Fluxblog #405: Alison Goldfrapp • Piri & Tommy • Caroline Rose • Hank
Plus a playlist covering the Neo-Soul/Soulquarians era
This week’s playlist is WHAT WAS NEO-SOUL? 1995-2003, a time capsule of a moment in time when classic R&B melded with hip-hop, largely jumping off J Dilla and D’Angelo’s bold innovations in rhythmic feel. This playlist is mostly focused on the loose collective of artists known at the time as the Soulquarians – Erykah Badu, Bilal, Jill Scott, Questlove, Mos Def, Q-Tip – but also includes some fellow travelers like Lauryn Hill and Alicia Keys, who both fully brought the aesthetic into the mainstream. This set includes a lot of truly outstanding music, you should check it out if you’re not already familiar. [Spotify | Apple | YouTube]
In My Head In My Heart In My Veins
Claptone and Alison Goldfrapp “Digging Deeper”
Alison Goldfrapp has proven herself to be a versatile singer through her career in Goldfrapp but her voice never feels as fully natural as when it’s paired with synths and a strong beat. In this context, whether it’s on a record like Supernature or on this new collaboration with Claptone, her voice takes on contradictory qualities – airy yet rich, passive yet authoratative, full of warm humanity but robotic in its tonal precision. I love the way her voice conveys a distinct personality while also sounding like it could be a keyboard setting. “Digging Deeper” is a good old fashioned house song and so Goldfrapp runs with the opportunity to give voice to the ecstatic feel of the music. The lyrics are simple and repetitive, it’s all focused on one sentiment – suddenly her life has changed and she feels better, and she’s trying to go as far as she can with this emotional breakthrough. But you’d never need to pay attention to the lyrics to come to that conclusion, she really makes you feel that sensation of newfound freedom in the vocal.
Buy it from Beatport
I’ll Be Catching Feelings
MJ Cole feat. Piri and Tommy “Feel It”
I’ve been trying to figure out the x factor in Piri & Tommy’s music that makes it sound so fresh to me despite there not being an obvious element of technical novelty. I think what it comes down to is the way Piri sings in a tone so relaxed and low-key that it neutralizes the frantic quality of jungle and garage bpms without compromising the velocity of the music. It’s like lying down or lounging in a very comfy chair inside a vehicle that’s zooming ahead – you can sense the movement but you’re just chilling within it. “Feel It,” a collaboration with likeminded producer MJ Cole, nudges slightly in the direction house while retaining familiar Tommy programming. In most respects it feels like most everything else the duo has done but Cole brings a different sort of color to the mix, which contrasts nicely with Piri’s voice. This feels literal to me – it’s the musical equivalent of someone showing up with a cool lighting rig and changing the ambiance around something that maintains its form.
Buy it from Beatport.
All Of The Subtle Rejections
Caroline Rose “Miami”
“Miami” is a song in which Caroline Rose takes stock of their recent past, takes some responsibility for certain messes and conflicts, and then tries to figure out how to be pragmatic and move on. It’s a lot of song and it sounds to me like something that was very cathartic to make, but also totally draining.
There are two bits here that stand out to me and elevate it above a lot of similar gut-spiller songs. In the first verse after Rose describes a relationship that went very, very cold they arrive at this conclusion: “You know you never knew my worth / honestly, neither did I.” The first part of that line feels like a cliché now, the kind of therapy/advice language that’s often used in a self-aggrandizing sort of way, but with an important acknowledgment of complicity. It deflates a potentially self-congratulatory line, but also makes it a clear a lesson was actually learned.
The second lyrical idea I like here is that Rose writes about their mother taking issue with a tendency to be glibly miserable – the sort of dark self-pity that drives a lot of online humor – and having to explain that it’s basically a coping mechanism. There’s an interesting emotional push and pull in this, particularly as they feel bad for making their parent worry and feel like their good advice is not heard. By the end of this section there’s a sense that both mother and child are seeing each other clearly – not in some profound way, but in that way where parents and children eventually find themselves on more equal ground as fellow adults.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
A Crumbling Little City
Hank “Mover Mover Mover”
“Mover Mover Mover” moves briskly from hook to hook in two minutes without feeling at all rushed or busy – if anything, this feels remarkably light for a densely written piece of music. This is basically a bright and chipper song about real estate, one in which constantly changing residences is a neurotic impulse and a nomadic existence seems to be more of a drag than an adventure. There’s an aside in the second verse about an acquaintance who’s apparently flopped out in the house-flipping game, and that guy seems to standing in for everyone else who’s getting screwed one way or another by playing the real estate game. The song zips along like a lost Orange Juice or Josef K number but arrives at no conclusion besides shrugging off its own central question: “Why are you always escaping?”
Buy it from Bandcamp.
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• Josh Terry wrote a lot about the Italian rock band Måneskin in his newsletter, and how while they’re massively successful they’re also weirdly invisible to a lot of people who like rock music. I feel like everything about the phenomenon of this band is perfectly logical – rock bands across sub-genres have been running away from “sexy people doing straightforward songs about being horny and partying” for the past 30 years, and then this band of sexy zoomers with songs about being horny and partying show up and absolutely clean up despite being totally mid because the demand for this very basic thing was not being met in the marketplace. Everyone else was too cool for this, but Måneskin have no shame and just did it. Maybe it’s time some better bands went for the same angle?