Fluxblog #353: Riches • Fatlip & Blu • Toro Y Moi • Gabriella Cohen
Plus, what was going on in music 50 years ago?
I don’t have a new playlist this week but I would like to direct your attention to the Fluxblog 1972 Survey, in which everything is now 50 years old! It’s kinda wild to think of how some of this music still sounds either very modern or full-on futuristic while being pretty far back in the history at this point. This is a major year for glam, funk, singer-songwriter stuff, and Krautrock, so there’s a crazy amount of all-timers in the mix. You can listen to it on Spotify, or if you’d like to hear the Neil Young song, on Apple Music.
Sunned And Weathered
Riches “Light of Dawn”
“Light of Dawn” is an expression of love so pure that it might seem naïve. Catherine McCandless sings this sweet, simple tune with total sincerity and seriousness – there’s no wink, there’s no doubt, just total belief in the power of the love she shares with the person addressed in the lyrics. The song is very folk in its structure and melody but the tones are mostly electronic, starting with the simple drum machine beat and moving along to layers of gently treated vocal harmonies. The tonality and atmosphere reminds me a lot of Massive Attack’s classic “Teardrop” but the mood is closer to The Bangle’s “Eternal Flame.” It’s a love so intense and achingly sweet that it feels sad – maybe it’s a tears of joy thing, or maybe it’s the fear that nothing like this can actually last.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
Like A Gospel Hymn
Fatlip & Blu “Gangsta Rap”
Madlib goes absolutely wild with the sampled surface noise on this track, foregrounding it to the point that it becomes a heavy ambient element so it sounds like Fatlip and Blu are rapping through a literal nostalgic haze. Both rappers take the cue to reminisce – Blu’s verse offers a wry perspective of growing up and finding some direction in rap, while Fatlip recalls friction in the music industry back in his Pharcyde days. There’s an interesting low-key tension in Fatlip’s performance here, like he’s holding back from going off and actively deciding to focus on what he’s happy about in his life. The whole song feels happy but a little bittersweet, the way looking back on the past can just dredge up old disappointments and even if they don’t mean much anymore it still can sting.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
Nothing Here To See
Toro Y Moi featuring Salami Rose Joe Louis “Magazine”
“Magazine” falls into an intriguing middle ground between chill and queasy. Salami Rose Joe Louis’ vocal moves between a low mutter that reminds me a lot of Mica Levi on old Micachu and the Shapes songs and a high, breathy sung part that sounds like they’re in a sad daze. The beat is busy but it’s up against keyboard and bass parts that seem to just churn around in circles. There’s enough forward momentum to keep the music from feeling like it’s a holding pattern but Chaz Bear’s arrangement signals a lot of muted frustration. The lead guitar part near the end is very expressive without allowing for much catharsis, and the song ends by basically ducking outside itself and into another unrelated groove that “accidentally” gets warped and eaten up like bad tape.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
Like Heaven Sent Ya
Gabriella Cohen “I Just Got So High”
“I Just Got So High” feels like a song fully destined to licensing ubiquity, a breezy and instantly appealing and vaguely familiar sorta-neo-soul tune that clearly expresses a powerful romantic feeling but with just enough tension to make it interesting. You could build an entire Netflix rom-com around it, it’s just so easy to visualize this as a montage maybe two or three narrative beats after the meet-cute. Gabriella Cohen sings it all with a flirty charm that feels effortless but also has some stagey contrivance to it, this full commitment to a heightened reality where somehow the whole world is doing great because this one lady has a crush.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
LINKS LINKS LINKS LINKS LINKS
• Larry Fitzmaurice interviewed Tom Krell of How to Dress Well over at Last Donut of the Night, the really interesting stuff is towards the end where he talks about his fairly miserable experience of working as a songwriter in the mainstream after having some success as a hyped indie act.
• I enjoyed Amy Odell’s history of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue and analysis of how they’re trying to pitch this annual issue to both audiences and advertisers in an era where it’s outmoded in so many ways.
• Here’s a video from an old VHS series called Homespun Music Instruction: Piano Masters in which Donald Fagen of Steely Dan explains the music theory and ideas behind the composition of some of his songs including “Chain Lightning,” “Josie,” and “Peg.” It’s pretty cool to hear him talk this out and demonstrate the parts on piano! I think this must have been filmed at some point in the mid 1990s.