Luke McCormick

A Brooklyn-based writer/editor/digital producer. https://luketmccormick.contently.com

[luketmccormick]

Warm Thoughts- I Went Swimming Alone (Asian Man Records/2018)

Crunchy, hooky pop-punk. The kind Mike Park has been releasing on Asian Man Records for years and years. Warm Thoughts is Eliot Babin whose day job is drumming for post-hardcore stalwarts Touche Amore. On 6/8 he’ll release a solo album as Warm Thoughts that’s full of summery anthems about love and friendship. That good pop-punk stuff.

What’s so impressive about the album is Babin’s voice. It’s this clear, kind-sounding singing that evokes Midtown’s Gabe Saporta. The vocals give the whole record a warm feeling. Like you’ve been putting this thing on every time you want to feel good since you were 14.

The record comes out on 6/8 on Asian Man Records and is streaming early here.

[luketmccormick]

Take a Chill Pill With “Joe Pera Talks With You”

The new Adult Swim show Joe Pera Talks With You is about the joys of small-town life. The program follows the extremely mild-mannered Joe as he discusses topics like rocks, the church announcements, fall drives, and other sweet overlooked things like those. The 10-ish minute episodes don’t exactly adhere to their topics. They swerve into things like the largeness of life and the glory of “Baba O’Riley” all while sticking with the same level of joyous awkwardness Pera exudes.

Pera introduces friends from around town throughout the series who take him as he is, sometimes busting his chops but everything is always seemingly in fun. While on Adult Swim it’s easy to imagine the thing to breaking into extreme weirdness but it never does. The show always stays its course of easy-going Upper Peninsula American living. Even though Joe does get to cut a bit loose when he discovers The Who in one episode.

It might be the funniest thing airing on Adult Swim right now. All the episodes are airing on the AS website and a bunch of Pera’s work can be found elsewhere on the internets.

Take a few minutes off and ease into this peaceful, heartfelt, hilarious world.

[luketmccormick]

2018 Heat Rocks playlists updated for Spotify and Apple Music. Impress your friends at social gatherings this weekend with all these new hammers.

[luketmccormick]

Jaye Jayle - “Ode to Betsy”

Death or the idea of it permeates all the seams of “Ode to Betsy.” Could be a murder, a suicide, a passing away during sleep, but it’s there. It’s in the buzzing drone that sits at the back of the jet-black folk song. It’s in the hypnotic, scratching yelps that counter the repetitive chorus. Evan Patterson’s Jaye Jayle is conjuring up some heavy atmosphere, whether it’s being inspired by this plane or beyond. 

Jaye Jayle’s No Trail And Other Unholy Paths arrives in June on Sargent House.

[luketmccormick]

LA duo Gun Outfit is into drugs. Speed, coke, opiates, hallucinogenics and all the cigarettes in between acquiring said substances. On the group’s newest cut “Strange Insistence” the ups and downs of pursuing and utilizing a bevy of narcotics gets stacked up against a very Dead-nodding sonic backdrop.

The guitars noodle and cascade as the backbeat rides the high hat, getting quicker and quicker as the song progresses. It’s a country tune, but one that’s more indebted to 70s Southern California and the desert than Nashville. There’s a certain tossed off cool, with a hint of evil. 

New album Out of Range comes out November 10 on Paradise of Bachelors. 

[luketmccormick]

Oslo-based Anna of the North is set to release her debut album, Lovers, on September 8th and it’s looking to be a for real electro-popper summer sleeper hit. All five tracks that have appeared online share a similar floating, minimal bpm coolness that gets compounded by her heart-revealing lyrics. 

Check the above video for pre-release standout “Someone”, which cascades and cascades over its synths, always very nearly breaking into a ‘jump straight onto your bed to continue momentous dance freakout’ territory, but never quite goes there. It’s a mesmerizing restraint. 

[luketmccormick]

I implore you to listen to the new joint EP from Lil Durk and Lil Reese. Last week the Chicago rappers released the Supa Vultures EP, a collection of six new tracks with the two’s distinct styles bouncing back and forth throughout the quick, hard hitting project. 

Durk’s smoothly melodic sing-song style does nothing to soften the edges of Reese’s always aggressive bars. Mining familiar tropes of getting out of where they came up, dropping certain amounts of stacks on cars and clothes, and the drugs that got them to all these higher planes. 

It’s a celebratory venture, but also one that finds the dudes not forgetting where they came from. 

[luketmccormick]

Chaz Bundick, one of the most consistent artists in modern popular music has released “You and I” from his upcoming Boo Boo out on July 7 via Carpark. The synths are like a warm comforter you snuggle under on a hot July night when you crank that A/C and just say “FORGET YOU UTILITIES!” Snaps and dings whizz by as he sings of change and falling out of love. The sonics are comfortable but our narrator is anything but. Check it out above. 

