We’d like to think the tracks we cosign into existence cut through the noise, but sometimes it’s just all too much to take in at once. So every Friday, we’ll do the dirty work: picking out gems, polishing a theme, and cutting the facets on your weekend playlist. All you have to do is listen.
The tracks we premiered this week share a self-contained surreality: a license of landscape, an emotional watermark. You can fully immerse yourself in the worlds of Jerry Paper, Justin Townes Earle, even Raven Felix for as long as the duration of a song, and walk away with just the slightest shiver of a hangover. There’s a lot of brazenness on the list below: remixing your own remix, sampling Ty Dolla $ign when you look younger than our little sister, reviving terms like “pengaleng.” Yet as the summer winds down and the plates are uncertain beneath our feet, something feels so right about these warped mini-universes—so step inside.
Jerry Paper, Big Pop for Chameleon World
"Jerry uses chintzy digital synth sounds and heavy-lidded vocalizations to craft his album-length anxiety attack about simulations and simulacra."—Colin Joyce. Read the full write-up.
L-Vis 1990, "Drink, Smoke, Breakup (L-Vis 1990 4D Vocal Mix)"
"Yes, he remixed the remix and it's ready for the club: all those angles, all that space!"—Ruth Saxelby. Read the full write-up.
Justin Townes Earle, "Times Shows Fools"
“A guy who can't but help reflect on how married life means not 'chasing pussy' and how Nashville is letting Nashville 'fuck it in the ass.'"—Duncan Cooper. Read Duncan's Another Country column on Earle.
Gorgeous Children, "How We Do It"
"It's the kinda track that makes you want to ride round in a convertible with the wind in your hair, Bone Thugs-style."—Ruth Saxelby. Read the full write-up.
Real Lies, "Dab Housing"
"The London trio tap into a very specific aspect of UK identity: the suspension between dreariness and hopefulness."—Ruth Saxelby. Read the full write-up.
The Square, "Pengaleng"
"You’ll be muttering who’s that chick, that girl is a pengaleng all day after this."—Aimee Cliff. Read the full write-up.
PC Worship, "Paper Song"
"They've always seemed to be flitting hesitantly around the edges of rock & roll—unable to commit wholeheartedly to it, but brutally decisive in their use of crashing guitars."—Emilie Friedlander. Read the full write-up.
Only Real, "Pass the Pain"
"There’s no one in the music industry I’m more likely to believe when he sings I made it here in my underpants."—Aimee Cliff. Read the full write-up.
Raven Felix, "Bad Lil Bish"
"It's the kind of party every high school kid dreams of throwing."—David Turner. Read the full write-up.
Claude Speeed, "Taj Mahal"
"A surprisingly picturesque and natural visual for an instrumental that's built around the unsettling combo of synth bass burbles and choirboy vocals."—Colin Joyce. Read the full write-up.
