I'm in the pet shop, I'm at the club
Mix 27: Jazz, noise, folkies (US & Estonian), pan-Middle Eastern collabs w/ Jonny Greenwood, plus Bas Jean, Marcelo D2, Dizzee Rascal, and the first James Blake song I've liked...ever?
Each week I skim through about 2,000 songs mostly from Spotify's company-curated New Music Friday playlists. Whenever I find 80 minutes worth of music I like, I make a CD-length mix and write a newsletter about it.
Nothing like a rough Spotify pull to encourage me to go through the albums that have been piling up for the last few weeks. LP keepers from this week’s mix include Sub Pop artist Lael Neale, a cross-cultural collab between Jonny Greenwood and Israeli artist Dudu Tassa, avant jazz vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant, Estonian folk artist Mari Kalkun, trippy jazz from Natural Information Society, Shanghai noise artist/DJ Tzusing, and the debut from a self-described “hyperfolk” band with the resolutely un-Googleable name @.
Speaking of Googleability — seems like Google is slowly going down the tubes? The Website Formerly Known As Twitter has descended into yet another sub-basement (how deep does it even go?). I refuse to join Threads. You can, however, find me over on Bluesky if you’ve been invited. Current vibe is somewhere between primordial late-00s Twitter and a group chat. Highly non-functional for most of the things I get from Twitter (polls, embeds, threads, gifs, you name it, they don’t have it). Bleak!
Mix 1 // Mix 2 // Mix 3 // Mix 4 // Mix 5 // Mix 6 // Mix 7 // Mix 8 // Mix 9 // Mix 10 // Mix 11 // Mix 12 // Mix 13 // Mix 14 // Mix 15 // Mix 16 // Mix 17 // Mix 18 // Mix 19 // Mix 20 // Mix 21 // Mix 22 // Mix 23 // Mix 24 // Mix 25 // Mix 26
MIX 27: I’M IN THE PET SHOP, I’M AT THE CLUB
Seems to split the difference between Patti Smith and that corny old Gallagher poem from his 80’s stand-up, where he drapes himself in a blue screen and becomes THE RIVER. I know she’s not being so literal, but there’s still a mawkishness to it — that ba-ba-da-dah hook in the chorus must have really gotten its hooks in me (it did).
These flâneurs yo-yo from the pet store to the club, living their best lives, and even think to include a couple fiddles. First heard them in the People’s Pop Placenames competition, where their “King of the Holloway Road” was a Golden Beat finalist (I’ve tracked all finalists for every tournament at that link).
Collaboration between Philly-based guitarist Victoria Rose and Baltimore-based producer Stone Filipczak. This is a brief but well-arranged song fragment from the resulting album, Mind Palace Music.
4. Cécile McLorin Salvant: Aida
Another minor sketch — full album’s all over the map, lots of more daring vocal experiments throughout, but this one gives you a sense of Salvant’s voice (singing in her parents’ native French; she’s from Miami) and still leaves space for a warm pot of keyboard noodle. Check out the rest of the album, Mélusine: I like the French aesthetically, and the sonics push farther away from more staid jazz arrangements in her previous work, as far as I can tell.
5. Mari Kalkun: Kui Kivid Olid Veel Pehmed (When the Stones Were Still Soft)
A recommendation from the ongoing Singles Jukebox (RIP) group hang, gorgeous Estonian folk.
Norwegian indie artist manages to smuggle a hint of blue-eyed soul into his dusty grooves pastiche, reminds me a bit of Jamie Lidell’s work just at the point where it gave up modern signifiers (worked once, on 2008’s Jim, then I lost interest).
C’ôte D’Ivoire artist who achieved mid-80s regional stardom with singer Jess Sah Bi playing what are referred to in a few places as “African country records,” a classification I’m dubious of for some reason but have only heard a snippet of the old stuff. Anyway, he has returned after a long career as a nurse in Nashville.
8. Dudu Tassa & Jonny Greenwood f. Lynn A.: Ya ‘Anid Ya Yaba
Interesting collaboration between Jonny Greenwood and Israeli artist Dudu Tassa, featuring vocalists from across the Arab world (Syrian singer Lynn A. on this one). Greenwood keeps his Hollywood-honed orchestration ambitions modest, not to say spare or boring, and mostly gives the spotlight to the singers and instrumentation, though you can hear a cool electronic pulse undergirding the whole thing.
I check in on Marcelo D2 periodically after falling hard for what turned out to be an unofficial instrumental remix of one of his songs used in a Fast and Furious soundtrack. This song captures some of the simplicity and spaciousness of that remix, but it can’t compete with the enduring power of that serendipitous mistake, one that I made independently of Frank Kogan, who did the exact same thing (clicked the wrong link while searching it on YouTube when it was featured in the pop polls).
Speaking of, Frank has started posting his writing on Substack, with meta process notes for free subscribers. Is currently doing a deep dive on baile funk that you should be reading. Subscribe below.
