Flotation Therapy

5/27/2021

1. Why?!steria - Kalbells
   You can damn near smell the pixelated campfire smoke rising into the digitally rendered starlit sky as night falls on the augmented-reality desert vista conjured here by Kalbells’ Kalmia Traver.

2. Por Arriba, Por Abajo - Ricky Martin
   I contend that Ricky Martin is human civilization’s greatest ever performer of songs that would send a pool party into an absolutely unmitigated frenzy.

3. Boys from the County Hell - The Pogues
   Shane McGowan is a poet laureate of the underclasses, spinning their misery, destitution, and triumph into some of the best songs written by anyone in the 20th century. In this cut from their incomparable first album, Macgowan and his gang of guttersnipes indulge in some cathartic wish fulfillment about giving their overlords what’s been coming to them.

4. Rew Be Me - Star Feminine Band
   The 2020 self-titled debut from Benin’s Star Feminine Band demands to be listened to in full. The album—recorded in just two days by the group’s seven school-age members and their mentor, musician André Balaguemon—crackles with the barely-contained energy of talented young people ready to claim their moment. For further reading, click here.

5. Only One Man - Moodoïd, Melody’s Echo Chamber
   The showpiece from Parisian supergroup Moodoïd’s 2021 EP PrimaDonna vol. 1. A lot of fun to be had on that project, but nothing reaches the skating rink lightshow heights enjoyed here.

6. Beauty, Mind and Body #2 - UNKOWN ME
   Just wanted to check in.

7. Sunbeam - Chester Watson
   The Dade County lyricist had, in my estimation, one of the best rap records of 2020. Now, he’s back with a new project that sees his tranquilizing flows enveloped in clippy scuzz and abraded distortion.

8. The Wizard - Rogér Fakhr
   Originally recorded in relative obscurity in 1970s Beirut, Fakhr’s album Fine Anyway was, for decades, shrouded in word-of-mouth mythmaking—only 200 copies were hand distributed at the time of its first release. Berlin’s Habibi Funk Records reissued the LP this year as the latest in its series of excavated arabophone masterworks, and I simply could not help but include this ode to Wizardkind. For further reading, click here.

9. Oh No - Biig Piig
   A glacially chilled tune with icicle vocals and lyrics about spiraling uncontrollably into the void that lives within us all.

10. Aqui Brasil - Marcos Resende
    On this car chase of a track from his 1993 album Abrolhos, the Brazilian keyboardist and jazz composer weds a dizzyingly frenzied bass line and propulsive polyrhythms with syrupy horns that drip with summertime humidity.

11. Last Blast - El Michels Affair
    The distinguished music industry macher Leon Michels has been known to analogize his work under the El Michels Affair moniker to movie soundtracks. This closer from his latest album sounds like the needle-drop exhalation just before the credits roll.

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