Best New Tracks - Pitchfork: “Little Bubble” Sounds Like Time Collapsing

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“Little Bubble” Sounds Like Time Collapsing Posted: 05 Jan 2017 08:56 AM PST Two years ago, writing on Solange's website about D'Angelo's Voodoo for its 15th-anniversary, Dave Longstreth said the album "collapses time, it feels eternal." He found in those enduring grooves "an alternate reality where traditionalism and technology aren't at odds." With the release of "Little Bubble," the second new song from Longstreth's Dirty Projectors in recent months, it's clear he could just as easily have been talking about his own music. The new song is a decidedly digital ballad that touches on ancient themes ("I want to be dead," Longstreth croons), where distended noises more often associated with glitchy mp3s are strangely at home beside a sumptuous bed of Rhodes, strings, trombone, and, as ever, Longstreth's melismatic vocals. The public uncertainty surrounding Dirty Projectors' current lineup status, after Longstreth was the only member credited on September's divorce-tinged stunner "Keep Your Name," may offer temptation to interpret the bittersweet refrain—"We had our own little bubble/For a while"—through the lens of the band's biography. But if the heartbreak conveyed in these intricately unwinding melodies might convincingly reside at Longstreth's studio desk, it could also be anyone's post-breakup anguish. Or it could refer to a more global tragedy. Or is this a comment on our gadgets? Our social-media insularity? Emerging from a hiatus, Longstreth's recent work seemed to contradict Dirty Projectors' narrative of a sometimes-showily virtuosic band learning the power of simplicity. "Keep Your Name" included a spoken-word section that came awful close to rapping, which was a sharp departure from any storyline about artists softening their weird edges. Yet, scarcely a week later, Longstreth contributed extensively to Solange's magisterial Seat at the Table. With the narrative a little derailed, it'd be hard to make predictions about year-end, let alone tomorrow, but right now, "Little Bubble," sounds like time collapsing.

Best New Tracks - Pitchfork: D.R.A.M. and Erykah Badu’s “Wifi” Is a New Hallmark of Modern Love

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D.R.A.M. and Erykah Badu’s “Wifi” Is a New Hallmark of Modern Love Posted: 21 Oct 2016 08:37 AM PDT Readily available access to unlimited data is the lifeblood of modern relationships, but staying connected 24/7 comes at a steep price. It makes WiFi passwords, at friend's or partner's homes, feel like gestures of actual charity. To date, D.R.A.M.'s career has been about brazenly expressing modest desires and small tokens of appreciation. On his first hit, "Cha Cha," he wanted to dance with a girl who looks likes the star of the Nickelodeon show Taina. On Chance the Rapper's Coloring Book, he reminded everyone that they are special. Alongside Lil Yachty, on "Broccoli," he expressed a newfound love of lox. "Wifi" is a highlight of D.R.A.M.'s just-released debut LP, in which he links with Erykah Badu, who famously told her friend she could not use her phone to check on her boyfriend. D.R.A.M. sharpened his crazy-in-love lothario persona on 2015's solid Gahdamn! EP, and he fully consumes the role here. As slap-bass punctuations call back to new jack swing slow jams, his voice stretches to a husky whisper. "Do you got Wifi?" D.R.A.M. sings, and it might as well be a drunken wish to get married. By the time Badu introduces you to her apartment—with the wondrous line, "Do you like my feng shui in my living room?"—"WiFi" crescendos in emotional intensity. It become a new hallmark for modern love.

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: Hear Noname, Raury, and Cam O’bi’s Infectious “Diddy Bop”

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Hear Noname, Raury, and Cam O’bi’s Infectious “Diddy Bop” Posted: 04 Aug 2016 01:10 PM PDT Noname is the latest voice to emerge this year from the loose assemblage of artists gathered around Chance the Rapper, and her music shimmers with the evening-streetlight glow that characterizes most of them. Like Chance's Coloring Book, or Jamila Woods' HEAVN, or even Joey Purp's rough but sternly humane iiiDrops, Noname's music feels luminously positive, clear-eyed, and compassionate. "Diddy Bop" is luxurious and easy and warm, a reminiscence about good times, or better ones. Her voice is in a playful and confident middle range between forestalling, singing, and slam poetry, and her lyrics carve out enough details to fill the song with an entire imagined cast of characters—jealous boyfriends griping at girls in love with Raz-B from B2K; kids nabbing twenties from their mom's purse. Raury, a still-developing would-be eccentric clearly in thrall to the shadow of André 3000, murmurs his verse into the track's ear; it's one of his sweetest and most unforced performances ever. From the evidence of the music, there is something restorative and calming about just being around Chance's crew. It breeds music that feels so sure of itself and its place in the world that it can't help but be infectious.

