huahsu

[huahsu]

A RAT YEAR

previous years: THE MOON REPRESENTS MY HEART :: 2019 A SONG THAT DEGRADES EACH TIME YOU PLAY IT :: 2018 A CHURCH AND JOHN LENNON’S “IMAGINE” :: 2017  SIKH DEVOTIONAL MUSIC :: 2016 SPOOKY BLACK :: 2015

Not just other people, the sight of other people on the subway or bus, walking carefree down the street, lost in their music, emitting auras, and I’m wondering what that music is. Not just music, I miss the stories, the way we gather around a sound as though it’s a flame, the way other sounds, triggering other other sounds, can shatter and send us. Not a sound, but a volume I miss is when you’re at a club or a show, and you’re trying to tell someone something, and you’re conscious of not wanting to shout directly in their ear, since you know a polite whisper will get drowned out by the music, and so you (or, in this case, I) resort to a loud mutter, or you emphasize the most important words and hope they can fill in the rest, or you tiptoe your sentence through the noise, guiding whatever you’re saying in between the quiet spaces of the music. Not music, but a sound I thought about a lot this year was a young Black man killed by the cops, his name was Elijah McClain, and he used to play the violin to comfort stray cats. Not playing the violin, rather sawing open this world to reveal one somewhere else that I’d like to believe exists.  IF ONLY THIS HAD EXISTED WHEN I WAS LEARNING CELLO AS A TEENAGER Clarice Jensen, The experience of repetition as death PER USUAL: MY FAVORITE HARP RECORDINGS OF 2020 (HORSEHAIR CATEGORY) Rhodri Davies, Telyn Rawn

FAVORITE HARP (PEDAL) Dezron Douglas and Brandee Younger, Force Majeure MOST LISTENED-TO ALBUMS THAT FELT INSTANTLY FAMILIAR AND WELCOMING Duval Timothy, Help Jeff Parker, Suite for Max Brown MOST LISTENED-TO ALBUM THAT CONFUSED AND DELIGHTED ME ANEW EACH TIME, IT SOUNDS LIKE NOTHING ELSE Still House Plants, Fast Edit ROOKIE OF THE YEAR KeiyaA, Forever, Ya Girl FREE JAZZMATAZZ Boldy James and Sterling Toles, Manger on McNichols

FREQUENTLY SUBLIME...MOTORBIKES, RICKSHAWS, CHAOS THROUGH WEAK CLOCK RADIO SPEAKERS 3Phaz, Three Phase EARTH HEALED HERSELF Gaia Tones, #002 Chains/Shackles BUT ESPECIALLY TRACK 4  ⣎⡇ꉺლ༽இ•̛)ྀ◞ ༎ຶ ༽ৣৢ؞ৢ؞ؖ ꉺლ, ooo　̟̞̝̜̙̘̗̖҉̵̴̨̧̢̡̼̻̺̹̳̲̱̰̯̮̭̬̫̪̩̦̥̤̣̠҈͈͇͉͍͎͓͔͕͖͙͚͜͢͢͢͢͢͢͢͢͢͢͢͢͢͢ͅ 　oʅ͡͡͡͡͡͡͡͡͡͡͡​(​　؞ৢ؞ؙؖ⁽⁾˜ัิีึื์๎้็๋๊⦁0　̟̞̝̜̙̘̗̖҉̵̴̨̧̢̡̼̻̺̹̳̲̱̰̯̮̭̬̫̪̩̦̥̤̣̠҈͈͇͉͍͎͓͔͕͖͙͚͜͢͢͢͢͢͢͢͢͢͢͢͢͢͢ͅ 　ఠీੂ೧ູ࿃ूੂ I MISS THE NIGHTLIFE Julion De’Angelo and Viola Klein, We

ASK THE AGES Mary Halvorson’s Code Girl, Artlessly Falling

JOURNEY TO THE ONE Ambrose Akinmusire, on the tender spot of every calloused moment JOURNEY TO THE ONE, IN A RAINFOREST Matthew Halsall, Salute to the Sun BEST LIVE MUSIC Pharoah Sanders at Zebulon BEST OLD MUSIC Foul Play, Origins I OFTEN PUT THIS ON AND FORGET WHAT IT IS AND CYCLE THROUGH MY WINDOWS EXCITEDLY IN ORDER TO REMEMBER Alabaster DePlume, To Cy & Lee: Instrumentals, Vol. 1 WONDROUS...WE FLOATED OUT OF THERE...IS THIS HOW PEOPLE FEEL ABOUT ‘HAMILTON?’  American Utopia at the Hudson Theater ONLY POSITIVE VIBES Dougie Stu, Familiar Future Jeen Bassa, Cassava Pone R E S P E C T orion sun, “mama’s baby” I WOULD HAVE PLAYED THE SHIT OUT OF THIS BACK AT THE ENORMOUS ROOM drea the vibe dealer, priestess of vibrations SIM SIMMA (SLOW VERSION) Ruth Orhiunu, “Loving Goes Down” AT LES (VERSION) ọmọ igi, “Coco” and Prone2 THIS WAS THIS YEAR??? RMR, “Rascal” FLY AWAY Morray, “Quicksand” “I GOT POWER NOW I GOTTA SAY SOMETHING” Lil Baby, “The Bigger Picture”

LOVE IS ESSENTIAL Ian Isiah, “Loose Truth” STARING AT THE SUN Sharada Shashidhar, Rahu 2 BRIDGES MUSIC AND ARTS APPRECIATION POST THOUGH MY TASTES ARE ADMITTEDLY HELLA BASIC COMPARED TO THE SHOP’S GENERAL ETHOS AND VIBE NYZ, OLD TRX [87-93] Conrad Pack, Stations of Control I CAN’T BELIEVE I FUCKING FELL FOR "CHOPPED AND SCREWED WILCO” Chopstars x Barry Jenkins, Yankee Purple Foxtrot OR “JAZZY CLUB MUSIC”...BUT I DID SW., Night PROBABLY THE BEST THING I BOUGHT THIS YEAR Angel Bat Dawid, “Transition East” 7-inch bundled with Emma Warren’s wondrous Make Some Space and Piotr Orlov’s killer manifesto ANNUAL “THING I DISCOVERED THROUGH BEING FRIENDS WITH/FOLLOWING ORLOV” Ase Manual, Black Liquid Electronics HEADHUNTERS Jadakiss f/ Pusha T, “Huntin Season” ”I WAS LEFT BACK LIKE EVRA” Tion Wayne x Dutchavelli x Stormzy, “I Don’t Know” 56 BARS Lil Eazzyy, “Onna Come Up” ALFA ROMEO / FUEGO / I’M ON MY WAY, YO / WACO / ALFREDO / SCOTT BAIO / MAYO / MAINO Roc Marciano, “Downtown 81″ I WILL ALWAYS LIKE THE VULNERABLEST SONG ON YOUR PROJECT ZahSosaa, “Emotions” THIS BEAT GOES TO ELEVEN Heem Sosa, “Expose You” SAME, BUT WEST COAST YeloHill, “Tales From the Hood” BEST NEW DRONES FUJI​|​|​|​|​|​|​|​|​|​|​TA, iki

BEST OLD WOBBLES Skream, Unreleased Classics 2002-2003 JOURNEY TO SATCHIDANANDA Deradoorian, Find the Sun VERVE’S “SLIDE AWAY” VIDEO Raymond Richards, The Lost Art of Wandering THE OPENING SECONDS OF “HOLY ARE YOU” Corey Fuller, Sanctuary SHOPPING CARTS CRASHING FOREVER HPRIZM, Loops Are a Form of Meditation I MEAN IT’S CALLED Chris Crack, White People Love Algorithms  $ilkmoney, Attack of the Future Shocked, Flesh Covered, Meatbags of the 85 A NICE LOOSIE Ryuji Ono, “Should Be There” SOME THINGS YOU LISTEN TO A LOT BECAUSE YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW THE BEAT AND VERSES WORK, AND WHETHER IT IS INTENTIONAL Choose Up Cheese x ShittyBoyz, “Shitty Cheese” I HAVE NO IDEA WHY I BOUGHT THIS BUT THE GENRE TAG IS “POPOL VUH” Ñaka Ñaka, “Thorny Place” ANNUAL MOOD HUT INSTANT CLASSIC CZ Wang, Neo Image, “Just Off Wave/Open Mic Beat” IS THIS BETTER THAN THE ORIGINAL?? 岩本清顕 Kiyoaki Iwamoto, “Love Will Tear Us Apart” ONE OF THE BEST SONGS OF ALL TIME IS Lim Giong, “A Pure Person”

