While passing a front-yard lemonade sale last weekend, I saw three drink colors on the small folding table. As I went to buy the only orange cup of lemonade among plenty of pink and yellow, the kids working the sale explained that it was a combination of the other flavors. At this point I should note that it has since occurred to me that the “something” Matt Berninger slips into his lemonade in “Fake Empire” might just be a different color of lemonade.
Now, I’m already quite prone to weird science experiments when it comes to food and drink, but I also felt like it might do me well to carry the lesson of the pretty-good orange-ish lemonade into this column. Each of these entries combine disparate elements (artistic collabs, genre interpolation, melded influences) into fresh and very good songs.
Destroyer – “Sky’s Grey”
I’ll never get past Dan Bejar’s inhuman cool, his recording vocal takes lying down and his tendency to saunter on and off stage at will during New Pornographers shows, glass of red wine in hand. The premiere track from forthcoming Destroyer album Ken, “Sky’s Grey” begins with synth, piano and vocals draped over a cartoonishly quick keyboard rhythm preset. If you still haven’t been able to shake your obsession with Jessy Lanza’s 2015 track “It Means I Love You” (ahem), your first thought might be that Bejar will be trying his hand at footwork on Ken. What is happening!
“Sky’s Grey” is very much “nap on a bed of nails,” though I haven’t yet decided if it’s a falling asleep or a waking up. Metaphor notwithstanding, we do see familiarly warm territory here beginning around the two-minute mark when a burbling synth line ushers in full instrumentation (including tambourine, yes, but sans saxophone). To Destroyer heads, I’d say it’s more Rubies than Kaputt. Three months remain before Ken hits shelves, so I’m eagerly looking forward to its next single. By my measure, it’s been well over a decade since this guy has put out a record that wasn’t fantastic.
Ugly God feat. Wiz Khalifa – “No Lies”
As I continue to age into a dated version of my formerly teenage self, I tend to feel increasingly out of touch with certain pockets of pop culture. It’s hard to stay up on everything! From time to time I’ll devote an hour to clicking around YouTube (or, yes, SoundCloud) to try and catch up with whatever’s making waves. This was the mode by which I first came across Ugly God — a recommended video off of “1 Night,” I think. Let’s check in with Mr. God, then: We’ve got a track that’s a little less cheeky than other U.G. hits, featuring a passable verse from “Young Khalifa.” It’s tough to say which person benefits more from the other’s inclusion on the collab.
Jlin / Zora Jones – “Dark Matter”
Listen, do you follow Jlin on social media? I feel like her Facebook presence is one of the best kept secrets on the platform: in addition to being a consistently remarkable producer (and like, capital R Remarkable), she consistently delivers personality-rich messages of gratitude, inspiration and technical advice. That said, my favorite variety of Jlin post is the announcement of a new track. This collaboration with Barcelona-based producer Zora Jones is a “woo”-heavy affair, both in its vocal samples and in the reaction it elicits. Try to not move to this! As if this group effort wasn’t thrilling enough, Jlin recently made a post forecasting the release of a collaboration with noise producer Ben Frost, so I’ve been glued to her Facebook page even more than usual.
Lil B – “Getting Hot”
It’s become passé to lament the dramatic slowing of Lil B’s formerly frantic stream of mixtape releases, but that doesn’t make it any less exciting to be on the brink of a full-length mixtape (Black Ken) later this week. Lil B fired off a 7-track mixtape preview (Before Black Ken) at the outset of August and it’s been hard for me to process that this only represents a quarter of the full tape’s tracks. Preview highlight “Getting Hot” shows Lil B in a curious new mode: The vibe is gloriously not 2017 but it’s not a throwback either. Lil B so obviously deserves a mountain of credit for influencing the pop landscape in the mid-to-late 2010s (100% of us are agreed on that by this point, right?) and as much as I want the BasedGod to have his own thing, I also can’t wait for everything on the radio to sound like this (again).
Cut Copy – “Standing in the Middle of a Field”
There’s a lot going on in this return single from Cut Copy, one of the defining acts of the turn-of-the-decade Australian electro-pop boom. In a delightful show of restraint, the track is diligently propelled by some Steve Reich-lite marimba and handheld percussion in a decidedly balearic fashion (so, double shouts out to the late Aughts) before finally arriving much later at full beat-drop. It’s a songwriting method I’ll probably forever associate with “Dance Yrself Clean” but in this context it feels really good and fresh. Cut Copy visits the Majestic Theatre on Nov. 18.
Hundred Waters – “Fingers”
It’s been a fun challenge attempting to contextualize “Fingers.” There are moments in the song which recall early ’90s downtempo and others which seem like they’d almost fit in among the best songs from the Garden State soundtrack. Hundred Waters have made their career on lushly produced pop; though many of my previous favorite tracks of theirs have been more expressively orchestrated, I really love the percussive backing line over ambient synth swells on this track. It’s really hard to talk about this song without saying something about Björk (ooh, I almost did it!). Ultimately, I think Hundred Waters’ big win is writing a song so good you can forgive them for its Pharmakon-ripoff video.
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