The Music Dispatch: October 4, 2022
Inside: Björk, Shygirl, Arctic Monkeys, Baby Tate, warm songs to cold blooded takes, and songs two years too late
Welcome to The Music Dispatch! This is a weekly part of this Substack where I shortly review every new(-ish) release I listened to. Out every Tuesday. All mentioned songs are available on your streaming platform of choice unless stated otherwise. Is there an album you want to recommend me? @ me on Twitter or head on over to the Retrospring!
All of us have a celebrity that has a special place in our hearts. No, not that special place. Another special place, a peculiar one. So don’t bring out the stan list — there is no stan activity involved here. This is no place for the fawning, and it doesn’t include the hateration that Mary J Blige refuses to have in her life. This is a place in which you watch a celebrity you neither love nor hate make moves and you comment on it, much like watching a soccer match and suddenly becoming an expert on soccer, or like watching the Eurovision Song Contest and transforming into the world’s most important music critic. I have a couple celebs where I do that, but the one that I love to gossip with most right now is Taylor Swift. Much like Beyoncé, Taylor Swift is an icon: her every move is worthy of a conversation, her every song ripe with potential to shift the industry (folklore and evermore, in my opinion, brought the sad girl indie music to the mainstream in full). Unlike Beyoncé, who turned inward and herself to a brand (and dismantles said brand in her music), Taylor Swift… is hopelessly herself. That’s why the evil/calculating/manipulative angle that her naysayers accused her of being five years ago rings hollow. I don’t think she calculates on her image more than the average person does — I do think that she believes every move she makes, and does so with such a fervor that the earnestness of it makes her… nerdy, and thus slightly repulsive at points. Me, I’m not repulsed. I love her music, I admire the craft that goes into all of them, and both 1989 and Reputation have yet to leave my heavy rotation. But I’m just… befuddled at the song title Vigilante Shit. I’m befuddled that the rollout to the tenth album Midnights includes an arduous process in which she reveals a title every other day. And I’m… very befuddled at her choice to have a cameo in a movie with a director that is a sexual assaulter. I keep up, though. In my defense, so does everyone else.
EPs and Albums
Wednesday Campanella — NEON
With a new vocalist in tow, the songs veer towards the realm of the noisier side of K-Pop with flashy synths, anti-choruses, and spirited singrapping. At their best, which is often, the sounds recall NCT 127 — one-two punch Orihime and Himiko, for instance, wouldn’t be out of place on a 127 album. But early b-side Buckingham is a highlight, employing the darbouka with flashy synths, utterly satisfactory in its wall of noise. And lead single Alice delves to the futuristic, charting a promising way forward for the hip hop group.
Foals — Life is Yours
It’s no secret I enjoy listening to entire discographies. Because I was stalling on who to listen to next, a friend of mine recommended me a couple of them. (Thank you Meg!) So it’s a lucky coincidence, more than anything, that Foals — the second artist on the list she sent me — released an album this year. Foals is an interesting case; after a debut that veers to math rock and ska this side of No Doubt, they later leaned harder into math rock, only to end up somewhere at indie rock that is indistinguishable from the rest with Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost Part 2. Their best moments lie in their outros — when the so-so vocals from frontman Yannis Philippakis stop and the pretty, flowery riffs take over, quite like a cathartic release (hence why Total Life Forever is their best release, and indie rock exercise What Went Down is still acceptable as a jam session). Life is Yours has none of that. It’s indie pop that you would encounter in a pop playlist and never think twice about. It’s not bad enough to be skipped, but not good enough — nowhere near good enough — to be memorable either. That sort of thing offends me. Even worse: why is Pitchfork the only hater of this band? UK got so much exciting talent coming up, there’s no ways you blokes are hung up on legacy acts!
Baby Tate — Mani/Pedi
Baby Tate’s newest mixtape isn’t as cleanly divided as the title would suggest, but all the same, a division exists — the Atlanta rapper sings now, and her croon resembles Normani’s quite a bit on those tracks. When she’s not singing, her sharp, smart attitude is back in full force. Each song is well-crafted and produced, but the final product resembles a playlist on shuffle, with friction between songs and repetitive sounds inbetween.
Freddie Gibbs — $oul $old $eparately
The mainstream debut of Freddie Gibbs means everything’s watered down just enough to be palatable. The variety of beats are clear and often hard-hitting, as is the case of lead single DarkHearted (produced by James Blake), Freddie Gibbs is a good rapper, but the highlights don’t pop as consistently as Alfredo and Bandana/Pinata. The other issue is that the album offers nothing in terms of the pen — it’s just here as a showcase of what Gibbs could be about, and has been, when he’s serious. No wonder, then, that the best moment of the album doesn’t even belong to him, but to Anderson .Paak on Feel no Pain, an easy sweep in an empty house. Also, the Joe Rogan interlude is… befuddling.
For a deeper exploration of the album, I loved this review by Stereogum’s Jason Buford.
Björk — Fossora
After rediscovering love through birdsong on Utopia, Björk turns communal — what better force of nature to accompany the sense of community than mushrooms? On a first listen, the album is both a send-off and a celebration of life, not as it could be, but just as it is. The songs sound connected and interwoven in scope and sound in a way that puts the listener into the forest and among the leaves, every moment precious and celestial.
Slipknot — The End, So Far
It’s no Iowa, but has its thrashers and melodic moments. Not too hot on some of the hooks here, but I’ll take whatever amount of thrashing and screaming I can get, and this scratches that itch absolutlely. I’m quite curious how this album will hold up for me once I take in their whole discography!
