Grooves N Jams

[groovesnjams]

"Garden of Light" by The Olivia Tremor Control

DV:

Can you really trust a posthumous release? And do you want to? These are separate questions, I think. Because the appeal is definitely there - and when it comes to demos in particular I'm probably more curious then most - but presenting something entirely new as the work of an artist who could not consent to its release feels complicated. It's not theirs anymore, no matter how much their friends feel they're following the notes and wishes of the deceased. But this is where we are with the upcoming new album from The Olivia Tremor Control, after both lead songwriters died (Bill Doss in 2012, Will Cullen Hart in 2024) before finishing the record. The fact that it's coming out in a few months feels like a miracle, but also feels undeniably fraught. And to be clear I do think Robert Schneider, the surviving OTC band members, and everyone else involved with finishing this album have the very best of intentions here! The way they've presented this as the band's "third and final album" avoids concerns that this is the beginning of a series of cash grabs (the kind of thing we've certainly seen from plenty of other artists' estates), and the knowledge that primary recording was finished before Doss passed also helps. It still feels weird. This may be the final OTC album, but we'll never really know if it's the album we would have gotten if Doss and Cullen Hart had gotten to finish it themselves. Which in a strange way aligns OTC further with The Beach Boys' unfinished 1967 record SMiLE, one of their foundational influences and another liminal album - one that's finished (because Brian Wilson released a masterful version in 2004) and never completed (because the 2004 version could not have fit on a 1967 vinyl release, so what we have now fundamentally can't be the "original" vision for the album.) Even if The Same Place is a masterpiece, it won't be the same masterpiece it might have been.

All that said: based on "Garden of Light" it sounds pretty promising! I want to be excited, and I am - but also, at least for the moment, I've got reservations.

MG:

I tend to think of these posthumously completed and posthumously released artworks as in line with AI avatars or hologram performers -- that is to say: extremely dubious -- but also in line with discovering a lost manuscript -- and that is to say: of some public benefit when shared. When my dad died he left behind two huge custom bookcases full of a meticulously curated collection of comics, novels, essays, and songbooks. Over the decade since, people have visited and picked through the books and took what they wanted. I still do this from time to time even though I know it troubles the dead and the very action haunts me.

I watched Eyes Wide Shut for the first time last week and learned that it's canonically incomplete because before turning in his final draft, Kubrick told some friends that it was his masterwork and other friends that it was incomplete and needed revision. I feel like I know my dad doesn't want his bookcase rifled through -- I was never allowed to do that when he lived! -- but there was never any instruction and he surrendered control over that decision with his life. As did Bill Doss and Will Cullen Hart. As will we all because there's always something left behind. Maybe OTC should have taken the Kubrick chute and released what they had between the two deaths in order to maintain an illusion of control and authenticity, but as a listener, the Kafka ladder sounds just as believable.

Whether or not you accept this as the third and final Olivia Tremor Control album, it's clear that right up to death these band leaders valued pretty harmonies and swirling psychedelic song structures. "Garden of Light" is as pleasant as its title suggests.

[groovesnjams]

"Situation" by Johnny Blue Skies & The Dark Clouds

MG:

Elsewhere, on the dark side of alt country, Sturgill Simpson is horny. I have personally complained up and down this blog about the lack of eroticism in today's media so it's perhaps ironic that I return to say: not like this! Johnny Blue Skies most recent project (titled Mutiny After Midnight) is noble enough in premise. Simpson, too, has chafed against the dry, sexless chasm that is -- I think, specifically -- heterosexual culture. (And certainly the reporting around real sex lives is almost exclusively centered on whether or not men and women are having sex with each other. I have frankly no idea how queer sex lives are faring in contrast.) His solution? Well, his own horniness. His horniness will make us all horny, I guess. Not me, though. Lines like "I wanna get you wet" imply the woman's body has an on/off switch, like she sits around dry until he shows up and plugs her in. And that's the only real thought Simpson gives to his sex object's state, the rest of the song is about the ways he will be used.

If I may intrude to make a confession: until this year I hadn't heard any Waylon Jennings. I mean, yes, I'd heard "Mamas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys" in passing, but I couldn't tell you that was a Waylon Jennings song nor pick his voice out of a line up. But my husband remedied that, declaring this the summer of Waylon. Having heard Sturgill Simpson's source material, I find "Situation" even more abject. Waylon, too, pursued a latter career disco-ish pivot on his album Black on Black. Its tight, not quite 30 minute runtime ends with "Get Naked With Me" which explores the same concept as "Situation" but without the Millennial dad sex humor or try-hard references to brothels in Guam. Sturgill Simpson is embarrassing -- both for his Single White Female reproduction of his hero's catalog and for writing a song about sex that gives me the same feeling I had as a child when my parents kissed.

