The Music Dispatch: September 13th, 2022
Inside: Ari Lennox, Rachika Nayar, Björk, Key, Sudan Archives, and indie pop you've heard before. Also catching up with: Dry Cleaning!
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!
September 13 is a very special day in the music world. Today, we got
the birthday of the wonderful, ineffable wordsmith Fiona Apple;
the death day of hip hop biggest names, the son of a Black Panther and a young communist himself, Tupac Shakur;
the birthday (which is the exact same day Tupac died) of trap’s most exciting name, the most unique instrument you’ve ever heard this side of Solange and Tyler the Creator, Playboi Carti;
the birthday of One Direction member and soloist Niall Horan;
and last and most important, the birthday of the charming, magnetic, attractive, and endlessly talented The Boyz’s Hyunjae. Watch a fancam of his today! Listen to a cover! And another! A whole compilation!
Virgos kinda won this round idk! Also RIP Tupac, you would’ve hated our current times.
This week in The Music Dispatch is the last week of catching up, now that I’ve written my Potpourri on Nine Inch Nails. With this week, we’re back on track, and all the better, because the releases are certainly not slowing down any. The next Potpourri is sometime October, but after that, I’m not too sure either. Let me know over at Retrospring if there’s an artist you want me to research and sample on extensively!
The Ari Lennox Special
In the two weeks since this dispatch took a break, Ari Lennox released EP Away Message September 2nd and sophomore album age/sex/location the week after. The album explores love in the time of the Internet, taking no shit from any man, as well as emancipation and pleasure. These are beautiful crooners and charming R’n’B tracks; unlike the moody signature that many of her contemporaries choose to wield (from Jhene Aiko to Summer Walker and even Normani), Lennox will let you know that she is a singer with her roots firmly in soul, old-school R’n’B, and even gospel. But she’s not here for all loving: Lennox’s signature wit returns both in the interlude where she explains the mission statement of the album, as well as the wonderful Boy Bye with Lucky Daye that features both a sing off and a back and forth. She’s here for sex, fun, and commitment on her terms, so if one can’t follow through with it, they get blocked. With this in mind, Queen Space feels like a bonus track to tie a big feature to an album, rather than the natural closer Blocking You. Away message, which opens with Queen Space invites to a spacey, bouncy palette that marks an interesting contrast to the often baroque age/sex/location, most notably on album highlight Gummy. Both releases are playful one moment and serious the next, flirty one moment and sexy the next, and Lennox is equally adept in either. She’s already a big name, but these two releases will surely catapult her to stardom.
EPs and Albums
Rachika Nayar — Heaven Come Crashing
This ambient record utterly entrances and bewitches with its guitars and heavy layers, sometimes with a heavier fog than other times. Yet just when you think you are safe and lulled, Nayar throws a curveball, like on the nine-minute long Tetramorph, The Price of Serenity, and Heaven Come Crashing (with slowcore artist and Nayar’s friend, Maria BC). Heaven Come Crashing is cinematic and evocative, the perfect soundtrack of daydreams. If a director ever finds themself with too little budget to book Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross, they should book Rachika Nayar. That’s the level she operates on.
DJ Sabrina The Teenage DJ — Bewitched!
DJ Sabrina is a master at creating false memories with warm, upbeat outsider house, which pulls from a variety of influences and samples, people speaking as though it’s from a time you’ve long forgotten. If Beach House love nostalgia, DJ Sabrina celebrates it. It’s not sad with her, but peaceful and comforting. To those of you that already know DJ Sabrina: when I say more of the same, hopefully you understand that’s code for “really good”.
Key — GASOLINE
Key’s second full length album GASOLINE is the most competent pop record you’ll come across this year. The title track is brash and brassy, pulling from INDUSTRY BABY in a way that registers as simply noise in the K-Pop sphere. Although it’s the worst track of the whole thing and opens the whole album, everything else is competently produced, competently performed, and occasionally transcendent, like on Another Life, the heavily Weeknd-indebted Guilty Pleasure, and the Years & Years-esque Bound. The joy to Key as an artist is that he knows his inspirations exactly and is equally adept at referencing them, infusing them with his prickly, acidic vocals with so much ease it’s never a rip-off but a reverent tip of the hat.
Santigold — Spirituals
This strong, vicious blend of pop and rock feels vivid and memorable at every turn, teeming with musical influences. The start Haunted feels a bit rocky, but everything else is so much more confident than the last record of Santigold’s, and quite memorable on a first listen.
Sudan Archives — Natural Born Prom Queen
I was taken in with Brittney Parks aka Sudan Archives’ singles leading up to second album Natural Born Prom Queen but nothing could have prepared me for how grand this album is. It’s free flowing, charming, boisterous, confident, and really off-kilter. On a second listen, I was really struck with the way it flows from one song to the next, as though you’re just daydreaming the whole thing, not unlike Solange’s When I Get Home. On the title track NBPQ (Topless), Parks raps: “Sometimes I think that if I was light-skinned / Then I would get into all the parties / Win all the Grammys, make the boys happy”. She need not fear: the ones that know, know that she’s primed for superstardom.