WHICH SADLY COULD NOT BE INCLUDED ON this Pure Person collection of covers by Taiwanese artists (as well as LG’s own spiritual sequel to the original) that is an incredible vibe FREE GUZHENG  Mindy Meng Wang 王萌, An Improvisation Through Time and Space 穿越时光的即兴 I KNEW NOTHING ABOUT THIS SOUNDTRACK OR FILM BUT IT IS FANTASTIC Carman Moore, Personal Problems OST THE BEST GENRE OF MUSIC IS SADE patten x sade 54D3 SECOND BEST: LATE 80s/EARLY 90s UK STREET SOUL  Soul Connection, Street Soul BRONZE: SEAN PAUL ASSAULTED BY JUNGLISMS Gallery S, “I’m Still in Love Restructure”

SPEAKING OF BLARES Standing on the Corner, “Angel” ONLY GOT TO SEE STANDING ON THE CORNER TWICE THIS YEAR 2/7/20 :: Black Music Future :: NYU 2/21/20 :: Artists on Artists :: Studio Museum  BUT THIS SUFFICES Standing on the Corner, “Zolo Go” SONG OF EVERY YEAR

[huahsu]

YEAR OF THE BUTTERFLY

previous years: A SONG THAT DEGRADES EACH TIME YOU PLAY IT :: 2018 A CHURCH AND JOHN LENNON’S “IMAGINE” :: 2017 SIKH DEVOTIONAL MUSIC :: 2016 SPOOKY BLACK :: 2015 this year: I’ve spent the past few months working on a book that I’ve always wanted to write but never figured I’d make the time for. At a really basic level, it’s about listening to music with friends. A couple weeks ago, I devoted a few days to reading a stack of books and articles about the emotional experience of music. They were written by philosophers, critics, cognitive scientists, historians. I took from them two overarching questions. First, what does it mean to assign a piece of music a feeling, like “happy” or “sad?” Is the song itself “sad,” or does it just model a kind of sadness proximate to how we feel? What elements of a song do this? The fraying of a voice? Minor keys? Tempo? Is it all a trick of memory? None of the answers really satisfied me, since music is such an intimate thing. A song makes us feel a way for reasons that are often either blindingly obvious or remote and mysterious. An expert can tell you that humans are wired to feel joy when a certain configuration of notes are struck in tandem, but maybe it just reminds you of looking at the front door.

The other question was whether music itself facilitates any unique emotional possibilities--a mode of feeling that we can’t get anywhere else. Music doesn’t mimic the real world, it doesn’t make arguments. One writer suggested that the thrill of music was its capacity to remind you, foremost, that music can thrill you. In essence, each time we hear something new and feel something, we are being reminded of all the times we’ve felt this way before. We’re living in the echo of a former enchantment. Maybe you’ll hear it again, process it, assign it a genre or context, and the mystique evaporates. But music is one of those things that doesn’t happen on our time. We don’t stand in front of it and train our gaze on this quadrant or that. We don’t flip back to make sure we didn’t miss something. You can’t slow it down as it is happening, you merely let it happen. 

In the spring, the Museum of Chinese in America in Manhattan showed “The Moon Represents My Heart,” an exhibition I worked on with MOCA’s curators, Herb and Andrew. The basic idea was to look at all the ways music had enriched immigrant life, from early opera troupes touring America’s Chinatowns to karaoke bars, church choirs, and after-school violin lessons, fifties doo-wop trios to garage punks and self-taught dance music producers. There’s no legible tradition of Chinese American music so we just wanted to present it as a textured and everyday thing--the experience of the fan could be as legitimate as that of a Mando-pop superstar. While working on the show, people would often ask me for a playlist, but I didn’t really have any to share. It wasn’t really about the music itself, which could sound derivative or amateur to some. It was about the fact that they sought to express themselves through music, in contexts that made them outliers and oddballs. I came to love all the music in our show because of that second-hand thrill--that sense that these moments had been deeply meaningful to everyone in the room. 

You can hear it in the voice of Stephen Cheng, who ended up being the show’s most memorable star. He put out a rocksteady gem in the sixties and then spent the next decade in New York trying to get the Dragon Seeds, his Chinese “folk-rock” band, off the ground. Cheng died years ago, but Andrew found his children, who brought some reels of unreleased music to the museum. I remember staring at them, wondering what was on them. It was a kind of anticipation and wonder that I often miss, when the operative feeling I associate with music-listening on the internet is the frenzy of opening and closing windows, clicking links, proving my humanity to a captcha.

Stephen’s singing wasn’t great, but it was perfect. His version of “Yesterday,” all warbly and over-the-top, has now supplanted the original for me. Somehow, we played some of Stephen’s songs on the radio, including one about butterflies and love. Somehow, one of the people listening was a butterfly expert, and he was about to marry another butterfly expert. Who knew such a song was possible, the groom-to-be told me. Stephen was too obscure to be properly forgotten. Or maybe his song was just dormant all these years. It awaited just the right listener, and now, over forty years later, he would get his propers, sandwiched somewhere between the vows and Kool and the Gang, a couple minutes of people scratching their heads, searching for the right smile, saying Can you believe this? to one another.

### TEENAGE DREAM

Warren Defever/His Name is Alive, All the Mirrors in the House

EXCELLENT USE OF “P.S.K.” Kindness feat. Robyn, “Warning” EXCELLENT USE OF A TELEPHONE Mavi, “Guernica” TECHNICALLY 2018, BUT TAIWAN’S ANSWER TO COIL, JOY DIVISION, ETC SEN, “The Cicada” SAME (2018) BUT TAIWANESE DREAMBOAT VIBES Linion, “Can’t Find” ANOTHER, KINDA BILLY BRAGG-Y Wayne’s So Sad, “Wanderer’s Guide to Taipei” SUMMER IN TAIWAN, AND SO I BOUGHT A LOT OF CDs, INCLUDING THE LIMITED EDITION SIGNED 9M88 DEBUT 9m88, “Love Rain” THEY ARE VERY INTO THE “FUTURE SOUL” THING Andrea, “You Better Kiss Me” THIS GUY HAS THE SAME NAME AS MY COUSIN Yo Lee demos LOTS OF BACKPACKS Hsien, Lately AMAZED TO SEE LIM GIONG REISSUES THERE, THIS IS THE DANCE ALBUM HE RECORDED IN 1994 IN THE UK BEFORE BRINGING RAVE CULTURE BACK TO TAIWAN Lim Giong, Entertainment World (IF YOU ARE UNFAMILIAR WITH LIM GIONG, THIS IS THE GREATEST SONG EVER Lim Giong, “A Pure Person) AND HERE’S 9m88 COVERING “PLASTIC LOVE” 9m88, “Plastic Love” AIR SUPPLYERS Oso Leone, Gallery Love Sunset Rollercoaster, Vanilla Villa I ENJOYED THIS WHEN IT CAME OUT BUT HONESTLY FORGOT IT CAME OUT THIS YEAR, OR THAT I ENJOYED, BUT FOR THE LONGEST TIME MY “2019″ EMAIL DRAFT JUST READ “CHIEF KEEF HNIA KAIL MALONE (sic)” Chief Keef and Zaytoven, GloToven

ANOTHER DEVASTATING DUO Pink Siifu and Akai Solo, Black Sand

MYSTIC CHORDS OF MEMORY Kali Malone, The Sacrificial Code Clarice Jensen, Drone Studies I AM A SLOW WALKER, BUT I NEVER WALK BACKWARDS Michael Vincent Waller, Moments ana roxane - ~~~ A THOUSAND POINTS OF LIGHT Caleb Giles, Under the Shade Medhane, Own Pace WE ARE THE ONES WE HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR Angel Bat Dawid, The Oracle Art Ensemble of Chicago, We are on the Edge READ JOSEPH JARMAN Joseph Jarman, Black Case I and II RESPECT YOURSELF Helado Negro, This is How You Smile Deb Never, “Swimming” LET’S DO IT AGAIN Tommy Holohan & Casper Hastings- RVE001 Eris Drew, Raving Disco Breaks LET’S DO IT AGAIN AGAIN, BUT SMEARED Burial, Tunes 2011-2019 OR PERHAPS YOU WERE THERE Callisto, Guidance is Eternal, Part I PERHAPS YOU WERE THERE FOR MICROHOUSE AND PEAK MEGO AND BLOGS Barker, Debiasing AT A WAREHOUSE PARTY, ABLE TO HEAR TOO MANY FLOORS, ROOMS, SOUNDS AT ONCE, IN A GOOD WAY Dies Smely, “Neptune Rises” AT A WAREHOUSE PARTY, BUT THINKING ABOUT PLUNDER, THE TRAIL OF TEARS, THE SANCTITY OF EARTH Kelman Duran, 13 Month A KIND OF BLUE Steve Hiett, Down on the Road by the Beach POSSIBLY MY MOST PLAYED ALBUM, 2019 Galcher Lustwerk, Information R.I.P. PRINCE, FOREVER AND ALWAYS Serpente, Parada Moodymann, Sinner Nelson Bandela, Purprain THE OPPOSITE OF “I AM A GOD” Nelson Bandela - “i'm mortal” YOU GOT ME Shane Eagle feat. Santi and Bas, “Vanya” HARD TO BELIEVE JAZMINE SULLIVAN REMAINS SO OVERLOOKED Kindness feat Jazmine Sullivan, “Hard to Believe” WATCH FOR THE HOOK Quando Rondo, “Gun Powder”

