I got high with my mom
Mix 41: American* (not A-) pop from South Korea and South Africa, charmers from Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, and managing deep shit times
Some admin news: this site is now officially available on its own URL, at otherdavemoore.com. I’ve also updated my Bluesky profile to that URL, which for now is how you “verify” there—no blue checks. Old links to the Substack URL will still go to all the same places.
I always liked that first panel with the dog in the fire. What expression is that? To me it looks a little like the glassy-eyed smirk that I call “internet face,” a sign that I’m not engaging with what’s actually going on around me. Whether there are really active flames leaping around out there while you’re scrolling is a question that you can probably only answer in the privacy of your off-line life. (On the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog on fire.)
This week I really loved the image of Judith Horn getting high with her mom and commiserating about “deep shit times” (she adds “…are gone” and then, “…I don’t know,” covering all of the bases). It got me thinking a bit about the American presidential election coming up, but I decided after a few half-baked drafts not to write anything about it. You know what to do (something!), and I don’t feel like I have any special insight here. I’m trying to do what I can and merely glance at polls like the weather forecast—they say it might rain, but maybe it’ll hold off.
Anyway, I think that imagining times to be deep shit habitually is no way to live one’s life, flames or no, and there’s a strong case that dispositional cautious optimism does more to improve people’s lives than righteous fatalism. It’s tricky, though, and maybe not just a question of habit — my mom was an optimist on her death bed. So maybe I was born this way.
Previous 2024 mixes
MIX 41: I GOT HIGH WITH MY MOM
1. ROSÉ f. Bruno Mars: APT.
Starting with some strong American-with-an-asterisk pop (i.e., sounds like it should be huge in America but is not A-pop) from South Korea and South Africa.
ROSÉ has leaped to the front of the line of best solo members from BLACKPINK one week after LISA led the top spot.1 I find it ironic that she’s finding success with Bruno Mars right after Lady Gaga already attempted a very different approach in her duet with him, because “APT.” is the sort of song that requires something like Gaga’s voice to make the melody in the chorus (or is it a bridge?) hit, and ROSÉ’s not quite up to it. As it is, the melody is just sort of there, with Bruno easily out-singing when he’s supposed to be providing congenial backup. This ends up not mattering, though, since the real juice is in the “ap-a-apateu” chant, something I doubt any current American (or at least A-pop) artist could have managed without overplaying their hand and hamming it up too much.
2. Tyla: Push 2 Start
I am likely underrating Tyla’s self-titled album, even though a few listen-throughs still aren’t sticking. Every time I take some time away from it and then hear an individual track from it out of context (this is a bonus track on the deluxe edition), I appreciate that there’s more to her than “Water.” But this does still sound a bit, er, watered down by comparison—the I-guess-trademark group chorus sounds like they’re hanging around for the B-side because she paid them for a full session and is trying to get her money’s worth.2
3. Lola Brooke f. Jeremih: No One Else
This one reminds me of LL Cool J’s “Doin It”—maybe intentionally since Lola Brooke was raised out in Brooklyn. “Doin It” absolutely scandalized me when it came out, and even in an environment where lyrics have normalized at a level of raunch far higher than LL’s 30 years ago, this still sounds sweeter: specifics delicately unelaborated and bleepable words awkwardly (if only according to the strict letter of the law) avoided.
4. Ndotz: Embrace It
British rapper stomps through a minimalist thump gilded with pretty guitar that grabbed my ears and apparently many others’, since from what I can tell it went viral on TikTok. He made sure to repeat “if you like TikTok, TikTok like this” a few times just to be sure.
5. Malu Magri: Cabeça-Inferno
Second appearance from the Brazilian singer, slinky and proggy disco-pop.
6. Inês Apenas, Left.: Fake
Light Portuguese house-pop that almost sounds Polish (complimentary).
7. Наша Таня, PALC: Слова
Light Russian electropop that almost sounds Ukrainian (complimentary).
8. Mohon Sharif: Mombati
Acoustic Bangladeshi ballad with a circular melody and structure that builds force as it rolls along. Seems like the guitar lends more percussive oomph in the Spotify version’s mix.
9. Songhoy Blues: Toukambela
Malian band I’ve been vaguely aware of for a while now, with a new song that I enjoyed, and about which there’s more information in a short promo documentary series for the new album. That’s where I learned this is a cover of a 1970 song from Orchestre Kanaga de Mopti (but I can’t find the original). Will leave any further context or commentary to the Experts (Witnesses, that is)—shout out to Brad Luen and Christian Iszchak, fellow iconoclast islands in the newsletter archipelago. (Ha, my first search for “Mali” is a Brad fact-check of something I shared back in February.)