DV:

I am unsure what level of irony is invoked by a Sturgill Simpson video that includes clips of Austin Powers, but I hate it. If you're determined to make a deeply cringe sex song, you should at least have the courage of your convictions! And to be clear, I do not want to overly disparage cringe - which is typically earnest, if nothing else, and often the companion of authenticity. But part of the problem with "Situation" is that it's not honest. It's built of corny jokes and smugness, too satisfied with its own detached cleverness to hit any of its marks. Or maybe Sturgill Simpson genuinely thinks "Your body's hotter than a brothel in Guam" is the kind of pickup line that can actually work. Much like the video, I'm not sure which would be worse, but I am sure neither option is the tiniest bit sexy.

[groovesnjams]

"Lavender Cowboy" by Andrew Sa

DV:

Ever since reading about the growing queer country scene in Chicago (and elsewhere), I've been trying to find a way to reconnect with the genre. Unfortunately - and I fear this is outing myself as a fake country fan but I can't really help it - I kinda want all country songs to hit like Faith Hill in 1998. "Lavender Cowboy," for all its charms, most certainly does not. It's a lovely, heartstring-tweaking tribute to pioneering gay country icon Patrick Haggerty, but man does it have twang. Which is where a lot of queer country seems to fall - this is the kind of music that gets played on NPR and categorized under "Americana" at most record shops that carry it, not the kind that aspires to compete with Morgan Wallen on the charts. Which is probably for the best! But it does mean that while I can appreciate "Lavender Cowboy", I'm not really feeling it the way I thought I might. And that part's a shame, because mainstream country hasn't really been hitting like anything lately. It could really use a shakeup, even if it's impossible to fault Sa and his peers for building their own universe elsewhere.

MG:

And on the opposite end of the spectrum, this is exactly what I've been trying to hear all year. Faith Hill simply doesn't ache the way a pedal steel aches. You can't wear "ragged angel wings" and be wrapped up in love. "Lavender Cowboy" might err on the side of preciousness, ceding a little raw power or a bit of grit to pure, tender loveliness, but that's what suckers me. I didn't watch Heated Rivalry but I did listen to a lot of podcasts discussing the relationship between the gay hockey romance show and its straight women fans and I'd venture what I like about "Lavender Cowboy" is operating within a similar dynamic. It sounds vulnerable and emotional in a way men often aren't -- more boyish and open-hearted. And yet, still lusty! It's "Desperado" made both explicit and delicate.

[groovesnjams]

"Danceteria" by Madonna

DV:

Never having listened to a Madonna album, Confessions on a Dance Floor included, I had little in the way of expectations for Confessions II - I might not have even checked it out if I hadn't liked the Honey Dijon remix of one of the earlier singles. I for sure wasn't expecting a song to hit like Daft Punk's Random Access Memories if it was done right, which "Danceteria" does. Simultaneously elegiac and euphoric, it's the story of who Madonna is and how she came to be told via a series of connections and names so excessive it moves from fun to funny to poignant and back more than once in the song's runtime. It never bogs down, partially thanks to Madonna's nimble delivery and partially to the sparkling production, from not just Stuart Price but more contemporary hitmakers Cirkut and watt. Credit to all of them for landing on something that feels slightly unmoored in time, a beat and a story that feels like it could play in a club in 1982 or at the turn of the century just as much as I know it's filling a floor in a gayborhood at the moment I'm writing this.

MG:

In some ways this feels an unfair, even misogynistic, comparison to draw, but it's also one formalized in songs like "Madonna, Sean, and Me" and in footage from 1991: The Year Punk Broke, and it's where my mind went first after hearing "Danceteria." Madonna fucking bodied Kim Gordon this year. The two are more alike, more linked, than it might appear on the surface. Gordon's art school persona is just as youth obsessed as Madonna's more overtly trendfucky approach. They've both had obvious facelifts. But while Madonna is embracing legacy, Gordon is still chasing the vanguard. In a world where prepubescent kids are using anti-aging skincare products and botox is present as "maintenance," I think embracing legacy is the vanguard. "Danceteria" is a thrilling new chapter of Madonna's massive, impressive, and always striving artwork because it recalls "Vogue,""Into The Groove," and "Everybody," because it twirls through a lifetime of dance floors, because it's the coolest party with the coolest guest list.