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: Father John Misty Turns Humble on “Real Love Baby”

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Father John Misty Turns Humble on “Real Love Baby” Posted: 01 Aug 2016 02:50 PM PDT Much like Kanye and Taylor, Father John Misty knows how to stay in your news feed even without a new album. Whether he's boosting rose quartz from a ludicrous Echo Park juicery, beard-brawling with the Strand of Oaks guy, or outing Chipotle's ear-coli idea to have him cover the Backstreet Boys—the man also known as Josh Tillman might scan as one walking prank. But then there's that Father John Misty profoundly saddened by a full festival crowd positioned against the backdrop of a battleship. And it seems less a ploy and more the voicings of a man who feels a painful amount. That's him couched in reverb on "Real Love Baby," a one-off uploaded to Soundcloud in May and now properly released as a single. He might be boasting of having an entire world inside him (and how he tastes), but there's a humbleness and honesty to the song. Like any real love, it's about learning to surrender such power to the other person. He may call her honey, but Tillman also inverts that old metaphor of being the King Bee. Instead, he sweetly sings of being the flower, his betrothed the bee.

Best New Tracks - Pitchfork: Moor Mother’s “Georgia+Mass” Turns the Electronic Collage Into Protest Art

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Moor Mother’s “Georgia+Mass” Turns the Electronic Collage Into Protest Art Posted: 25 Jul 2016 02:45 PM PDT The genius of Camae Ayewa—musician, activist, organizer, curator, poet—has been percolating underground for the better part of a decade. As Moor Mother, the Philly-based artist has released some 100 recordings online since she began the project in 2012, masterfully reimagining the electronic noise collage as protest song. Ayewa makes beats, bashes punk chords, and raps, fusing these elements seamlessly with samples that have ranged from the late Maya Angelou reading her poem “A Brave and Startling Truth” to Fugazi’s “Waiting Room” bassline. Ayewa’s searing themes tie it together; her lyrics focus on systemic racism. “Malcolm X was my childhood hero,” Ayewa has said, and she has described the sound of Moor Mother as “blk girl blues,” “coffee shop riot gurl songs,” “project housing bop,” “anthropology of conscience,” “slaveship punk,” “death poems.” The first Moor Mother LP, Fetish Bones, arrives in September, but the rhythms of “Georgia+Mass” are a fitting introduction. Ayewa says the eight-minute piece is about “investigating alternative methods of healing.” It rolls on like a deep meditation in gorgeous free jazz sax and cosmic textures, with a grounding om occasionally zipping in to rumble below the surface. Its joyful noise features samples from the gospel ensemble Georgia Mass Choir’s “Come in the Room” as well as of legends Alice Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders, plus 10 of her own tracks and a spoken clip about erasure. Ayewa’s music intends the opposite: “It has a lot to do with awakening memories,” she has said. You can hear history inside of it, building momentum, rolling into the future.

Best New Tracks - Pitchfork: White Lung: "Hungry"

