Lettermans

Earlier this year, I interviewed Egon (@nowagain) and he talked a bit about his friendship with Kieran Hebden (aka Four Tet), but still, I wasn't prepared to see the news that 1) Madlib is dropping a new solo album, at a time where his mainstream relevance seems to be heightened by his work with Freddie Gibbs, and that 2) Kieran is assisting with arranging, editing, and sequencing. Although the album will be billed as Madlib's, it's really a mindmeld between two of my all-time favorites. So, naturally, I love the single. Madlib just has a way of squeezing every ounce of emotion out of his samples, often zooming into a single microscopic segment and looping it until you discover new details on the 1,000th iteration. He also has a great sense of spacing; sample-driven music has natural limitations, but Madlib times the entrance and exit of each sound perfectly, often "breaking" his loops for a fraction of a second to add variety and avoid congestion in the arrangement. There's a bit more of that here on "Road of the Lonely Ones", where he flips The Ethics's gorgeous "Lost in a Lonely World" for the main vocal theme, but also "Now Is The Time" for the little intro theme. The drum break (from Lou Donaldson's "Ode to Billie Joe") is also just so satisfyingly sharp, which is actually kinda uncharacteristic for a Madlib beat. Not that I prefer the "correct-ness" of the sound here – I know a lot of people have fetishized the off-kilter, lo-fi feel of Madlib's (and to an even greater extent, Dilla's) drum patterns, and as a fan I love them all the same – but I do think the added "polish" here is definitely Four Tet's doing. To be clear, I welcome the change, and for better or for worse, it'll help amplify Madlib's music to a wider audience once this inevitably gets fed into all of the streaming algorithms, etc. Part of me cringes at the thought of someone discovering Madlib through one of those dystopian "chill lo-fi beats to study to" playlists, but if it gets him paid, then I'm for it. Anyways, cynicism aside, I love this single, I love Madlib, I love Four Tet, and I'm super excited for the album, Sound Ancestors.

The Guardian recently wrote a review for Rico Nasty's new album, Nightmare Vacation, and in it, they tried their hand at defining hyperpop: "this year’s buzzy, catch-all term for candied pixelations of J-pop, EDM, hip-hop, rock and chipmunk vocals that is aesthetically rooted in the 00s, and is either the coolest thing to happen on TikTok or is like what Hudson Mohawke was making 10 years ago." I thought the HudMo nod was nice, and even though I'd been listening to him since his work with Lunice back in 2012 (as TNGHT), I admittedly never caught the parallels with his solo work and today's renewed interests in Bladee, chipmunk soul, and uhhh... 100 Gecs. But yeah, he was ahead of his time, as they say. While the thundering horns he did on "Blood On The Leaves" remain a one-off, you do hear aspects of his work on, say, Rico Nasty's "iPhone". I used to, and still think that the sound is a bit too dramatic for my liking, but I can dig it. What I liked about Mohawke though was that he had a wider palette, and I think that comes through on Poom Gems, where he mostly just sounds like the forward-thinking hip-hop producer I came to know him as. Poom Gems, along with Airborne Lard and B.B.H.E, rounds out a series of 3 compilations he released earlier this year, encapsulating all of the loosies that fans have been trading on KTT for the last 5-7 years. While this post is technically titled after the former, it could very well be about all 3; they're all good. Airborne Lard for example includes "Be Ur Fantasy", which some fans might recognize as the earliest iteration of the instrumental from Pusha T's "No Regrets". Poom Gems includes most of my personal favorites: "Solstice Izo", "Need U Here", "Sweet Silverskin", "Hoiarp", and "Foam Finger" – these tracks paint a picture of a goofy Scottish dude with a sense of humor, but also a great ear for textures, which made him one of the most exciting and dynamic contributors to projects like Yeezus and Nothing Was The Same.