ANTE UP Polo G feat Lil Tjay, “Pop Out” “PANTS GON BE SAGGIN TIL I’M FORTY” Freddie Gibbs and Madlib, “Thuggin”

“WHY THEY LET THE TERMINATOR WIN THE ELECTION?” Sault, “Why Why Why Why Why”

HOLLOW BONES Showbiz and Milano, “Guillotine” LADI LUV, “GOOD TO THE LAST DUB” City Girls, “Act Up” MONEY BOSS PLAYERS Benny the Butcher feat 38 Spesh and Jadakiss, “Sunday School” Roc Marciano, “Richard Gear” WARP 30 (1989-2019) Droop-E, “The Droop-E Way” INTERSTELLAR SPACE, PROBABLY KILLER LIVE Blacks’ Myths, Blacks Myths II ALICE NEVER WENT ANYWHERE Sam Wilkes, “Sivaya” Alice Coltrane, Live at the Berkeley Community Theater 1972 RIYL: LYRICHORD, EFFECTS PEDALS Seungmin Cha, Nuunmuun RIYL: EFFICIENCY, INTERLUDES Solange, “Binz” “WHO HERE IS STILL LISTENING TO JOHNNY MAY CASH’S “DRUGS” IN 2019?” Playboi Carti, “Molly” “MOLLY” CZ Wang and Neo Image, “Just Off Wave”

YOU’VE SUBSCRIBED TO “UK STREETSOUL YOUTUBE PLAYLIST” Apiento feat Harriet Brown, “Down That Road” WHERE WERE U IN 2092? Jai Paul, “He”

LIL B, INNIT Voldy Moyo, Paper World SCREAMADELICA Vampire Weekend, “Harmony Hall” Humeysha, Nusrat on the Beach FOLKTRONICA Aldous Harding, “The Barrel” TOO PURE Springfields, Singles 1986-1991 MY AQUARIUM Rod Modell, Captagon ANOTHER WORLD IS POSSIBLE Vagabon, Vagabon 4-TRACK TWEE BEDROOM COVERS OF BLINK-182′S DUDE RANCH Colleen Green, Blink-182′s “Dude Ranch” as Played by Colleen Green

KINDA AS THOUGH A PART OF MY 2016-19 LP PURCHASES FORMED THEIR OWN BANDS Anunaku, Whities 024 75 Dollar Bill, I Was Real Joshua Abrams and Natural Information Society, Mandatory Reality

JUST 30 OR SO GECS Cool Fang, Sparring I’M A DEADHEAD BUT FOR STANDING ON THE CORNER SOTC Art Ensemble, SOTC Double Bass Ensemble * Merciful Allah Black Hole Theater * 4/24/19 SOTC Art Ensemble, Variation 9 * Merciful Allah Black Hole Theater * 4/27/19

SONG OF THE SPRING, SUMMER, WINTER, YEAR, STILL UNDEFEATED

[huahsu]

YEAR OF THE GHOST DOG

[TL;DR version for the New Yorker -- I loved many great short songs and became obsessed with (1) a very old, much longer one (2) and YouTube comments this year.]  [links to previous year’s lists at the bottom]

A while back, I found myself in an extended funk. The reasons are uninteresting and honestly a bit dumb, a mix of everyday bummers and more existential stuff, all of which manifested in a kind of 360º sluggishness. I couldn’t really figure my way out of it but I believed that I would eventually stop feeling this way.

One night, I saw that someone online was selling a copy of the Emulations “These Are the Things,” a magnificent soul ballad 7″ out of Oakland. I wasn’t exactly homesick for the Bay Area, but something about the song’s roots, as well as its overwhelming feeling of optimistic yearning, resonated with (through?) me. There’s a moment when the singer’s falsetto peaks, and the piano starts cascading, and things feel like they’re going to work out after all. The copy for sale wasn’t in great shape, and it cost $100, an extravagant amount of money to spend on a piece of music. But I convinced myself that I’d feel better at some point, weeks, months, or years later, and I’d listen to my Emulations single, and recall that weird summer/fall.

As often happened with independently produced records of the sixties and seventies, “These Are the Things” was pressed on styrene, rather than vinyl. Styrene is a kind of plastic that’s lighter, cheaper and much more fragile than vinyl, and you can tell the difference by a kind of hollow plink when you put it on a turntable. Styrene also means that it has a limited life, and that each time the needle drags across its grooves, the record degrades a little bit. Over time, styrene records that get played a lot no longer sound as crisp or clear (or so it seems). I listened to it once it arrived, feeling a bit of regret at this wild expenditure, but also imagining my future self’s gratitude. I imagined entering into communion with everyone who had played this copy before me. I decided to only listen to the song once a year, if that--after all, each time I listened to the record, the song was changing, slightly.

A few months later, I felt normal (whatever that means) again, and the record became a marker of...I’m not sure what--maybe a kind of blind, stubborn optimism. Someone years later uploaded the song onto YouTube, which means I can listen to it whenever I want. This fall, I was trying and failing to spend less time on the Internet. But I decided that, instead of going on Twitter and Facebook, I would just read comments fans left on YouTube. I became obsessed with reading all the intimate histories people shared with one another--the chance encounters, the teenage dates and breakups, the seventies shop owners who recalled the days when stocking the right hit single could cover an entire month’s rent. I was listening to the Emulations when I noticed this comment, from Deric Jackson, who was apparently one of the group’s members: “I sung this song when I was 19yrs old. It was a pleasure to record and send this messageout into the airways. I have been with the women that God had given me to marry when I was 22yrs old. I did not understand at that time I was singing about my own life and the women who I had not met, but how wonderful it is to be with my wife fo 35yrs and life is still a breath of fresh air and wonderful. I would like to say to all real men love your wife, never worship her only one to worship is God alone.“ I’m pretty agnostic about most things relating to providence. But I felt as though I had been living in these words: “I did not understand at that time...” Jackson’s song was a prophecy, maybe even a conjuring, of his own path, and I wonder what he hears when he listens to it now. Sometimes you don’t know what’s coming next. But there’s always another song, and it doesn’t always sound the same as the last time.

(LATE 2017 BUT I REALLY DOUBT ANYONE NOTICED AKA THE FRENCH “MO BAMBA”) Junior Bvndo, “T’as ça #3 (Kylian Mbappe)”