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White Lung: "Hungry" Posted: 24 Feb 2016 08:00 AM PST In the press materials for their upcoming LP, Paradise, White Lung's formidable frontwoman Mish Barber-Way tells St. Vincent's Annie Clark that "There's this really stupid attitude that only punks have where it's somehow uncool to become a better songwriter." This is a particularly prescient statement in light of "Hungry"—Paradise's blistering lead single. While previous White Lung tracks often balanced a slowly burgeoning pop sensibility against messy, screamy, unbridled aggression, "Hungry" leans heavily on the former—a three-minute contained explosion of darkly melodic power pop that favors finesse over noise. "You are never safe from yourself," warns Barber-Way, as the song barrels ahead. Propelled by ringing guitars and Cure-appropriate backing synths, the track is a tightly-wound, catchy-as-fuck invective played at a polished, breakneck velocity. It's fitting that a band ostensibly teetering on the edge of a major breakthrough would lead with a single like "Hungry." Lyrically and in sound, it seems to address the frequent conflation of an abject hunger for fame and the more basic human desire to simply be seen and heard. To that end, "Hungry" captures a band deftly navigating the perils of aging punkdom—acknowledging that accomplishment doesn't necessitate compromise while still nodding at how any kind of celebrity can chew you up. "It's the only goal," sings Way, "Watch it all break, swallow you whole." It's a conundrum the band smartly addresses by casting criticism on basically everyone, but namely on themselves. "Baby, you're weak. Baby, you're starving," sings Way, before also checking herself. "The star will melt, but we're all hungry for it."

Best New Tracks - Pitchfork: Minor Victories: "A Hundred Ropes"

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Minor Victories: "A Hundred Ropes" Posted: 23 Feb 2016 12:30 PM PST The tired old "supergroup" concept finally has more potential to be super. Time was, a band of already-famous musicians was most likely to bring together people who already lived (and drank) in the same place—as with, for example, Johnny Depp and Alice Cooper's Grammys-approved Hollywood Vampires. Today, the ability for artists to collaborate across long distances is nothing new, but something still feels novel about such an accomplished and unpredictable broadband-connected group as Minor Victories. The project unites Slowdive singer/guitarist Rachel Goswell, Mogwai guitarist Stuart Braithwaite, and Editors' guitarist Justin Lockey, plus his brother James Lockey. (According to a press release, the band "barely spent any time" in the same room collaborating.) Their upcoming LP promises guest appearances by Mark Kozelek and the Twilight Sad's James Graham, but it's thrilling how the best of each member's better-known bands coheres all on their own on this first track, "A Hundred Ropes." Minor Victories' synth-pop is stylishly dusky, with lush orchestral touches, motorik persistence, and a closing guitar cacophony. "Here we are," Goswell murmurs, adding, "with no way to go back." Onward, then.

Best New Tracks - Pitchfork: Hudson Mohawke: "Ryderz"

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Hudson Mohawke: "Ryderz" Posted: 14 Apr 2015 02:30 PM PDT Maybe restraint isn't the first thing that comes to mind when you hear Hudson Mohawke's titanic "Ryderz"—smothered in thumping 808s and horn wailing and synth giggles, like so much Donkey Sauce on a plate at Guy's American Kitchen & Bar—but I hope you'll hear me out for a second. Building on a sample of D.J. Rogers' tender 1973 soul cut "Watch Out for the Riders", Mohawke spends the song's first minute doing something you might not expect from one of maximalism's crown princes: he lets it breathe, leaves a little space for textured vinyl bits that spit and hiss like fat coming off a thick slab of bacon, lays down a foundation. When he's stampeding over said sample with every whizbang in his toolbox, that core remains, its melody bearing all of the weight. The titular lyric starts to sound like a warning. And while it's easy to get lost in the maelstrom Mohawke stirs up by the end, it's important not to lose sight of what it took to get there: the taste to dig up Rogers' obscure original; the patience required to build that base; the wizardry behind that joyous cluster-bomb of extras. The great ones make it look easy.

Best New Tracks - Pitchfork: Kendrick Lamar: “The Blacker the Berry”

