Relaxed But Vigilant
7/29/2021Volare (Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blu) - Yukihiro Takahashi
It’s 1978. You’ve just draped your napkin across your tuxedo pants. You’re at the Volare Dinner Theatre. The effortlessly debonair Yukihiro Takahashi is your emcee. The lights dim. The tinkling of crystal glassware, the din of polite conversation, the cheery sounds of an evening beginning, all fade slowly to expectant silence. The giant velour stage curtains, shimmering red in the light of the chandeliers, open slowly to reveal a crowded stage, standing spotlit at the front of which—yes. There he is. His bowtie mischievously crooked, his silken black hair tastefully tousled. It’s Takahashi. The man you and everyone in this ballroom have come to see. He dashes a smile at his eager audience before launching into this song, Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blu, the theme of this evening’s program. He’s got a pianist dressed like Liberace tickling the keys into hysterics. He’s got a full orchestra of the most beautiful players you’ve seen in your life. He’s got—the absolute devil, has he really? He has… The man’s brought out his 6’9’’ baritone sax player. You’ve never witnessed a man that size in white tie attire so meticulously tailored. The song ebbs and sparkles with an easy grace. The dinner guests are rapt by Takahashi and his players. Their number bounds to a playful end—which really is more of a beginning, as the night is young yet—and Takahashi dips into a bow. Ripples of cheers and applause turn to waves, which crest in a rapture and break upon Takahashi’s stage. He flashes another beaming smile before the curtains close once more. You turn back to your table, basking still in Takahashi’s exulted glow. Looks like the garçon has just brought you your salad.Stop Them Jah - King Tubby, Agustus Pablo
King Tubby’s given name was Osbourne Ruddock. That’s two incredible names. DJ WZRD CZAR’s given name is Zack. How unlucky is that for him? No offense to DJ Glizzie, who shares my taxonomic misfortune.
But King Tubby, he painted his spacious dub cuts in the jeweled pink, purple, and marigold hues of a Jamaican sunset. You’ll feel the sand in your toes.24 hrs P2 - SURF GANG
Surf Gang, the mercurial assemblage of NYC hip hop talent who just released their debut album, is doing something different. Their sound is distinctly of the moment but still impossible to fully pin down, owing largely to the long, rotating, and undefined list of official Surf Gang members. Somehow, without any one person steering the ship or posting crazy usage rates, they still manage to create something that at once honors and is more than the sum of its parts. Imagine that: beauty and order arising from nonhierarchical cooperation. The dream is alive.Human Race - Human Race
Because despite our perceived differences, there’s only ever been one race. And that’s Human Race, by Human Race.Dream Puppy - The Sweet Enoughs
Throw this one on when you wanna feel like a squat little animated simulacrum of yourself who’s been dimension-doored into your own private Animal Crossing island paradise. The catch is, you now serve the corporate raccoon God-king and his yammering sons. What’s your native fruit though?TAKING TRIPS - Vince Staples
Saw a clip of a Vince interview recently (can’t really be bothered to find a link so you’re just gonna have to take this one on good faith) where he was talking about how, because streaming has made it functionally impossible for artists to make real money strictly off their music (should take this opportunity to formally apologize on behalf of Tent House Radio for our Spotify reliance), he’s started to make creative decisions based on what he thinks will make his songs most likely to be licensed in movies/video games/TV shows/commercials. Maybe this is something that a lot of artists do, but it was interesting to hear Vince be so candid about it, and it begs the obvious question that I’ll now be asking myself every time I listen to Vince: “what kind of scene was he envisioning with this one?”
In Taking Trips, I imagine he was picturing nighttime drone shots of the Los Angeles skyline, the blurred flashes of streetlights against an inky black sky, dudes posted up for the evening outside a convenience store, that kind of general feel.A Big Brain - Niko Mauskovic
I love our Big Brained brothers and sisters. They’re the huge, toothy cogs that keep all us smaller cogs a-spinning, the coal-fired furnaces that keep the big ugly beast inching ever onward. A world without the Big Brained would not be a world I’d wanna live in.
But it’s coming on crunch time for the Big Brains. Gonna be a big 20-25 years for them here. No pressure, but the hope of humanity is kind of on their shoulders. They’re gonna need to fall out of love with money and power a little bit here and start making decisions with eyes on, uhm, the survival of the planet. But I think they can do it. We’re all counting on you, Big Brains.You Can Mek It - Aleisha Lee
London’s Aleisha Lee understands something that I get on a kind of notional level but have trouble incorporating into my day-to-day: time is the only thing we really have. Everything else is just an illusion that can evaporate instantly and without warning. She’s so defiant about you not wasting her fucking time—and she should be! We all should be! We’re all wasting so much goddamn time constantly! And for what? It’s grim to even think about. So don’t. Because really, that’s a waste of time too.I See You Sometimes - Vegyn, Jeshi
A digital dungeon crawler.Sports Men - Haruomi Hosono
Full disclosure—and this is not because I think you’re keeping track, I’m just kind of an absolutist when it comes to telling the truth—this is not the first time I’ve included Sports Men on a playlist. It appeared on the very first list I made as a part of the project that would eventually molt into the beautiful butterfly (weirdly furry moth?) that is Tent House Radio. But I had to include it here again. It’s one of my favorite songs ever recorded.
Before I actually heard it for the first time, I’d heard it ambiently, in fragments—was it in a trailer for some feel-good family movie in the early- to mid-2000’s? Something like that.
It’s one of those songs I’d recognize even though I didn’t know what it was and had never intentionally listened to it, because it just seemed to exist atmospherically in the world. And then, when I was working my way through Haruomi Hosono’s legendary catalog for the first time a couple years back, I heard it in full for the first time, and it felt like sinking into an impossibly vivid reminder of some joyful moment in my life that was actually a complete figment, a mirage of nostalgia that appeared suddenly and in full panoramic splendor across the desert of my porous memory. I think it’s a perfect song. The iconic, flutey synth stabs. The smack of the drum machine. The amazingly neurotic lyrics: blathering nonsense and one of the funniest, most realized takes on the interior monologue that I’ve ever seen or heard. It’s a song that I have to take like medicine, at least once a month and with a tall glass of chilled tap water. Only side effect is the big dumb smile I have every time I hear it. I love it. I’ll be a sportsman.
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