I WILL LISTEN TO ANYTHING THAT USES DISTORTION Sheck Wes, “Wanted” OR OLD SCHOOL STABS Santi feat. Shane Eagle and Amaarae, “Rapid Fire” EVEN MORE THAN THAT, I LIKE THINGS THAT SOUND MESSY AND SLOPPY BUT ARE ACTUALLY PERFECT Caleb Giles featuring Cleo Reed, “Name” WOULDN’T HAVE BEEN AS GOOD AS IF IT HAD BEEN PERFECT, THE WARPED AND SMUDGED BEAUTY IS WHAT MAKES IT BEAUTIFUL Tirzah, Devotion Niagara, Apologia SAME, BUT SLIGHTLY OFF-STEP Blood Orange, “Charcoal Baby” THE BEST GENRE OF MUSIC REMAINS “SADE” Sade, “Flower of the Universe” and “The Big Unknown” Amber Mark, “Love is Stronger Than Pride” Bon Iver and Moses Sumney, “By Your Side” Kelela, “Like a Tattoo” 808s AND HEARTBREAK AND NEAR-OCTOGENERIANS Swamp Dogg, “She’s All Mind All Mind” I WASN’T AS ENAMORED WITH A LOT OF “NEW JAZZ” BUT DID LIKE Sam Wilkes, Wilkes Sam Gendel and Sam Wilkes, Music for Saxofone & Bass Guitar …WHICH REMINDED ME A BIT OF THIS FACEMELTING REISSUE (RIYL: ALICE COLTRANE, DON CHERRY, ETC ETC) John Tchicai, With Strings SPEAKING OF TERRIFIC JAZZ-ADJACENT STUFF Dos Santos, “Manos Anjenas” THE ORIGINAL “BIG MOOD” Okonkolo, Cantos THE YEAR I REALLY REKINDLED MY LOVE OF THE CELLO Clarice Jensen, For This From That Will Be Filled Oliver Coates, “A Church” …WHICH I DEFINITELY PREFER TO VIOLIN--ESP PIZZICATO--THOUGH THIS WAS QUITE GOOD Sudan Archives, “Nont for Sale” HARPS ALWAYS SOUND GOOD Leya, The Fool Meg Baird and Mary Lattimore, Ghost Forests ALWAYS HAVE TIME FOR WOODBLOCKS AND VIBES Kate NV, для FOR AS WELL AS MIAMI BASS SIGNIFIERS (KICKSTARTER FOR CITY GIRLS TO RAP OVER DJ BATTLECAT IN 2019) City Girls, “Act Up” AND BANJO DRONE...WHY NOT Nathan Bowles, Plainly Mistaken ALBUMS THAT I LIKED IN 2018, AND THAT I SENSE I WILL LIKE EVEN MORE BY THIS TIME NEXT YEAR Ben LaMarr Gay, Downtown Castles Can Never Block the Sun Neneh Cherry, Broken Politics AN ALBUM THAT I WISH WAS TEN ALBUMS Tierra Whack, Whack World AN ALBUM I WISH WAS JUST A LITTLE BIT LONGER Pusha-T, Daytona OF THE MANY REASONS I MOURN THE DEATH OF “THE ALBUM,” ONE IS THAT I ALWAYS LIKE TO HEAR WHAT PEOPLE DO WITH THAT LAST SONG YG, “Bomptown Finest” OR HOW ALBUMS, FULL OF SIGNS, ANGLES, FLEETING MOMENTS, CIRCULATE AND RE-CIRCULATE Angelique Kidjo, Remain in Light AND HOW THEY ARE LIKE WHAT NOVELS REPRESENTED IN THE AGE OF POETRY—OPPORTUNITIES TO LIVE INSIDE COMPLEXITY, SPACE, A DEMOS U.S. Girls, In a Poem Unlimited ONE OF THE BEST ALBUMS OF THE YEAR WAS A SOUNDTRACK... Kendrick Lamar et al, Black Panther AND TEASER FOR  Jay Rock, Redemption AND ANOTHER WAS JUST SOME RAP SONGS Earl Sweatshirt, Some Rap Songs WHICH ISN’T TO SAY ARTISTS DON’T STILL VALUE AND HAVE FUN WITH THE FORMAT Vince Staples, FM A TWENTY-FIVE TRACK ADVENTURE INTO VIBES Pink Siifu, ensley AND SOMETIMES TWENTY MINUTES OR SO IS ENOUGH boygenius, boygenius ONE MORE ALBUM THING – FIRST SONGS HAVE ALWAYS FELT LIKE THESIS STATEMENTS, AND STREAMING HAS ONLY APPLIED MORE PRESSURE TO THE SOOTHING, BEWITCHING, PERFECT WELCOME Mac Miller, “Come Back to Earth” MAC MILLER AND THUNDERCAT LOOK SO HAPPY HERE whole thing, but esp six minutes in, and even more so about nine minutes in THE BEST VIBES Show Dem Camp feat. Boj and Ajebutter 22, “Damiloun” Koffee, “Toast” HAPPY-GO-LUCKY B/W DEVIL-MAY-CARE Shoreline Mafia, “Nun Major” I LIKE NEF AND EPs PERFECTLY SUIT HIM Nef the Pharaoh and 03 Greedo, Porter 2 Grape 

RAPPING AS FAST AS YOU CAN OVER FREESTYLE/HI-NRG WILL NEVER SOUND BAD TO ME… SOB X RBE, “Paid in Full” SOB X RBE, “Carpoolin’” …ALTHOUGH THEY ALSO SOUND SICK OVER FAKE GHOST DOG BEATS, TOO, THIS WAS ONE OF MY SONGS OF THE YEAR SOB X RBE, “Paramedic!” SAME WITH MEDHANE Medhane, “The Garden” TRIPPIE REDD PUTS OUT A LOT OF MUSIC FILLED WITH TRANSCENDENT MOMENTS, BUT RARELY MAKES TRANSCENDENT SONGS, AND IT PAINS ME A BIT THAT MY FAVORITE SONG OF HIS THIS YEAR WAS Diplo featuring Trippie Redd, “Wish” TRIPPY-ASS DOO-WOP Cuco, “Sunnyside” A STRONG HARMONY IS A VISION OF WHAT LIFE COULD BE Ben Pirani, “How Do I Talk to My Brother?” WHERE WERE U IN 94 Young Echo, Young Echo SWEAR I'VE NEVER HEARD MUSIC THIS “GREY” ManOnMars, ManOnMars IF YOU ARE GOING TO MAKE A FAKE D’ANGELO SONG, IT SHOULD BE THIS GOOD Patrick Paige III, “Voodoo” LIKED THIS, BUT IT’S ALSO POSSIBLE TO BE A BIT TOO FAITHFUL TO THE PAST Teyana Taylor, “Hold On” NOT QUITE FAYE WONG DOING THE CRANBERRIES (RIP DOLORES O’RIORDAN) BUT STILL MEMORABLE Katherine Ho, “Yellow” LIKE THE BEST PARTS OF FEELS-ERA ANIMAL COLLECTIVE, BUT TAIWANESE Prairie WWWW

NEVER THOUGHT TO VISIT THE LOUVRE UNTIL The Carters, “Apeshit” video BROWN EXCELLENCE Humeysha, Departures "BROWN BEATS” FOREVER RIP Cameron Paul

MY FAVORITE DISCOVERY OF THE YEAR Pharoah Sanders playing “Kazuko” in a tunnel near the Marin Headlands LIKE NONE OF ITS INFLUENCES (FOOTWORK, AMBIENT), LIKE NOTHING ELSE OUT THERE, REALLY Foodman, Aru Otoko No Densetsu DARESAY SKI MASK WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN BOOED OUT OF THE CIPHER Ski Mask the Slump God, Beware the Book of Eli THE MOST FAMOUS PERSON I’VE SEEN ON THE BIG SCREEN AT THE PAST THREE YEARS’ NETS GAMES IS Young M.A., “PettyWap” DEMOS FROM A GROUP I HAVE ALWAYS ADORED, BEFORE THEY FOUND THE SOUND THAT I ADORE The Nonce, 1990 EXTREMELY GOOD AND LARGELY OVERLOOKED REISSUE Suzanne Menzel, Goodbyes and Beginnings FOUR TET IS GOING THROUGH HIS LIVE ARCHIVES, AND IT’S A TREAT TO STUDY HIS ARC/EVOLUTION  Live at Hultsfred Festival, 18th June 2004 Live at LPR New York, 17th February 2010 Live in Tokyo, 1st December 2013 Live at Funkhaus Berlin, 10th May 2018 STRANGE TO LIVE IN A MOMENT WHERE BEING WEIRD SEEMS A BIT DERIVATIVE. STILL, THIS IS BLISSFUL SahBabii, “Anime World” HAPPY FACE Smino, “Klink” SAD FACE Drake, “In My Feelings” (especially this version) “JIM FROM THE OFFICE” FACE Pusha-T, “The Story of Adidon” STOLE YOUR FACE Sophie, “Faceshopping” FACE/OFF YG and Mozzy, “Too Brazy” Sammy Bananas feat Antony and Cleopatra, “Slow Down” Kode 9 and Burial, Fabriclive 100 GASSED FACE E-40 and B-Legit, “Whooped" ABSOLUTELY FACEMELTING Todd Barton and Ursula K. Le Guin, Music and Poetry of the Kesh VACATION AWAY MESSAGE SiR, “D’Evils” Bad Bunny x PJ Sin Suela x Nejo, “Cual Es Tu Plan” BEST OPENING DISCLAIMER TO A VIDEO 808INK, “Come Down” “TAGS: LATIN CHORAL CUMBIA GOTH LOS ANGELES” San Cha, “Cosmic Ways”