There's a version of me that would feel betrayed reading this, but Madonna is way cooler than Kim Gordon. Kim Gordon is slithering into a trap beat like it's a Halloween costume to explore the plight of white collar workers -- so I guess it's a stage play that takes place on Halloween? Costumes on costumes on costumes, a hall of mirrors reflecting empty nothingness. It's, you know, basically what Madonna did Madame X. Ever the inspiration, maybe "Danceteria" will point Gordon in a fresh (even introspective!) direction. Regardless, it's a high water mark that should surprise no one.

[groovesnjams]

"Lost Boys" by Phoebe Bridgers

MG:

If you'll forgive me for where I've decided to begin this analysis, I watched Ezra Klein's interview of author Gary Shteyngart discussing, mostly, his 2010 novel Super Sad True Love Story. Haven't read it, but in discussing the characters Klein says to Shteyngart: "There’s nothing worse than reading the journal entries of somebody who wrote a journal hoping somebody would one day read their journal entries." And that's where I'm at with Phoebe Bridgers in 2026. I guess I disagree with Ezra Klein because for close to a decade I've really enjoyed her lyrics; lyrics I think are pretty obviously mined from diary entries, or sometimes generated by narrating memories to her audience. Bridgers homes in on acute details -- the ceiling fan in "Not Strong Enough" or the payphone in "Kyoto" -- that become these unforgettable thematic symbols for relationships or emotional states. And that's here in "Lost Boys," too; it's the twin bed -- mirrors, dopplegangers, union, birth, and loss. But as beautiful as that leit motif bridge is, it's not enough to make up for the utterly boring remains of the song. One of the problems with using your diary for art is that the text reveals how often we repeat the same mistakes, over and over. "Lost Boys" rehashes "Kyoto" on a line of cocaine -- the motorbike goes 90 now, she's in Germany instead of Japan (how edgy), she's sorry instead unforgiving. The trumpet returns.

As she retreated from Punisher and as her influence advanced on a generation of singer-songwriters I hoped Bridgers would give us her Kid A. Make those memories abstraction, write in the second person or something. Necessarily, I thought this would also correspond with more outré production -- and Jack Antonoff, producer of Grammy music, is capable of delivering, he's just not capable of suggesting that direction. I find the count-in to the final chorus particularly infuriating because the best part of this era, so far, is Bridgers locking her audience's phones in pouches. There's nothing distracting them from the big moment except for the fact that it's a defused grenade, inert in a vacant field.

DV:

Unfortunately I can only echo MG on this one; "Lost Boys" is too dully familiar to provide anything but diminishing returns on a template that should have been abandoned long ago. And while the final-chorus push for catharsis is very much Bridgers', the mannered trumpet, mournful yet triumphant, reminds me of early Sufjan Stevens - another artist who seemed to emerge almost fully formed and then struggled, at least a bit, to break free from the structures he'd built around himself. What I'm saying is, Phoebe Bridgers doesn't need her own Kid A - a self-important, self-conscious, delicately-constructed experimental statement about the world today. Aside from the "experimental" part, she's already making that and it's no longer working the way it used to. If she's looking for a new north star - and "Lost Boys" suggests that she should be - Bridgers would be better off aiming for Age of Adz, a bracing, messy album that I'd be shocked to hear is anyone's favorite in Stevens' discography. Yet it was necessary, a reset that opened up his palette and found new avenues for him to explore. If Bridgers was willing to let herself loosen up a bit, be less authoritative and less constrained by the persona she's trapped within, then she too might find something more interesting to say - and a better way to say it. Until then there's hardly a better metaphor for where she stands than that chorus count-in ending with a shriek that's immediately drowned out by the polished reverb of a hook identical to the one we've heard twice before.

[groovesnjams]

"DJ Turn It Down" by Boy Throb & Kesha

MG:

Though the conceit of "DJ Turn It Down" might seem arch on its face -- this song does, after all, feature the club's very own Kesha -- I think it has literal merits. The club is just too loud, and I don't say that exclusively as a middle aged woman with hearing damage. When I was a child I'd leave with a persistent ringing in my ears; now I leave with a sore, hoarse throat from screaming to be heard. It's the exact problem Boy Throb specifies and Kesha legitimizes: the club is for everyone. What makes "DJ Turn It Down" genuinely interesting beyond its reversal of the boy band paradigm is Darshaun's verse. Evan, Zachary, Amthony, and Kesha are all perfectly talented, but without Darshaun this is basically just a straightforward pop song. Darshaun's Indian-accented English is a powerful frisson of possibility.