A couple weeks ago I wrote about how quarantine is causing people to revert back to the music of their childhood, myself included. After sending that out, I received at least 10 responses from people saying how much that resonated with them, and it got me thinking: What exactly did I grow up on? It's easy to forget some of the details, as the most obvious essentials stay at the forefront of your memory and style, while others trigger reflexes that you don't even notice, like reciting every word to a verse without really thinking about it. I think Daft Punk slipped into the latter category for me. Thinking about it now though, I remember back in like 2006 there was this Norwegian kid that lived about a block from our middle school. I would walk over to his place after school sometimes and we would kick around a soccer ball and listen to music. This kid was super into Daft Punk, and I specifically remember him putting me onto the song "Aerodynamic", from Discovery. And although I didn't know it at the time, that guitar solo would send me down a 10-15 year rabbit hole of searching for even more French dance music, and along the way, gaining an even bigger appreciation for Daft Punk, their popularization of fringe movements, and how they educated audiences without diluting their club scene reference points. There's actually an interview they did with Rolling Stone back in 2013 where they talk about how the whole robot schtick allowed them to have more commercial appeal than they otherwise would have; without the covering, they're just extremely nerdy, middle-aged French dudes who are equally likely to geek out over modular synths as they are to Fleetwood Mac. And it wasn't until 2013's RAM that I realized that although a lot of their music can be brash and aggressive (especially here on Homework), most of their reference points are actually from the most warm and radiant music out there: Chic, Nile Rodgers, Stevie Wonder, Philip Glass, Beach Boys, The Eagles, Giorgio Moroder, and just a ton of 70s disco. The disco influence was always something I especially loved, since the whole culture around it is about a shameless love for music itself: the embellished string arrangements, the belting vocals, the strut of the guitar riffs... the "biggest" tracks always felt like monuments in music – a testament to just how *good* music can be. As a kid who grew up playing the cello, the warmth and richness of these songs became an obsession for me; at the same time, I could hear how they lived on through the more industrial-sounding tracks in Daft Punk's early catalog. When I first heard "Teachers" as a 13-year old, maybe I couldn't make too many connections, but as an 18-year old, the lights did start to flicker. "Revolution 909" for example is like the perfect club song. The propulsion of that synth that underlies the latter half of the song definitely drew from the same well as Todd Edwards. And then there's "Fresh", one of the great slow-burning house records, but it doesn't have any sort of "drop", release of tension, whatever. But who cares – with a loop like that you don't really need one. It puts you in a state of maybe waiting for something, and then forgetting what you may have been waiting for, and then losing the sense of waiting altogether. Yes, the ocean sound effects are a bit on-the-nose, but if you're the type of person who'd scoff at that, you probably wouldn't have even bothered after seeing the helmets. It's that shamelessness that I love most about Daft Punk. Like yeah, I will blast "Around the World" in my headphones as I make my way through international airports. They've carried that shamelessness with them throughout their career, and it has a way of rubbing off on the audience, almost as if what they do behind their helmets is what we'd all like to do in the privacy of our homes, headphones, etc.

Anyone who knows me knows how much I love a good vocal-driven dance song. There's something about the human voice that triggers us in a way that no bassline or synth can. It's what makes gospel music so interesting to me too – when you have a choir of +50 vocalists it just creates this impenetrable wall of sound, and when you repurpose that effect on the dancefloor, it's literally heavenly. Anyhow, a couple weeks ago I saw Mixmag posted an article titled "VOCAL HOUSE: THE 30 ALL-TIME BIGGEST ANTHEMS". I skimmed through the article, and basically every selection was immense. One of the songs was Dominica's "Gotta Let You Go", which was great, but I felt like the song restrained itself just as it was about to climax. Enter the YouTube "Recommended Videos" bar (the most reliable source of information in my life), which suggested this Bicep remix. With all due respect, where the original fell flat, this one just keeps climbing. When those keys come in at 3:33... If there were ever a song guaranteed to get a room moving, it's this.

Ok so for most of this COVID-era (March - November, currently), I had been in a bit of a rut musically. Despite being home all day and having more time on my hands, I've somehow been spending less time listening to and digging for new music. But, the one thing that has been a consistent source of light for me has actually been a Facebook group designed for the original attendees of the Paradise Garage: a Black and LGBT nightclub that operated in Manhattan from about '77 to '87, held down by legendary resident DJ Larry Levan. The Facebook group is primarily for older folks who actually attended the Garage. It's a space for them to share photos, music, and bond over memories, but it also has some kids around my age, including a Harvard anthropology student interviewing members on the culture and rituals of the club. For those of you interested in learning more about the Garage, I won't be able to serve it justice within the limitations of these Lettermans posts, so I highly recommend checking out some of the music and reading material independently... But anyhow, the Garage, and more specifically Larry, was known for a distinctly-branded disco and soul sound, driven by booming vocals and ornate string arrangements. Members will often share music that they remember being played at the club, and that's how I found this gem by Joe Smooth... Now, I have a habit of developing really intense obsessions with single tracks, but my obsession with the title track here – "Promised Land" – is unusually deep... I played this song for about 7-10 days straight, not bothering to listen to or even consider anything else. There were times where I was up at 6:30am blasting this while brushing my teeth, more geeked up than if I'd had a double shot of espresso. This song prompted me to get back and post on Lettermans after a 6-month hiatus. Without trying to be funny or corny, or whatever, this is the type of song that can add clarity to your most life-changing decisions, if you've been mulling over any. "Promised Land" is one of those songs that just goes directly to the source material that so many other songs aim for. If you want to make heavenly music, just make the hook this: "When the angels from above / Fall down and spread their wings like doves / And we'll walk hand in hand / Sisters, brothers, we'll make it to the Promised Land".