BEST USE OF “OOCHIE WALLY,” STILL ONE OF MY FAVORITE BEATS EVER Stefflon Don, “Oochie Wally freestyle” BEST USE OF “SUPERTHUG” Rico Nasty, “Countin’ Up” EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS--THE HEADBANG MINIMALISM, THE LAS VEGAS WALGREENS--BUT ESPECIALLY THE LINE ABOUT WELLS FARGO Rico Nasty, “Trust Issues” “ORGASM ADDICT” (RIP PETE SHELLEY) Victor Oladipo, “One Day” “I JUST TOOK A FLIGHT TO FRANCE TO COP CARDIGANS” Black Thought and Styles P, “Making a Murderer” “AT THE EMIRATES I MILLY ROCK” Manzo and Malachi Amour, “Lingard” DOPE TUNE, AND UNEXPECTED KELLYANNE CONWAY REFERENCE JPEGMAFIA, “1539 N. Calvert” YEAH YEAH YEAH (RIP MARK E SMITH) Travis Scott and Drake, “Sicko Mode” R-E-S-P-E-C-T (RIP ARETHA FRANKLIN) Rosalia, El Mal Querer REEL DEAL, “DRIPPIN’ DOPE (SAXAPELLA)” (1989) Gunna, “Top Off” WAMP WAMP (WHAT IT DO) B/W WAIT (THE WHISPER SONG) Vallee feat. Jeremih, “Womp Womp” SAD REGGAETON IS NOT BAD Bad Bunny, “Solo De Mi” SOUNDS GOOD TO ME, 2002-PRESENT Temani, “Power” Westerman, “Confirmation” REAL LIES, POET LAUREATS OF “YOUNG PEOPLE THINKING ABOUT BEING OLD” Tom Demac and Real Lies, “White Flowers” A SONG DESIGNED TO SOUND LIKE IT CAME OUT THIRTY YEARS AGO, WHICH ALSO FEELS LIKE IT CAME OUT A MILLION YEARS AGO (IT WAS JUST JANUARY) Bruno Mars feat. Cardi B, “Finesse (remix)” TAY-K WAS JUST A YEAR AGO Comethazine, “Highriser” FAVORITE 2 BRIDGES MUSIC ARTS “MIGHT AS WELL” RANDOM PURCHASE OF THE YEAR  Kizaki Ondo Preservation Society and Clark Naito, 木崎音頭 Kizaki Ondo FEELS LIKE IT CAME OUT TEN YEARS AGO (IT WAS JUST JAN/FEB) BUT I NEVER GREW TIRED OF IT Rich the Kid, “Plug Walk” ODDLY REASSURING THAT PEOPLE STILL JANGLE Massage, “Oh Boy” Earth Dad, “Walter” ...AND DISCOVER WORLDS FROM WITHIN THEIR BEDROOMS Soccer Mommy, Clean ...AND EXPLORE THE CONTOURS OF GROWLING AND NAGGING Sada Baby and Drego, “Bloxk Party” ...AND CAN USE THE PAST TO MAKE SOMETHING SO VISIONARY AND FORWARD-THINKING Virginia Wing, Ecstatic Arrow Mitski, Be A Cowboy ...AND LOOKING FOR FOURTH WORLDS Arp, Zebra ...AND MAKE IMPOSSIBLE RHYTHMS Heavee, WFM ...AND THAT ARTISTS I HAD NEVER HEARD OF, WORKING IN IDIOMS I HAD NEVER HEARD OF, MIGHT STILL BLOW MY MIND Odunsi (the Engine), rare. JUNGLE LIVES X-Altera, “Blowing Up the Workshop” mix TOP THREE TIMES I SAW STANDING ON THE CORNER THIS YEAR 3 - The Merciful Allah Black Hole Theatre 2 - The Time it All Ended with Fireworks on Grand St. 1 - An Empty Storefront During a Blizzard

{HONORABLE MENTIONS -The Time They Brought a Monolith -THEME DE YE-YO [Respect to the Gods]} SONG OF THE SPRING, SUMMER, WINTER, YEAR,  STILL UNDEFEATED ### A CHURCH AND JOHN LENNON’S “IMAGINE” :: 2017 SIKH DEVOTIONAL MUSIC :: 2016 SPOOKY BLACK :: 2015

[huahsu]

[huahsu]

[huahsu]

[huahsu]

[huahsu]

[huahsu]

YEAR OF WHAT HAPPENS ON EARTH STAYS ON EARTH

[longer version of what I contributed to the new yorker’s year-end package. you can read that here, and listen to the accompanying megamix the video team made! links to previous year’s lists at bottom.] I did not grow up going to church, and I am not a particularly religious person. A few days after the inauguration, I wandered into a nearby church and took a seat in the back pews. I’d gone there right after the election. There was some time for anyone with anything on their mind to stand up and speak. If you need others to pray for you, just let us know. A middle-aged black man in a leather jacket got up and began telling us about an argument he was having with a friend on Facebook. It was about the election, but it was actually about the intractability of racism. He was getting frustrated while describing it to us, in part because he seemed to value being the cool and level-headed one. Plus he was describing the kind of argument millions of people were having on the Internet. “I just hope he finds peace,” the guy said. He paused, then put his hands on his chest. “On a lighter note, today would have been Jimi Hendrix’s seventy-fourth birthday.” He opened up his leather jacket to show everyone his Hendrix t-shirt. “I just wanted to say that, because he was just awesome.” So I returned here, the day after marching through Manhattan with a poster that said “HOLD ON, BE STRONG.” I needed to be in a room that was powered by something other than hate--to be reminded of vision and purpose, even if they weren’t mine to claim. To listen to wisdom gleaned from a book I’ve never read, and pick and choose what I wanted. To hear others pour themselves into songs I never, ever sing along to. I wanted to steal their vibes.  Instead of a hymn, they passed out small pieces of paper with the lyrics of John Lennon’s “Imagine.” This is not the type of church people come to for the music. The pianist started playing, and I remember thinking about how it felt like magic when I learned how to play those chords as a kid. I couldn’t believe we were doing this. We sang, tentatively at first, as though we could not believe these words in this space. Picture it: singing of “no heaven” and “no religion, too,” with humility and hope, inside a house of worship. It was like an admission that faith was inadequate. All we had was one another. “Imagine” is a song I’ve heard millions of times, the type of song that is so ubiquitous that we rarely bother scrutinizing its words, its vantage point, the possibility that someone wrote these words because he actually believed them. I sang along with a room of strangers, and we looked at one another, and, for the first time in months, I began to cry.   TWO LYRICS THAT REMINDED ME OF POLITICS EVEN IF THEY HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH POLITICS "Wrote this shit January 21″ “Take me back to November / Take me back to November” “I’M AN ANGRY TEENAGER” Novelist, “Street Politician” ONCE THEY START, I HAVE TO LISTEN TO THE END Jim O’Rourke’s recently unearthed cover of Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” Kanye’s sitcom-length remix of “Bed” THURSDAY NIGHTS ON NBC Ross from Friends’ very Madchester guitar-y Boiler Room set DJ Seinfeld, Time Spent Away from U Nino Man, Jadakiss and Styles P, “Friends”

IN ANOTHER YEAR FULL OF NIRVANA/KURT COBAIN REFERENCES (DID YOU SEE JAY:Z’S JACKET?) MY FAVORITE SONG, PROBABLY: this Trippie Redd snippet

SOME VERSIONS OF THE NINETIES THAT WILL NEVER COME BACK THE WAY GRUNGE ENNUI HAS, BUT WERE SO POSSIBILITY-RICH TO ME BACK THEN Kicking Giant, This Being the Ballad of Kicking Giant, Halo: NYC/Olympia 1989-1993 Helium, The Dirt of Luck/The Magic City LIKE MANY WHO LOVED “A STORM IN HEAVEN,” I OVERLOOKED THEM AT THE TIME Acetone, 1992-2001 A REALLY GOOD BOOK ABOUT ACETONE, LOS ANGELES, DREAMS OF GREATNESS Sam Sweet, Hadley Lee Lightcap WOULD HAVE LOVED THIS IN 1994, 2002 OR 2017 Big Thief, Capacity CREDIBLE AND DOPE EARLY NINETIES R&B HOMAGE, SAX AND ALL Joyce Wrice, “Good Morning” SPEAKING OF THE NINETIES, LEECH MADE A MIXTAPE OF JUST THE FLOATY/DREAMY PARTS TAKEN FROM CLASSIC GOOD LOOKING/MOVING SHADOW SINGLES Leech, “Just the Liquid” FOR THE COMEDOWN, DARK-ASS STUFF ASSEMBLED EXCLUSIVELY FROM SLIPKNOT SAMPLES Croww, Prosthetics NOSTALGIA, ULTRA (UK GARAGE/BASSLINE EDITION) tqd, ukg SUMMERTIME ‘SECOND SUMMER OF LOVE’ VIBE Opus III, “It’s a Fine Day (Burt Fox remix)” UNEXPECTED BURIAL SUMMERTIME VIBES Monic, “Deep Summer (Burial remix)” NO REISSUE OR  tk ANNIVERSARY TIE-IN, JUST SOME OLD SONGS I RE/DISCOVERED THIS YEAR Active Minds, “Hobson’s Choice” El-B, “El-Brand” Kamal Abdul Alim, “Brotherhood” Spiritualized in Reykjavik  U2, “Numb (Soul Assassins remix)” U2, “Mysterious Ways (Massive Attack remix)”

