Up among the vultures
2026 Mix 18: Best of April, Laufey tolerated, and a big mix of Golden Beatology with (mostly) small view counts
No time for chit-chat — it’s April in review! Hope you’re well.
11 Songs I Heard in April (unranked)
heavy / bloom: Бруд [“Brood”]
Yuri: てきとうメイク [“Tekito Make”]
10 Albums I Heard in April (lightly ranked)
RAYE: This Music May Contain Hope
Haven’t really grappled with this thing yet. It goes long (really long) on the promise of artful/joyful/theatrical R&B-pop at the end of the aughts, which I don’t think ever really produced anything quite this maximalist and overstuffed. But it leaves a strong aftertaste that I can’t quite figure out. I have determined the aftertaste is NOT: Britishness! musical theater! meta asides! indulgent set pieces! or FUN! But it might be: flattened production where many different styles feel mashed together rather than set against each other. Weirdly, I think what I really want is a well-produced live stage show recording of the same material—as if this is a studio reproduction of the real thing I want to hear.LØLØ: God Forbid a Girl Spits Out Her Feelings!
Feel similarly about this as I do about RAYE, from a different angle—every piece fits together nicely but the album taken as a whole feels a bit washed out. It’s like the blueprint for a perfect mid-aughts alt-confessional album, but it sort of works on those terms—I think any more discernible grain or personality from LØLØ herself might even ruin the effect.Fallon: Winter Princess
A decent full-length of the continued integration of bouyon into French pop music, in a variant Fallon apparently calls RnBouyon. (As a pathological genre neologizer, I must respectfully say: no thank you.)Zee Nxumalo & Dlala Thukzin: Inznja Zam Vol. 1 [EP]
A no-brainer collab between one of my favorite vocalists in amapiano and a producer who is, if not exactly a favorite, an accepted titan.Ashley Monroe: Dear Nashville
Really slept on Tennessee Lightning last year, and am determined not to sleep on this solid but slight follow-up, which is less oomph and more craft, goes down a bit easier despite having fewer highlights. (Stephen Deusner at Pitchfork says: “aggressively modest.”) Like watching a good spring training game.Julia Cumming: Julia
Sunflower Bean lead singer gave a charming interview on a podcast I listen to and I liked the songs from this that they played. It’s very piano forward and overwritten in the same way the stuff I sometimes try to write is. It briefly inspired me to try to write some songs, which were all bad.Vanessa Carlton: Veils
I don’t think I consistently underrate Carlton like I do Michelle Branch, but maybe there are other Carlton albums I’ve missed? (It looks like I’ve longlisted her albums twice in the last 20 years, in 2007 and 2020.) A lot of echo and space: bedroom pop, but it’s a big bedroom and maybe haunted—just a little, not so much that it keeps you up.Makthaverskan: Glass and Bones
Featured one of the songs from this jangly Swedish indie rock album on a mix after Isabel recommended them. The other ones are good, too.YUNA: Ice Cream [EP]
Which K-pop EP to feature this month? YUNA gets the nod on pure banger ratio, but I was probably more interested in the hyperpoppish alt-K variant from HEYOON, seriously unserious (that’s the title, not my judgment of it).
Ilykimchi: Prenup [EP]
One of a bundle of potential recs from George Henderson tracing the current gnarly little family tree branches of Weird Girls Who Dance But Ambiguously Take the Piss, edging out Lil Mariko (who is more obviously taking the piss).
1. Laufey: Madwoman
Iceland
Is Laufey…good? I think no, but I find her popularity fascinating. She’s in Fortnite! She got one of the hockey show guys in the video! This sort of zombie songbook pastiche irritates me but I’m not immune to its charms; with a dollop more irony she could aspire to Touch & Go. Her songs work occasionally when the bones are good, good enough in this case that I can overlook a repeated syllable emphasis clunker like “something SO vex-ING ‘bout YOU.”2 Oh god, there’s a Katseye cameo in the video, too? Hm—is Laufey the neo-songbook Katseye? In true ‘90s bachelor pad fashion, consider this song the “negative track” on the CD that you have to rewind backwards from 0:00 to get to.
2. Kumail, Nickson Dufala: Vultures
India-Portugal/DRC
A lot of Golden Beatology this week, with plenty of three-digit YouTubes and, when available, Bandcamp links. This one feels very much like an album intro, which in context it literally is.3 It was also used for a short documentary about the project soundtracking a day in the life of chef Nickson Dufala in Kinshasa, where Kumail lived for 5 years. I think it stands on its own when the groove settles around 90 seconds in.
3. Les Poissons: Nature Boy
Norway
I’m pretty sure that every cover of “Nature Boy” (the Eden Ahbez standard) is good, but I’ve never tested the theory of whether every song even called “Nature Boy” is good. This is evidence in favor of that theory.
4. Narasimha: Fanga
US
Fun single from Ninja Tune, glimmers of “Mutant Brain” by Sam Spiegel and Ape Drums, soundtrack to what just be a top 5 perfume ad music video. Some day when someone finally makes me the music coordinator on a children’s animated show I will be sure to include this song in a chase scene.