10. J Hus f. Naira Marley: Militerian
Good album from J Hus, but this was the clear standout, floats on a light swing feel where a lot of the other songs aim for something harder and fall shorter.
Am I missing something or has James Blake never sounded anything like this? The most exciting thing I’ve heard from him: this could have been from a mid-aughts DJ /rupture set.
12. Dizzee Rascal: Street Fighter [2002]
And speaking of the 00’s: when I scan through songs each week I often skip ahead about 30 seconds, so I initially missed the part at the beginning where Dizzee Rascal announces it’s 2002 (this song scheduled for 2003’s Boy in Da Corner was held up due to sample clearance problems and is now being released on the 20th anniversary edition). Immediately thought “my god, this is the best thing he’s done in twenty years!” Which wasn’t technically wrong, I guess.
13. Kaliii & DJ Smallz 732: K Toven
How can I not love something that so mercilessly strips Beethoven for spare parts? The non-“Für Elise” components of the beat thankfully go much harder than they needed to, since I probably still would have stuck this thing on the mix if it sounded considerably worse. (What’s the T-minus on a terrible Nicki Minaj guest verse ruining the fun?)
14. KONE: A Persistent Sense of Dread
This seems like a totally unknown song from a new addition to my playlist pull, Drowned in Sound. Feels like run-of-the-mill aughts British indie except the time signature’s a little tricky, something like 3/2? Probably have that wrong, maybe just a rigid 6/8, but whatever it is gives it a jerky quality, like a rollercoaster car clunking mechanically up the first slope without ever making it to the top.
15. Texxcoo: Los Pasos Perdidos
Spanish garage with a Smashing Pumpkins-esque melodicism. You really can’t go wrong with Women In Spanish-Language Indie Rock these days.
16. Barbi Recanati: Lo Que Queda
Case in point! The second appearance of Argentine indie rocker Barbi Recanati on my mixes in the span of about a month, this time with something a bit synthier — was previously on Mix 22 with “Arte Arte Arte.”
17. ((( O ))): DON’T DIE [video cw: strobe]
This art-pop project of June Marieezy shows up all the time in my Spotify recommendations (or at least I remember when it does because of the name/symbol), and I think I’ve occasionally bitten, though skimming my year-end lists I only rated her previous album, ((( 3 ))). My son asks from the backseat: “Why is this song called ‘don’t die’ in big letters like that?” It’s the number one job of parenting! Happiness is probably four or five, somewhere below dental care.
18. ODD EYE CIRCLE: Je Ne Sais Quoi
I’ve been making more of an effort to engage with K-pop, but the most reliable new K-pop list I’ve found updates with 600 tracks every single week, and they only actually update a handful of those tracks, making it functionally unusable. This is the clear standout from the first and maybe only haul, the strongest track to typify what I’ve come to think of as the somewhat passé K-pop sound I’m happy to watch NewJeans rocket right past.
19. Kaho Nakamura: スカフィンのうた [Sukafin no uta]
Meanwhile J-rock always has one or two selections per week with enough sonic novelty to grab my attention. Here it’s that propulsive, chunky piano pattern, the sort of thing I could maybe mash together myself but then never figure out what to do with it afterward.
Big abrasive clatter from a Shanghai producer, featured in the League of Extraordinary Tracks, whose first season/series is winding down and has been a blast—and not only because I’m winning. My Hindi disco nom managed to beat this noisy monster in week three, but it was far and away at the top of my voting slate and should have won, I think. Whole album’s good.
21. Natural Information Society: Moontide Chorus
Have been tentatively holding on to something from the Natural Information Society jazz album for weeks (the average track length is close to ten minutes) but finally have the perfect slot for a representative selection. Nudged to include it after Chuck Eddy put it at the top of one of his Pazz ‘n’ Jop Product Reports—his ongoing list of notable and noted albums—with a respectable [7].
22. Goose 我鳥: 石化的眼淚 [Shíhuàdeyǎnlèi, “Petrified Tears”]
Alternative Chinese rock band from Singapore according to the Bandcamp, now the fourth goose band I’m aware of after Goose, Gooooose, and Geese. A bit sleepy but crescendoes to proggy places and even chips in for a choir, though only has enough to pay them for about fifteen seconds at the end. I’ve probably been grading Chinese-language pop on a curve, but I also like the way the music I’ve been drawn to so far can find some juice left in styles I’ve long since given up on (in this case spacey alt-rock that, if you squint, might fit onto modern rock radio).
***
And hey, speaking of that pet shop from today’s title (thanks Bas Jean!), should we finally get another cat to disrupt the late night mouse club in our pantry? Dial “1” for yes, “2” for obviously. But argh, the allergies!
Until then, I hope you are staying as allergen- and vermin-free as possible.
—Dave Moore (the other one)
Title from Bas Jean’s “At the Counter.”
Disappointed to discern no apparent overlap between pet shop and club and - therefore - no apparent influence of Das Racist upon "At The Counter." (Was also disappointed I was the only person to use the word "combination" when commenting upon That Kid's entry back in Week 2 of the League Of Extraordinary Tracks.)