The oligarchic charade
2023 Mix 21: Beverley Knight, indie from Quebec, Nia Archives revisits a revisit of "Heads Will Roll," and an anti-oligarchic ping pong boogie
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.
When it rains, it pours—after a rough Spotify week, I had so many extra songs this time around I started a whole new holdover playlist just for the 20 amapiano and baile funk tracks I couldn’t fit. I’ll need to do a more formal survey of those genres, maybe put together a separate year-end list.
We’re at about the halfway point and the year playlist is up to 476 songs. I’d guess about 100 of them are in contention for various year-end lists (and very few overlap with my albums list) — so maybe next week I’ll do a status update.
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: THE OLIGARCHIC CHARADE
1. Beverley Knight: Last One on My Mind
I hadn’t thought about Beverley Knight in years when I started doing a deep dive into 1998 music last year. I spent a long time trying to figure out where her original version of “Made It Back” was on Spotify— most songs listed as “Made It Back” were the remix that samples “Good Times” by Chic. So her name was relatively fresh in my mind when I noticed this new single, which as far as I can tell is her first major foray into contemporary pop after years of (pretty good!) British soul records. It’s from her new album, which she’s calling The Fifth Chapter and makes me think of the old Molly Shannon sketch: “IIIII’m fifty!”
2. Armani White f. A$AP Fergo: SILVER TOOTH.
Spotify has been pushing this goober on me all year, and this is the song that finally made me cry uncle and stick him on a mix. He has a deeply unfashionable puppy dog guilelessness that reminds me of sunshine rap from the early 10s, somewhere between Chance the Rapper and Mann’s “Buzzin’.”
Haven’t really absorbed the new Amaarae album yet, but this track stood out. Her high, airy vocals on this song verge on a hyperpop chirp, bold in a way that works a little better for me than when she aims for hypnotism. There’s something about Amaarae’s voice that distinguishes it from the provocative ciphers of the mid-aughts like Cassie and Cristina Milian, who could be blank and commanding at the same time. Instead, Amaarae’s voice insinuates itself into the crevices of the music, constantly peeking out from unexpected angles like an elusive sprite.
4. camilobers x Allure Dayo x the.lazyb: funk_triste_112
No idea what this is, aside from it being indie and Brazilian. It’s much mellower and artier than anything this directly informed by baile funk tends to get, but the hard clatter of the clave is a dead giveaway, despite the fact that said clatter — knife on Coke bottle maybe? — gets massaged into the mix in a way most baile funk wouldn’t do. Over on Soundcloud, singer camilobers ranges from traditional-sounding ballads to no-wave-ish post-punk, so maybe this is just a lark.
5. Babyface Ray: All Star Team
One of the 2022 XXL Freshman Class, where he certainly wasn’t worst in his group, though that wasn’t too difficult. (Babytron sounds like he got in trouble and now has to read his rap aloud to the whole class.) I’d never heard much of him until this song, though his song “Ron Artest” with 42 Dugg shows up a lot (meh). Refreshingly brisk, sounds like it’s sampling the Rain Main soundtrack.
6. Masta Ace f. Marco Polo & Coast Contra: Certified
Rarely include underground(ish) hip-hop on these mixes — wRapPOV-core. But there are names I see dozens of times in my weekly lists, usually not bad, but never interesting enough to pull out of the stream: Boldy Janes, MIKE, Conway the Machine. But the bass sample on this one got me.
Russian rap duo, first folks that I’m aware of to do the dumb and obvious trick of singing “Hey Mambo Italiano” but say “Lambo” instead. And for this and this alone they have earned a coveted slot over many better tracks I did not have room for!
8. Asha Puthli: Space Talk [1976, 2023 Mix]
Extremely crisp-sounding new mix of a 1976 disco track from the Indian jazz and funk artist. Puthli’s vocal reminds me a little of Amaarae, come to think of it, though she (Puthli) occasionally soars into Minnie Riperton territory, too. Appears to be a straightforward mix built from the original masters, but it did make me think of Paul McCartney’s plan to use a special computer program to rescue an old John Lennon vocal from a boombox cassette recording and turn it into a Beatles swan song. So far the Beatles remasters are a good proof of concept that those fancy track isolator tools could revolutionize remastering. Which would be good, since so many of masters have burned to cinders.
9. Baaba Maal f. The Very Best: Freak Out
Senegalese artist teams up with The Very Best, sounds great. One of those artists where it’s fun to track the journey Robert Christgau took (from 1988 to 2001) without the grades shifting much, and wondering what stopped him cold over twenty years ago.
British DJ on Ninja Tune won me over in a big way in 2021 with “You Could Be.” This isn’t that—it’s techno, no vocals—but still solid.
11. Chris Lake f. Aatig: In the Yuma (Four Tet Remix)
Four Tet’s having a big year— this was part of his set with Fred Again.. and Skrillex at Coachella.
12. Nia Archives: Off Wiv Ya Headz
My wife quite sensibly asks why on earth you would play this version rather than the original “Heads Will Roll” or at least the A-Trak remix that Nia Archives sticks into a centrifuge. To which I can only reply…why wouldn’t you play this version?
More drum ‘n’ bass, short ‘n’ fast, from the San Francisco producer who earns his punctuation.
14. Village: Y_U
Some EDM filler from the New Music Friday Dance playlist.
Quebec post-punk, plenty of shaker. Love it.
Loping electronic weirdness from a Portland-based producer.
17. Wanderléa: Apanhei-te, Cavaquinho
Brazilian artist with a pop pedigree going back to the early 60s, where her moddish career was popular enough for Wiki to describe her as “the first pop star in the country.” She still sounds great.
18. Made Mawut: Ping Pong Boogie
Blues from Bali that captures the appropriate ping-pong bounce of the title while also urging you to rise up against a corrupt oligarchy (I think). Hey, you can walk and chew gum at the same time!
Lebanese pop that does its best to approximate a Stevie Wonder horn section.
20. Niña Tormenta: Pequeñas Esperanzas
Chilean indie song built out of the kind of aimless ukulele plucking you might figure out idly on a rainy day.
21. Carla Chanelle: Bleu et Blanc
Indie pop on the other side of the Quebec indie spectrum from La Sécurité, lilts through subtle bossanova verses, can’t remember if it ever arrives at much of a chorus, which means probably not.
Netherlands indie-pop, a bit drippy but charms with accordion and clarinet.
Angel Olsen has been turning more to orchestration and formalism, which has mostly left me cold. But this is the first time I’ve heard her take on a no-foolin’ standard, and I think it’s good fit; she sounds like a slightly less dorky Zooey Deschanel.
I, on the other hand, am unquestionably dorkier than Zooey Deschanel, and if you’ve made it this far in the newsletter I’d be willing to bet you might be, too. Dork solidarity!
—Dave Moore (the other one)
Title translated from Made Mawut’s “Ping Pong Boogie”: “Ping pong boogie / Sandiwara basi oligarki”