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"Lady Full of Dreams" - Cathy Hamer

Cathy Hamer’s foot-tapping debut, “Lady Full of Dreams,” marks her successful foray into the world of Portland folk. Hamer’s track opens with soft acoustic picking that melts away as the drums and electric guitar come in; you can’t help but dance a little to her twangy melody. “Lady Full of Dreams” is about unsung ambitions, life’s endless possibilities, and what we choose to make of them. Hamer sings, channeling an inner Margo Timmins of Cowboy Junkies, “Well, I’ve been dreaming ‘bout a million highways / Take me down a million roads.” She beckons us to indulge in our wildest aspirations as if to say, ‘I will take you where you want to go.’ 

"Sport Meets Sound" - Horsegirl

"Sport Meets Sound" by Horsegirl finds its place in the opening shots of a coming-of-age movie. The stripped and slowed-down sounds of a classic rock hit bubble beneath the layered vocals of this track. As our two singers call and respond to each other, "He (Young man sickened by the sight of twenty years that passed him by) / He heard the sound (Now the engine's running dry, running dry, it's running dry)" they evoke the known-too-well feeling of reminiscing after your lost youth. In the last minute and a half of instrumentals, Horsegirl takes us on a journey marked by a Rolling Stones-inspired guitar line that falls away into a bright and endless melody. 

"Everything is Peaceful Love" - Bon Iver

The essence of Bon Iver is ever present as the folk band leans more into their experimental, verging on overproduced new records. “Everything is Peaceful Love” is a testament to that very fact. The track begins with a pop-y syncopated beat upon which Justin Vernon’s vocals build. The lyrics push back against the title of this song, conveying a frantic and consuming kind of love: “Well, I’ve had too much, and not nearly enough / ‘Cause I’m afraid with that love / And then they make me this way.” But ultimately, Bon Iver leaves us with synth beats and a guitar solo that tugs at your heartstrings, a melancholy underscored with optimism.

By Anya Motwane
 

"Spiders (Kidsmoke") - 9/28/03 SOMA-Chicago Version by Wilco

Wilco’s “Spiders (Kidsmoke) - 9/28/03 SOMA - Chicago Version” is a song that makes you work for it. The instrumental intro builds at its own pace, oozing potential energy as percussion and strings flirt in back-and-forth bursts with the vocals tying them together. The guitar riffs take on voices of their own with enough personality to carry the instrumental breaks between verses and vocals, keeping the listener on a leash that never lets them get bored with the song’s progression. With the song’s dirty tone and percussive voice, it would be right at home as a feature on the first Twilight movie’s soundtrack. 

"Mega Circuit" - Japanese Breakfast

Japanese Breakfast dropped “Mega Circuit,” the second single off of their upcoming album, “For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women)” on Feb. 13. Though the lyrics are poetic and dense in typical fashion for the band, “Mega Circuit” represents a departure from the group’s characteristic ethereal, oceanside sound. Instead, the new single ventures into the Wild West with a twangy flavor and a swinging, heavy beat that supports a moody, playful vocal performance from Michelle Zauner as she swings lyrics around like a strong ballroom dance partner. As the album release creeps closer, each single continues to set the tone for the already highly anticipated fourth album from Japanese Breakfast.

"Hope Island" - 17128492

With 17128492’s song “Hope Island,” less really is more. The song maintains a slow build that never truly reaches its peak as the vocals feature a deft, flexible use of dynamics to weave a narrative of gentle hope within the song. Along with ever-present shakers that guide the piece forward and the warm guitarwork, the ways in which each feature of the songinteracts with each other creates an effective emotionality as the harmony ebbs and flows with the turning of the tides that laps on “Hope Island,” leaving the listener with a sense of weary but strong hope as they loop the song for just one more listen.

By Anna Jordan
 

“Fool” by OsamaSon

“Fool” is by far my favorite track from OsamaSon’s latest studio album JUMPOUT. The cover was said by the rapper’s team to be inspired by Black Sabbath’s heavy metal album Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, and the parallels between the two records are evident despite operating under such different genres. JUMPOUT can be likened to metal and rock in its intensely distorted, chaotic, and raging sound. For a listener unaccustomed to the warped havoc of underground rap, “Fool” is a great and rewarding place to start. Appearing second on the album, the song showcases the experimental and transcendental power of OsamaSon as an artist while keeping more skeptical listeners engaged through a steady catch and release of vocals with a beat you can’t help but dance to. The song’s musicality is as elevated as the rest of the album without being overwhelmingly hard to follow, making it a great introduction to a record that is otherwise more difficult to understand.

“Jumpout” by OsamaSon

“Jumpout”, the title track of OsamaSon’s latest album, has a similar melody to “Fool” with a more crowded beat and less cohesive vocals, and in that sense, the song loses the listener. OsamaSon’s vocals on “Jumpout” emphasize the criticism of underground rap rather than defy it, sounding slightly lazy and largely unintelligible. The sonic elements of the song are fantastic and impressive, but amidst the mayhem of the beat, the rapping serves as more of a distraction than a complement. The margin for enjoyment of “Jumpout” feels limited to a speeding car at night or a packed concert, but in any other setting, it’s mostly hard to get through.

“idgaf” by Grimes

Grimes’ latest single, a formerly unreleased demo from her vault, is a slight departure from her earlier and more successful bodies of work, moving away from her characteristically atmospheric and electronic sound. The sonic components are much simpler than hits like “Oblivion” or “Genesis”, featuring a consistent drum beat and bass that remind me of absolutely any generic indie song. Her signature ambient sound appears more in the vocals than the music itself, but again, seems like an airy singer-songwriter grasping for attention from an audience that is largely bored with her. If the track wasn’t tedious enough, the lyrics are borderline embarrassing: “I don’t give a fuck I’m insane, / everybody walk through my brain”. Perhaps Grimes is pining for redemption from her ex-boyfriend Elon Musk and his recent political escapades, but regardless of what she’s trying to do on “idgaf”, it’s not working.

By India Brown