It flows slowly and it can't stop
2023 Mix 13: Ice Spice’s highs meet Nicki Minaj’s lows, baile funk finds "My Boo," the amapiano album of the year channels shoegaze, Lil Yachty gets prog out of his system, and some very damp brass
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.
I spent most of the past week thinking about “Weird Al” Yankovic and his roots in new wave, his sidecar hitched to an MTV zeitgeist that was maybe a dry run for the internet as all those fiberoptic cables got installed, and why novelty songs mostly stopped topping the charts after the Beatles. I wrote my thoughts up in an unruly essay on Tumblr of all places, but my finger slipped and it all disappeared, like tears in rain. (Blade Runner update: “like unsaved drafts typed directly into the CMS”.) Substack’s CMS seems more stable—why didn’t I just write it here?? Maybe next time.
Speaking of writing things here, share this newsletter with your friends! I assume most people will only dip in occasionally or check the ongoing song playlist on Spotify once in a while. But as Twitter continues its slow descent into obsolescence, it’s getting harder to get the word out. (We’ll see how Substack Notes does, but so far I’m not optimistic.)
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: IT FLOWS SLOWLY AND IT CAN’T STOP
1. Ice Spice f. Nicki Minaj: Princess Diana (remix)
Ice Spice is one of the most exciting new artists in rap right now, so I’m concerned that she just signed with Nicki Minaj, who is in an artistic nadir and just put out what is probably her worst song ever. She seems to have lost touch with whatever spark drove her to greatness; whether there’s a precipitating event or it’s a natural ebb in her creative cycle I couldn’t guess, but it’s like there’s nobody in there right now.
And yet her mediocre verse on Ice Spice’s “Princess Diana” doesn’t diminish Ice Spice’s charm, even though you’re better off with the original. The most I can say of Nicki’s addition is that she doesn’t implode like on that awful Christopher Reeve line in “Ruby Red Da Sleaze,” immortalized in an excruciating live performance. [EDIT: the label signing was rumored when I wrote this a few days ago, but as of today it looks like it was only a rumor]
2. Vayda: bingo
Featured on an under-the-radar mixtape report from Pitchfork, Vayda has some of the anxious interiority of weirdo rappers like Hook or Bktherula in her music but has a lightness and charm that they lack, landing closer in tone to the previous era of anxious interiority bedroom-rappers like Kitty.
3. DJ Maia & MC Kevin o Chris: Noite Estrelada
This might be the first baile funk track I’ve heard that uses the “My Boo” chord progression, which is still batting a thousand for bangers. Use this chord progression, folks. It just works.
4. Dinamarca & Ralphie Choo: fubu
Chilean-Swedish producer Dinamarca approximates a Naija pop vibe with Spanish artist Ralphie Choo, whose intriguing chopped-flamenco “Bulerías de un Caballo Malo” I liked last year.
5. DJ Q & Todd Edwards: Sweet Day (Baltra Remix)
TQD is still chugging along with their once-a-month release schedule leading up to their next album. But instead of their second track, “nice and close,” this week I’ve gone with a track from the Q of TQD (DJ Q) with Todd Edwards, remixed by Philadelphia-born DJ Baltra.
6. Megabaile Do Areias f. Mc Topre: Ultra Rave Xena
I picked “Xena” out of the pre-release lineup before Skrillex did his impressive double (maybe triple?) album drop, way back on Mix 4, so I’m happy to hear it remixed into baile funk. My taste: consistent!
7. Lil Yachty: Strike (Holster)
After a foray into proggy psych-rock that I didn’t find as convincing or interesting as other folks in my critical orbit, Lil Yachty is back to cryptic stoner epigrams.
8. Oshunda f. Santaklara: Trust Issues
Rap from Ghana that just managed to hook me with its synth loop.
9. Kiko el Crazy f. Angel Dior: Pa’ Ti Ya
Another good Dominican dembow track. At this point I am equally interested in why Dominican dembow has been so good (shorter? more melodic? often features Angel Dior?) and why other dembow has seemed so dull (none of those things?).
