Back in the late 80s early 90s Cranes were my religion — I bowed at the black altar of Alison Shaw’s terrified little goth child vocals crying out against her brother Jim’s great squalling slabs of textured guitar horror. I used to go on weekly expeditions to Aron’s and Bleecker Bob’s to find the good shit I read about in Melody Maker and it was a thrill to know I was one of maybe three people in Los Angeles to own the monstrously good Self Non-Self ep. Later when I was living in San Francisco one of my best memories of the city was going for walks in the cold wind, all bundled up in cozy layers, blasting Wings of Joy into my skull through the foam rubber of my Walkman headphones. OK so Just Mustard from Ireland… I don’t quite know how to put it — there are bands that are basically a drag show version of their heroes, but Just Mustard seem like a full on reincarnation of Cranes in their heyday, with their own amazing catalog of songs. It’s weird and it goes against everything I believe to be true, but it works and I’m a fan.
At first Alex G can seem like just another Mac DeMarco-ish indie guy with a knack for melody, but actually his orbit is quite eccentric. He got on my radar back in ‘13 with the lovely “Black Hair,” and then he had to change his stage name because of another Alex G and he became “(Sandy) Alex G.” Yeah, eccentric. He brought me untold joy with his 2017 album Rocket, but then, as tends to happen, his follow-up got lots of hype and was not as good and I assumed our love had run its course. Love is a many splendored thing though, and he’s just put out a new song called “Cross the Sea” that’s about the sweetest thing I’ve heard all year. The lyrics have a directness and simplicity that short-circuits the brain and and goes right for my internal organs: “I cross the sea, yeah yeah yeah, yeah yeah / You can leave it to me / I cross the field for my baby / You can believe in me, yeah.” A strummed guitar is gradually layered with vocals and keyboards in a candied production style that’s more in the mold of Organ Tapes or Bladee than anything you’d expect from an indie-rock Yank — he actually sounds a bit pop. There’s a strange and tangy middle verse: “You see how I make you smile, yeah / You put your foot down and I run wild, yeah / So wild, yeah / You see now that nothing is final, no / I cut myself into vinyl yeah yeah.” The raw intimacy, the voice and guitar melodicism and the warmth and power of his delivery take me back to the 70s and dearly departed Italian superstar troubadour Lucio Battisti.
“Got Your Number” is pretty much the coolest thing on my little planet right now. It’s a collaboration between The Maghreban, a UK producer with a catalog that goes everywhere, and Kenyan rapper/model/all around hot human being Nah Eeto. Nah raps in Swahili about being the boss and puts you in your place in English over propulsive, Liquid Sky-era dark bass and sharp volleys of weaponized drumbeats, as a menacing layer of middle-eastern incense seduces you into complete submission. Not dancing to it just isn’t an option. “Didn’t you know bro I’m a commander / Didn’t you know bro I’m not your mama / I don’t wear a kanga I carry a machete […] Your face drier than the savannah / No worries I’m here to roast you like a cassava.”
You all know I’ve got a weakness for um — is it OK to say fierce bitches? As a gay man I feel like I have legal access to that expression; it’s grandfathered in. Anyway Doechii is one and she’s got the best hiphop song title ever, “Bitch I’m Nice,” and all that notwithstanding she will take your man. “Get him in the corner, get a boner when he find me on the ping / Now he havin’ wet dreams / Wake up to your baby daddy sexting / I’ma pull up in a rocket, then take it to go out shoppin’ / And my drip so cold, they dip it and I’ma mop it.”
Megan Thee Stallion is one too. Check it out — pretty self-explanatory.
“Humility’s Disease” by Jennifer Vanilla brings out the kooky 8-year-old in me and I’m dying to play it in my imaginary DJ set at Veronica Veal, my all ages new wave nightclub, and watch people dance to it and also see it later on TV because it would be on TV in Europe and Singapore. “Where in the waves are you / Are you under are you over are you blue? / Where in the crowd are you / Are you active are you dreaming it’s true?” The Castle in the Sky album is nominally house, but it will take you to some seriously strange and fun places, with some stops in the noughties — I’m detecting notes of Peaches and early Micachu. At times we also travel close to Roisin Murphy-land.
OMG and this.
So [transitioning to a more dignified tone here] for those days when you feel yourself rising up to heaven through parting clouds, open-hearted and triumphant, or would like to, let me recommend the oppositely-titled “Our Wretched Fate” by Brooklyn composer Rachika Nayar, It’s up there with “Storm” off the first Godspeed You! Black Emperor album, and kisses the hem of Enya’s golden empress gown.
Earlier in the year I was getting my kicks playing “Point and Kill” by Little Simz, which had guest rapping by Obongjayar, and now he’s put out his own album. “Some Nights I Dream of Doors” is delightfully hard to classify. On Wikipedia it says he’s Nigerian and grew up on American rap, but neither of those things are very apparent on the record — it’s more like British avant-RnB and arty indie-pop. His voice is a thing to behold, shifting from lovely growls to pillow-talk cooing and everywhere in between, but there’s no Mariah Carey showboating — it all feels organic to the songs. His lyrics are straight up revolution: “I have seen the future / In the future we won / We have been reborn / To build we must destroy / I don’t want peace, oh / We don’t talk ’til we tire / I won’t say please, oh / We fight fire with fire / We are the people / We won’t sit and be quiet / Government devils / All of dem liars.”
So back in the 80s when I first moved up to L.A., I got a job at the Apparel News, downtown on Olympic and Wall, at a brick, vaudeville-era building that had been somewhat disturbingly tarted up in the 70s with smoked mirrors and the like. It was owned and run by an actual Jewish Mafia guy. It was a pretty cool place to work in retrospect; at the time I took a lot of stuff for granted. Lots of artists and punk slash underground musicians worked there, including Jack Marquette and Jim Van Tyne who created an underground scene centered on the Anti-Club and the the•o•ret•i•cal parties. I did manual graphic design in the advertising art department, and I have this specific memory of looking southwest, through the windows and iron grate, and getting pleasure from hearing an Erasure song — maybe from a store or a passing car. At the time it would have been a blow to my sense of self to admit to myself I was digging a pop song but somehow I still have a snapshot of that moment in my head, and over time I was able to come out of the closet, first to myself and then to the world, as an Erasure fan. That said, let’s not kid ourselves… they have certainly never been cool, but now Day-Glo (Based on a True Story) has come out and the unthinkable has happened.