By now we're all well aware the American empire is crumbled beyond repair, doomed to alternating periods of hard and soft fascism. Our economy is a bubble and our cultural power is ceded. There's no better evidence of the nation's decline than its refusal to grant Darshaun an O-1 visa. This country used to thrill to hear its language in the mouths of outsiders -- we sent Eggy Eggz to the top of our pop chart, we let Taylor Swift top the country chart, we created a sexuality for Ricky Martin. If we're going to turn over national security to South African-Argentinian Peter Thiel, we could probably acknowledge Darshaun's contributions to modern music.

DV:

Despite considering The Rehearsal a defining text of our era, I had not heard of Boy Throb (who, the theorists believe, will feature in season 3 whenever Nathan Fielder finishes it) until MG introduced them to me. It may be that Fielder truly has no significant connection to the group, but in some sense it really does not matter: this is a novelty song whether or not it's destined for a metafictional prank show. And that's nothing new for pop, since novelty songs have been around as long as the genre's been conceptualized and they've never really stopped coming. There's "The Bad Touch" and "Barbie Girl" and "Puttin' on the Ritz" and "The Thong Song" and "A Fifth of Beethoven", bangers all, regardless of how seriously you (or their creators) decide to take them. "DJ Turn It Down" makes a compelling point about the relative benefits of hearing damage and a good night's sleep in its quest for virality, but asking whether it's a joke is - while the obvious question - the wrong one. No pop music is serious, which is arguably what makes it so important. "Is 'Istanbul (not Constantinople)' a joke?" "Can 'The Monster Mash' describe a real party?" "Does Taylor Swift really wear t-shirts?" These are the wrong questions, because the only important one in pop is whether the song bangs. And when faced with that question, "DJ Turn It Down" falls somewhat short: the production (from Michel Schulz and Pink Slip) needs to be less generic if Boy Throb want to join the upper echelons of novelty hitmakers.

[groovesnjams]

"On Wires" by Carly Rae Jepsen

DV:

She may say that "On Wires" is a signal to "expect the unexpected", but hearing noted theater kid Carly Rae Jepsen start off a song with the same basic vamp as "It's the Hard-Knock Life" and "Into the Woods (Prologue)" and a dozen other musical classics is not exactly what I'd consider surprising - except in the sense that it's taken until album eight (or seven, or ten, depending on how you're counting) for it to happen. Thankfully "On Wires" does get stranger as it goes on, building on the baby steps Carly took in that direction last album cycle with tracks like "Psychedelic Switch" and "Kollage." Credit producer Kyle Shearer ("Switch", "Fever", and many others), back with Carly again and bringing an interestingly looped sample, a willingness to deploy aggressive instrumentation, and a bracing approach to reverb to the track. But also credit Carly, who writes a chorus that's like a funhouse mirror version of "I Really Like You." There, the breathless repetition was an expression of anxiety and uncertainty; here it's much simpler, horniness expressed in three little words. And that shift, from the lightness of the theatrical verses to the crashing rock idiom of the hook, is where "On Wires" actually delivers on the promise of being something new. After the relative bloat of the Loneliest/Loveliest Time era (there's a great album in those two records!) I hope the rest of Day and Night follows suit.

MG:

I fear I'm in my bored era. I've connected with very little of the releases I've encountered this year and it's nowhere worse than in pop and its alts. I don't hear anything strange here -- well, aside from the lyric "I wanna be more than friends for the week" which implies, what? that she's here for a conference or something? -- and I'm tired of pretending reverb or sampling is groundbreaking. "On Wires" does sound particularly suited to one of my favorite garbage music genres: TV show plot explication. Alas, no one but Carly Rae Jepsen is horny (during the business trip) anymore! There's no sex scene for this song to soundtrack. If this is the first single, it's hard to imagine there's anything more revelatory on her second concept album in a row.

[groovesnjams]

"Secret Language" by Ryan Beatty

DV:

Here's a slow burn that actually pays off. "Secret Language" starts with Ryan Beatty singing just above a whisper, intimate and precise, easing into the song before it slowly begins to unfold. It's less that "Secret Language" adds layers and more that the layers we begin with gradually add intensity. The muted trumpet that's setting off fireworks at the end gets carefully seeded early on, adding quieter punctuation. The lead guitar unspools a solo, but first it gently slides its way into the mix. The drums keep a quiet shuffle long before you hear the crash of a cymbal. Beatty himself builds from the space his vocal maps out in the first verse, never becoming overdramatic but expanding his emotive range alongside the production. It's a kind of ecstatic precision, like watching a flower spread its petals as the morning sunlight touches it.