SAME, BUT TAIWANESE INDIE ROCK EDITION Chocolate Tiger, “Piecing Together” REISSUES, OR: PEOPLE HAVE ALWAYS BEEN WEIRD AND SPACY#, OBSESSED WITH NATURAL BEAUTY## # Planetary Peace, Synthesis # Pauline Anna Strom, Trans-Millennia Music ## Pep Llopis, Poiemusia La Nau Dels Argonaut REISSUES, OR: WHEN I WAS A CHILD THERE WERE NO BETTER SONGS THAN THE ONES THAT PLAYED THROUGH TRANSFORMERS: THE MOVIE AND FOR SOME REASON THIS JOYOUS EP REMIND ME OF THAT SHEEN, THOSE HOOKS, THE PERFECT, THEATER-SIZED ECHO Om Alec Khaoli, Say You Love Me BEST ALBUM-LENGTH METAPHOR FOR THE CITY, ITS LIMITATIONS AND POSSIBILITIES Wiki, No Mountains In Manhattan SOUNDS EXACTLY LIKE IT WAS DESCRIBED, JAMAICA VIA OUTER SPACE Equiknoxx, Colon Man I NEED TO GO OUT MORE Jex Opolis, “Mt. Belzoni” KH, “Question”

I LISTENED TO THIS ABOUT TEN TIMES, MY SENSE OF ENCHANTMENT GROWING AND GROWING EACH TIME, BEFORE REALIZING THERE WERE BARELY ANY DRUMS ON IT Mr. Mitch, Devout SERIOUSLY THE MR. MITCH ALBUM WAS REALLY MOVING AND FANTASTIC Mr. Mitch f/ Denai Moore, “Fate” CRAZY WISDOM MASTER Vince Staples, Big Fish Theory C’MON AND RAISE UP Rapsody f/ Kendrick, Lance Skiiwalker, “Power” SO ICEY Zomby, Mercury’s Rainbow ECHO PARTY Demen, Nektyr Evy Jane, “Give Me Love” THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST Vic Mensa, The Autobiography DUNGEON FAMILY, EVEN IN DARKNESS Earthgang f/ J.I.D., “Meditate” FUNNY HOW TIME SLIPS AWAY Lee Gamble, Mnestic Pressure Pessimist, s/t NOT SURE HOW THIS BECAME THE DIWALI OF 2017 BUT OKAY French Montana f/ Mariah, Rae Sremmurd, PNB Rock, Belly, Elephant Man, Vybz Kartel, J Balvin, NORE, Wizkid, “Unforgettable” HOW ARE THIS MANY PEOPLE ON A FOUR MINUTE SONG? GOOD VIDEO THOUGH A$AP Mob f/ A$AP Rocky, Playboi Carti, Quavo, Lil Uzi Vert and Frank Ocean, “RAF” I LIKE IT WHEN FERG’S VOICE GETS ALL NAGGY Ferg, “Plain Jane” METRO BOOMIN MADE A BEAT THAT REMINDED ME OF RADIOHEAD Post Malone f/ Quavo, “Congratulations” THE MARIACHI VERSION IS PRETTY SWEET Brian Imanuel, “How I surprised Post Malone with a mariachi band” ”IF YOU’RE LOOKING FOR LYRICS, IF YOU’RE LOOKING TO CRY, IF YOU’RE LOOKING TO THINK ABOUT LIFE...” JonWayne, Rap Album Two CORNBALL PIANOS AND THEN THAT SYNTH DRAGS, AND THEN THE DRUMS KICK Tee Grizzley, “First Day Out” “BUT WILD/WITH MY MONOTONE STYLE” 21 Savage, “Bankroll” Kodak Black, “Candy Paint” Rich Chigga, “Glow Like Dat” ANNUAL SPOT RESERVED FOR LA MUSICA DE HARRY FRAUD French Montana f/ Pharrell, “Bring Dem Things” WHEN LAETITIA SAYS HER OWN NAME ON “EMBERS” Vagabon, Infinite Worlds WHEN JESSIE LEANS INTO THE WORD “FUCK” Jessie Reyez, “Figures” THAT LIGHT MISTING, THAT CASUAL SPRITZ OF SYNTHS Lanark Artefax, “Touch Absence” A GOOD ANTI-DJT THING THAT CAME OUT EARLY THIS YEAR, WHICH FEELS LIKE EONS AGO Lushlife + friends, My Idols are Dead + My Enemies are in Power THE BABY, THE FLUTES, PIERRE’S OBNOXIOUSLY LONG TAG, THE JESSE LINGARD DANCE Playboi Carti, “Magnolia” ILLEST SHIT I SAW THIS YEAR, BABY-RELATED A child at a restaurant watching an iPad and an iPhone at the same damn time “[FREE] PLAYBOI CARTI TYPE BEAT” YBN Nahmir, “Rubbin off the Paint” GUNS N ROSES, BEFORE ONE OF THE WEIRDEST BEEFS OF THE YEAR Trippie Redd f/ 6IX9INE, “POLES1469″ SOMETIMES YOU JUST HAVE TO BELIEVE YOU CAN SING, AND DO IT WITH CONVICTION, AND I WILL LISTEN Trippie Redd, “Rack City/Love Scars 2″ ALL THE BACKGROUND NOISE/ECHOED-OUT ADLIBS MAKE THIS BlocBoy JB, “No Chorus Pt 10″ SMERZ HAS FUN DESPITE THE AWKWARD OF IT ALL Smerz on NTS IT SEEMS REALLY EASY TO MAKE A GOOD-SOUNDING SONG THESE DAYS Global Dan, “Off White” OF ALL THE DOPE SHIT THAT FUTURE APPEARED ON THIS YEAR, THE MOMENT I WILL REMEMBER IS That tiny pause before he sings “I need fresh air,” when he seems happy and content IS THAT A GEORGE MICHAEL SAMPLE? Mozzy, “Prayed for This” THE FIX C Struggs, “Go to Jesus” "IT’S COOL, BUT IT’S NOT...END ZONE” Lil Uzi Vert, “XO TOUR Llif3″ AN ALBUM BOOKENDED BY TOTALLY DIFFERENT KINDS OF COLIN KAEPERNICK/TAKE A KNEE REFERENCES Miguel, War and Leisure IT WAS A VERY GOOD YEAR Brockhampton, Saturation I-III SZA, Ctrl SPEAKING OF SZA: WHAT A GREAT TITLE, BESIDES IT BEING ONE OF MY FAVORITE ALBUMS OF THE YEAR Kingdom, Tears in the Club THE KELELA ALBUM WAS LOVELY, AS ARE THESE Kelela x Bok Bok, Dub Me Apart A RANDOM YOUTUBE COVER THAT I ALSO LIKED, BECAUSE IT CAPTURED HOW MELODIC THE ORIGINAL ACTUALLY IS Kathleen Nguyen covering Kendrick and Zacari’s “Love.” DAMN. WAS GOOD Almost as good as “The Heart Part 4″ LIKE A DE LA SOUL ALBUM, SOMETHING THAT I KNOW I WILL CONTINUE ENJOYING/UNDERSTANDING ANEW FOR YEARS TO COME Tyler, the Creator, Flower Boy ”BLONDED RADIO” MADE ME JOIN APPLE MUSIC Frank Ocean, “Chanel” Frank Ocean, “Biking (solo)” Tyler and Frank, “Where This Flower Blooms” MACH HOMMY MAKES GOOD MUSIC THAT’S HARD TO ACCESS “x Earl Sweatshirt” EP ty Soundcloud IT’S A WEIRD TIME B/W THIS BEAT IS SO DEMENTED Tay-K, “The Race” PROBABLY MY FAVORITE PHARRELL BEAT Kap G f/ Pharrell, “Icha Gicha” MAYBE THE GREATEST MUSIC EVER MADE, REISSUED Pharoah Sanders

REMINDED ME OF PHAROAH, WHEN IT WASN’T REMINDING ME OF BON IVER Joseph Shabason, Aytche AND I ENJOYED AYTCHE FOR SIMILAR REASONS I LIKED ZONING OUT TO Tom Rogerson and Brian Eno, Finding Shore ANNUAL SLOT RESERVED FOR MUSIC I LOVED THAT FEATURED HARP Alice Coltrane, World Spirituality Classics Vol 1