10. Mura Masa: Whenever I Want
Was really into Mura Masa’s 2017 album full of intricately percussive EDM with plenty of marimba. So I’m curious about this, which is aggressively annoying and as far as I can tell features no marimbas whatsoever. Still good, though.
11. Lazuli: Toketa (DJ Lycox Re-Vision)
I figured I had DJ Lycox stuck in my algorithm after I put one of his songs on Mix 9, but this one wasn’t on my Release Radar. Wasn’t familiar with Lazuli, whom I mistook for a French prog band but is a French pop singer who just made a reggaeton-inspired album.
12. Orkundk, Perry Aye, & Joddie: Menemé
Brooding Turkish rap — not sure what’s going on with the Turkish lists this year but so far I’ve found decent music from lots of genres that weren’t as well represented before.
13. Dave Okumu & the 7 Generations f. Wesley Joseph, ESKA: 7 Generations
This is from the album and video project I Came from Love by British musician and producer Dave Okumu, who co-produced Jessie Ware’s album Devotion. It’s gritty neo-soul that features Grace Jones on a few tracks, though not on this one.
14. Felo Le Tee x Mellow & Sleazy f. Noxolo Ngema & Mawhoo: uDali
Mellow & Sleazy have released an incredible album, The III Wise Men, with Felo Le Tee, another of my favorite current amapiano producers. This song was a personal highlight — in the first minute of the song I get faint traces of shoegaze with the introduction of the electric guitar figure; it reminds me of “Soon” by My Bloody Valentine which, listening back I’m now imagining as an amapiano song. The logic is there: everything’s somehow decentered in the mix and ephemeral but also right in your face at the same time, though Kevin Shields uses some vaseline on the lens to get the ephemerality across while amapiano does everything in plain sight. Now I’m rethinking my claim that Kubrick could never make an Altman film (maybe he tried with Barry Lyndon?): Kevin Shields is nothing if not Kubrickian.
Overwritten as all get out, especially for a song about the emptiness of bumper sticker/yard sign political posturing. It kicks into gear in the chorus: “Don’t talk to me!” There you go!
After hardly thinking about BiS (or BiSH) for years, I mentioned them in reference to Biig Piig last week and then immediately stumbled on BiSH’s swan song, marking their planned obsolescence. This version of BiSH (the third one, I think?) was pre-programmed with a June 2023 self-destruct date. Bye bye!
17. Alanis Morissette: No Return (Extended Version from Yellowjackets)
Alanis hasn’t rocked this hard in a while, huh. I haven’t seen Yellowjackets yet—I assume that like everything on Showtime it is much trashier than its online reputation would suggest, and it totally falls apart after about ten episodes. If it brings a song like this out of its 90s setting I won’t complain—in the event we ever get through all those Deep Space Nine reruns. (We’re in the market for 90s revival, but not “quality” television, which would be very un-90s of us!)
Indonesian punk/pop band that cribs liberally from the Wire playbook. Sounds great.
Norwegian indie-pop band that cribs liberally from…I dunno, Ida Maria covering the Pixies? Sounds great.
20. Shari: Ti uccido
Italian singer makes good use of a doo-wop base. This move, like using the “My Boo” chord progression, has an impressively high return on investment.
21. Maude Audet: Penses-tu rester encore?
Pretty minor-key pop from a French singer-songwriter that reminds me of a specific song I can’t put my finger on. All of her stuff is pretty good—she’s on Bandcamp.
22. Bobby Bazini: Waterfallin’
Canadian crooner is too smooth, as these guys usually are, but he keeps things a little tricky with triplets, his smoothness a backdrop for constant little prickles of guitar like the patter of rain against a window.
Pleasing jazzy post-rock, mood music mostly, not that there’s anything wrong with that.
24. Tietê: Zig Zag
This brass-heavy São Paulo collective is slow to get the party started, but eventually they trudge out of the muck and manage to get it done. Things suddenly got very warm and damp ‘round here last week, so I appreciate a song where you can tell they’re singing about humidity even if you don’t speak the language.
Until next time—stay dry! Or failing that, start a wet-ass band!
—Dave Moore (the other one)
Title translated from “Zig Zag” by Tietê: “Escoa devagar e não pode parar”