A playlist of songs that intrigued me from Sunday to Saturday. Week of 10 Jul 2022 to 16 Jul 2022.

WILT_2022-28

1. I Was Gonna Fight Fascism – Soccer96, Alabaster DePlume
2. Hi, I’m Frank Dukes – Frank Dukes
3. Mirage – Glass Beams
4. Taurus (Mixed by Jayda G) – Glass Beams, Jayda G, DJ-Kicks
5. YourLove – Logic1000
6. better – Joy Orbison, Léa Sen
7. limited daps – Kenny Segal
8. Body of Water(What Is Love?)一线之间 – Mindy Meng Wang 王萌, Tim Shiel
9. Ragazzo – Big Yawn
10. Ecce! Ego! – Lyon Vynehall
11. swag w/ kav – Joy Orbison, James Massiah, Bathe
12. Echoes (Continental Drift Version) – Directions
13. Echoes (1995 Demo Version) – Directions
14. Cocaine Killa (feat. Peking Duk) – Daniel Johns, Peking Duk
15. Emergency Calls Only (feat. Van Dyke Parks) – Daniel Johns, Van Dyke Parks
16. Israel’s Son – Silverchair
17. Cracker Island (feat. Thundercat) – Gorillaz, Thundercat
18. Ducee’s Drawbar (DJ-Kicks) – Leon Vynehall
19. SOON – Masayoshi Takanaka

Hyperlink to Spotify playlist: WILT_2022-28

Notes

We start with I Was Gonna Fight Fascism. I picked it out from various album recommendations on my feed, and with its driving staccato piano riff, it was a pleasant way to start a playlist.

I noticed the album art for The Way of Ging (2021). A truly stupendous illustration. Hi, I’m Frank Dukes is the first track off the album and it is a pleasant enough mache of beats and samples.

The Mirage (2021) EP by Glass Beams was something I decided to pick out from album recommendations as well. Mirage was an immediate add the moment the bassline came on. You do not get remain unheard with a tone that sounds like sweet-salty anchovy paste squeezed out of a tube.

After the EP ended, I think this mixed version of Taurus by Jayda G came on. It’s still pretty much the same song, but you should check out the rest of the mix album by Jayda G for DJ-Kicks because it is also a great listen.

YourLove came about as I was exploring what else Spotify had to offer. Definitely a great pick if you like House music and Techno.

better by Joy Orbison and limited daps by Kenny Segal also feature tasty beats. The polite kind that does not overflow on your plate like a bad buffet.

Continuing in the realm of beatmaking, Body of Water(What Is Love?)一线之间 by Mindy Meng Wang 王萌 starts getting more eclectic, especially with some well-blended zither samples. In fact, I have to give props to the entire production. Many times when producers try to fuse different musical concepts, there is very little blend between the concepts. But this, almost feels like the musical scales are approached from different instruments, and they are attempting to play the same thing, just in different voicings.

Ragazzo, Ecce! Ego!, swag w/ kav are all further explorations into electronica, IDM, and beatmaking. In particular, I do enjoy the discoveries of Leon Vynehall and Joy Orbison. I would put them in the realm of ambient IDM, the kind that I’d like at any time after 3pm.

Regarding Echoes (Continental Drift Version) and Echoes (1995 Demo Version):

That record – a scarcely limited 12” on the influential UK imprint, Soul Static Sound – would prove to resonate long after it disappeared from shops. It influenced a diverse array of artists and producers, most notably Kieran Hebden, who would call Echoes “the blueprint for the Four Tet thing,” explaining to prominent UK broadcaster Gilles Peterson, “it’s basically where I got the idea for everything from…it changed my life, this record.”

Writeup of “Echoes – Anniversary Edition” on Bandcamp

From here, I was reminded of an Instagram story about Silverchair’s Emotion Sickness (1999) that I had posted earlier in the year. I was very curious about what their lead singer, Daniel Johns had been up to, and to my surprise, he recently released a new album called FutureNever. I listened to a lot of the Neon Ballroom album in my youth, and seeing present-day Daniel Johns, visually and aesthetically he looks very different from his 1999 self. But surely there are bits of who we were in who we are. Intrigued by this thought, I decided to play FutureNever in its entirety, while also just researching a bit more about Johns. There’s a personal story there, and that’s all I’ll bother to say about Johns. And what further intrigued me, that has also intrigued me about multiple things, is how the confluence of the past, and the hope or anxiety of the future shapes the present. With that in mind, I chose two songs from FutureNever that represent a desire to be as divergent from the past as ever, as well as one that embodied a victory of sorts, and contextualised that against Israel’s Son, the first song off the first Silverchair record, Frogstomp (1995).

While Johns explores the pop genre in Cocaine Killer (feat. Peking Duk), there is something that is still unmistakably Johns in the song. I thing it’s his fearlessness in his delivery. The same fearlessness when I heard Emotion Sickness. Only this time he sheds every last hangup of the grunge-era, and embraces that he is a performer and/or artist all at once. If anything, he sells the electro-pop arrangement with the intensity of someone wholly comfortable with their mental state despite being known for something more than they’d like to forget.

I read that Emergency Calls Only (feat. Van Dyke Parks) was the song that Johns wanted to perfect, and also ended up delaying the release of FutureNever. However, listening to it, it does feel triumphant and victorious, not just in its arrangement, but in its delivery. Everything I typed earlier about John’s confidence, is apparent on this song as well. It is astounding that this is the way he envisions the vehicle of music, but is also able to back it up with moving performances and sonically expressive arrangements that are both intense as they are innovative.

Spying a new Gorillaz album featuring Thundercat. Cracker Island is everything I did not know I wanted from a collaboration between the two artists. As musical concepts, they each shine individually, and yet the duets and arrangement styles synergise as much as they contrast. The music is exciting and busy, as it is smooth and laid back.

When the beat for Ducee’s Drawbar drops, it goes hard, sinks in, and lets up only after you’ve danced it off.

We end off with SOON by Masayoshi Takanaka. I saw the album The Rainbow Goblins (1981) being recommended to me on YouTube. Intrigued by the name and album art, what greets the listener is breezy and effortless jazz fusion steeped with an element of fantasy. SOON is playful and fun, and features a deep listening experience full of virtuosic playing.