Great Songs of Q2 2024.

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Glaring Orchid — blurry2

Love how sunburned and faded this track is. Every element of the music is pushed up to the glass, smeared and grimy and curved into vague, harsh fluid shapes of the entities they initially formed. (YouTube)

Glassing — Nominal Will

When I first put this record on, I knew it was going to be one for the ages, one that I would be relistening to many times. But this song was the first individual one that I knew I wanted to share with everyone I could find. It’s got the heavy shredding, the enormity in size and scope, the dichotomy of screeching and ethereal vocals… everything that makes this album extraordinary. The many fathoms this record encompasses hits nearly every bullet point in what makes me love music, and this song traces the outline of just how extraordinary the lengths the band will go to when achieving their broad sound. (YouTube)

Love Letter — Misanthropic Holiday or Vacation

This seething reminder to lead a life of intention and deliberate thought holds you up against the wall by the throat and commands you to Live. From the very moment I heard this song, I knew I needed more, I needed to know what other banners this band was going to wave, and as a second single dropped (Meds and Taxes), I preordered the full length immediately. It’s not so much “heavy” as it is dense and weighty. The urgency on this record is incredibly refreshing as you can feel the sense of pleading expression and desperation in every note. (YouTube)

DIIV — Frog In Boiling Water

I hadn’t known that DIIV was releasing a new record until I saw that they were coming to town. While buying tickets to the show, I started looking into why they’d be touring again, and noticed that the full-length album with the very same name as this song dropped in late May. The whole record has the chilled out vibe pouring a heart brimming with thought and artistic desire but a voice that seems entirely emptied of hope. (YouTube)

Billie Eilish — CHIHIRO

I haven’t heard much about Billie’s latest record, but there were a few songs on here that I did end up really getting into. I found that this album felt like it departed a little bit more from the focus on languid production a sultry spotlight on her vocals and instead felt a little bit more like they tried to split the difference a little bit with the sound design stepping back and Eilish being a little bit more liberal with how she used her voice. This record doesn’t quite purr in my inner ear the way previous ones have. That being said, this song right here gets extraordinarily close to the types of psychic proximity that I feel to the artists when listening to it and I just wish there were more moments that slithered under my skin like this brilliant one. (YouTube)

Velvet — Purity (feat. Old Coke)

This song dropped as a followup to Velvet’s February release, Romance which showed the band working with Old Coke (heard here) and some other artists (including one of this year’s major surprises, Wisp!) and this song just absolutely rules. It’s a miserable drab walk through wet and poorly lit streets, coiled up with a darkness and a tremoring uneasiness. (YouTube)

Lupe Fiasco — Samurai

I’m not quite sure that Lupe gets the credit he’s due. I feel like I bring his name to the front as often as I can and despite the widespread knowledge of Food & Liquor, it seems like people are frequently surprised that he’s still active. He always seems fairly prolific to me, independently dropping music pretty frequently. And I feel like his output always has a high level of quality! Even focusing on this track on its own, his flow is smooth, his delivery is crystal clear and the lyrical content is tight. Lupe has been on game for almost two decades and in my opinion he’s never missed. (YouTube)

CRIMEAPPLE — 5000 Degrees (feat. Big Ghost Ltd.)

Classic NY rap. It’s hard to explain it in any other way. He’s not interested in entertaining you, in having a good time, in partying. This is about a certain type of hardness, a physical flex that manifests itself in the booth. A timeless sound. (YouTube)

Briston Maroney — Skydiver

Maroney drops another wonderful song that takes up all the sky in an open space. It floats and hovers and drifts along endless plains, swallows the horizon. This is such a placeless, destinationless song, looping and rolling forever in a direction impossible to place on a compass. This song sort of reminds me of The War On Drugs-lite. There are enough contemplative moments and bright stretches that let you get comfortable within the rhythm, enough airy vocals to find the pinks and azures in the prism. (YouTube)

1ST VOWS — waves keep crashing

My friend Dave really loves everything that Ryan Hunter puts out. Every few months he’ll send me something that the guy does, whether it’s an old Envy On the Coast track or a new element from his solo project (like this). I’m always impressed with the power his voice conveys, with the way he is able to craft beautiful songs filled with vitality and command. This song is stripped down to simplicities: vocals, the bare heartbeat of a guitar, trickles of keys that drift along the skyline like shooting stars. One thing that’s undeniable is that Hunter’s vocals are lined with the dynamic talent of infinity. Whether he has to go enormous with it or to go minimal and intimate, he can deliver in spades. (YouTube)

NxWorries — FromHere (feat. Anderson .Paak, Knxwledge, Snoop Dogg, October London)

Classic, classic soul track with characters from the new and the old school. Boy, I love me some Anderson .Paak, but hearing Snoop Dogg wedge his way into this track completely in character but also without making the song absolutely goofy is so fucking cool. This sounds like classic Delfonics, Stylistics shit. I could survive off of music like this for months at a time. It speaks directly to your spirit, to the engine that churns out your core emotions. (YouTube)

