Fluxblog 391: 2nd Grade • Dorian Concept • Customer • Scout Gillett
Plus a universe playlist for Nile Rodgers
This week’s playlist is NILE RODGERS UNIVERSE, a career retrospective covering his work with Chic, his extensive production and session work with some of the biggest stars of all time, music sampling his hits, and his post-Daft Punk EDM era. It’s an incredibly impressive body of work, and this whole set makes a great case for him being the most significant rhythm guitarist in pop music history. [Spotify | Apple | YouTube]
This newsletter is free, but the work that goes into making Fluxblog and the playlists and the podcast etc takes up a lot of my time. I don’t like pestering people into signing up for the Patreon or doing one-time donations on Ko-Fi, but I will say that right now would be an excellent time to do this as I’m in very precarious economic situation as I’m still in the market for a new full time job. Your donations are always appreciated, but I can say for sure that right now they’re more appreciated than ever.
You Make Boredom Fun
2nd Grade “Poet In Residence”
The riff in “Poet In Residence” is so familiar but I can’t quite place it, it nags at me a little while I listen to it. But I don’t really want to know what it is because I think part of the magic here is that it sounds like 2nd Grade is just barely getting away with stealing something famous for a tiny lo-fi song. It adds a meta level of stakes to the piece, and the laid back swagger of the riff makes the person being sung about seem a little cooler. But not that much cooler – I wouldn’t say this is a joke song, but the joke of the song is that this is an ode to someone who is a very ordinary sort of cool, and a very mild sort of fun. This isn’t a song set in a glamorous world, but rather one that’s mundane and drab and this person is what qualifies as the poetic rock star in this context.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
Doesn’t Matter At All
Dorian Concept “Let It All Go”
“Let It All Go” is basically the mission statement for Dorian Concept’s new record, in which the electronic producer deliberately avoids digital perfection in favor of layering live keyboard parts in a way that comes together to sound like a live band rather than an electronic producer. I’m not totally clear on the process here but a lot of what makes this composition work is the feeling that parts are responding to others in real time, even if it’s just improvising in overdubs. There’s a slightly awkward throb to the groove, but the song sounds like it’s always got a new idea, like it’s just floating through a series of minor epiphanies.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
Get Your Phantom Limbs Off My Neck
Customer “Floorboards”
It was only a matter of time before the sort of talky post-punk from the UK and Ireland that I’ve been documenting in my “narrators” playlist would start bubbling up in the United States and this debut single from the NYC band Customer is truly the best case scenario for such a thing. But then again, these guys are something of a ringer in that vocalist Nicola Leel is Scottish, so maybe it’s more like one of these types of bands just started in New York instead? In any case “Floorboards” is a remarkably confident debut that positions Leel as a charismatic presences within the first few seconds and just zips along to a shouty fist-pumper chorus that hinges on the provocative phrase “get your phantom limbs off my neck.” Leel doesn’t waste time with narrative specifics and instead focuses her lyrical energy on evoking a terrible and recognizable feeling – you’re done with someone, you’ve moved on, but you’re still haunted by them having the nerve to be out there existing in the world.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
With No Way Out
Scout Gillett “444 Marcy Ave.”
“444 Marcy Ave” moves between two very ‘90s modes, starting with a stark and intimate strummed section that sounds a lot like PJ Harvey at the start of that decade or Cat Power at the end of it, but then shifting into a groove that’s more like Tori Amos after she got very into making Matt Chamberlin do live drum parts that sound like filtered loops. Scout Gillett, who is not to be confused with the similarly named Scout Niblett but probably will be, sings with a slightly ghostly affect that emphasizes her lowest and highest notes without much space between. The song sounds like a very dark and sordid place, though I can say as a Brooklyn resident this address is just some apartment building in South Williamsburg. She makes it feel more like some bleak abandoned shack in the middle of nowhere, but I might just be getting that from the subtle banjo counterpoint with the groove.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
LINKS LINKS LINKS LINKS LINKS LINKS LINKS
• Here’s Shawn Reynaldo of the First Floor newsletter on why dance music feels different post-pandemic, and thinking about how electronic music has become more like folk art.
• Jon Pareles interviewed the generally press-shy Robert Fripp for the New York Times, some great quotes from Fripp sprinkled throughout.
• M.H. Miller at GQ interviewed the even more press-shy Alan Moore about his new prose collection and lots of other things, including his feelings about the HBO show that’s basically a sequel to his Watchmen series with Dave Gibbons.
• Here’s an excerpt from Bob Dylan’s forthcoming book of music criticism, which is basically like the world’s most upscale mp3 blog.