MG:

I hear the opposite -- the crescendo "Secret Language" comes to is messy and disjointed, but that serves to underline the song's themes. Ryan Beatty is all about saying "I love you" without using the cliche phrase and as a result, his big pop melody is pretty inscrutable. No matter, I'm not the audience for this song. I was prepared to say I'm still served by The Avett Brothers' "I And Love And You" but I just listened to it and had to stop after the titular line because at this moment being unable to say "I love you" is so, so fucking corny to me that I feel like my body is rejecting its essence. It's ok to say it the same way everyone else says it, it's ok to not be so special.

[groovesnjams]

"the feeling" by Steve Lacy

DV:

A while back MG described Lauren Auder as "almost there" and this is perpetually how I feel about Steve Lacy, an artist whose songs always strike me positively on first impression and diminish as they go on, enough that I sometimes forget what I'm listening to by the end. "the feeling" is a case in point: lush and enveloping from the first note, it seems instantly familiar. And then it spends four and a half minutes feeling the same way. Lacy tastefully layers in some additional instrumentation and some backing vocals over time, but the baseline remains constant - and his lead vocal is no less stable - beginning at the exact vibe that it'll retain for the entire song. It's a song that simply refuses to waver from its set register, from the lyric to the topline, and one that would benefit from any variation. The second verse comes closest, spoke-sung by Lacy in a deadpan that the production, unfortunately, barely acknowledges. And "the feeling" is dotted with these near-misses, including the "Am I your baby" refrain that should be heartbreaking but doesn't stand out enough to conjure the depth it reaches for. In a way, Lacy's polish works against him: the sound is beautiful here, but beneath the surface, something's missing.

MG:

Contrary to popular preference, I think most podcasters talk too fast and their shows are best played slowed to about .85 speed. Life is too hectic as it is! But then I hear "the feeling" and I get the impulse to hit the gas. This song is stuck in a very frustrating neutral gear, creeping when it should race. I'm currently obsessed with Smokey Robinson's "Cruisin'" and I think it offers some instruction for Lacy here. Much like the advice for a minimalist wardrobe, I think if you want strip back and mine the midtempo, you better sound expensive. Lacy just doesn't -- this is cheap production and a bored vocal.

[groovesnjams]

"Prophecy at 1420 MHz" by Boards of Canada

MG:

Both nostalgia and eeriness are tacked to the Boards of Canada inspiration collage, so to hear them dialed up on "Prophecy at 1420 MHz" is no great surprise, but on previous releases the group has pulled at those concepts until they were much less specific and recognizable. This isn't to say "Prophecy" is bad by any stretch; it has the darkness, the atmosphere, the foreboding that I love especially during a barren and haunting winter. It is to say that Boards of Canada now find themselves in an imagined or remembered past rather than their own hermetic universe. "Prophecy" is nakedly cinematic instead of carefully evocative and it's good, but it lacks imagination, which was once an element of that above collage.

DV:

At least one of us has to say "Prophecy at 1420 MHz" is bad, and if MG isn't going to bite the bullet I reluctantly will. It's empty, obvious, redundant. A lot of what I recently wrote about The Avalanches, another group that made its biggest and arguably best statements decades ago, applies here as well. But whatever negative things can be said about "Together", at very least it's trying something different, something that wouldn't fit comfortably on any of the albums that preceded it. In contrast, "Prophecy at 1420 MHz" sounds like the hollowed out carapace of earlier Boards of Canada work. It's hard to think of a reason for this to exist, but I suppose even the most critically acclaimed artists aren't immune to the pull of nostalgia for their (relative) youth.