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Kendrick Lamar: “The Blacker the Berry” Posted: 09 Feb 2015 04:16 PM PST "You hate me don't you? I know you hate me as much as you hate yourself." Kendrick Lamar's first major statement since he released "i" in September is as fierce and discordant as that song was naïve and sweet. But both are flip sides of the same coin—the issue of self-love. It is clearer than ever, as his follow-up to good kid, m.A.A.d city takes shape in public, that Kendrick considers self-love—it's absence, its persistence even in the face of overwhelming societal discouragement—his great subject, the reason he's rapping. "i" was the song that gazed at the clouds, that looked deep within for reasons to love oneself. "The Blacker the Berry" balefully surveys world around him. It begins with a loop, dark and bleary, more Enter The Wu-Tang than Aquemini. His recitation of "blacker the berry, sweeter the juice" instantly brings to mind 2Pac's "Keep Ya Head Up", but just as in 2Pac's song, the line has a wistful, even wishful ring. His voice is angry, ragged, his delivery pitched between near-scream and near-sob, but his words are clear and diamond-cut: "Gangbanging got me killing a nigga blacker than me, hypocrite." It's a performance of abandonment, and part of how it flattens you is with control and discipline: His cadence runs roughshod over the beat, hitting it the way a sprinting foot hints pavement—at angles, irregularly, and with a painful muscle-twisting sense of urgency. His lines cut through everything, abandoning his occasional tendency to fill up lines with melodious filler syllables: "I mean, it's evident that I'm irrelevant to society/ That's what you're telling me, penitentiary would only hire me." It might be his most focused and upsetting performance, evoking not just the Pac of "Keep Ya Head Up" but the righteous firebreather of "Holler If Ya Hear Me". We're listening.

Best New Tracks - Pitchfork: Azealia Banks: "Ice Princess"

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Azealia Banks: "Ice Princess" Posted: 12 Nov 2014 09:45 AM PST Azealia Banks has always been good at playing dress up. Though her star-making breakout single "212" flaunted the raw lyricism of a brash Harlem art schooler, she soon constructed a persona that was something like a character from one of that student's class projects: a globetrotting, but still sharp-fanged, MC who rapped over dance beats ready for European runway shows and manifested visually as an aqua-haired mermaid. On "Ice Princess", a standout on her redemptive new album Broke With Expensive Taste, Banks is again playing dress up, but this time the pendulum swings back in the other direction. Here, Banks slips into the costume of a mainstream rapper, spitting knotty rhymes about her diamonds—"Winter wonderland body so frosty in that Bugatti," she says at one point, cribbing imagery from two decades worth of flossed-out rap. The beat, supplied by AraabMuzik, further drives the point: though Banks loves to recycle house songs wholesale, the production on "Ice Princess" hollows out a dance track until it has the unmistakable rattle of Chicago drill, America's purest form of street rap. It's unlike anything she's ever rapped over, but right when "Ice Princess" begins to feel like a simple genre exercise, Banks pulls the ripcord, revealing an interpolated chorus that mimics the breezy lilt of Kylie Minogue's "Can't Get You Out of My Head". This is Banks at her best: doing something unexpected simply because she can. Azealia Banks: "Ice Princess" on SoundCloud.

Best New Tracks - Pitchfork: Migos: "Hit Em"

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Migos: "Hit Em" Posted: 10 Nov 2014 12:30 PM PST Every rapper with a pulse and a SoundCloud tried the Migos triplet flow after last summer's YRN tipped the Atlanta trio into the national consciousness. The group, in turn, spent an unfortunate chunk of follow up No Label II reminding us that the offending parties were old and out-of-touch. They've since lightened up, and the just released Rich Nigga Timeline seems content with letting the flamboyance of its craft state the case. Early highlight "Hit Em" spread's the pugilistic theme of No Label II single "Fight Night" around a bit. It's never clear what the chorus' manic "Hit em wit it" is imploring us to hit—eggbeaters? gunshots? backshots?—but a mix of perfectly cockamamie punchlines and real triumph over adversity pulls the spotlight off a foggy concept. Offset steals the show with a quick designer spot check and a Farnsworth Bentley joke midway through: "I am not a mason but I'm rocking Margiellas/ Higher than a motherfucker, just like a propeller/ Riding in the Mulsanne, Bentley got umbrellas." But Takeoff's verse three account of the group surviving a highway drive-by back in March is a sobering rejoinder. You get the sense that the Migos' gutbusting snaps are a coping mechanism, a bit of "Tom and Jerry" to break up the Snow on tha Bluff.