No joke – I discovered this album through one of those memes on twitter (cc: @gum_mp3) where an astronaut is looking at something in space, and another astronaut behind him puts a gun to his head; the first guy was saying "Wait, this is the best house album?", and the gun guy was like, "Yeah, always has been". So yeah, I checked out Black Mahogani, and yes, I was blown away pretty much as soon as I hit the 2nd track. I've listened to a ton of Detroit house, but this is a totally different experience altogether. The album is dark, cinematic, and generally broody, almost like a film noir house record, but set inside of a '71 Cutlass with velvet interior. It draws from Detroit-centric film dialogue and 70s Motown music to create a hazy, almost psychedelic mise en scène of cruising around the city 50 years ago or staring at the ceiling of a basement jazz lounge at 3am. His use of live instrumentation, be it rhodes keys, standup bass, strings, or just extremely raw sounding vocals gives the music an unusually intimate feeling for a house record, and unlike attempts from more recent "internet DJs" like DJ Boring and Mall Grab, this stuff actually feels designed for private consumption. I especially love the tasteful racial commentary: "Riley's Song" kicks off with a sample from Marvin Gaye's What's Going On; "Mahogani 9000" opens with a sample of a woman calling white men in downtown Detroit "a minority race", and closes with an iconic sample from the 1972 Blaxploitation film, Super Fly. The music itself is also wholly unlike anything I've ever heard... "Roberta Jean Machine" is maybe my definition of a "perfect song" with the way the strings lurch over bossa nova style percussion, the way the horns and chopped vocals chime in in the back... Still, I have heard nothing like it. Even the more upbeat segments of the album, like the back-to-back "Runaway" and "I'm Doing Fine" just don't really feel fit for the dancefloor... He splices in audio of Black friends greeting each other in a way that makes the event feel more relaxed and informal. So really, it's more fit for your living room, but like, with The Mack playing in the background, and with select guests smoked out trying to recall the events of the night.

I discovered Duval Timothy when Frank included one of his songs ("Ball") on Blonded Radio, and then a couple weeks later when Solange sampled him on When I Get Home (she flipped "No" at the end of "Dreams"). If Solange and Frank were showing love, I took that as signal that I should at least give him a spin. So, I checked out Sen Am, Brown Loop, and a couple other loosies, but was left pretty unimpressed. It felt like the type of fake-deep, pseudo-intellectual music that kids would play once they graduated from listening to Soulection. A lot of one-handed piano tracks, where the sparseness was maybe supposed to communicate some sense of deep sophistication, or whatever. On one hand, I could see why Frank would post it, but on the other hand, it definitely wasn't the finished product. About a year later I saw Jacques Greene sharing the song "Still Happened" from this new release, so I gave him another shot, and wow... This is one of my favorite albums this year. Duval seems to have been hanging out with more of the London cool kids for this one, and in particular, I think Vegyn may have been the most positive influence on the album. You can hear a lot of textures lifted directly from his work, and it's probably been the difference-maker here on Help. Vegyn also mentioned in a couple interviews about how his last album, Only Diamonds Cut Diamonds, was based on this idea of "happy melancholia" – feelings that aren't necessarily sad, but just reflective of the full human experience – and that's arguably the best description of how this album makes me feel. There is a general air of depression over the project, but like, it's not debilitating. The cover evokes similarly contrasting emotions. Where his earlier stuff aimed for minimalist-chic and landed on drab, Help takes Timothy's natural piano-playing abilities and warps them with Vegyn-style tinny percussion and emotional synths, which just makes for a more engaging listen. When you include more textured tunes like "Like" and "Still Happened", the more airy tracks like "9" and "Ice" become more interesting.

Like most fans, I caught wind of the Pauls back in 2013, when Jai's EP leaked. I was in my 12th grade English class when one of my best friends, who sat right behind me, was like "Yo, you need to check this out, people are going crazy." I saw the Chelsea kit on the cover, and even though I was a United fan, I was interested in the potential music x football crossover (the only two "extracurricular" things I care about, really). Naturally, I was hooked straight away. The feeling of incompleteness around Jai's music only made me more interested; you could hear great ideas and your brain would automatically fill in the gaps, ironically similar to a lot of high-volume artists like Madlib, and in some ways even Gucci Mane and Lil B. Despite the 6-year drought that followed the leak, I managed to pull dozens of extra songs from pretty much every corner of the internet, but mainly the Paul Institute thread on KTT, which is to this day the single most impressive thread I've seen on any music forum ever. Jai finally ended his silence mid-last year, "formally released" the leaked EP (only notable difference is the extended coda on "Genevieve"), and dropped a couple unreleased loosies from the early 2010s. Most importantly, though, he opened the floodgates for a series of newer releases from the Institute (e.g. from A. K., Fabiana Palladino, Ruthven, etc.). I remember this one had also been teased on a British radio station a few years back (with Benj B?). Anyhow, this one is also great. The main synth theme is super simple, almost oafish. It lands with a thud every time, but A. K. turns it into a beautiful R&B ballad, somehow retro-sounding and futuristic at the same time. That last bit is maybe the novelty of the whole "Paul Institute" sound.