[groovesnjams]

"The Beast" by Patrick Wolf

DV:

If anyone had told me four years ago that after a decade's absence we were on the precipice of Patrick Wolf dropping a EP and LP, and that he'd follow the latter up with a new single less than 12 months later - not to mention multiple US tours - I think I might have passed out. But here we are, and if every release still feels a little improbable, well, that sense of the uncanny has never been entirely absent from his work anyway. "The Beast", a song built on the concept of drawing strength from strangeness, dropped the week before Pride Month. It'd feel pointed even if we weren't experiencing a sustained, multi-national attack on queer (especially trans) people. Wolf begins with fairytale imagery, characters trapped in stories they choose to reject - it works, but seems a little too arch up until halfway through when the song makes a sonic turn from the dance pop of the beginning to a sort of deconstructed version of its own production. "I don't owe you an explanation/ Of the nature of the beast that I've become," he intones, his voice low in the mix. The atmosphere ceases to be a party and becomes unsettled, dramatic. So when he croons, "But I'm not the only one/ Yes it's all the rage," Wolf recontextualizes the narratives of the song's first half, transforming them into expressions of comradeship within the queer community. And he turns one of the attack lines deployed against queer people for longer than any of us have been alive - the idea that queerness is contagious, like a meme or a trend - into an expression of power. If queerness is "all the rage," if "we become the beast" (as Wolf says at the end), then it is a threat to the power structure that seeks to eradicate us. What "The Beast" suggests is that we embrace this, rather than seeking to shrink ourselves into a world that will never see us as small enough. It's a defiant anthem for a gayer tomorrow, and while June is young enough that I'm sure we'll hear other attempts, I suspect there isn't a better song for Pride Month 2026.

MG:

Devoted as he is to whimsy and yore, I admire that Patrick Wolf is an artist I can be sure is not using a viral bot-based media scheme to gin up attention for his latest project. It's not a flavor you can specifically taste in his work -- that would be gauche -- but Wolf is profoundly divorced from commerce. In that way, I can't really imagine him intentionally releasing a Pride Month single, but there is a certain rhyming pleasure in his serendipity: a gay anthem for the pride community capitalism left behind.

[groovesnjams]

"Fuck the DJ" by Eli

DV:

Back when Nadia Oh told us she wanted to be the DJ's girlfriend, it felt a little like settling - like, if you're the visionary singer whose work anticipates everything from PC Music to hyperpop, why wouldn't you just be the DJ? Thankfully Nadia's final single to date finally took that step and put her behind the decks (RIP, she's a Tory now.) It may be too soon to tell whether Eli has a similar song-based character arc in front of her, but "Fuck the DJ" has so much to say that maybe it's best if she stays a little bit on the outside, throwing darts wherever she needs to. "Nobody getting ugly in the club these days," she muses in the chorus, just before dropping the titular line. It's brash and bold and - as is typical for Eli - walks a tightrope between funny and heartfelt. "Hey, I wanna fuck the DJ" doesn't sound like settling because it's not asking for a relationship: the hook hits like a whim, a joke, an urge during an eventful night of partying that also allows Eli to drop some ridiculous names. It sounds carefree in the best sense.

MG:

Though I remain disappointed in whatever commercially popular music is these days (a very quick scan of the Billboard top 10 reveals 3 Drakes, 2 Ella Langleys and 2 Olivia Deans which feels like, yeah, the Mag 7 of our cultural stock exchange or something) I find pure pop sonics to be an evergreen well of inspiration. Eli presents a fever vision of 2008 -- a time when, indeed, the ugliest thing you could do was fuck the DJ. She's presented a mirror image of the era, reflecting a setting where the pop was pristine so we could all get messy with a messy song to listen to in your bedroom or car. This might read like a criticism, of Eli or Gen Z or capitalism, but it's just another pendulum swing carving into the mountains of taste and desire, further hollowing out the valley of existence. At this point, there's a genuine debate to be had about whether Eli is pop because "Fuck the DJ" sounds like pop music from a bygone decade or whether Eli is post-punk because she makes niche music that's critically well regarded from childhood memories. Our simple system could only contain so much data; it's now consumed by incoherence.

[groovesnjams]

"Miss You" by Ms Ray & Nourished by Time

MG:

Ms Ray's Melt EP is designed with architectural sophistication as its guiding principle. All five songs sound like they're set in an LA office building at dusk -- right before both the German terrorists and John McClane roll in for the yearly Christmas party. Its highlight is "Miss You," featuring Nourished by Time fresh from last year's fantastic The Passionate Ones. Where he's earthy and sincere, vamping parts of his verse, Ms Ray is airy and delicate, vague in her concept of loss. Together they're natural duet partners, joining to elevate "Miss You" from minor break up to major earworm.

DV:

Maybe they're a little too natural of partners, in the way they hit the same vibe from different directions and settle into a middle groove that never quite sells the yearning the lyric describes. Or maybe it's the production, which keeps threatening to kick into higher gear and never quite does. Why not both? "Miss You" is a sum that's less than its parts, not a bad song by any stretch but one that's too genteel to dig in as deeply as it should. Ms Ray and Nourished By Time sing about longing for an ex, but what their song's really missing is drama.

