WILT_2023-05

A playlist of songs that intrigued me from Sunday to Saturday. Week of 29 Jan 2023 to 4 Feb 2023.

1. Sitting on a Satellite – Soccer96, Salami Rose Joe Louis
2. Herausweh – Felbm
3. The River – Fievel Is Glauque
4. The Children of Scorpio – Project Gemini
5. Yagana – Pigeon
6. Figurine – WAYNE SNOW
7. Conduct – The Durutti Column
8. Sereia Sentimental – Sessa
9. Sacrifice – George Riley
10. Time – George Riley
11. Jealousy – George Riley
12. Delusion – George Riley
13. Clouds – Resavoir

Hyperlink to Spotify playlist: WILT_2023-05

Notes

I am rather excited to be sharing the choice cuts on this week’s playlist. There are a lot of strong contenders here in the area of musicality, groove, creativity, and vibe. If anything, I really like how everything feels from beginning to end. 

A portion of the playlist is also dominated by George Riley, whom I was blown away with by her 2022 effort, Running In Waves. This is an album of bold ideas and bold execution. You sense how musically she’s coming into a sound that isn’t decidedly definitive and still experimental, but the confidence in how her voice and delivery bolster the ideas and even sells the sounds and arrangements. 

My favourite is definitely Delusion, which a grounded and heavy contender with an anaconda-thick bass line that coils around so tight that it squeezes everything else out. On some level, it actually doesn’t work, but the jigsaw puzzle sample nature of the song with trap beats is something where everything seems to be happening all at once, creates a rich canvas that punches above its weight in the sound department.

So the journey to me discovering Riley’s music, is when Sacrifice first came on. It came into my music orbit as a bit of an outlier, especially when compared against the songs that were added before it. But there was that Yukimi Nagano-esque vocal quality and confidence, the kind that sells daring musical ideas. And while there wasn’t anything particularly “exciting” coming from Sacrifice, it was the confidence in backing the R&B arrangement with a very old school 808 beat. This beat carries the song, the string arrangement creates lift beneath, and Riley’s performance are the wings that allowed this song to take flight. Thus, it’s this mix of old, new, and bold that made me very interested to find out if the song was a one-off, and I’m glad to say that it isn’t.

Time comes immediately after. I was already hooked with the heavily distorted guitars being used so effectively in the introduction. Soulful vocal performance, but with an almost metal zone type guitar tone searing through the mix is a flex that ultimately pays off. When that beat hits, everything moves forward and no one is waiting for anyone. You’re either on this Riley trip, or you’ll just get left behind.

But maybe because someone thought that the listener would be left behind, they consciously put Jealousy as the song after Time. Jealousy has a lot of vibe, and it really takes its time in letting you arrive at your own conclusion. For me, I did arrive at mine.

So that’s a lot of talk about one artist, but how did it all come about?

I wasn’t quite sure how to proceed from last week as I had finished watching Bocchi The Rock!, and I also wasn’t too interested to have another week that featured rock music since Kessoku Band (結束バンド, Kessoku Bando) were already such strong contenders. 

So it had been awhile, but it was a good opportunity to hit up my Spotify-curated Discover Weekly playlist. As always, these are good jumping off points, but only if you don’t use them all the time. Singing on a Satellite by Soccer96 and Salami Rose Joe Louis was the first song to grab my attention, and I think it’s quite obvious why it got added. A meandering psychedelic and soul amalgamation with well-punctuated bass lines never hurt anyone.

It was somewhere in the middle of Herausweh that something clicked for me. It could have been the drum beat actually. That tone with the slightly muted snare, but played with an incredibly natural precision is what always sells the rock dynamic for me. Everything else falls into place around this.

So when The River by Fever Is Glauque came on, my ears were very well adjusted to blend of folk, rock, and jazz. Ma Clément’s French accent add an air of relaxed Europe to the otherwise frenetic jazz guitar lines played by multi-instrumentalist, Zach Phillips. In fact, every other instrument is played with such optimistic frenzy it’s bound to have you feet tapping and head swaying with chipper swagger.

The samples and beats on The Children of Scorpio by Project Gemini are big and in your face, if you could find your face. Somewhat reminiscent of the big beats by David Holmes, but with a lot more psychedelic elements that make the music a lot easier to get lost in. The samples are also outstanding in giving the music a very colourful groove-rock experience. A lot of good ears have been into selecting the sounds you ought to be hearing.

Yagana by Pigeon is another standout for me. I was expecting a bit of a Chromeo copycat, but I’m glad I stuck around. Things are already special when you feature bongos so prominently in your percussion ensemble, but man, when all the funk elements combine and Falle Nioke’s vocals come on, all the sounds start to make sense. The scratchy guitars, the synths that sound like it was acquired from the Cash Converters, and that stanky bass tone that is so content playing single notes just so the pocket stays a pocket. There’s a lot of fun in this music, and I would have liked to have been there.

Figurine by WAYNE SNOW is a stellar Neo-soul song with plenty of elements that will keep fans excited. The guitar tones are transfixing, a bit like Mansur Brown, but it’s that scattered beat underwritten by the synth bass that speaks to a very primary part of my musical psychology. I would actually like to hear more, but alas the week is already over.

Conduct by The Durutti Column is a beautiful exploration into the sounds of the guitar. If I had more time, I would happily sit down with this for an extended listen.

It does segue nicely into Sereia Sentimental by Sessa. The song is gentle and kind, but also a type of earnest or intense in its yearning.

And finally, Clouds by Resavoir, a song which I’ve actually included in WILT_2022-51, but definitely forgotten that I had. I had thought that Delusion George Riley would have been a great closer, but when this song came on, I had to save it of fear of forgetting it. (Which I clearly did.) But why? Handclaps I guess.