e. not going for a recessive sound but using a recessive strategy. I like the effect overall, but the album is hit-or-miss with actual songs.
1. Ana Lua Caiano: Uma Vida A Menos
Portugal
Portuguese artist who combines folk elements with electro-pop, though here she seems to throw in plenty more besides—bagpipes, a classical piano middle 8, flamenco handclaps, hiccuping vocal loops, and cows (just in the video and not on the soundtrack that I can tell).
2. Fyore: Fyore
Togo-Canada
It’s “Fyore” by Fyore from the album Fyore! Unfortunately the “album” is just the name of the single; fingers crossed the whole album is also called that so that she can join the ranks of “Imarhan” by Imarhan from the album Imarhan. Francophone pop is on fire in all corners of the world this year—this one’s from Montreal.
3. Daniya Kanwal: Banwari Basanti
Pakistan
Have been waiting for a recently-added Pakistani music playlist to yield a few mix inclusions and this week I got two—one closes the mix and this one nearly opened it, catchy sitar and reggaeton fusion from a Karachi artist who puts “influencer, content creator, choreographer, and actress” before music, as is the style I suppose.
4. Shams: علم قلبي [Ealam Qalbi]
Syria
Originally thought that Shams was a Saudi artist, which would be funny because one of the Saudi artists in the Pop World Cup (recently completed—Saudi Arabia was knocked out in round 4, but Other Dave Fave “Darbuka” by Eftalya Yagci got second place!) had a song named “Shams.” But no—the Saudi Shams is a different Shams. This one is a Syrian artist based in Cairo.
5. Nando Garcia f. Chini.png: Perros
Chile
One of my favorite artists from last year, Chilean indie-rocker Chini.png, teams up with a less-exciting Chilean indie rocker who nonetheless meets her in the middle on the highlight from his otherwise somewhat dreary album.
6. Thee Sinseers: Did Ya Know?
US
Incredibly, this band is not on Daptone, but they do use the “Thee” styling and have rented a vintage car that probably accounts for 80% of the budget of their video, which got me googling them one last time before publishing this to confirm (it turns out they have a single out on Daptone, but it’s not their main label).
7. Dear Tommie: The Rough
Australia
You know, I really don’t mean to keep unintentionally affirming A-pop theory by discovering that the one country song I’ve selected in several weeks is from an Australian. My kid asked me in the car what genre this was, and when I said “country,” they replied “but it sounds like something else, though” and indeed it does, and I didn’t have a good answer!
8. Daughn Gibson: Bala Cynwood
US
I really like Daughn Gibson, haven’t kept up with him as much as I should since All Hell. I guess this must be the best song ever written about Bala Cynwyd by default? He had a great interview about his least favorite song he has ever written with Matt Korvette of Pissed Jeans in the Yellow Green Red newsletter. His pan of his own track made me want to hear it: “At the end of it, we added so much horseshit to that damned chorus, just to get it to keep up with a snare drum that was already leaving the song bereft of dynamics in the verses. Chasing around a Sasquatch when I had something menacingly delicate in the first half hour of the song’s life.” (It’s a good song, I like the stuck-together feel of all of the stray elements scrambling around the vocal, maybe more Katamari than Sasquatch; if I were more Eno-ish I’d say something annoying and cryptic: “keep piling until it breaks” / “what’s left?” / etc.)
9. Yangın: Zenginleri Ye
Turkey
10. Lil Jolie: Passaporti e Caramelle
Italy
11. MUGRE: Calle Miramar
Spain
A quick tour of international indie — guitar, bass, drums, what more do you need, really. (Preferably a singer, but not a dealbreaker.)
12. Kuzco: Ha Ha Ha
Australia
Spacey, silly electro that mutters and laughs to itself, walks around nervously in little circles.
13. Masal, Emma Anderson: Pause the Rain (Xylitol Remix)
UK
I really liked the Xylitol album from this year, which I referred to as “gentle jungle?” and don’t really have a phrase or question to beat it. This is like that, plus little arpeggiated harp-like figures that do sound a little bit like rain.
14. Mashudu, Wesley Keys f. Cnethemba Gonelo, Frank Mabeat: Ngiphuma Khona
South Africa
Some amapiano of the slow crescendo dream piano variety, from a group of artists whose names didn’t ring a bell, but apparently I have featured Mashudu twice in the before, both times on a Kabza De Small song (including his epic “Kabza Chant”).
15. Fuyuni Wakarete: A Whisper of the Wind
Japan
This one reminded me of something specific, maybe Elephant6-adjacent? Though features ethereal harmonized coos that are a bit softer than whatever referent I’m half-thinking of.
16. LAÏ, Liliane Chlela: Msh Akeed
Lebanon
Lebanese trip-hop that maybe doesn’t quite earn its extended half-speed denouement but doesn’t drag on as long as you might think.
17. Alejandro Falcón: Tambores En Colores
Cuba
18. Upupayāma: Mystic Chords of Memory
Italy
19. Pablo Lapidusas: Lágio Marinho
Argentina-Brazil
Classy cool down time: a nice if “world”-ish Cuban jazz ensemble—more info at Bandcamp—a nice if cosmo-ish Italian psych band—more info at Bandcamp—and a nice, if sketchy, Rhodes and piano piece by an Argentine artist based in Brazil that is not even available on Bandcamp as far as I can tell.
20. Zaw Ali: Aarzu
Pakistan
Ending with a lovely if soppy (not sappy) Pakistani pop ballad that mucks around in Mixolydian to lightly hypnotic effect.
That’s it! Until next time, maybe try the Myaap album?
—Dave Moore (the other one)
Title from Kuzco: Ha Ha Ha
The Beatles Second Album Rule was a line between an EP and LP proposed by Frank Kogan in Brad Luen’s album polls, puts the line for LP at The Beatles Second Album: 11 tracks in just under 27 minutes. My own take on this rule is “at least ten tracks” and “at least 26 minutes,” with the satisfaction of only one of these criteria requiring some debate. I think there are albums with lots of tracks but under 26 minutes; you could have an “album” that’s one track at over 26 minutes, too, but eventually you hit the Lindstrøm Drummer Boy Wall: “Little Drummer Boy” by Lindstrøm is 42:42, but it’s a single!