Everything Bambino
8/26/2021Dust - Dorothy Ashby
From the legend’s 1970 record “The Rubaiyat of Dorothy Ashby,” a riddling Arabian Nights parable of a song spun in golden thread from the mystic loom that is Ashby’s signature jazz harp.Rainforest Revival Shampoo Bar - The Golden Islands
Sun-warmed melodic ambience with deep roots in a bassy, earthen bottom end that inches inexorably onward like a wise old world-bearing turtle.Tatiana - La Femme
New-wavy French Basques La Femme put out a solid album this year, but this track from their 2016 LP is how I like them best: musing lustily about leather jacketed inamoratas and “Night Clubs!” over a pounding backbeat that hurtles downhill at speeds rivaled only by Gloucester Cheese Racers.Barefoot In New York - Arthur Russell
Probably the first time I’ve included a song that I might actively dislike. I say “might” because I haven’t actually come down decisively on one side of the matter. Sometimes Good Art can be challenging, but can Good Art ever be created by an artist whose core animating objective is not to make Good Art but rather simply to challenge? These are the kind of heady critical questions we here at Tent House Radio strongly encourage you never to consider for even one nanosecond. Purely masturbatory. What an utter waste of your time. I shouldn’t have even brought it up. My bad on that.Overdue - Metro Boomin, Travis Scott
One of my fatal and most exploitable weaknesses is an artfully executed, seamless transition between album cuts. It’s an old-ass trick, but I’m an easy-ass mark. I can’t help but feel a silly little thrill every time one song folds neatly another. As a solidly simple man I will not deny myself my simple pleasures, so I threw both Overdue andDon’t Come Out The House - Metro Boomin, 21 Savage
on the list this week. Plus, I don’t think 21 gets enough credit for whispering on this track. In fact, I don’t think he gets due credit in general. But particularly and especially here. He’s whispering about his first skripe over subwoofer-destroying 808s and half-note rimshots. Who else could do that, be completely in on the joke, and have it be both sinister and comedic? Savage is a singular creative light and we need to get the man his damn green card before he takes his talents to some other country that better respects his genius.Idked - Rachel Lime
Oooooh the synth bass on this track. It seethes and bubbles like a semi-sentient purple sludge, a creeping oleaginous blob that devours flesh with its ravening soup of digestive enzymes.City of Mirrors - Dos Santos
Title track from the Chicagoans’ imminently arriving new record. This is absolutely no fault of the song, but it did prompt me to think solemnly to myself, “Ain’t this world we live in nowadays just one big City of Mirrors?” Don’t even try to make sense of it—easily one of the most smooth-brained thoughts I’ve ever had.Tales By Moonlight - Tiwa Savage, Amaarae
Music video pitch: Tiwa and Amaarae star as the finned siren leaders of a merfolk choir who, in order to avoid eviction from their grotto amphitheater, must pull off the most successful performance in the history of the seven seas. In the end, with the help of a friendly pod of humpback whales who agree to broadcast the details of their production into the blue through a far-reaching promotional whalesong campaign, the choir delivers a bravura performance to a crowd of 1 trillion fish and make more than enough sand dollars to pay their rent :-).Townie - Mitski
One of my favorite songs from maybe? my favorite working rock star. It’s a ridiculous vocal performance—ferocious, elastic, completely commanding but still suggestive of a wild and ungovernable substratum. And then there’s the chorus, with its archly hokey lyrics that send up and subvert the standard teenage angst song but also ultimately succumb to the same universal feelings that make those songs so enduring. And added to that, the live version of this goes stupid hard. Ask Glizzie. And while you’re at it, ask him to make some more playlists cuz my well is running a little dry right now.
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