SAME, BUT FOR HARP STUFF THAT ALSO SHOUTS OUT WAWA Mary Lattimore, Collected Pieces ANNUAL SLOT RESERVED FOR TASTEFUL VIBRAPHONE Jenifa Mayanja, “Warrior Strutt” YOU TRYING TO GET THE PIPE, TO PLAY IT, OF COURSE, AS PART OF AN EXPERIMENTAL COMPOSITION? Mary Jane Leach, Pipe Dreams THERE’S A MOMENT DURING THAT BAD BOY DOCUMENTARY CAN’T STOP WON’T STOP WHERE IT BECOMES CLEAR THAT EVERYONE WHO WORKS CLOSELY WITH DIDDY EVENTUALLY TURNS TO GOD, AND IT WAS LIKE THE STRANGE OBVERSE OF Jay Z et al, 4:44 footnotes 2016, BUT I SAT IN THE MET BREUER AND WATCHED THIS OVER AND OVER FOR ABOUT AN HOUR Arthur Jafa, “Love is the Message, The Message is Death” I WANT TO WATCH THE FULL FOUR HOURS OF THIS Dev Hynes talking to Philip Glass TRICKSTERY BUT KINDA MESMERIZING! Klein, Tommy Lolina, Lolita EP Hype Williams, Rainbow Edition “NOT ANOTHER GOT MORE SEOUL, UNLESS YOU KOREAN” (CHILLWAVE REMIX) Mogwaa, Deja Vu “THE TING GOES SKRRRAHH, PAP, PAP, KA-KA-KA/SKIDIKI-PAP-PAP, AND A PU-PU-PUDRRRR-BOOM/SKYA, DU-DU-KU-KU-DUN-DUN/POOM, POOM, YOU DON’ KNOW” Big Shaq, “Mans Not Hot” IBID., BUT “PERKY” Drake, More Life I WANTED TO LIKE THE WIZKID ALBUM MORE, BUT THIS WAS AWESOME Tiwa Savage f/ Wizkid and Spellz, “Ma Lo” LISTENED TO THIS QUITE A FEW TIMES SIMPLY BECAUSE ”BREAKING NEWS: WILD GOAT ON THE LOOSE” IS A WEIRD LINE Lancey Foux f/ AJ Tracey, Kojey Radical and Jevon, “Wild Goat” UNITED TIL I DIE BUT AJ TRACEY’S TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR KIT LAUNCH FREESTYLE HAD ME BUZZZZZZIN AJ Tracey, “False 9″ DIFFERENT TIME OF DAY, KINDA LEFT ME SPEECHLESS Grouper, “Children” Colleen, A Flame my love, a frequency Kara Lis Coverdale, Grafts Ryuichi Sakamoto, async LEFT RYUICHI SAKAMOTO ENVIOUS Metaphors: Selected Soundworks from the Cinema of Apichatpong Weerasethakul FROM OMNI TRIO TO THIS, A PRETTY VISIONARY CAREER Robert Haigh, Creatures of the Deep A SONG THAT FEATURED TWO PEOPLE WHO SHOULD BE PRETTY BIG IN THE NEXT COUPLE OF YEARS DJDS f/ Amber Mark and Marco McKinnis, “Trees on Fire” LIKE, THIS IS GREAT Amber Mark, “Lose My Cool” AWESOME YEAR FOR POTIONS Social Lovers, “Drop Me a Line” Boss, “Song for Gods” WHISKED ME BACK TO MEMORIES OF the enormous room Joakim, “Samurai” Calvin Harris f/ Frank Ocean and Migos, “Slide” Amp Fiddler, “I’m Feeling You” Chaos in the CBD, Accidental Meetings LIKE FALLING ASLEEP ON THE SUBWAY, OR A TRUCK HITTING A POTHOLE AND SPITTING OUT A RECORD COLLECTION, OR HEARING A NANOSECOND OF BRAND NUBIAN THROUGH SOMEONE’S HEADPHONES AS YOU PASS THEM ON THE STREET, IT’S A VIBE Standing on the Corner, Red Burns MIKE’S A SAVIOR Mike 1. I SPENT A LOT OF TIME THIS YEAR THINKING ABOUT THE STRENGTH, ELASTICITY, FRAGILITY, GRAIN OF THE HUMAN VOICE AND SOME OF THIS WAS TOTALLY NECESSARY AND SUBLIME Deep Throat Choir, Be Ok Diamanda Galas, All the Way Moses Sumney, Aromanticism 2. SO ACHINGLY GOOD AND INTIMATE, ESPECIALLY THAT FAINT CROAK IN THE FIRST CHORUS Rostam f/ Kelly Zutrau, “Half-Light” 3. OF COURSE THESE WORLD-MAKERS TOO Bjork, Utopia Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, The Kid Valerie June, “Astral Plane” 3a. A STRANGE PROPOSITION THAT I ENDED UP ADORING KAS covering Sade’s "By Your Side" THE BAY AREA IS JUST DIFFERENT Droop-E, Trillionaire Thoughts Lil B, Black Ken THE “BUILD YOU UP” VIDEO WAS FUN AND ALL BUT I’M REALLY GLAD THIS WASN’T THAT Kamiayah, Before I Wake THE BAY TO L.A. AND BACK AGAIN Mozzy f/ G Perico, “Blammatory” G Perico f/ Mozzy, “What’s Real” GYEAH MC Eiht, Which Way Iz West OUTRUN THE BEAT SOB x RBE, “Lane Changing 2″ BANDS THAT ALWAYS SOUND LIKE THEMSELVES, IN WAYS THAT I FIND COMFORTING the xx, I See You King Krule, The Ooz SAME AS ABOVE, MIDDLE-AGED DIVISION The Feelies, In Between Slowdive, “Star Roving” SOMEONE WHO SOUNDS LIKE NO ONE ELSE Jlin, Black Origami THE NEW NATIONAL ANTHEM Dreezy f/ 6LACK and Kodak Black, “Spar” I LOOKED UP EACH TIME THIS CAME ON THE SHUFFLE Shanti Celeste, “Loop One/Selector”

PROBABLY MY FAVORITE SONG GoldLink f/ Brent Faiyaz and Shy Glizzy, “Crew” OR MAYBE Jorja Smith x Preditah, “On My Mind” THIS WAS SICK TOO GoldLink & Co. covering Outkast’s “Roses” MAYBE THE BEST SONG J Hus, “Did You See”

ANOTHER YEAR, ANOTHER YEAR WHERE MY FAVORITE RELEASE WAS PROBABLY FROM YAEJI, THE “GLASSES FOGGING UP” LINE WAS VERY RELATABLE Yaeji, EP2 THE SONG OF THE SPRING, SUMMER, WINTER   I MEAN, IT’S WAYNE’S WORLD, WE JUST LIVE IN IT ### SIKH DEVOTIONAL MUSIC :: 2016 SPOOKY BLACK :: 2015

[huahsu]

[huahsu]

[huahsu]

[huahsu]

[huahsu]

[huahsu]

God’s Country 003

What’s up everybody? I hope the new year is treating you well thus far and Orange Julius isn’t bringing you down too much. Things have been busy for me over the last couple of months. I left New York at the beginning of December, was in Japan for the better part of a month shortly after that, and finally getting settled into our new place back in Texas. As some of you know I’ve made a ‘career’ change and have been literally seeking greener pastures… Last May I started volunteering at a farm in Rockaway and it changed my life. My goal now is to start my own farm that feeds and nourishes the mind, body, and spirit (more details soon). With that said I will be traveling across the country and staying at different farms learning different techniques and practices. If you have any friends doing similar work, please let me know. I would love to meet other like minded homies.

As far as everything else goes, I am still DJing a bit but my focus has shifted. I obviously can’t completely turn my back on my first love and will continue to make mixes that fall in line with nourishing the spirit. That said, God’s Country 003 (not religious, I promise) is now available for streaming. The series, as most of my recent mixes have been, is a break from the club. Something much more subtle & delicate.

PS: I’ve quit Facebook for the time being and will be limiting my social media use to IG, Tumblr, Twitter, and Line. Please feel free to share the mix and let’s celebrate life together!

Listen to God’s Country 003 here: https://www.mixcloud.com/princeklassen/gods-country-003/

[huahsu]

this morning I went into manhattan to sell some old records and acquire some new ones. a not-insignificant portion of my collection consists of records bought to mark moments, good and bad, and the last full day of obama’s presidency felt a worthwhile occasion. plus the forecast said it would be nice out today.  I decided to listen to janet jackson’s ‘rhythm nation’ on my way there. at the time -- middle school? high school? -- its singles were ubiquitous, each one an event, and, at the time, I had no sense that they were part of a coherent whole, especially one that was all dreamy and utopian.

today it sounded so distant yet so vital. and I was reminded of an interview I once did with michael k williams (best known for playing ‘omar’ on ‘the wire’) where he talked about his early aspirations to be a dancer. seeing the ‘rhythm nation’ video changed his life. he said: “Rhythm Nation” spoke to my brokenness. The imagery. I looked at what the lyrics were saying in the beginning—she’s talking about how we are a nation, bound together by our beliefs, we are like-minded individuals working toward a world with no color lines, I believe she says. You have Tyrin Turner, little young brother, you know, dark skinned, you know, big lips, big nose, nappy headed, much like myself. He was stuck in this damp dreary warehouse trying to find his way out. And Janet came in there to let him know, You are not alone. She pulled him out of that dark, damp warehouse. And at that time, when I saw that video, that’s what my life felt like. My life felt like a dark, damp warehouse that I felt alone in. I was trapped in my own head. When I saw that video, the type of dancers she used—it wasn’t like everybody was showing their body, it wasn’t about being the sexiest. Everybody was in black, it was militant, she had tall, she had short, it just said to me, If you are sick and tired of being sick and tired, if you tired of being a victim, if you want to stand up for what you believe in: come join me. If you want to be strong: come join me. The whole thing of wearing black. It just looked so strong. It was the first time I saw myself where I could be myself and still be strong. I gravitated to it. at the time, all I could muster in response was something to the effect of “dope beat, too.” but today, I want to find a nation.

