Fluxblog Weekly #76: Yung Bae, Solange, Dr. Something, The Frightnrs, Norah Jones
October 3rd, 2016
This Side Of Heaven
Yung Bae “As Sweet As My Baby”
Yung Bae is more DJ than producer. He’s less focused on composition than in digging up excellent obscurities and crafting them into a thrilling collage precisely calibrated to make people happy. He’s got a fantastic aesthetic – very indebted to the nostalgic disco vibes of the first Avalanches record, but with a deeper groove and traces of Japanese and Korean high-gloss hyperactive pop. There’s also a lot fewer samples involved, and as far as I can tell, Yung Bae’s main deal is reworking existing tracks rather than building up tracks from several sources. (This particular track is basically just a remix of Chris Bartley’s “The Sweetest Thing This Side of Heaven” from 1967.) But that’s not a problem, since the dude is so good at sustaining a vibe that makes the world sound like a joyful, exciting, and lovely place for about a half hour at a time. This track is just a fragment of that experience.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
October 4th, 2016
Those Metal Clouds
Solange “Cranes in the Sky”
“Cranes in the Sky” is about all the things you do to distract yourself from pain or anxiety. A lot of it is just living your life, or doing normal activities with a bit more intensity and purpose because you’re pointedly trying to “put yourself out there.” There’s a good balance of specificity and ambiguity in this song – the things she does are vivid, but the depression is very vague, and it’s unclear whether or not she’s actually escaped any of it. But as much as the lyrics express some frustration and a sense of futility, the music conveys a feeling of grace and serenity. It’s not about erasing this dark emotional undertow, it’s about learning how to live with it, and not give in to it.
Buy it from Amazon.
October 5th, 2016
The Dead Air Is A Buzzing Sound
Dr. Something “Companion”
Dr. Something is one of the most unusual things I’ve come across while bouncing around Bandcamp feeds – an indie bedroom/garage recording project that has the bombast and sentimentality of musical theater, but also the deliberate lyrical strangeness and unsettling vibe of art rock. Some of the songs on the Rustic Machinery EP tilt more in one of those directions, and “Companion” is the most overtly theatrical ballad of the set, to the point that it sounds like something that could be from a 1980s Barbra Streisand record. Alison Dennis’ voice may be a bit too much for some people to handle, but the unexpected shifts in arrangement and evocative lyrics about existential misery do a good job of subverting the stuffy, stagey prettiness of her vocal performance.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
October 6th, 2016
You Won’t Take My Advice
The Frightnrs “Trouble in Here”
The Frightnrs’ Nothing More to Say is a meticulously constructed simulacrum of Studio One rocksteady and dancehall, and honestly, it’d seem a bit unnecessary if not for 1) the fact that they are actually quite good at writing and performing in this style and 2) few people who love this sort of music would be mad to have just a bit more of it in the world. I do question whether the production had to mimic the original Studio One aesthetic this much – it can sometimes feel a bit too studied, or like a wax museum replica of a Sugar Minott record – but again, I love this specific sound and it is incredibly comforting. I literally flipped a coin to decide which of two songs I’d feature here and narrowed that down from a few others, which should give you some idea of the strength of the material. It’s just stupid to resist something that feels so good.
Buy it from Amazon.
October 7th, 2016
The Rooms That Once Made Up A Home
Norah Jones “Day Breaks”
“Day Breaks” sounds like the lull after a storm, in which two people survey the wreckage of their relationship and quietly wonder what to do next. Walk away? Attempt to rebuild? Pretend nothing happened? Crumble and weep? The arrangement is both delicate and melodramatic, respecting the small scale of this domestic unrest while fully respecting the high emotional stakes for the people involved. Norah Jones has achieved a level of success that makes it difficult to describe her as “underrated,” but her vocal performance here is a great example of the kind of presence, nuance, and control that tends to be undervalued in singers, and written off as sort of dull and “mature” in the derogatory sense. But fuck that, this is sophisticated work, and hits its emotional marks with grace and a high level of empathy.
Buy it from Amazon.