Halsey — The End

I don’t know a ton about Halsey. I was utterly floored by the record they did several years ago with Reznor, but I never really was able to really catch on to them to the point where I know their lore, where I know who they are beyond the sounds on the record. But this song has a kind of storytelling that speaks directly to their history. It speaks of her health, her struggles with doctors. This song is quite a stark difference from the album I adored from her. It’s got very little production, few “sounds’, no industry. This is an acoustic guitar song with layers of vocals towards the end. It speaks about the empty end of the world, about an ark, about surviving a place and time where you have no one, nothing. That “I know it’s not the end of the world,” hook is so addicting, so raw and beautiful, it has me super excited for her upcoming album. There was a time late last year where I was obsessed with the show Murder At the End of the World. Sure, it was great from a mystery standpoint. For the first three or four episodes, it was great television. But what was breathing life into the rotted tree of my heart was the romance between Darby and Bill. Every flashback scene that showed the whispered voicemails, the silent road trips, the nervous text messages and instant messages made me glow just a little bit. And I feel like that’s the kind of adoration and Love and Joy that Halsey speaks about on this track. Something that feels endless and infinite and that will never drain of the nectar of youth. (YouTube)

Night Tapes — drifting

Absolutely nothing wrong with a little city pop. This is such a cool little bubble gum jam that sounds like it’s a cross between a car commercial and an anime theme song and a video game soundtrack, and somehow all of that is super cool to me? I promise. This has that weird little italics whisper vocal that works in the right context, a simple groovy bass line and that simple harpsichord plinking away in the background along with a nice little head nodding rhythm. I don’t know man, on some level, this is a perfect song. It’s formless, edgeless, almost dimensionless. (YouTube)

Balance and Composure — cross to bear

There is no question about who’s song this is. It sounds like such a wonderful throwback to some of their early stuff. That bass is slung so low, so rumbly in its singular notes. The vocals are so drab, dragged through some dense fog, some miserable haze. Even though there are no power chords, no chugging, no true “heft”, the guitars feel so heavy when the full band kicks in. Absolutely sick. Even the very minimal and repetitive lyrics are so great. I came to fuck around, spoil your affair. I want to catch you by surprise is so imposing. So leering and threatening. It drips with a misery and a glum active pessimism. (YouTube)

Fontaines D.C. — Favourite

One of my favorite songs of the year by a COUNTRY MILE. Holy shit. I can listen to this song 3, 6, 9 thousand times in a row. I can claim the dreamer from the dream. Make you feel everything you’ve never even seen. The low-key Irish brogue dipping every word in a romantic curve, in a strangely curled tongue. The way the vocal dips into the deep part of the vocal chord and then puls the clutch to find the power of the whisper at the bottom of the throat. It’s romantic until it isn’t, with words that touch the tips of clouds and then chop across rocky waters in the middle of the track. The simplistic Turnover-esque guitar part is such a fun little jumpy jam that adds a brilliant lightness to the entire mix. I want to dance to this song with a hundred thousand people. I want to feel good with you about this one. I am so happy that I just started to figure out this band with their last record (last year’s Skinty Fia and the track Jackie Down the Line) and this August is going to bring a grand fucking time with their new release. You’ve been my favorite for a long time. (YouTube)

Charli xcx — The girl, so confusing version with lorde (feat. Lorde)

Could rave about this record for my entire life, but at least for this entire year. This remix is such a fucking blast dude. The corrupted, distorted, crumpled electronic sound. The overly layered, crowded elevator drone of the vocals. The inhibitionless and revved up energy that makes me want to “go out” and find a venue playing this music over and over and sweat and bleed like the parties in Brooklyn basements in the 2010s. The way the word GIRL bounces off of every glossy surface like it’s refracting in some virtual Arkanoid universe. Charli has sealed the deal with this record, and if this is what the remixes are going to sound like, I’m going to have to find every way to consume every angle of these songs. (YouTube)

Metz — Light Your Way Home

Infinite Fuzz and The Impenetrable Fortrest of Sound forever. This song builds a tunnel that burrows deep beyond the mind’s barricades and rests itself like the seed of a wildflower. The slow build of fauna wraps itself around gates, into archways, introduces beauty where there was only utility. There’s something precious about the vocals that lurk below the growl of the guitars. Metz has found a way to craft a special design in their gnarled rock record this year and I can’t wait to talk more about it at the end of the year. (YouTube)

Been Stellar — Pumpkin

There’s a 90s alternative perfection to Been Stellar’s newest record, and this song was one that I really wanted to highlight. The clean guitars and the simple, looping drum rhythm give it that classic sound, something that I think Silversun Pickups did really well in their early days. It’s exciting to hear what this band is putting together, because the carefully considered ease with which the band is putting together some very tight rock songs is impressive. I don’t think this band has been around for all that long, but with them wearing their influences so clearly on their sleeve, I believe this is the year they’re going to learn a ton as they play a ton of shows while they tour around their debut LP. They are going to be a band that a lot of people are talking about very soon. They’ve got that eternal quality to them, something that doesn’t sound like a flash in the pan. Loving this record, loving this song. (YouTube)