Fluxblog 488: sunshine ☀️strawberry 🍓psychedelia 🫠
Plus new music by Jungle, Ezra Collective, and Claude Fontaine
This week’s playlist is SUNSHINE STRAWBERRY PSYCHEDELIA, a 2 hour set of “sunshine pop” psychedelic rock selections circa 1966-1969. There’s some big hits you’ve probably heard and some obscurities maybe you haven’t, but it’s all very groovy. I think this one would be ideal for someone who isn’t super familiar with this sort of music but I have been doing this long enough to be resigned to this one being primarily consumed by old heads. But prove me wrong!
[Spotify | Apple Music | YouTube]
Why Would You Keep Me In Pain
Jungle “Let’s Go Back”
One of the most distinctive elements of Jungle’s style is the way they stack vocal harmonies so it feels like a warm breeze or like being submerged in hot water. It’s cozy and calming, but also enveloping and elemental. You get a lot of that in “Let’s Go Back,” a new single that isn’t very far off from where the trio got to with “Back on 74” off their most recent record. I hear it more like refinement than retreading a previous song – they’re even more dialed in to this R&B aesthetic that gestures towards mid-20th century nostalgia while having a very 2020s sheen. It’s an interesting contrast with their fellow Brits in Sault, who put a similarly modern gloss on soul and R&B forms, but generally land in much darker territory than the fairly sunny and reassuring vibes of Jungle’s work.
Buy it from Amazon.
Identical Strangers
Ezra Collective “God Gave Me Feet For Dancing”
“God Gave Me Feet for Dancing” opens by quoting “Feeling Good,” which strikes me as a rather bold and pointed way to begin a song about dancing – framing ordinary pleasure in the context of triumph over slavery. “God Gave Me Feet for Dancing” is very laid back but there’s a dark and serious current in it regardless of the interpolation – it’s about a happiness that has to be fought for or claimed in defiance, it’s about connection between people as a survival mechanism. But the laid back aspect is the crucial thing about the song – it loosens you up, it calms you down, it makes you feel a little more free.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
Claude Fontaine “Laissez Moi L’aimer”
Claude Fontaine’s music is a seamless and slightly uncanny blend of Studio One-style reggae, Brazilian tropicalia, and French ye-ye pop. She’s connecting the dots between three distinct strains of charming, relaxed mid-20th century music, and while you could get upset about a white woman from Los Angeles doing this and call it appropriation, I think it’s better to appreciate that this has happened without being the result of actual calamitous imperialism.
“Laissez Moi L’aimer” is pretty much a mid-60s reggae song with ye-ye vocals – two very familiar sounds that click together so logically I’m surprised I don’t think I’ve encountered it before. Fontaine sings it en français, but the lyrics roughly translate to a story about a woman meeting a man she idolizes. She’s very empathetic to him, but reading between the lines I think the encounter has demystified him for her. The refrain suggests that she needs to distance her love of his art from him – “laissez moi l’aimer / malgré vous,” or “let me love it / in spite of yourself.”
Buy it from Bandcamp.
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• Liz Garber-Paul wrote a very good profile of King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard for Rolling Stone that does a good job of getting across who they are, what they’ve accomplished, and offers some insight into how they’re constantly writing, recording, and performing.
• Also in Rolling Stone, Brittany Spanos wrote a big cover story about Chappell Roan’s big breakthrough year.
• Josh Gondelman’s “pep talk” for Drake is so funny – look for it in the bottom half of his latest That’s Marvelous! newsletter.
• Madeleine Connors wrote a very smart review of St. Vincent’s current tour for the Los Angeles Review of Books, which she saw in Los Angeles. I saw the first of the two NYC performances this week and I agree with her assessment that it’s like basically “a choreographed nervous breakdown,” but fun.