Great Songs From Q2 2020.

Every three months there are more songs and albums to talk about than there’s time for. Here are a handful that I wanted to share. Of course, I’m always down to hear more about what songs and albums stuck with you too, so if you ever want to shoot them my way, I’m ALL about it. Theres nothing that’s too weird or basic or popular that I don’t want to hear. Please share!

Thundercat — Black Qualls This track sounds pulled from another time. Of course, the bass line is marvelous, but the vocals are smooth as cream and stolen from a time equally as revolutionary as the one we’re in now. I am absolutely shocked that music like this is being made in 2020. It’s necessary listening. This sounds like a track that you would listen to in a long ass classic car with crisp leather interior and shiny chrome rims. Easy to lose yourself in this one.
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St. Panther — Infrastructure On the other hand of losing yourself, this is one that will have you dancing in your quarantine office, in your car, or on your evening walk. This puts an ounce of hype in your step, making you feel ten times cooler than you think your neighbors think you are. And you best express it.
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Wray — Good Time The opening feels a lot like some kind of slow camera fade that we would see in one of the classic Twin Peaks episodes. It’s got a sad shoulder swaying vibe, a technicolor slow-motion burst of sadness. If you have one of those days where you feel left at the altar, alone in a stairwell, driving solo down a road in autumn while waiting for the credits to roll on your shitty situation… pop this one on. Heavy soundtrack vibes.
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Hayley Williams — Why We Ever What an absolute revelation Hayley’s solo record ended up being! Most of what characterized Paramore’s sound was bright and pop-punk-adjacent songs up until 2017’s After Laughter which took a stark turn towards the melancholy, even if it was a little veiled (at times?). This whole album is a huge leap into deeply personal territory and this song is a fantastic example of a good broad stroke of styles she employs. Here you’ll find minimal use of the massive power of her vocals and a lot more stylistic choices. There’s a lilt and a hovering sense around the track, one which is deeply confessional and introspective.
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Ben Salisbury — Keep Extrapolating The first, seventh, and eighth episodes of DEVS were incredibly well thought out, well-composed, and artistically ambitious. Some of what rested in between those episodes weren’t really what I was hoping for. However, I did continue to come back to the atmosphere and intrigue that Alex Garland built. Part of that genius was his long-time collaborative partners in the scores for his pieces, Geoff Barrow and Ben Salisbury. This slowly swelling tower of breathy choir members is one of the most memorable corridors in a winding labyrinth of endlessly interesting sound.
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Stay Inside — Monuments There are elements of so many bands that I love here: As Cities Burn, The December Drive, Pianos Become the Teeth, My Iron Lung, Balance and Composure, Citizen, Circa Survive, (early) Coheed and Cambria… so many more. This particular track is one that I know my friends would hear and whether or not they knew I would like it, they would know that it was meant particularly for me. The clean guitars, the high pitched vocals, the screams and roars. Holy shit, the way this song ends with that clean chugging, that undistorted breakdown is perfection.
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Misery Signals — The Tempest The wait for this track seemed to take forever. We knew it was coming. We had an idea of what the tone would be. I think I expected it to sound a bit more like ‘Malice and the Magnum Heart’ with Jesse coming back to the mic, but the sound from their previous few is still intact. For me personally, I prefer this sound. I couldn’t be happier with the way this song sounds, how heavy it is, how the breakdown hits me in the exact same way some of the best parts of ‘Mirrors’ and ‘Controller’ hit. The only thing missing is the desperate spoken words that seem to traditionally precede the spotlight breakdown. But hell yeah. This is truly a Misery Signals song. I love it.
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Nathan Ma — Blue Bird I don’t usually fly too close to country music, but something like this is about as near to it as I come. The pedal steel and the straight forward granddaddy drums create an atmosphere of emotional toil and the hopeful vocals mourn but don’t beg.
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Bell Witch — Heaven Torn Low II (The Toll) Some nice and slow sludgy rock. There are elements of the heft and oak that can be found in some of Earth’s releases, but it’s cut with some lighter and more soothing vocals, creating an interesting mix. The way some of the notes hang on for a few beats too many and the drums lurch along through the fills is hypnotic once you can find yourself in the right mind space. Chords ache from one to the next. And then that final organ tone leaned on until the last breath keeps the mood alive.
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Foster the People — Lamb’s Wool I’ve always appreciated Foster the People’s ‘easy to listen’ but maybe not easy-listening (but maybe so?) style. This has a hook with a ton of cool but maybe not a lot of modern style, bordering on some of the better cuts off of albums from Gorillaz that never quite propelled to an actual single. This song should be living on the radio right now on steady rotation.