[huahsu]

I have always found Isaac Hayes’ twelve-minute version of “Walk on By” entrancing. It carries a sense of tragedy that the lyrics don’t warrant--and it’s irrationally long. At some point I learned that Hayes had recorded it after taking a year-long hiatus early in his career. Martin Luther King, Jr’s assassination--which he almost witnessed first-hand--had drained him of any desires to create. It’s not that I began hearing Hot Buttered Soul as an elegy but it made sense to me that this album full of unusually long, meandering, beautifully redemptive songs had been produced under such awful circumstances. And then I remembered that a sample of “Walk on By” (and Hayes himself) provided the spine for “I Can’t Go To Sleep,” one of the Wu-Tang Clan’s most paranoid songs. Ghostface sobs; the record gets spun back, violently, as though trying to return to sometime else; Hayes is spectral, a guiding star. And there was King, too, in RZA’s half-lunatic, half-prophet verse: I can't go to sleep, I can't shut my eyes They shot the father at his mom's building seven times They shot Malcolm in the chest, front of his little seeds Jesse watched as they shot King on the balcony Exported Marcus Garvey cause he tried to spark us With the knowledge of ourselves and our forefathers Anyhow, both are songs I listen to on MLK Day (now that it’s way too creepy to listen to Bill Cosby’s “Martin’s Funeral”). Here are a few pages of a talk I gave like ten years ago where I tried to enunciate that sense of history and aspiration that I heard in “Walk on By”: *** "Walk on By” is the lead track off Isaac Hayes’ 1969 album Hot buttered soul. There is something unnerving about how long it is, by how it manages to be so deeply anguished and pained, yet how it manages to avoid feeling overwrought. There are no wasted gestures over the course of these twelve minutes, nothing that doesn’t sound completely and utterly essential to the full logic of the song. Perhaps this is why “Walk on by” has been sampled so frequently by hip-hop artists big and small, for it expresses so much in its shuddering organ riffs, swan-like glide of strings and shrapnel blast of guitar.

In the late 1960s, Hayes was a highly successful songwriter for Stax, the famed Memphis soul label which was the only real challenger to Berry Gordon’s Motown empire. While the label was never, like Motown, black-owned, Stax was a beacon of multiracial cohabitation, at a time when such a thing was still unusual, from its staff to its integrated backing bands, and they all toiled away in a tough, tough town.

On the afternoon of April 4, Hayes, who was primarily a songwriter, was on his way to the Stax studios to work on a Sam and Dave recording session. He had initially planned on fetching Sam and Dave’s sax player, who was staying at the Lorraine Motel, on the way to Stax. But at the last minute, his wife needed to use their car, so he called a cab instead and instructed the sax player to do the same and just meet him at the studio. Hayes heard about King’s assassination in the cab on this way to the studio. When he arrived, he heard the news. Devastation. That night, a curfew was imposed in Memphis, but those who were already at Stax were allowed to work through the night.

For his part, Hayes lost his ability to work at all. “It affected me for a whole year,” he later explained to the historian Rob Bowman in Bowmans’ remarkable Soulsville USA. “I could not create properly. I was so bitter and so angry. I thought, What can I do?”

Hayes took an indefinite hiatus, toying with the idea of retiring altogether. In 1969, after thinking about how becoming a successful artist would empower him to make a difference, he returned. But he did not pick up where he had left off, with the tepid jazz-inflected soul of Presenting Isaac Hayes, his 1968 solo debut. Rather, Hayes’ comeback album reimagined the process and craft of soul music, as well as the possibilities of the soul economy. Stax, as with all soul labels of the time, relied upon the seven-inch vinyl single. Soul albums were generally cobbled-together collections of previously released singles.

Hayes shuddered at the idea of constraining his craft to the two to three minute song form and he created an album which flaunted the convention of the single. Released in the summer of 1969, Hot buttered Soul featured Hayes and the Bar-Kays on only four tracks: an eighteen minute version of Glen Campbell’s 1967 hit “By the Time I get to Phoenix,” a twelve-minute version of Burt Bacharach and Hal David’s “Walk on By,” a nine minute track "Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic” and a five minute track by his musicians called “One Woman.”

Hayes explains: “When I did Hot Buttered Soul, it was a selfish thing on my part. It was something I wanted to do. I didn’t give a damn if it didn’t sell because I was going for the true artistic side, rather than looking at it for monetary value. I had an opportunity to express myself no holds barred, no restrictions, and that’s why I did it. I took artistic and creative liberties. I felt what I had to say couldn’t be said in two minutes and thirty seconds. So I just stretched (the songs) out and milked them for everything they were worth.”

In a very basic way, “By the Time” and “Walk on By” were characteristic of the trends of the time—most soul records at the time featured cover versions of songs one might today consider schmaltzy or safe—anyone who has browsed sixties albums knows of the ubiquitous funky cover of “Wichita Lineman.”  But Hayes’ choice to make half of the songs on his comeback album these covers was bizarre, as was their expansive sitcom-length. What Hayes and the Bar-Kays did to these songs was an act of creative destruction. The songs were torn apart, note-by-note, limb-by-limb, and in place of the quotidian pop heartbreak of “Walk on By,” we are left with a nine minute exorcism that smolders and writhes, an epic mourning of a lost love supreme.

Hayes explains: “What it was, was the real me. I mean, okay, the real me had written those other songs but they were being written for other people. As for me wanting to express myself as an artist, that’s what Hot buttered Soul was. Although I was a songwriter, there were some songs that I loved, that really touched me. I wanted to do them the way that I wanted to do them. I took them apart, dissected them, and put them back together and made them my personal tunes. I took creative license to do that. By doing them my way, it almost made them like totally different songs all over again.”

Again, Hayes describes the songs as attempts to communicate something about form. These songs were a radical departure from mainstream R&B at the time, and Hayes essentially created the idea of the modern soul album, the hourlong statement of purpose-slash-dream world, with Hot Buttered Soul. These liberally defined “covers” swabbed these safe recognizable tunes in a historical moment of depression and longing, of a profound kind of heartbreak far grander than what most young lovers might recognize.

Drawing back, Hayes’ statements nest within a larger context of black and white ownership, for mere days before King’s assassination, Stax had been finalizing a deal to sell its assets to a Los Angeles corporation called Gulf and Western, which already had diverse holdings in the film and music industries. In the aftermath of King’s assassination, Hayes observes that he became more “rebellious. I was militant. When Dr. King was killed I flipped and I just did a lot of reevaluating…” Hayes spearheaded an effort to hire more local African Americans and to improve the working conditions of longtime Stax employees.

And implicit in all of this, I think, is a rejection of the trajectory of pop music as it then existed. The final instrumental breakdown takes five minutes—as long as two sturdy pop singles—and  Hayes’ own vocals are probably the least memorable ingredient of the song. Instead, one is stung by Michael Toles’ savage guitar in the first ninety seconds, and haunted by the way Marvell Thomas’ triumphant, almost rapturous organ solo over the song’s last five minutes tries unsuccessfully to vanquish the song’s darkness. The song ends with a whimper, Thomas seemingly collapsing at the keys and Willie Hall banging out a stiffly efficient drum break that rattles to a weary close. The history of culture is made solid through objects, records, books, speeches, but the image of a band in a recording session, that vision of democracy, of a struggle triumphant, is where the recovery of King began for Hayes--when depression was not a force that crippled but rather one of possibility, a pause for patient yet forceful deliberation. Over the previous twelve minutes, Hayes and the Bar-Kays had poured themselves into the moment, and “Walk on By,” was an act of formal resistance smuggled within a safe pop title, changed everything. It imagines the possibility of resolution, partly because the song is allowed the space to meander and veer off path, to deal with both the beauty and hostility of the moment. There is the logic of the music itself—the interlocking of notes, the tightness of the rhythm section, the texture of the melody. And then there is the sense one gets, as a listener or as someone who has played in a band, that everything just feels right.