[groovesnjams]

"Together" by The Avalanches ft. Nikki Nair, Jessy Lanza, Prentiss

DV:

Perhaps I should learn a lesson from "We Will Always Love You", which still makes little sense as a standalone single but fits neatly into The Avalanches album of the same name, a record that's grown on me tremendously since it was released in 2020. On the other hand, perhaps I shouldn't overcorrect too much; "Frankie Sinatra" is still kinda a mess and so is the sophomore album it comes from. "Together" is in yet another lane - it sounds unlike anything the group's done before, and burbles and bleeps with enough energy that it's instantly sticky in a way they've sometimes struggled to achieve with their singles. But it still seems a little like it's waiting for context. "Frontier Psychiatrist" aside, The Avalanches have always been an album band, and when "Together" stops - not ends, just stops - it only serves to emphasize that the success of this song hinges on how it fits into a greater whole that we've yet to hear.

The interesting thing about The Avalanches as they enter their fourth decade as a band and approach their third album since their "comeback" is how their post-2015 releases have changed their legacy. Since I Left You made them legends, put them in a club with other artists who dropped a perfect record and never followed it up. But then they returned 14 years later, and everything changed. With their once-innovative approach to sampling now so mainstream it's almost not worth mentioning and a discography that's no longer legendary in its brevity but spotty-at-best, I'm no longer sure quite what distinguishes them from someone like their occasional collaborator Jamie XX, who shares a similar crate-digging ethos that leads to equally inconsistent results, or producers like Sofia Kourtesis, who take bits of their aesthetic in more personal directions. Or even #content-driven followers like Sabrina the Teenage DJ, who don't have anything new to add but raise the question: do The Avalanches, either? It's strange to think of a fourth album as a referendum on an artist, but that's where I find myself with The Avalanches - after a disappointing re-debut in 2016 and a promising follow-up, number four seems poised to be a deciding vote on whether they should have returned at all. Based on "Together," I'm undecided but cautiously optimistic.

MG:

I want to offer a sympathetic reconsideration of The Avalanches legacy in the context of some of their generational peers but I also don't; I hate "Together." In comparison to LCD Soundsystem -- a group I will never forgive for mining their fans' pockets with a fake break up and subsequent "reunion" tours -- I think releasing ever diminishing material in order to revive conversation around your erstwhile master stroke is a fair enough strategy. But it might not be a strategy at all because most creative work starts to circle the bowl by the fourth decade and that takes me to "Together." I genuinely think The Avalanches are nostalgic for the era that made them revolutionaries. These lists hold almost no sway anymore (even for their intended audience: nerds) but Since I Left You rightly belongs on a tally of the greatest albums of all time and, as DV points out, it remains very influential. "Together" sounds nothing like that alternate universe, it simply evokes the turn of the century -- playfully colorful computer devices, a childlike wonder at the burgeoning internet, the threat of what might wait for us if we submit to capitalist demagogues. Or maybe it's just me that hears something menacing in the promise of "forever and ever." Regardless of whether this song is delightfully chipper like its surface or creepy and darksided like its underworld, it's grim to have lived this life the first time and still be feeding from its umbilical cord.

[groovesnjams]

"Shattered" by Jump Source

MG:

Helena Deland released one of my favorite folk albums of this decade, the resolute and sparse Goodnight Summerland which unfurls at the pace of time spent alone. It's an album for noticing the details, all the little moments of life that escape our attention amid the din of everyday distraction. So, it's fascinating to hear her voice on "Scattered," doing a kind of slick, Suzanne Vega on "Tom's Diner" thing for Jump Source. She's the source of tension that propels the song everywhere from grimy clubs to chic modern living rooms to the worlds that exist between a pair of headphones. "Scattered" is both intimate and universal thanks to Deland's hums and whispers; a fantastic star turn from an artist who previously seemed disinterested in the kind of electricity a spotlight requires.

DV:

I have a longstanding soft spot for a folk/dance music crossover, a lineage that of course includes "Tom's Diner" but peaks with Jane Lancaster's "It's a Fine Day" and its many many derivative works. It's a genre pairing that has yet to run out of steam, and "Shattered" ably demonstrates its continued effect. The beat skitters and burbles with anxiety, never quite settling into a single place, but Deland balances it with a steady whisper and that earworm "deh deh deh" refrain. The result is perhaps a little slight when measured against the majesty of something like "Halcyon + On + On", but that's true of almost anything - and maybe in a year Jump Source can remix this and double its length.