[luketmccormick]

“Miracle” is the new rip from Vancouver punks Needles//Pins. The track comes from upcoming record Good Night, Tomorrow out June 30. The song dips and dives with the gruffness and goofiness of a great Brendan Kelly-helmed tune. It thrashes around as the throat shredding vocals recount drinking bad nights away and those damn emotionally broke relationships. All the while instilling the sweetness and handclaps of a Lookout Records A-side. Check it out above. 

[luketmccormick]

Rollie Pemberton is a talented man. He’s been Edmonton’s poet laureate, a journalist, and he’s a flat-out great rapper. It’s been a minute since he’s released music as Cadence Weapon but the man comes back haaard with “My Crew (Woooo). Utilizing double time flows, auto-tuned croons, and a plethora of other deliveries it’s apparent no step has been lost as he raps about Montreal and his people partying there. 

Oh, it’s also produced by a pretty snappy producer named Kaytranada. Check it out above. 

Also shoutout Pemberton’s long lost personal blogspot, Razor Blade Runner, where a young Luke snagged tons of good tunes. 

[luketmccormick]

New video from Dallas rapper T.Y.E. for “Eternity” compliments of The FADER. A gifted rapper, the man also has some nasty vocal chops. He did some schooling at Texas Abilene Christian University on an opera scholarship. In the clip above and his other visuals (all helmed by DanceDaily) his theatricality comes out in his mannerisms and devotion to involving his whole body to the lines. Check out the equally impressive “No More,” below where the rapper shows an even more deft sense of wordplay. 

[luketmccormick]

Balance and Composure- “Run From Me” (2017)

“We were building a home and last I heard it was burning...” No sunshine here on this great new Record Store Day track from Pennsylvania emo guys Balance and Composure. No chunky riffs or quiet/LOUD/quiet dynamic. This new one is just despair done to a plodding rhythm section that gets brushed with brighter swashes of guitar.  

Heaven and hell ain’t going nowhere and the demons of relationships are still haunting them. Have a fun day!

[luketmccormick]

Mike WiLL Made-It- “Come Down” feat. Chief Keef and Rae Sremmurd

“Only things I worship is the Lord and this 40.” This song from Mike WiLL’s upcoming tape just confirms a couple things any non-ding dong already knew... Listen to more Chief Keef and Rae Sremmurd only create music to make you smile. 

[luketmccormick]

Texas country artist Sunny Sweeney released her legitimately great album Trophy (3/10) today and right at it’s halfway point there’s a serious gut punch. “Bottle by My Bed” begins with the singer-songwriter comparing her life of “raising cane” to that of her peers who have welcomed children into the world. The song quickly devolves into “wanting something so bad it hurts”. The level of ultimate yearning for a child her and a husband will never have is brutal. 

The sheer agony and pain in the lyrics are woven into a beautiful confessional. It’s one of the best damn songs of the year. 

[luketmccormick]

Jay Som- The Bus Song (2017)

Jay Som is a multi-instrumentalist in her early 20s who has an excellent debut coming out on 3/10 called Everybody Works. The track above, “The Bus Song” is an immediate standout. Beginning with her distorted voice and a simple strummed guitar, the thing is begging to just break open. Then... it kind of does. The song settles into a shimmering state as a couple settles into deciding on just who and what they are.

“Take time, we’ll figure it out.”

The track does eventually cascade into a beautiful swirl of trumpet and piano plinks and jangling guitar as the song’s pair attempt to make sense of things. It’s an intimate affair and the one thing in this post that has definitely been figured out.

[luketmccormick]

(Sacred Bones Records)

Blanck Mass is John Power, who is also half of electronic duo Fuck Buttons. In his sonic incarnation that is Blanck Mass he creates the kind of electronic music that I definitely don’t feel qualified or cool enough to be into. In “Silent Treatment” above,  layers and layers of samples and vocals build upon each other to create uncomfortableness. The track’s enveloping but not too intimidating as it builds to it’s ultimate breaking point. The crash turns out to be a thing of beauty. 

[luketmccormick]

Chicago rapper Tree is not one to hide emotions. For years he has utilized his gravel-throated vocals over minimal production, often created by himself, getting out whatever super heavy stuff is weighing on him.

His newest loosie doesn’t even take a blip to get down to it. “I used to be a Christian...” the rapper starts things out and moves on to referencing the first gun he purchased as a youth. Then he poses the question, how was he supposed to be different in the situation he was born into?

Check out the dusty, soul-baring above.