5. Jorge Drexler f. Rueda de Candombe: El tambor chico
Uruguay
Bittersweet to win a round in the People’s Pop World Cup against this catchy and warm samba from Uruguayan singer Jorge Drexler.
6. Asimptot: Kes Deri
Turkey
Shambling Turkish indie with a bit of Weezer in the DNA, but more ramshackle than that comparison suggests. Maybe Weezer should start writing and performing songs without practicing and with one arm tied behind their backs.
7. isbit: Brodder
Norway
Jazz-pop from Norway, gets a little brassy as it goes on but the vocals never take the bait to compete.
8. nikocorlin: Something Wrong with Your Hands
Denmark
We have Miya Folick at home, if we happen to live in Denmark. (Yes I have used this joke template before, possibly several times…and I’ll do it again.)
9. Serebii, KAJJA: Bends Not Breaks
New Zealand
Electropop pulses create a certain buoyancy, but the singer has the good sense to stay underwater.
10. MARO: It Ain’t Over
Portugal
Maro represented Portugal at Eurovision in 2022 with “Saudade, Saudade,” which is wispy and mushy in a way that this one threatens but mostly avoids by perking up in the chorus. Would still probably prefer it in Portuguese.
11. Dana and Alden f. Mei Semones: Lee’s Greenhouse
US
Mei Semones street team mode in full effect! She’s just vocalizing to a flute melody on this one (ha, “just,” as if), but it’s great. Why can’t she be in Fortnite??
12. Bolbec: Le Prof de Gong
France
Stereolabby French hipster swing with all the right accoutrements and with very little else going for it, in a way that I think probably helps it.
13. Negadeza, Zuri Ribeiro: Mestra Querida
Brazil
14. Edssada: No Mato No Sertão
Brazil
Two from the more tastefully-minded Brazilian (i.e. non-funk) lists I pull from, one from the granddaughter of Selma do Coco and the other from the singer from Brazilian group A Outra Banda da Lua.
15. Yassine Nana: Telephone [c. 1984-1989]
Mauritania
Great find from Bongo Joe, ‘80s Mauritanian pop salvaged from little-circulated cassettes (little-circulated enough not to get a more precise date for this song from skimming Discogs). From Bandcamp:
Recorded in Mauritania as well as during stays in Paris and Rabat, these songs integrate drum machines, synthesizers and electric guitars into Saharan musical structures.
Influenced by reggae, soul and new wave, the group develops a sound that reflects the circulation of music and technology in the 1980s, while remaining firmly rooted in Mauritanian languages, themes and melodic systems.
16. Antonio Carlos & Jocafi, Adrian Younge: Rala-Bucho
Brazil/US
Another canny international jam sesh opportunity from Adrian Younge, who brings Bahia duo Antonio Carlos & Jocafi into the studio to provide another good flute on the mix.
17. Ezra Collective: Chapter 7 (Live at NPR’s Tiny Desk)
UK
Can never remember what these guys’ deal is—would have pegged them as US, but they are British enough to have won the Mercury Prize (that is, very British). This is the only thing I’ve heard from them that has earned inclusion on a mix, and since it is NPR Tiny Desk I have an excuse to share this video again.
18. Nettle DJ, Dumo the Vocalist: Amahlathi
UK
Afrohouse from a UK producer that could maybe use more of the hard angles of the face mask she wears in live performances.
19. Khun Narin: Poet Wong Pt. 1
Thailand
Rural Thai psych-rockers, playing what they call phin prayuk, went town to town blasting this stuff from a homemade soundsystem until an L.A. producer heard them on YouTube and enlisted interpreters from a local Thai restaurant to reach out on Facebook about recording them. They put out their first album in 2014 and this is a long-awaited album 3, their first recorded in a real studio.
20. Dagmar Zuniga f. Austyn Wohlers: Even God Gets Stuck in Devotion
Nicaragua-US/US
Have noticed a lot of praise for this album, a scrapbook of demos recorded on a Tascam, though I don’t fully understand the appeal. This is the one I settled on, a slow guitar figure and languorously stretched-out syllables with (via?) author Austyn Wohlers. Suspect this might be my lo-fi Laufey, so let’s call it the bonus “secret track” on the far side of the disc.
That’s it! Until next time, let me know what your favorite secret CD tracks are on either end of the disc.
—Dave Moore (the other one)
Title translated from Kumail f. Nickson Dufala: Vultures (“Na likolo parmi ba vautours”)
This hasn’t officially appeared on a mix yet, but I referred to it last week in the blurb for a different LinLin song. Right now it’s scheduled for a mix later this month.
She needs to borrow Taylor Swift’s Notes app list of phonetic earworms; Taylor knows how to mess with emphasis like a pro, and for what it’s worth would probably never use “vexing” as an adjective anyway, much more likely as “vexed” if she had to, rhymes with “who’s next,” “you bet,” and somehow “true that.”
I generally don’t like using the first tracks from albums as the first tracks for mixes, though I don’t always know if something I’m putting first is the first track of the album.