Fluxblog 409: µ-Ziq •Skrillex • Cloonee • Cuco
Plus a playlist featuring young women reviving 90s alt-rock aesthetics
This week’s playlist is BRUTAL: NEXT GEN ALT-ROCK, a collection of Gen Z/younger Millennial women and nb artists reviving 90s alt-rock aesthetics. This one features Beabadoobee, Soccer Mommy, Boygenius, Wet Leg, Eaves Wilder, Wednesday, Wolf Alice, Snail Mail, Olivia Rodrigo, and many more. [Spotify | Apple | YouTube]
This playlist is basically a modern sequel to SEETHERS: WOMEN IN ALT-ROCK 1992-1997, which was directly inspired by Rodrigo covering Veruca Salt in her live shows. [Spotify | Apple | YouTube]
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Marvelous Fantabulous
µ-Ziq “4am”
“4am” sounds like it is haunted by the ghost of some half-remembered 80s pop song. Mike Paradinas gives us bits of vocal and keyboards that sound like another song bleeding through his own more modern composition, a bit like radio station signals overlapping. Or maybe it’s more like how beautiful vegetation can grow around broken machinery or architecture, something lovely merging with the form of some busted thing.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
Skrillex featuring Missy Elliott and Mr Oizo “RATATA”
I love Skrillex for his energy and because his aesthetic is basically the music equivalent of dousing everything in hot sauce. “RATATA” spins an entirely new song out of a memorable bit of Missy Elliott’s classic “Work It,” which she flips into more of a dancehall toasting vibe to suit Skrillex’s frantic beat. Elliott isn’t a stranger to this kind of tempo but she sounds ferocious and unleashed by Skrillex’s track, like she’s just trying to match his enthusiasm level.
Buy it from Amazon.
Cloonee “Badman Sound”
“Badman Sound” is an absolute beast of a track, a mutant bass house/dancehall hybrid built to push a room into frenzy mode. After listening to this many times over I realized my favorite bits were the drum parts that deviated from the thump – a drum fill that sounds like it’s yanked out of a rock record, and a snare build that sounds like 500 drumlines in unison.
Buy it from Beatport.
Put The World On Pause
Cuco “Best Disaster”
It’s amazing how shameless a lot of artists can be about directly emulating the fairly specific Tame Impala sound, but I never really mind because the songs are usually pretty good. Everything besides the chorus in Cuco’s “Best Disaster” sounds strikingly similar to Tame Impala, to the point I’m certain I would’ve been fooled if it had been presented to be as a new Tame tune. Those marks are nailed but it’s the deviation that makes this song work on Cuco’s terms. The song swings into ballad mode on the chorus and shifts focus to Cuco’s voice, which sounds love-dazed and extremely vulnerable, as though he’d be crushed if you told him “nah” after he sings “this could be your favorite song.” But he also sounds sweet enough that his subsequent invitation to “put the world on pause” and be “the best disaster” together is kinda convincing.
Buy it from Amazon.
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• The Black Bubblegum podcast is back with a thoughtful meditation on Rihanna’s career to date, with a lot of more emphasis on deep cuts than you might expect.
• I enjoyed this Guardian profile of Karin Dreijer of Fever Ray (and formerly of The Knife) that gets into their refreshing attitude about aging. For example: “Because I’m quite old now,” they offer, “when you discover things at this time in life, there has been a lot of time when you didn’t know.”
• I also like this woman Dietcoke4breakfast’s essay about reconnecting with the Red Hot Chili Peppers and loving them for their perfect balance of sincerity and silliness. That’s such an accurate read on them, and I also love her describing Anthony Kiedis as “Alternative Nation Fabio.”