Simmer Until Reduced

5/20/2021

1. Lesser Speeds - Kareem Ali
   The Pheonix, AZ producer approaches his compositions like a demiurge creator god, molding bubbling potentiality into elegant cosmic order.

2. Beware of the Dogs - Stella Donnelly
   I’ve been rinsing Donnelly’s debut LP since it dropped in ‘19. The Australian’s charming trill of a singing voice always feels like it’s about to melt into laughter, and her flair for sticky hooks makes every one of her tunes worthwhile.

3. River Song - Birdy
   “Can you understand how strange it is to be alive?” asks the English indie-folk prodigy Birdy on this cut from her new album Young Heart. Enormous “staring at your reflection for 25 min. off a medicated gummy worm” energy.

4. Mi Negrita - Devendra Banhart
   The kind of sublimely weightless song you’d hear wafting on a coffee-scented cloud from an inviting storefront at around 9:35 AM on a mild Saturday morning.

5. Leo - dremacastmoe
   A little morsel of synesthetic synth soul propped up by a springy bass line that sizzles in the spotlight.

6. To Be Rich Should Be a Crime - Cola Boyy
   Prevailing wisdom says that the best political messaging is simple, immediate, and concrete. I endorse the policy platform outlined in Cola Boyy’s reggae manifesto.

7. I Tcho Tchass - Akofa Akoussah
   Akoussah recorded just the one album in her life, but she made it count. The Togolese soul singer’s timeless, commanding voice soars over arrangements that weave West African textures with threads of bluesy American despondence.

8. Irrational - Shay Lia
   I am a simple music listener. I hear a pristinely deployed sample, my brain turns into the “DiCaprio as Rick Dalton pointing at the TV” meme, and I add to the playlist. The way Shay Lia distends Junior Senior’s unmistakable “Move Your Feet” for her own purposes thrills and delights.

9. Darker Place (Joe Goddard Remix, Radio Edit) - Rachel Chinouriri, Joe Goddard
   (Joe Goddard Remix, Radio Edit, Tent House Version, WZRD the Czar Edition). Exceptional dance tune.

10. Posing In Bondage - Japanese Breakfast
    Michelle Zauner—aka Japanese Breakfast—knows it’s her moment, and the way she’s rising to the occasion is kind of incredible. She teamed up with Crying’s Ryan Galloway to drop a scorcher of a city pop EP last year under the Bumper moniker—a project that, according to Spotify’s omniscient analytics, contained the song I listened to most in 2020—and she’s only followed that up this year with an NYT-bestselling memoir and a string of unimpeachable singles. Hard to believe her forthcoming album will be anything other than her latest in a peerless run of artistic triumphs.

⛺