A big part of my self-education in music has been going on blogs, forums, and comment sections to seek out great records from the past, but there's a certain genre of "classic album" that I've just never been able to get behind. I'm talking about albums like Sgt. Pepper's, Pet Sounds, Dark Side of the Moon, Are You Experienced, etc. etc. etc. The type of stuff that winds up on college dorm room walls just because the kid's parents listened to it. But, if you, like me, had never heard any of those records before, there's a good chance you'd have to perform the mental gymnastics of imagining what it was like to be white in the 60s just to have a chance of enjoying the album. I shouldn't have to do that. It's not that serious. Just listen to whatever you like. And yet, it's a tricky conversation because on one hand, maybe music should be enjoyed purely for its sensuous and aesthetic value (see: Against Interpretation by Susan Sontag), but on the other hand, maybe context adds value too. And what about representation? Anyhow, I'm not going down that rabbit hole. I say all of this because Stevie Wonder's Songs In The Key Of Life is maybe the first album of it's kind that I've given a chance and just... completely and utterly fallen for. I mean, what an unbelievably flawless album. In the words of Salieri, it's "the only music yet written that would not sound out of place in the mouth of God". There's a stretch from "If It's Magic" to "Another Star" that rivals anything I've ever had the privilege of hearing. "If It's Magic" sputters along with only a harp to complement Stevie, but the songwriting and general arc of his vocals are gripping enough to capitalize on the sparseness of the song. There's "As", which I could listen to exclusively for the rest of my life. The arrangement is just so warm, so rich, and so pure that it distills an almost overwhelming dosage of love for music and life itself. The vocal performance at the song's climax is rightfully the stuff of legend. Anthems like "Isn't She Lovely" are tossed around like nothing. I recognized the motif from "Pastime Paradise" immediately and just sat, listening with my jaw open as if I were watching history unfold in real time. "Summer Soft" almost feels like a victory lap less than halfway into the album; he'll tap into a burst of genius and return to human form in the same breath. And where do you even begin with a song like "Another Star"? The audacity of even throwing a song with such Latin hues in the middle of a 1976 Motown record... The propulsion of that choir, that piercing entrance by Stevie himself... I'm not a religious person, but this is truly other-worldly, divine music. I don't care if my love for this album sounds corny, because wait til you hear the album itself: verse after verse on the changing of the seasons, ruminations on childhood, systemic racism, first love, heartbreak, sex, religion, and of course, death. Stevie gives you 100 years in a little under two hours, and yet, it would've been even better had he given us three. Every second of music here is purely additive. This is the rare case where more truly is more. God bless Stevie Wonder, king of kings.

Kid from Buffalo, NY makes a trip to Paris to hang with his idols – notably Virgil, among others – and has such a great time he decides to make an album about it. Pray For Paris is littered with the sheer joy of finally being recognized by the institutions that Gunn used to only have access to through the internet: Tucked away somewhere in the middle of "French Toast" he hits a strut with bars like "Heard you just killed 'em at the Raf show / Used to sell crack out the backdoor / But now I'm out here in Paris...." The celebratory air of the album makes it a bit more commercially bent than previous Gunn and Griselda projects, and you can tell that they really tee'd it up for a crossover too. Where they might normally have limited features to guys from the NY old head palette (e.g. Alchemist, Roc Marciano, Raekwon, etc.) they open the floodgates here for guys like Tyler (who drops a reference to the Safdie brothers...) and Wale. And of course, there's the fact that the cover is instantly recognizable to anyone who had too much money on their hands in 2013. Optics aside, this is very much still a traditional Griselda record, and even has Gunn getting out of his comfort zone at times. The track with Boldy James, "Claiborne Kick", features an uncharacteristically pitched-down Gunn over a stretched-out vocal sample from Alchemist. Boldy drops one of my favorite verses of the year too. As much as I love literally every moment of the record, I can't tell if it's just because Gunn and I are both so starry-eyed for the mixtape era... Maybe we should get over it? Move on?? Get with the times???

‍