[groovesnjams]

"Where Have All the Good Men Gone?" by Debbii Dawson

DV:

Despite Bruno Mars' best efforts, the 70s remain an untapped source in the modern pop ecosystem. Part of the problem is that he makes music for passing time between sessions at corporate conferences, but part is that Mars is almost never fully committed: his pastiches bounce between winking at the audience and patting himself on the back for whatever technically-impressive feat he's pulling off this time. He has plenty of hits but they rarely hit.

I don't expect Debbii Dawson to bring the 70s back to the top ten, but I do think she absolutely believes it's possible (and someone else must too, since this is produced by Joel Little ("Royals", et al.)) Unlike Mars, Dawson plays this theatrical throwback straight, and more or less pulls it off: while "Where Have All the Good Men Gone?" lacks the mid-song twist of last year's "You Killed the Music", it shares that song's sense of drama and sweeping ambition. Is it still a little silly? Of course: at one point Dawson asks whether the good men got lost in the Bermuda Triangle. She strikes exactly the right balance, passionate without being polished into dullness, and the humor fits well into a pop landscape that currently has potential-peers like Sabrina Carpenter, Raye, and of course Chappell. There have been stranger hits recently - maybe it's time.

MG:

Debate about Bruno Mars aside, every production flourish and even Debbii Dawson's make-up cues date to the early-80s. I was hoping for a little disco, a little sensuality, but this is synthpop in bold jewel tones. It's been about 20 years, maybe we're due for a "Don't Stop Believin'" revival (and if this is it, Dawson is a fantastic spiritual sequel to Steve Perry's ridiculous, grinning earnestness) but I'm personally not ready. None of the ideas that populated the songs "Where Have All The Good Men Gone?" references (a small town boy making it in the big city, heterosexual monogamy, and the eternal coolness of drums) are popular or even viable concepts in the current milieu. Thus, Dawson sings a sort of children's morning cartoon song about "good men" that I think might actually be anti-war anthem too subtle to clock. In that way, perhaps the song is more closely aligned with hits like "I Melt With You" or "Forever Young" -- songs you'd never guess are about nuclear fallout. I strongly doubt she has a hit on her hands, but "Where Have All The Good Men Gone?" is much more interesting than yet another bop about coupling.

[groovesnjams]

"drop dead" by Olivia Rodrigo

DV:

First of all: where is this cursed bar that closes at 11:00, three full hours earlier than any normal bar in the real world closes and five or more hours before last call at what is commonly known as a "late bar." Perhaps this date is happening at a bar for children? It's all very confusing, but winds up contributing to the overall charm of "drop dead," which convincingly makes the case that Dan Nigro can't ruin every song he produces. Part of that is down to the lyric's detailed, compelling encapsulation of a suddenly inescapable infatuation, part is Rodrigo's half-spoken delivery on the second verse and the fantastically euphoric "Pieces and a Gemini" bridge. I'm vaguely reminded of Haha I'm Sorry and DAISY Rage era Kitty - though Rodrigo is much less densely referential, she shares more than a little with the emotional openness and vulnerability Kitty tapped into there. "drop dead" could still stand to be bolder - Nigro still seems fundamentally incapable of handling drums, and the song can't decide between committing to dreamy or driving, splitting the difference and losing the dynamism of either approach in the process. It's a testament to Rodrigo (and Nigro and Amy Allen, in their capacity as cowriters) that the song works as well as it does. But as is increasingly the case with everything Nigro produces, I can't help wishing we could get a remix from someone who knows what they're fucking doing.

MG:

Maybe I am just having a bad day or a bad life but after listening to "drop dead" I have come to the conclusion that there is no art under capitalism. This song is simply not distinct enough from anything else by a myriad of other artists (Taylor Swift being the only one really worth naming) to write a critical review. What I could write is a product review. The uses of this song, how the little touches that Rodrigo adds -- her razor sharp juxtaposition of the bathroom line and the walls of Versailles -- set it apart from the generic slop, trendy slang, and two buck synonyms that inform the latest work from Swift. It's a more informed iteration of late adolescent girl pop, a nuanced color and gritty formula for your soft goth lo--oh, sorry, a blush description slipped in there by accident. Well, you get the idea. This is the same thing we've been sold and bought up wantonly for generations. You'll like it but if you don't there's another one doing the same thing and if you try enough it'll feel better to like it than to admit how much you wasted. Happy Friday, I love you all so much.