Rosalía — MOTOMAMI +
The deluxe edition of the freeform, wild, liberatory MOTOMAMI switches some of the tracklist around and adds new songs in, all of them catchy one way or another. DESPECHIA is a summer hit, but a bad representation for the other tracks. Both Aislamiento and Chiri are evocative and dark, with the latter featuring intense machine gun drums. La Kilie heavily depends on the delivery of the memorable hook, while LAX works a capella for its first 30 seconds and gradually adds drama and closes with a koto. If you’ve liked MOTOMAMI, you’ll enjoy the additions; if the sketch-like quality of the album didn’t win you over, neither will this one.
Billlie — The Billage of perception: chapter two
The EP is more autumnal than lead single (and heavily TOMBOY-indebted) Ring Ma Bell (what a wonderful world) will have you believe, focusing heavily on Billlie’s vocal harmony in a way none of the other title tracks (and b-sides!) have done so far. Best of these is $UN PALACE, a song that evokes the prim, clean surface of a mall. This is for you if you enjoy R’n’B by K-Pop girlgroups.
Miya Folick — 2007
You’ve heard this indie pop before. This isn’t as ebullient, nor as charming as debut Premonitions has been, but fortunately not DOA like Malibu either. If you liked Mitski’s Laurel Hell and wished she was a more impassioned singer, this one’s for you. Hilariously enough, Bad Thing is co-written by Mitski and sounds like a reject of Laurel Hell.
Singles
Tamino — Fascination & You Don’t Own Me
Fascination is an indie rock banger, sweeping and grand and beautiful. You Don’t Own Me is a strong ballad, but like I often feel with Tamino, he’s twenty years too young for something this heavy? His voice isn’t ripe enough yet to tackle something this big. Sahar is out next week.
Michelle Branch — I’m A Man
This lead single to upcoming album The Trouble with Fever is a country rock stomper laced with synths. Though the song seems like a searing response to Roe v Wade, the song could double to her husband as well, who has called the police on her slapping him (which was, mind you, in response to her finding out he’s cheated on her). You tell them Michelle!! I’m with her!
Shygirl — NIKE
This is single #4 and deep down, I’m starting to fear for NYMPH. It’s not overt, because Shygirl is such a stellar artist with a unique vision to what she does and sets herself out to do. But NIKE is watered down pop, like 50 Cent’s Candy Shop with none of the aggression. It’s… just pop music? There’s only so many times that I can say she’s hiding the best part for the album. This is a dud, I hope NYMPH doesn’t end up a sellout mainstream debut.
Ava Max — Million Dollar Baby
Meanwhile Ava is 2/2 for an album that comes out [checks notes] January 27. It’s a really, really strong pop single and it’s been a real treat watching Ava grow to a pop star so far, given her Lady Gaga start Sweet but Psycho. But she’s grown past a bland copy; she’s got all the right ideas though, and an excellent vocal to match. Just the popularity is what’s missing for her. The press release for upcoming album Diamonds and Dancefloors reads that it hit #5 in Germany. Germany. she’s Albanian American! We’re struggling here a bit!
Björk — Atropos
The drums hit hard and reverb nicely, the often out of tune accordion adds a level of whimsy, and Björk is magnetic, commanding, and joyful presence here. Atropos sounds ebullient and charming, and very very catchy. I don’t know when was the last time I could say a Björk song is catchy. 2007 Volta’s Declare Independence? I’m really excited for upcoming album Fossora, and i’m so happy that she’s back releasing music.
Hyd — So Clear
This SOPHIE produced beat is a fine match for Hyd’s Caroline-Polachek-but-worse vocal delivery. We’ll see if she does anything interesting with the impending album called CLEARING, out november 11th.
Catching Up With… Dry Cleaning
Dry Cleaning is an excellent post punk band which matches catchy riffs and strong hooks with Florence Shaw’s absurdist lyrics and deadpan, british delivery. If this is the first time you read of them, check out the lead single to their last album, Scratchcard Larnyard. The sophomore album Stumpwork is out October 21, here’s the singles leading up to it!
Don’t Press Me The riff of this is unfairly catchy. Any other artist would have me roll my eyes at a 1:50 long song, but this is an indie group, so whatever. It’s so good. Shaw singing in the chorus here — Dry Cleaning evolved from post punk fit to girl-who-can’t-sing band. You know what that means? The song bangs, and hard. The lyrics are still great, it’s about a gaming mouse that the protagonist bought with their last money. “Don’t touch my gaming mouse… you… rat” is stuck in my head.
Anna Calls From The Arctic This is almost 5 minutes long and more atmospheric than catchy. not a problem, though, as the song’s a bona fide rock song and will slot in nicely in an album context.
Gary Ashby Unbelievably fun. Again, Shaw attempts singing. This girl who can’t sing will bring Gaaaaaaary Ashbyyyyyyyyyyy stuck to your head for sure!
October 21 is the battle royale of album releases — Carly, Taylor, Arctic Monkeys and now Dry Cleaning. Dry Cleaning will definitely lose in terms of buzz, but those who know know!
I should invite this guy to my next Music Dispatch:
I’m taking notes! I don’t know half of these artists!
I need to marathon dj sabrina but the bit U wrote about her omg 🥹. perfect description it's actually for that reason I haven't returned to her music...made my head hurt being unable to put into words how it made me feel.