10. Tshegue: Shuffle
Was about to type the phrase “Parisian/Congolese duo” before this particular pairing rang a bell: sure enough, I discover I featured them already back in June. (I need to update my spreadsheet!) This makes them my default France/DRC collaboration of the year, though I think they already had that honor with their first inclusion. I’ll let you know when the spreadsheet’s done.
11. DJ Znobia: Sofre [c. 2000]
I featured kuduro artist DJ Znobia last year when Nyege Nyege Tapes released the first of two and counting volumes of his material from the late ‘90s and early ‘00s. Apparently there are hundreds of unreleased tracks to choose from. Keep ‘em coming, I’ll find room.
12. DJ Mazzay, DJ Vittinho, MC Celo BK, f. Yuri Redicopa: Bolei um Plano
Had to check, double-check, and triple-check that I got this from a funk mandelão playlist because I don’t know that I’ve heard anything like its tottering little electro-kalimba figure at the center of a funk track, real elf shit.
13. Amapani, MasterD: Katakara
Meanwhile, here’s some Sri Lankan pop that forces its (elfin?) strings into something more orderly, giving a spotlight to singer/rapper Amapani, who is under-the-radar enough that even the first comment on MasterD’s Facebook page is: “Who is this girl? Shes amazing”
14. Toaka: Spider Web
Can’t really parse this one, some sort of ‘40s throwback with a nod to the boogie boom—or at least to the hiss and crackle of an old record of the era—from an artist who had a breakout hit with RADWIMPS, the go-to anthemic instrumental rock band for filmmaker Makoto Shinkai. Toaka provided vocals on the title song from 2023’s Suzume.
15. Satomoka: Dear Stranger
One of the pre-release singles Satomoka’s follow-up to Woolly from 2021, upbeat piano-driven quirk-pop.
16. Hak Baker: No Control!
Fast-paced ska is as good as any backdrop for Hak Baker’s very British sing/shout/rap, which required subtitles I couldn’t find. But I did catch “Mom was too busy working jobs around the city” and “Saturday night on TV watching Free Willy.”
17. Saya Gray: Shell (Of a Man)
Saya Gray has crossed into do-no-wrong territory, she even hits it out of the park with a light little alt-country number.
18. Klossmajor: Rutine
Returning Norwegians last featured back when this thing was still a TinyLetter start-up. Thick harmonies, gentle tempos.
19. Sondre Lerche: Days That Are Over (Casio Version) [2002]
A demo from Sondre Lerche’s album Days That Are Over, celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. I prefer it to the orchestration that wound up on the album — Lerche works best for me in small, stripped-down doses.
20. Judith Horn: Deep Shit Times
Can’t for the life of me find the Bluesky mutual who shared this song so don’t know where it came from in more ways than one — if you’re reading this please let me know! This is really great! (I said most of what I wanted to say up top.)
21. Hiroki Tamaki: River [1980]
More thick harmonies, like Brian Wilson turning “Our Prayer” into an extended prog jam. This song, from a 1980 album, might have showed up in my Discover feed after listening to so much prog and folk and pych for my 1974 Japan survey, or it might be there because of Tanaki’s inclusion on Nippon Acid Folk 1970-1980 from earlier this year.
22. The Primitives (Lou Reed): The Ostrich [1964]
This is a “remaster” that has, mercifully, not used any fancy machine-learning noise reduction to de-clatter this early Lou Reed single from 1964. Trying to capture the full racket on what sounds like one beat-up and poorly-placed microphone is a good strategy to get across the violence of the dance being described: get down on your face and step on your head!
***
Thats it! Until next time, I hope you manage or at least muddle your way through deep shit times.
—Dave Moore (the other one)
Title from Judith Horn’s “Deep Shit Times”
Yes, I’m starting to regret my decision to stylize all-caps artist names again.
The deluxe album, TYLA+, opens with the only fully amapiano track I’ve heard from Tyla. She’s more of a featured player on it than lead artist, and it doesn’t sound particularly distinguished as amapiano musically or vocally, which is to say it’s a mere [7] in a sea of [8]’s.
Has anyone compiled a "best of Ari Falcao" playlist? By my count, she's dropped 45 singles so far this year, and there are probably a few missing from Apple Music but available elsewhere.