Khruangbin “Ada Jean” Khruangbin is a trio with no weak link, but I find that I mainly connect to their music through Marko Speer’s guitar. He typically plays with a plaintive, understated tone and lets his melodies flow very casually, like an impressionistic story gradually unfolding through his notes. There’s a tendency for a lot of listeners, particularly writers, to think of lyrics as the meat of a song, but music like this is basically telling you words are inadequate, that you have to play a guitar to express certain things. In other words, there’s an elegance and eloquence to Speer’s pl ..read more

Cindy Lee “Lockstepp” Cindy Lee’s Diamond Jubilee, a 32 track album split across two imaginary CDs and only available as a single stream on YouTube or a download from the band’s Geocities page, is kinda like getting the entire discography of a really cool lost psychedelic band in one lump sum. Even with the existence of previous Cindy Lee records, this feels like a complete body of work documenting a series of related musical phases. It also sounds like a world unto itself, with a very “live” feel and some of the most beautifully recorded guitar parts I’ve heard in a while. It’s not a hi-fi so ..read more

Anysia Kym “Test Your Patience” Anysia Kym is mainly a producer, and it shows a bit on her new record Truest in that the track composition and arrangements are very interesting and convey a lot of confidence in the studio, while she seems a little shy on the microphone. This isn’t necessarily an issue, at least not on “Test Your Patience” where some vocal timidity seems central to getting across the feeling of the song. The whole song feels smooth yet tentative, like she’s tip-toeing her way through a lot of volatile motions both within and without. The vibe is relaxed, but only in a calm-befo ..read more

Tyla “On and On” “On and On” is an unusually melancholy song about partying, one in which the South African singer Tyla sings about enjoying a party so much that the thought of leaving it and going back to regular life is incredibly depressing. It’s late in the party, she can feel it winding down, and she’s at the bargaining stage of grieving the end of the night. The beat is danceable but the song is more of a ballad, and Tyla sings it with just the right degree of poignancy. She’s not overselling it, but she’s not minimizing the emotion either. You get a sense that there’s some stakes to thi ..read more

Crumb “Amama” That bright trebly sound in “Amama” is not guitar, it’s electric sitar. It’s not played in a way that screams “you’re listening to a sitar,” which I find it usually the case with the instrument, but it’s definitely apparent once you know what it is. It sounds like Lila Ramani is transposing a regular guitar part to the sitar, so you don’t get a big drone but you do get this wobbly haze of very high pitched notes. That ultra high end is very pronounced in contrast with Jesse Brotter’s bass, which bounces off a particularly funky groove by drummer Jonathan Gilad. Like a lot of the ..read more

Mount Kimbie featuring King Krule “Empty and Silent” Mount Kimbie’s new album is their third in a row with at least one song featuring King Krule, which is a pretty cool tradition for them. It’s kinda sorta like if Crosby, Stills, and Nash had figured out a way to make sure they could always get a Neil Young song on every record. I like the way Mount Kimbie push King Krule into arrangements that are more dynamic than what he often makes on his own – I think of the beats tumbling and thumping around his voice on “Meter, Pale, Tone,” or the way “Blue Train Lines” accelerates in its second half ..read more

Real Estate “Freeze Brain” Real Estate don’t get groovy too often but on the occasions when they lean into a funkier bass line it suits them rather well. This isn’t to say you’d confuse “Freeze Brain” for funk music – the slinky bass part and tight pocket beat have more of a late 90s down-beat lounge aesthetic along the lines of Air’s first record. It’s a song with a pensive walking vibe that actually starts with lyrics about going on pensive walks, but then expands its emotional scope to be more about trying to find small moments of peace and joy while otherwise sinking into despair. The lyri ..read more

Yas Reven “WHoO-Oo!” I like when dance music feels like a producer is playing a little game with you, one where they’re always a few steps ahead of you. “WHoO-Oo!” is one of those, a song that starts out feeling like you’re being led through some kind of funky maze and before you know it the maze feels more like a rollercoaster. Yas Reven keeps the whole thing feeling light and bouncy while carefully managing the big dopamine blast moments, and amps up the playfulness by cutting in vocal parts that sound like the utterances of a happy digital baby. Buy it from Bandcamp. Ariana Grande “Ordinary ..read more

Iron & Wine featuring Fiona Apple “All In Good Time“ “All In Good Time” is a new song that’s so warm, familiar, and lived-in that it feels like it has existed for decades. Some of that is stylistic – you could send this back to the 70s and I doubt anyone would think it sounds like the future. But it’s mostly in Fiona Apple’s weathered voice, which invests Sam Beam’s lyrics with the accrued regret and exasperation of decades of getting burned by her own fiery passions. I like the way their voices contrast, her grit and gruffness set in sharp relief by his gentle, steady tenor. They’re singi ..read more

A few years ago I wrote about “cultural cartography,” an idea that floated through BuzzFeed during its peak era that boils down to the notion that all forms of content have utility, though a lot of the time the audience decides what that utility will be when and how they share it or make it part of their identity. The New Yorker writer Kyle Chayka’s new book Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture has a clear and specific utility, which is to reassure people who identify as having an interest in culture that the reason they feel disconnected from or disappointed by contemporary culture i ..read more