Best New Tracks - Pitchfork: Rae Sremmurd and Gucci’s “Black Beatles" Is Hard-Shelled Ear Candy

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Rae Sremmurd and Gucci’s “Black Beatles" Is Hard-Shelled Ear Candy Posted: 16 Aug 2016 01:35 PM PDT Even Mike WiLL Made-It's hardest trap beats have a watery feel, like you just woke up on the sticky floor of a raging club as the song begins. But the Atlanta duo Rae Sremmurd's "Black Beatles" sounds like two different Super Nintendo water levels playing on separate browser tabs; it starts out submerged and never surfaces. The songs' two synth patterns, running in opposite directions, are transfixing, and listening to them is like staring dumbly at the light ripples at the bottom of a backyard pool after taking a too-generous hit. By now it's clearer than ever that Rae Sremmurd are Mike WiLL's muses, the artists that he was designed to work with. Together they have Just Blaze/Jay chemistry, Waka Flocka Flame/Lex Luger chemistry. Swae Lee and Slim Jxmmi rap and sing entirely in punchy, candy-shelled couplets that conceal razors: "She think she love me/I think she trolling"; "quick release the cash, watch out for slow leaking"; "get you somebody who can do both." There is not a single second of this song you can touch without getting it stuck to you. The ad-libs are hooks, the verse are hooks, the hooks are hooks. Gucci Mane's clone wanders through, too, and while he sounds great, he also sounds relatively conventional here, the adult crashing the kids' party.

Best New Tracks - Pitchfork: Hear Weyes Blood’s Lovesick Psychedelia on “Seven Words”

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Hear Weyes Blood’s Lovesick Psychedelia on “Seven Words” Posted: 13 Aug 2016 09:00 AM PDT Over the last decade, Natalie Mering's music under the Weyes Blood moniker has evolved gracefully from lo-fi mood-pieces to minimalist folk ballads. On "Seven Words," though, she conjures a kaleidoscopic vision of the 1970s' best kept secrets. Over a slow-building foundation of subtle, psychedelic keyboards and muted slide guitars, Mering's vocals are as precise and effortless as ever, conveying a sad desperation. The first taste from her upcoming album Front Row Seat to Earth, "Seven Words" is an ode to communication: an elegy for words left unsaid at the end of a relationship. Each verse plays like a love letter never sent, sung with increasing urgency as the memories fade and the future becomes clearer. "I want you mostly in the morning," she sings, "When my soul is weak from dreaming." By the time the song reaches its conclusion, with a Judee Sill-invoking choir of layered harmonies, Mering has transported the listener to that same pre-verbal, lovesick mindset.

Best New Tracks - Pitchfork: D.R.A.M.’s “Cute” Will Just Make You Smile

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D.R.A.M.’s “Cute” Will Just Make You Smile Posted: 03 Aug 2016 02:28 PM PDT Of rap's latest crop of potential pop crossovers, D.R.A.M. is the best equipped to tackle a song like "Cute." Though he has a voice like a wrecking ball, and a smile nearly as large, D.R.A.M.'s most notable quality remains the total joy he weaves into each of his songs. Not unlike his best tracks—the "Hotline Bling"-inspiring "Cha Cha," or his recent Billboard staple "Broccoli"—"Cute" channels pure euphoria into each line (and there are at least three or four strong hooks packed into this one song). "Cute" is the classic sound of crushing hard for four minutes. "Even though it's cliché," D.R.A.M. sings coyly, "I saw you on your Instagram/And I think you're cute." The Charlie Heat-sourced instrumental velvety organs and Hemsworth-ian 8-bit synths set the vibe, while D.R.A.M.'s fluttering melodies are as endearing as ever. It's hard not to smile as he declares, "I just had to park my car cause I was finna crash the whip/Scrolling through my feed I saw you just had post a pic/I choose you like a Pokémon." As rappers continue to stretch the 808s & Heartbreak aesthetic to its dour limits, D.R.A.M.'s "Trappy Go Lucky" tunes are a refreshing break. And for those of you curating summery "Found a New Bae" playlists, "Cute" will fit well between "I'm Sprung" and "My Boo."

Best New Tracks - Pitchfork

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Courtney Barnett: "Avant Gardener" Posted: 22 Aug 2013 01:34 PM PDT One of the tags on Melbourne-based songwriter Courtney Barnett's Bandcamp page is "slacker," a term with roots in the 1890s but stronger ties to a decade about a hundred years later. Barrett's music-- like the term-- feels older, too. Building on the wordy irreverence of mid-'60s Bob Dylan and a Byrds-ian blend of psychedelia, folk and country, "Avant Gardener" tells the story of a girl dragging her underemployed ass out of bed late on a Monday morning to try her hand at gardening-- at which point she suffers a panic attack.

Best New Tracks - Pitchfork

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Big Sean: "Control (HOF)" [ft. Kendrick Lamar and Jay Electronica] Posted: 13 Aug 2013 10:05 AM PDT Last night, Hot 97 DJ Funkmaster Flex lit a fuse that earned light internet acclaim by dropping an outtake from Big Sean's Hall of Fame-- the No I.D.-produced "Control (HOF)", a cut left off the record because of sample clearing issues. The primary stimulus in question was a jaw-dropping verse from Kendrick Lamar, a ceremonious bar-raising that was immediately celebrated as both a call to arms and as an obituary to Jay Electronica. While there's plenty of lines to wrap a thinkpiece around, the one that stands out is "I'm usually homeboys with the same niggas I'm rhymin' with/ But this is hip hop and them niggas should know what time it is/ And that goes for Jermaine Cole, Big KRIT, Wale Pusha T, Meek Millz, A$AP Rocky, Drake/ Big Sean, Jay Electron', Tyler, Mac Miller/ I got love for you all but I'm tryna murder you niggas."

Best New Tracks - Pitchfork

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Dead Girlfriends: "On Fraternity" Posted: 29 Jul 2013 01:51 PM PDT James Brooks, the artist formerly known as Elite Gymnastics, now goes by Dead Girlfriends, an unsettlingly blunt but meaningful moniker inspired by the radical feminist Andrea Dworkin. On his Tumblr, Brooks cites a speech by Dworkin in which she says we should not measure the progress of women by where they're now visible, but rather by lowered counts of dead women, battered women, and raped women. "That explanation will probably make most people feel even more unpleasant than the name," Brooks wrote. "But that's how living in the patriarchy makes me feel every day." "On Fraternity", from the debut EP by Dead Girlfriends, lives up to his promise to make "aggressively more feminine" music than Elite Gymnastics' mix of jungle, hip-hop, and video game samples. This is a song about why it is worth fighting fearlessly against a patriarchal world where women are second class citizens. The track moves from explosive moments to more solemn ones, propulsive electro-pop that maintains a connection to grating noise (remember that "Elite Gymnastics" was a Whitehouse reference). "On Fraternity" is an indictment of social irresponsiblity and a critique of hypocritical pockets of "punk" that allow it. It sounds ideal in 2013-- a white male artist with a direct feminist message that can speak freely with anyone, that will get under your skin if it's not already there in less poetic terms.