Petty Ante

6/10/2021

1. Lost Sight - Elaquent
   Dilla birthed a billion beat makers, and I love every last one of them. While he does often court the comparison, I’m sure Ottawa-born Elaquent has a certain amount of fatigue at this point about being mentioned in the same breath as the Detroit God-king. But I hope, on some level, he continues to take it as the massive compliment that it is.

2. Saat Alfarah - The Scorpions, Saif Abu Bakr
   Killer ‘70’s Sudanese jazz pop cut from a record that was lost to time before being rediscovered and re-released in 2018 by the absolute liege lords over at Habibi Funk Records, who I’ve talked about before and who are performing an indispensable world-cultural service in their preservation of 20th-century music from the Arab world.

3. Woman - Little Simz, Cleo Sol
   Simz is a bright, shining star in the constellation of Wzrd Czar’s favorite rappers. She’s got a new record otw, and while the made-for-the-music-video grandiosity of the first single missed me entirely, this track has me right back in my reserved seat on the bandwagon.

4. Asdikte Akal - Mdou Moctar
   Mdou Moctar might be the foremost contemporary ambassador for West African/Saharan guitar music. The Nigerois songwriter has created an inimitable ramjet sound drawn heavily from his Taureg heritage—a sound that reached its apotheosis on his recent record “Afrique Victime.”

5. Good Call - Contour
   A humid, ambling track about summoning resistance in the face of uncertainty. Sounds like it’s being sung to you from a payphone.

6. Shepherd Song - Keleketla!
   And so commences the extended dance break section of this week’s playlist. We kick things off here with an infectious stomper from the sprawling, multi-continental collective Keleketla!

7. 5, 6, 7, 8 (Dance is Life) - Jab
   We then transition into an amphetamized tour through drumheads of varying tautness and timbre from the London-based percussionist JAB, off his new EP “Currents.”

8. New Daft Punk - AceMo
   And then onto a glitched out club bumper from AceMo, a product of NYC’s underground electronic music scene. Heavy is the head that wears the chromed out motorcycle helmet, so all respect to AceMo for staking his claim to the mantle.

9. Notice - Tammy Lakkis
   We conclude this extended dance break with a neon-hued meditation on the way the objects of our attention come to structure and define our realities.

10. Dear Heart - Henry Mancini
    And then for the requisite post-dance break decompression, we have Henry Mancini’s 1964 pop standard “Dear Heart.”
    
    You’ve been dancing for a while now, so your blood stream is likely completely flooded with endorphins. And when you hear this song, it’s possible that the hormonal cocktail currently coursing forth from your pituitary gland will elicit a flurry of emotionally-heightened reflections on your loved ones, your cherished relationships, the people in your life that make the whole damn thing worth living. When this happens, I’d encourage you to embrace these emotions. Resist the urge to seek distraction. Feel the fullness of your love for the Dear Hearts in your life. And then text all your group chats and tell them how much they mean to you.

⛺