Week Starter is our Monday column where we give you a new song to help you get on out of bed & help you power on through the working week.
This week we want to start you off with the inventive hip-hop / funk jam that is “Somebody’s Got To Do It” by Sly5thAve & JSWISS. Hitting like an update on The Roots classic of the same name, this new track gives us a stripped down beat where the groove lives in the breaths between each beat and guitar riff. It’s a smoothed out stop / start rhythm that lets JSWISS shine with a flow that sounds both laid back and confident at the same time. It’s a different type of hip-hop jam than you’re probably used to – jazzier, a more esoteric head nodder – but one you need to hear. Once you do you’ll be hitting the replay no doubt.
Week Starter is our Monday column where we give you a new song to help you get on out of bed & help you power on through the working week.
Just because the weather is cooling down doesn’t mean the music has to. “Django/Brando” by Sachee, an international collective featuring members from the Netherlands, Belgium, Scotland and USA, is so hot that we’re pretty sure it’ll defrost your car windows in the morning if you play it loud enough. Working it like Anderson Paak jamming with Fantastic Negrito it’s funky, sultry and straddles the line between throw back and contemporary. Few songs can shift between multiple vocalists rapping and singing and have it all feel like one delicious flow as this one does. Take this energy into your week and keep it in your hip pocket for a little extra strut.
Heavily effected / affected vocals are not our thing but man when a song is undeniable it’s undeniable and the latest by Caye is undeniable. Landing somewhere between minimalist future funk and soulful pop ballad, “Some Lakes” is not only a whole ass mood, it’s a complex one at that. What’s it about? No idea. With the vocals ran through effects and sometimes sounding as if they’re coming from beneath the lakes of the title, picking up lyrics was hit or miss at best, but perhaps that’s intended. With the language processing part of your brain on hold you’re able to just the song wash over you and soak into your pores for a vibe that demands repeat plays.
The Omega to the Week Starter Alpha, Week Ender is the song we want to send you into the weekend with.
An effortlessly funky soulful rootsy bluesy mix to kick off the weekend? Don’t mind if we do. “For Free” by alliteration lover Emily Elbert is such an easy, unforced, natural feeling groove that it almost feels like something that was found in nature. A perfectly cool woodland stream bubbling and dancing through a remote forest on a hot day and also the stream gets you tipsy. How good is this song? So good that we’re writing a bad fantasy short story about it. Come, gather your allies around and drink from the magical musical stream that will make you drop your chainmail and shake a tail feather (figuratively for the humanoids, literally for bird people in your group).
Wordless Wednesdays is our column where we spotlight the best new instrumental tracks.
Today we have not one but two songs so good they don’t need something as feeble as language to convey the vibe. Check out the lates from Under The Reefs Orchestra and Morus after the jump. . .
Friday 5×5 is our segment where we give you five new tracks to check out and give ourselves the challenge of describing said tracks in only five words.
Brevity is next to levity and we keep it frothy with these brief write ups on new music from Jimmy Beach, Alex Hellcat, Retrograde Conversations, Marmalade Mountain and Sound Science after the jump. . .
Wordless Wednesdays is our new weekly column where we spotlight the best new instrumental tracks.
Easily the winner for best song title in a while, “E.T Rides a Delorean” by INCA has an appropriately 80’s synthwave throw back vibe to it, but with more under the hood than is immediately apparent. Underneath the percolating keys and glassy synth pads is a slinky live band laying down a groove that moves from expected pulsating futuristic rhythms to sections that push the song into jam band territory. The end result feels a bit like Kraftwerk jamming with Parliament Funkadelic and that’s something I think both E.T. and Doc Brown could get down with.
Friday 5×5 is our segment where we give you five new tracks to check out and give ourselves the challenge of describing said tracks in only five words.
Today we got five on it with new songs from Justin Lacy, The Oozes, Nemo Lakes, Cam Be with Peter Jericho and Max Bien Kahn after the jump. . .
Fasman’s Finds is our column from Rebecca Fasman (intrepid record nerd, DJ, and curator at the Kinsey Institute) in which she shares what she’s listening to and why.
Georgia Anne Muldrow released her most recent album (21st in her incredible catalog), called VWETO III, on May 21st. Georgia said that “VWETO III is intended for movement. It’s to be played when you birth yourself back outside after a long introspective period to get the things you need. It intends for you to be your own superhero and wants to be your theme for power.”
Movement and inertia have both played perhaps outsized roles in our lives in the past 16 months, and coming out of this deeply embodied interplay between inside/outside, stasis/movement is hard. This record, thankfully, is not about movement in a showy or prescribed way – there will probably not be a tik tok dance challenge to come out of any of these tracks (though I am very open to being proved wrong about this!). Instead, this thoughtful, beautiful, rich album wants the listener to determine what movement means to us as individuals and wants to be the soundtrack to our own (re)emergence and power. This, especially after the past 16 months, is such a gift.
Fasman’s Finds is our column from Rebecca Fasman (intrepid record nerd, DJ, and curator at the Kinsey Institute) in which she shares what she’s listening to and why.
Short and sweet this week! Everything that Analog Africa puts out is pretty incredible and this most recent release, Edo Funk Explosion Vol 1, is no exception. You will be moving and shaking from beginning to end. The vibes are right, the season is right, go get your life right and buy this.
