radio loways – august 2014

01. 90s music – kimbra
02. ambitious people – negative scanner
03. everytime you touch me (1995 nyc jungle mix) – moby
04. balada de la trompeta – raphael
05. deo – amon tobin
06. jazz – mick jenkins
07. jams run free – sonic youth
08. voodoo ray – a guy called gerald
09. lodge freeway – eddie “flashin” fowlkes
10. wear clean draws – the coup
11. push it – the chalice

radio loways

the songs that took my attention in august of 2014. listen, won’t you?

unhelpful notes –

90s music. i am straight up out of my mind full on fucking obsessed with this song. the whole album is good, but this song is fiercely good. i have such a small window of tolerance for pop music that very few things sneak in, but when they do, they do. and this did. i wish more pop music was musically interesting, but maybe that’s what makes interesting pop good and interesting in the first place – that it exists within and against a backdrop of boring standardness. and the interesting is made interesting by playing against that standardness. maybe if it was all like this, i wouldn’t be into it anyways. who knows. what i do know, is that i like this song. way to go kimbra.

ambitious people. negative scanner is from chicago. they have a good sound. they have a good chicago sound. garagey, post-punk-ish, rough, stripped down. also – i like the shout singy thing that’s going on.

everytime you touch me (1995 nyc jungle mix). speaking of 90’s music. i used to be so into moby. specifically his output from like 1991 to 1997. i was way into techno and electronic music and his happy vibes were always welcome. i also finally figured out what constituted jungle and drum and bass from this particular version of (1995 nyc jungle mix). and i realized that i loved jungle. it was something that i had read about and was fascinated by even though i hadn’t heard anything. and then, once i heard this, i had a point of entry. access. and i began to explore it – feverishly tracking down comps and solo works of jungle/drum and bass artists. the beats and rhythms sounded so random and crazy at the time. i couldn’t figure them out and couldn’t imagine how anyone could dance to it. after almost twenty years of hearing the rhythm and hearing the evolution of the beat patterns, it doesn’t sound quite so insane, but i still love it. and i have a massive place in my heart for the breakbeats of the early nineties.

balada de la trompeta. holy shit is raphael dramatic. i love dramatic crooners. he seems to be kind of like a spanish jacques brel chanson interpreter. as with most dramatic crooners his output is all over the place and a lot of it isn’t to my liking. a lot of it veers into schmaltz, corn and cheese. but some of it is right on perfection. and this is one of them.

deo. i told you i like breakbeats.

jazz. i’m always happy to discover truly awesome hip hop that comes from chicago. and mick jenkins seems to be onto something. this song is truly awesome. when i first heard this one i had to listen to it five times in a row cuz it was so good.

jams run free. if you’ve known me for a long time, you already know that i’ve loved sonic youth since i was fourteen. and while i was sad that they broke up, i realize it was prolly for the best artistically cuz this second to last album of theirs was something of a stinker by their standards – or my standards for their output. very safe and npr edgy. yawn. but this track has a great sound. i do like this one.

voodoo ray and lodge freeway. did i already mention that i like acid house/techno? i do. so here’s two more.

wear clean draws. here’s some corniness – i always liked this song cuz of the positive dad to daughter words, but then after my partner and i had our son, it resonated even more and now i get a little emotional every time i hear this one. i can’t help it.

push it . i like the chalice, i played them on here before. i don’t have too much to say about them right now, but i wanted to write something since i did for all the other tracks. word.

ps – that’s mick jenkins up there. you can download the mixtape that includes jazz here.