may 2024
#64: lonnie liston smith | fisk jubilee singers | trent reznor + atticus ross | livy ekemezie | dua lipa | omni | corto.alto | hound | jim rafferty | get together 2024
summer nights - lonnie liston smith + the cosmic echoes
straight in the hazy summer nites mixer alongside roy ayers / pharoah sanders / gary bartz et al.
wade in the water - the fisk jubilee singers
BEAUTIFUL version of an african american spiritual classic. worth watching this five min video on the history of the fisk jubilee singers, a choir of freed slaves who established the basis for much of today’s black gospel / spiritual music. the choir still exists today, out of fisk university, for which the original choir fundraised. here, the present day fisk jubilee singers talk about their 150th anniversary album, which is where this version is from.
challengers - trent reznor + atticus ross
i’ve taken to describing the cinema as ‘tha mooow-vies’ around the house, which developed from baby yorkshireman nick hitchon in the seven up! series, talking about ‘tha moon’ and ‘tha town’. me and kay b2b’d the whole up! series around new year and something about nick has stayed with me. duh, the rural one who became an academic—but more than that, he was so measured and reflective on the up! film-making process, even when it was difficult for him and the other participants. ‘it’s not my life, but it’s a life’. fuck, man. gutted to hear he died last year.
rapid tonal pivot incoming, full 180: i went to tha mooow-vies to see challengers. 🥵. male gay-ze abounds. it was lush to see a portrayal of an intense, sexually charged, manipulative, knife-edge friendship between men—it’s not quite the same, but in the vein of something like animals or me without you, those chaotic, queer-baity friendships between women which were, at one point, saturating the media. one of the most erotic things about challengers (sweat and ass aside) was the soundtrack, which absolutely nailed homoelectro. i love love love that this specific track ends way too abruptly, slashed through by an iphone alarm and heavy breathing, like being jerked awake from the sexiest dream of your life. thankfully, here, you can just rewind.
night party - livy ekemezie
as the sun emerged, spotify’s ‘dance/electronic mix’ started calling my name. a song i didn’t know came on and i thought ‘damn, this is a tune’ and stuck it on the playlist. i looped the mix around a second time, and a song i didn’t know came on. ‘damn, this is a tune’, i thought, and went to add it to the playlist. lo and behold, it was already there. i proceeded to do this *three* more times and so have now committed it to memory. night party by livy ekemezie!!!!! 80s nigerian boogie.
a five year dua lipa timeline ⏳
may 2020:
future nostalgia is the greatest album ever releasedmay 2021:
wish future nostalgia was released this year so i could feel something againmay 2022:
dua lipa? bitch we’re DUE A lipa album this summermay 2023:
if dua lipa doesn’t drop an album of solid gold classics this summer i’m gonna start shitmay 2024:
FINALLY!
plastic pyramid - omni ft. izzy glaudini
in minor news i ran the edinburgh half marathon and smashed my goal time, finishing in 1:51:47! go off king, etc. the song that i was playing as i crossed the finish line was iggy pop’s lust for life which is quite a lol. choose life babes!!!!
my friends sam and beth of counterpoint magazine fame kindly put me up the night before—i recommend checking out their newsletter, in which illustrators and other artists talk about facets of their artistic process. they also introduced me to this song by omni which is very teardrop explodes, n0v3l etc.
also relevant to the running: baianá - nia archives. jungle BANGER.
wee trip to the weeg
slope - corto.alto
corto.alto is currently doing a release-one-song-a-day thing which is v fun, great stuff coming out, next level future jazz. this one is so tight, love the tuba.
holding out - hound
big california slacker energy. dope.
i see red - jim rafferty
did you know gerry rafferty had an also-musical brother, jim? he wrote the song i see red, initially recorded by anni-frid from abba. however, he also recorded a version himself. i heard it on gilles p and i like it very much.
get together 2024 🌎
get together festival happens, quite literally, on my doorstep. i wasn’t overly enamoured with the line up, but i thought that if it rolled round, it was a sunny saturday afternoon and i hadn’t bought a ticket, i’d be raging. so i bought one, which turned out to be the right call.
a great new discovery in sailor honeymoon, three k-punk girls absolutely shredding talking about squashing cockroaches and $1 tofu. bad apple was an easy add to the playlist. the bug club were a lot of fun; i may be one of the least pints guys to love the concept of quality pints. i then met up with joey and we saw gruff rhys (mid), before heading to yellow arch to meet some of joey’s mates and see future utopia, who i was taking a punt on but went hard somewhere between psychadelica and rave. rounded off the day with porij; tbh i was flagging hard by this point and the energy in the room was a bit like digesting a big warm bowl of porridge rather than the vodka red bull vibe i could have done with. all round, though, a good day. i’ll go again.