Shygirl — Nymph
The mainstream debut of Shygirl waters down everything to palatable levels. Luckily for us, this applies more to the sound than the intense sexual desires that Shygirl likes. The big advantage to a debut like this is that you have the room to explore new sounds, and Shygirl seizes the chance decisively — she makes a bid for chart pop with the Stereo Love-interpolated Poison, pulls reggaeton to her singular musical vision with Shlut, and takes a page out of the PinkPantheress nostalgia book with the 2-Step closer Wildfire. There is no song like Coochie (a bedtime story) in her EPs, and there is also no song like major highlight Missin u which is… a one-minute hyperpop exercise using plucked string instruments? The sharpness and electricity that sizzles through both ALIAS and Cruel Practice are gone; instead, like the title suggests, Shygirl swims in the waters, waiting to lure the unassuming visitor to deeper places. A tasteful start.
Denzel Curry — Melt My Eyez See Your Future (Extended)
The second CD of this expanded edition is a live session dubbed Cold Blooded Soul Version. There is no cold blood in these warm lounge takes, which underscore the sadness and confusion that seeps through this last record’s songs, giving a new light to the Florida rapper’s lyrics in turn and accompanying him quite gently and disarmingly. Put another way, the hypocrisy of these lyrics (Walkin’ turns the eyes out to the community and a couple songs later Denzel decides that he’s earned all the riches he’s got because he got older than Biggie & Tupac — close but no cigar?) are softened by the music, exposed as the humanity that he set out to show.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs — Cool It Down
Two decades in, you can rest on your laurels, or try something new — only at the risk of potentially alienating your whole fanbase or just being plain bad. On their newest album Yeah Yeah Yeahs do what they do best: technicolor riffs with equally whimsical vocals by Karen O. The results are dazzling at every turn. No matter what genre and sound is attempted, no matter how it is placed, they sound at home with them all in equal measure. The closer Mars rounds the album out the only way an album like this could be closed out: a shimmering orb instead of a path, looking at Mars and not the moon if the narrator’s son is to be believed.
Singles
Mormor — Chasing Ghosts
Chasing Ghosts is Mormor’s bid at indie rock, and with his playful vocal style, it marks quite the change from the emotional, wistful crooner. Semblance is out November 4th!
Lets Eat Grandma — Give Me A Reason
Last we heard from Lets Eat Grandma, the group felt their first fissures as musicians and turned them to kintsugi on the record Two Ribbons. The genesis of Give Me A Reason dates back to 2019 but the syrupy, melancholy feel of it slots nicely into the rest album, perhaps as the last unified moment of the two in perfect unison. The instrumental break is both pretty and devastating.
Paramore — This is Why
The first single of the most popular pop rock band’s upcoming album of the same name sounds like St. Vincent stuck between her self-titled’s whimsy and Masseduction’s plasticity: electro-pop in all but name. The chorus is strong, but the content of it would have made a lot more sense sometime mid-2020, early 2021. As such, it sounds like it was released too late with a sound that has been done to better, more angular, effect.
Arctic Monkeys — Body Paint
For Big Issue, Alex Turner said that the voices calling Arctic Monkeys cinematic would grow “louder” for The Car. Part of it is by design: he’s been reading up on film editors and has developed an interest for directing and editing himself. There’d Better Be A Mirrorball is the Sheffield band’s big For Your Consideration billboard for the producers of James Bond. Body Paint, this new single, is not cinematic. The distinction is so fine you could hardly be blamed for missing it: Mirrorball has a very lengthy intro that builds and allows the scenery to breathe, but Body Paint centers the lyrics, sketching out a situation close to a breakup, and by centering the lyrics, the song centers Alex Turner’s pretty falsetto in turn. The song is a movie — a blockbuster, to be certain — but not fit for a movie. Instead, it makes more sense as the ending insert to your favorite show, where the characters stop speaking, and somebody is crying, but something else has to fill the silence, someone else has to. And who is a better bid for that than Britain’s best crooner? Who else could portray heartbreak in all its spectacular glory with that instrumental break besides Arctic Monkeys?
Bree Runway — THAT GIRL
Bree Runway is the world’s next superstar. She’s fun, she’s funny, she’s electrifying, she’s commanding — on stage, off stage, on the studio. She’s got the creative spirit of her idol, Missy Elliott, and the same strokes of her genius. What Bree lacks is her Timbaland to enable and levitate her: case in point, the two-minute THAT GIRL is so barren in terms of the beat that I desperately wish her Timbaland materializes soon. If she finds the Timbaland in herself — all the better.
As we close the Dispatch, spare a thought for the guy who hates October:
I don’t hate October. I think October is stuffed the same way a Thanksgiving turkey is! Liking the month of October is a fucking personality trait if the October in question houses The Car, Midnights, and The Loneliest Time. You hear that? That’s the sound of white people picking their personality traits in real time! (The most intellectual of which will pick Stumpwork by Dry Cleaning, on that note)
Not music-related, but Interview with the Vampire by AMC+ is excellent, immaculate for the season, pitch perfect in craft, production, and acting. Okay, there’s one thing that’s very music related: in episode 2, Louis and Lestat attend an opera. Lestat is taken by the soprano, but hates the male soprano that accompanies her. He got some choice words on her that sound just like me when I check out music! And also, this is very me:
Get on it.