A playlist of songs that intrigued me from Sunday to Saturday. Week of 15 May 2022 to 21 May 2022.

WILT_2022-20

1. The Ape Prince – Dawuna
2. The General – Dawuna
3. Bad Karma – Dawuna
4. Intimate Immensity – Tomaga
5. Song for Making Things Right – Mark Guiliana
6. Curse of the Contemporary – LUMP, Laura Marling, Mike Lindsey
7. Gamma Ray – LUMP, Laura Marling, Mike Lindsey
8. Climb Every Wall – LUMP, Laura Marling, Mike Lindsey
9. Lovergirl – Teena Marie
10. Help Youngblood Get to the Freaky Party – Teena Marie

Hyperlink to Spotify playlist: WILT_2022-20

Notes

I noticed the thumbnail for Dawuna’s 2021 Glass Lit Dream in Spotify’s “Trending albums for you”. It featured a melancholic and introspective man smoking a cigarette, with a single light source cast over the side of his face. I was intrigued to say the least, so I selected the first song of the album and what greeted me was The Ape Prince, a slow burning tempo of electronic beats and whispered soul. It was a bold opener, and it beckoned me to listen to the rest of the album.

The General is a ritual of percussion, modulation, and synthesizer. A dark fantasy of digital heart of darkness, it is quite amazing that a sense of dread is achieved through obsessive programming and arrangement.

Bad Karma immediately follows The General, and was added because of how seamlessly the guitars blended with the previous song. You immediately notice the guitars because the album has been devoid of such instrument thus far.

Intimate Intensity came as a continuation of music similar to the album, Glass Lit Dream. I think I added it for the unorthodox beats and atmospheric layering of arrangements.

Song for Making Things Right came from another batch of album discovery sessions enabled by Spotify. I sampled the rest of the album, and while it was interesting, I was also looking for a different flavour. I think I found an aspect of that flavour in the discovery of LUMP.

I do not know much about Laura Marling’s discography, and I definitely do not know anything about Tuung’s Mike Lindsay, but together they form LUMP.

I believe Lump’s 2021 album, Animal , also came about as a discoverable album recommended to me by Spotify. In this instance, I was drawn to the upper-case presentation of LUMP, and the familiarity of Laura Marling’s name. What greeted me when I streamed the album was Gamma Ray, dark and brooding electronic folk number with a saccharine vocal performance, and a bass performance that was not afraid of using the chorus effect.

Such arrangements continue with songs like Climb Every Wall and Curse of the Contemporary, and I am here for it.

I started listening to Teena Marie’s 1985 album, Starchild, because of pdbass’s video “The Top 10 Teena Marie Bass Lines”.

Now, I have only watched up to the introduction of the first recommendation before I had to leave my home for dinner. So currently, I do not even know what the first recommendation is actually. All I know is, I am curious about an artist called “Teena Marie”, and I have a visual memory of the album artwork that the first recommended song is supposed to come from.

As I start the car, I load up those two pieces of information and find the album, Starchild.

What greets me is Lovergirl which begins with a bold guitar squeal, and playful falsetto, and some very confident bass thumbing going on. By the time Teena Marie’s voice comes on, I am hooked. The lower register reminds me of Stevie Nick’s Gold Dust Woman era music. But at the end of the day, Teena Marie has a voice well-suited for R&B and Funk with strong melodic leanings into Pop. The vocals and musical arrangements are incredibly catchy. And damn, those guitar solos are so full of heart.

Help Youngblood Get to the Freaky Party is just a great reminded that our Gen X managers of today were youth once. And they listened to music like this, and they enjoyed going to the freaky party. The melody of the chorus so infectious, groovy, and in the moment. The cadence of the vocal performance is pure genius. It borders on being off-time without actually going there, and that adds so much forward momentum and tension you just want to throw down and get freaky.