NEW ADDS: Caribou, Ovrkast., HAIM, & more!
These have been a strange and scary few weeks, and I hope this set of new adds finds you as well as you can be expected to be. Discovering new music can be a lovely way to stay sane when feeling isolated, bored, or freaked out. Accordingly, we have five new adds for you this week! Special props to the staff and DJs who wrote reviews this week, and those who continue to do so over the coming weeks. Enjoy these reviews, and take care of yourselves and each other!
- Lucy Talbot Allen, Music Writing Director
Caribou - Suddenly
After ten full years of making music as Caribou, 42-year-old Dan Snaith appears to confidently forge his own way within electronic music. Where his last album—2015’s Our Love—used a backdrop of bubbly, ambient house music to address personal issues like marriage and fatherhood, Snaith returns with 12 tracks as sonically varied as they are thematic and concise. Nothing about this album feels rambling or unnecessary.
On Suddenly, which was released last month via independent label Merge Records, Caribou continues to explore intensely personal topics, but with a lyrical depth that is completely new. On previous records, Snaith’s lyrics came across as merely another component of his meticulous production: appropriately addressing issues but at times appearing merely as afterthoughts. In 2020, his writing appears to have drastically improved, and we see him telling more fully formed stories of middle aged life.
Of course the album’s ultimate draw lies in its consistently immaculate quality of production. “Home” features an early 70s Gloria Barnes sample looped to modern trap beats and 808s. The combination is so effortless it's easy to miss at first listen—before actually breaking down its mastery, the song is simply a cathartic listen. The critical attention to detail that defines Caribou’s electronic sound is most stark on “Like I Love You,” which messes with the pitch of Colin Fisher’s guitar solo just enough to inject the track with layers of intrigue without taking the spotlight away from the feature.
A few of the interludes do fall somewhat short: “Lime” starts out as a strong jazz-techno track but ultimately trails off into the musical abyss without any clear sonic direction. While “Filtered Grand Piano” appears to serve as a smooth transition between more upbeat moments on the album, it fails to appropriately do its job, making it feel unfinished and out of place. However, these interludes serve merely as cushioning to an album that is otherwise a great deal more memorable and direct than Caribou’s past work.
Suddenly is not an album to judge on vocal performance. Pointed, groovy beats mixed to perfection with the occasional complement of Snaith’s imperfect falsetto have been the essential components of Caribou since the project’s inception. The only difference now is the clearly upward trajectory of Snaith’s honed talents.
- Barbara Rasin, Assistant Music Director
RIYL: Hot Chip, Four Tet, Bibio
Recommended Tracks: 2, 4, 5, 9
FCC: Clean
Ovrkast. - Try Again
I think it might be useless to give Ovrkast.’s latest tape, Try Again, a formal album review. At two hours before the deadline for this review, I can’t think of anything to say about it. Contrary to what you might believe, this is not actually a bad thing. I’ve been spending the last however-long trying to figure out a way to write about it. What’s tearing me apart is that the reason that I can’t think of anything to write happens to be the exact reason why I enjoy the tape so much.
Coming in at nine songs and just about seventeen minutes, Try Again is a beautiful stream-of-consciousness collage of disillusionment in the American experience. Hailing from Oakland, rapper/producer Ovrkast. has emerged out of the flourishing internet-centered experimental hip-hop scene which has distinguished itself through rudimentary hip-hop aesthetics and a serial authenticity that has been pushing the genre’s boundaries to its limits.
All of this is in no short supply on the tape, on which features from Mavi, Navy Blue, demahjiae, and Pink Siifu bless tracks 2, 3, 6, and 8, respectively.
Ovrkast. has no problem with flaunting the contradictory nature of life in the 21st century. His lyrics evoke a reality full of empty promises and compromises. A reality where people have been told lies about progress happening but have never seen it actually realized. Where the mantras passed down for generations have been proven to be false. The album acknowledges these things and explores their consequences.
Hopefully this didn’t feel too much like a formal album review in the same way that Try Again doesn’t feel like a formal album. Taking the form of a series of thoughts organically revolving around a common theme, the tape is an introspective projection of artistic growth representing another step in a blossoming career.
- Cole McKisson, DJ
RIYL: Earl Sweatshirt, FEET OF CLAY; Navy Blue, Àdá Irin; MIKE, Tears of Joy; Mavi, Let the Sun Talk
Recommended Tracks: 3, 4, 8
FCC: Explicit (all tracks)
HAIM - The Steps
The COVID-19 quarantine has left us all with a lot of time on our hands. For many it could be the perfect time to open up Spotify and let the algorithm take you on an adventure, or to finally listen to all those artists/albums/songs/genres that people keep telling you about. I took it upon myself to listen to HAIM’s discography and more specifically, their The Steps EP released in early March. Listed as an EP on Spotify, it's perhaps more accurately identified as four songs being released in anticipation of the band’s upcoming album, Women in Music Pt. III. Titular song The Steps is confirmed to be track two on this album, while the other songs are labeled “bonus track.”
Three of the four songs on The Steps drop the bright, lush digital sounds for which the previous two HAIM albums were known for a blend of guitars, violins, and vocals and a singer-songwriter style at the forefront. This shift away from a technology-driven sound makes sense given the band’s recent performance at the famous Sarge’s New York Deli and the antiquarian backdrop of the EP’s cover. The four songs all have a melancholy tinge to them, even though most are upbeat.
The work as a whole is a synthesis of old and new, with classic rock motifs a la the Beatles or the Velvet Underground (Lou Reed is even credited as a songwriter on “Summer Girl”) seeming to fuse with the digital sounds of contemporary music. The final song, “Hallelujah,” has an explicitly Fleetwood Mac-y feel to it, which could have stemmed from HAIM’s recent jam session with Stevie Nicks in her home. “Now I’m In It,” the song most similar to the previous HAIM albums, even breaks the Giorgio Moroder-like drum-machine and synthesizer beat for an analog piano, guitar, and drum interlude. The drums in “The Steps” and “Summer Girl” almost resemble a hip-hop breakbeat, and are interwoven with strings, saxes, a myriad of guitars, and vocal effects. These combinations sometimes seem to pay homage to women singer-songwriters of the late 80s and early 90s. The songs on the EP, steeped in references and resemblances to other artists of the past, are not just appealing to classic rock lovers; the product is much more than the sum of its parts, and is a unique, melancholy but beautiful, contemporary work worth exploring for HAIM diehards and HAIM newbies alike.
- Will Forker, PSA Engineer
RIYL: Fleetwood Mac, Beatles, Courtney Barnett, Weyes Blood, Charli XCX
Recommended Tracks: 3, 4
FCC: Clean
Illstrd - Say Yes
Following on from his single "Real Love," Melbourne-based producer illstrtd has returned with his latest cut "Say Yes," featuring Melbourne rapper Charlie Threads and Sydney-based vocalist Cyrus.
Lukas Ionesco - "Time is Gone"
French singer-songwriter Lukas Ionesco's track "Time is Gone" is simple yet elegant and artistic. His full album Magic Stone scheduled for March 20th. The song features vocal features from Ionesco's musical and life partner, Clara Benador, who also produced its music video.