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Preservation — Cure for the Common Preservation’s record brought a ton of NEW YORK ENERGY, hip-hop that sounded like it grew from the streets and was made for the streets themselves. Throughout the record, much of the production is influenced by an eastern aesthetic, though it goes far beyond the coast sourcing from lots of Asian traditional sensibilities. I love the low energy mumble of Ka’s delivery, the same kind of experience of sitting in the middle of a freestyle cipher in a house with the instrumentals spinning.
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Land of Talk — Diaphonous Land of Talk’s last record was one that I struggled with a bit, in the best of ways. It went from being high on my end of the year list to falling down a few rungs simply because of how much great music came out that year. This year’s record will be no shortage of that same melancholy quality judging by their singles thus far, ‘Diaphonous’ being one of the major examples. Through a thin shimmer, we hear the music brimming to be heard and considered, but Powell’s vocals are the inimitable star. She has found the frequency to exact a heartwrenching reaction from her listener. I would sit next to a giant radio and listen to this deep into the night.
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O’Brother — Halogen Eye These guys are the Ari Aster of the aggressive indie sound. There is something more sinister than what rests on the surface and their minds go to different places than other bands go to. It feels haunted in an ancient folklore sense more than a passing evil. There are Old Testament sensibilities. While I have felt these guys took the more boundless ideas that Mewithoutyou was capable of in darker directions, this song feels a bit more like another older favorite of mine, The Snake the Cross the Crown, and taken in an interesting and outer-worldly direction. And what’s more, this chorus will stick with you deep into your dreams.
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END — An Apparition END has everything turned up to the maximum extent of aggression. The drums are fast. The distortion on the vocals scrambles the roar to a monstrous degree. Their entire song is “the heavy part” and when they want to give you the cornerstone of their song, it makes you want to step way back from the sinkhole you feel opening at your feet. In just a hair over two minutes, this song puts you through phases of kaleidoscopic rage and abominable change. There is war here. There is a boiling menace.
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Gleemer — Brush Back Gleemer is a band that has always been on and off the tip of my tongue when it comes to “-gaze” bands, one of the groups that are doing it just as good if not better than most. I’m always waiting for them to have a breakthrough track that gets them in the minds of everyone else. Floating cream and lavender fuzz guitars build the atmosphere of this song and the way the drums are produced so front-heavy, it adds a beating heart and a deliberate thump to the haze. Daydream clean vocals meander, narrating while we hover through the singer’s hometown just inches above the pavement.
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Calica — Superficial Love A perfect pop song, especially deep in the heart of summer. There’s a Teen Beat feeling to just how carefree and simple this song is, how the song pulls from 80s and 90s chart toppers, but also so deliberately with that Girl Talk Date Line sounding voicemail recording sample that climaxes the song, making it almost too corny. Easy to ignore it by remembering just HOW much of a shining song this is.
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Medhane — Don’t Fuck Around This album is busy and noisy and constantly active. This song is a brief instance of hype amidst a record that experiments and explores itself frequently. There’s a hop in the step of the verse, kinetic energy that swims against the horns that bubble up among the stream of the stretched out vocal sample that creates the backbeat throughout the whole track. Attention to detail too, that last bridge that turns up the groove sets the stage for just what you’re missing if you haven’t checked out this record yet. So many good sounds throughout. A lot to explore.
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Run the Jewels — Goonies vs ET This record felt like it descended from the clouds in the middle of open war. I love that they dropped it for FREE because the people needed it. In fact, Killer Mike’s speech in Atlanta is probably one of the most moving moments (of many) in 2020. This song’s beat drips with 80s b-boy energy. Anthemic chanting sails into heroin loose saxophone, opening up the pit for Mike to ratatat spit his verse, one that builds in anger over its short stay. Nothing to fuck with.
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Arca — KLK Arca’s journey is an absolute trip. She’s worked with some of my favorite artists in ways that are both creative, creepy, and absolutely genre-defying. It took me a couple of listens for the new record to really find her voice within it, as it’s almost a direct pop record more so than some of her other ones that took entirely different energy to digest. This one just pops off. It’s a futuristic android reggaeton that feels at times possessed by the energy of Grimes. I can almost see the enormous neon signs, the gigantic crowds of streetwalkers, the flying cars of Blade Runner while listening to this song. So great. Turn it up.
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Baths — Stomach Tile I couldn’t believe this was Baths when I first heard it. Those rapid snare clicks, the mirage-dancing-in-the-desert guitars, the soothing synths, I was expecting Pretend or Covet or even Delta Sleep. But this was a track that perked my ears big time, one of the best examples of this style of music done by someone who I have always associated with more electronic and beat-based tunes. This one is a meditative practice of nimble fingerwork, an instrumental you could string together for hours and create a mantra to hum through and find an oasis of inner peace.
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