Fluxblog #301: Soft Rock Playlists | Adult Swim | Moor Mother/Billy Woods • Wax Tailor • The Far East • Emanative/Liz Elensky
This week’s Fluxpod features Jason DeMarco of Adult Swim. We talk about his role in creating and developing both Toonami and Adult Swim, and how a large part of his career with Adult Swim has involved bringing music from labels like Stones Throw, Warp, Ninja Tune, BrainFeeder, and more to a wider audience. He also gets into his collaborations with artists like Flying Lotus, Danger Mouse, MF Doom, and Run the Jewels, and the funny story of how he found out about the very Adult Swim-inspired YouTube phenomenon "lofi hip hop radio - beats to relax/study to.” You can find the episode on all podcast platforms and on the Fluxblog Patreon.
Three new playlists this week, a trilogy covering three phases of soft rock through the 1970s. This is the music I grew up hearing on car radios and in stores, outside of what would get played on contemporary pop radio stations in the ‘80s this is what music was to me through all of my childhood. There’s a few different competing aesthetics running through this series – I don’t particularly love the more schmaltzy end of things, but I generally adore the stuff I’ve sequenced towards the front of each mix that really goes in on crisp, dry production, gorgeous keyboard tones, and elegant vocal melodies.
SOFT ROCK 1970-1972 [Apple / Spotify]
SOFT ROCK 1973-1976 [Apple / Spotify]
SOFT ROCK 1977-1980 [Apple / Spotify]
Please pass this stuff on to people you think might like it! I really appreciate it every time someone passes on the playlists, podcast episodes, or blog posts to other people.
January 19th, 2021
Watch Your Step In The Slaughterhouse
Moor Mother & Billy Woods “Rapunzel”
Child Actor’s track for “Rapunzel” has an eerie vibe but a relaxed feeling, like you’re getting hypnotized into some kind of zombie state but it turns out to be a relief to give up control. A lot of that effect comes from the central sample, which blurs a few sung notes into a siren call that’s simultaneously lovely and unnerving. Moor Mother and Billy Woods are both well-suited to the feel of this track but approach it differently – Woods putting his own spin on the more cerebral Wu-Tang styles of Inspectah Deck and Masta Killa, while Moor Mother leans into the low end of her register so her gravelly tone melts in with the bass a bit.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
January 20th, 2021
Let The Good Times Roll
Wax Tailor “Never Forget”
“Never Forget” has the sample-happy aesthetics and playful bounce of Prince Paul and The Avalanches in their prime – very warm and groovy, but also delightfully kitschy. But even with the light-hearted tone there’s some dark currents in the mix, particularly in the repeated “I never…” vocal clip that I think may be Nina Simone though I’m not certain of it. There’s a lot of regret and sorrow in the delivery of those three syllables, and it works as a counterpart to the silliness of a lot of the other samples and compliments the downward curve of the bass part.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
January 21st, 2021
The One That You Want
The Far East “NYC Dream”
The Far East’s music is a remarkable fascismile of 1970s and early 1980s Jamaican music, to the point that if you can filter out textural and tonal nuances that mark it as contemporary recordings, you could be convinced it’s the real deal. This band appears to be entirely comprised of white Americans, and I suppose you can make that a case for being problematic, but I think that is more of an issue if they sucked at this and their approximation was purely a cringey surface-level thing. A song like “NYC Dream” comes from love and admiration, and more importantly, a collective skill set capable of producing such a warm and generous melody and playing the rhythm with just the right feel. It helps that “NYC Dream” is grounded in the band’s own setting too, so it’s just as connected to Blondie’s version of rocksteady as the authentic Jamaican source material as Maddie Ruthless sings a romantic love song that’s simultaneously for her partner and the city around them.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
January 22nd, 2021
We Are Unrepeatable
Emanative & Liz Elensky featuring Bed Hadwen “Fall In To Me”
“Fall In To Me” has an intriguing dynamic in which Liz Elensky’s vocal and Ben Hadwen’s tenor sax sound like they’re both attempting to break out of the tense rhythm laid down by Emanative. They move around the stiff groove in different ways. Elensky’s approach is more soulful and zen, like a passive resistance to the oppressive force. Hadwen’s sax is more loose and emotive, at first sneaking around the beat before more obviously reacting against it. I like the way the drama plays out, like the rhythm is trying to capture something about the human spirit that simply cannot be held for long.
Buy it from Bandcamp.