Best New Tracks - Pitchfork: Natalie Prass: "Why Don’t You Believe in Me"

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Natalie Prass: "Why Don’t You Believe in Me" Posted: 04 Nov 2014 01:30 PM PST A Nashville singer-songwriter who sounds nothing like a Nashville singer-songwriter, Natalie Prass has spent much of 2014 singing back-up in Jenny Lewis' band, but she'll be her own boss in 2015. Due in January, her debut was recorded at Spacebomb Studio in Richmond, Virginia, with Trey Pollard writing string arrangements and Prass' high school friend Matthew E. White contributing horn charts. On "Why Don't You Believe in Me", from the album, the warm, lush sound morphs from one measure to the next, from the swamp-soul verses to the gently funky chorus. The song is steeped in the florid r&b of the '60s and early 1970s, around the heyday of FAME and Stax, but never beholden to mere revivalism. "Why Don't You Believe in Me" is all slow-motion strut, with a solid rhythm section anchoring the piano flourishes and flashes of brass, everything coalescing to highlight Prass' soulful phrasing. With the luxuriance of Dusty Springfield and the reedy expressiveness of Diana Ross, her voice sounds full in its lower register and fluttery when she careens toward the higher notes. Prass is one of those rare singer-songwriters who is most confident and compelling when she's examining her greatest uncertainties and fears. "Why Don't You Believe in Me" pleads with a lover not to leave, but it never stoops to beg. Instead, Prass presents her case as logically as possible, as though she is still working through things in her head. "Wanna call you but I don't, I want to be smarter," she sings. "Afraid to make my next move." She may be romantically paralyzed, but the music won't let her lapse into self-pity or self-absorption. Instead, she musters the guts to promise, "You'll wish I was with you."

Best New Tracks - Pitchfork: Shamir: "On the Regular"

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Shamir: "On the Regular" Posted: 30 Oct 2014 07:40 AM PDT Origin story, in two lines: "Ever since I was eight, I was attached to the mic/ Wanted a guitar before I wanted a bike." Young Shamir Bailey explains it all in "On the Regular", his first song since releasing the Northtown debut EP earlier this year and signing with XL shortly thereafter. Over cowbell and rude synths, Shamir brags about his style and lusts for butts while beaming adorkably in the accompanying video, where each boast and jibe comes with its own color or childhood toy. The hypnotic rhythm is briefly interrupted at the bridge, as he switches from smart-aleck spaz to angelic soul in order to wail at his haters. In the video, Shamir morphs into the soft-focus Starchild and stoically poses with a baseball bat while a disco ball spins to the side, lest you think he's being self-serious. It's enough to make you shed a single, appreciative tear. Then, the rhythm snaps back as the infectious vibe completes its takeover, making the point: This is Shamir, and now we know.

Best New Tracks - Pitchfork: Sleater-Kinney: "Bury Our Friends"

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Sleater-Kinney: "Bury Our Friends" Posted: 20 Oct 2014 10:00 AM PDT Sleater-Kinney were around for longer than the Beatles. Still, for many, it was not long enough. Nowadays, it is rare that we wish "the reunion circut" upon bands that have almost unanimously been annointed as sacred. But one great rock song in, and Sleater-Kinney 2.0 is an audibly purposeful return: a looping and instantly memorable Carrie Brownstein riff, her iconic vocal overlap with the Corin Tucker, and Janet Weiss' swoop carrying us into the future. Of course, they've all kept active since Sleater-Kinney ended in 2006—Tucker with solo records and an as-yet-unrevealed collaboration with R.E.M.'s Peter Buck, Weiss playing in Quasi and the Jicks—and Brownstein was writing some of the best songs of her career with Wild Flag, complementing her well-earned fame on "Portlandia", which now precedes her. "Creativity is about where you want your blood to flow," Brownstein told NPR today. "Because in order to do something meaningful and purposefule there has to be life inside of it." The aliveness is palpable on "Bury Our Friends". As ever, there is no direct line to be drawn to any previous formulation of the band. But working with their longtime collaborator, producer John Goodmanson, there are more hints at the charged and streamlined power of the Dig Me Out era than the epic proportions of 2005's The Woods. Rather, this clear-signed shout-along chorus makes Sleater-Kinney sound as if they indeed roam the Earth with us, reborn but ever-conscious of worldly matters, critiquing the inert dread of "our own Gilded Age" but never weighed down by the details: "Exhume our idols! Bury our friends! We're wild and weary but we won't give in!" In 2006, Sleater-Kinney offered no tangible reason to believe their energy had diffused, but it continues here, as if no time has passed at all.