Song of the Day -- Sing About Me, I'm Dying of Thirst -- Kendrick Lamar

It's difficult to know where to begin. Kendrick Lamar was 25 years old when he wrote this song. It is in some ways uncomplicated: a drum track, light keys, vocals, and words. In other ways, it is remarkably complex: it is a 12 minute meditation told through the experiences of at least 8 different people in three parts. It's been nearly a decade, and I keep coming back to it. It truly stands apart. And today, it makes me imagine other young artists I don't know who are making music like this. Incredible. 

Song here

Photo from Vibe

Big Brother -- Jasmine by J'ai Paul

Art by Winwin

In this new series I just wanted to highlight ways my brother has influenced my taste in music by looking at particular songs. Jasmine by Jai Paul is a great place to start. It's smooth. It thumps. It's got a laser filled flying through the future breakthrough in the middle of it. What more could you ask for? 

In an interview with pitchfork, Caribou artist Dan Sniath talked about how the song and the artist just appeared to us, fully formed, seemingly out of nowhere, with a sound that was totally it's own, motoring in it's own direction. You can hear a short history (8 minutes) of Jai Pauls sudden appearance and disappearance here. 

I don't have actual data, science, or history on this, but I also think this song was a seed that helped me get into artists like Elder Island, Bonobo, Caribou, and others in the dance/electronica space. In thinking about it's generation, I think it was probably artists like El Ten Eleven, Kanye West, and the Gorillaz that made me more receptive or brought me closer to this kind of sound. 

Thanks brother. 

Here's Jasmine by Jai Paul. Enjoy. 

Song of the Day -- Heads Up -- Freddie King

Does anything mean anything? What is the purpose of life? If I am meant to live presently, what do I do right now?

I often find myself swirling around in some pretty abstract thoughts. This morning I went looking for some music to write about and shuffled into this one (electronically, although, like my other Freddie King post, this song is pretty toe turning and waist twisting). 

Sometimes it's just fun to have fun. 

Enjoy

Song of the Day -- Birth -- El Ten Eleven

It's probably one of the greatest albums I've never actually listened to all the way through. It's a hard go when you have a song like transitions at the front. 

Anxiety can be tricky. I play a lot of pickup basketball these days. I play too fast. You can see "the game speed up" for me, and I make bad decisions. 

I think there's a lot of wisdom in life to the new things we do being scary, or just overly stimulating, or overly exciting, so we tend to speed up to try to get them over with. In reality, we should probably slow down, work the fundamentals, wait for the right shot, and take it. Worse comes to worse, we pass, reset and learn. 

Making that real happen in real life is tough. But music really helps. I know it's been called the quickening art before, but for me, it helps take that thrum of excitement and feeling I usually have and slow it down; it seems to peg it to a rhythm and give it a melody that soars over that percolation in a way that is predictable, fun and true. 

Here's to excitement, anxiety, and finding something new. 

Song here -- Birth by El Ten Eleven.  

Song of the Day -- Growing Pains III -- Logic

There's a special class of songs that slip into different songs in the middle of themselves. Doin the Cockroach is a little like that with the difference between it's verse and bridge (bridge comes in about 2:00 minutes). Transitions has like five pieces of song woven together than make multiple movements of songs in what's a ten minute epic. But maybe this one is special because it really just flips over right in the middle and is a tight four minutes. It also didn't feel too cheeky or cheesy or gimmicky to me in doing it (I feel like this is something drake does in his songs; yes, here's one March 14th, but again it feels cheesy). 

I do think part of it is the authenticity. The voice whispering a specific name, "what are you thinking about // what are you dreaming about." I say it feels authentic, but that's probably more of a reflection of how I feel about my life, rather than a close analytical assessment of logic as a person and this song. By that I mean, when I get in my own head, I ask myself and wish people would ask me "What are you thinking about // what are you dreaming about?" I think my bar for authenticity is sometimes how much something resonates with my own life experience, or rather, how much of my life experience I can resonate with something. 

I'll also say the transition at around 2:17 feels like a surprise, and also like a photo negative. In my mind it feels like the song just effortlessly pivoted on it's toe and changed direction. It goes from rushing forward to this reflective, floating, inverted world. It's got a below the water anime sound that makes me think of Miyazaki movies. I just love it, and it doesn't feel effortful or forced. I have no idea how it they made it so natural. 

In talking about the song, Logic had this to say

"when you first hear me rapping I'm laying in bed at fifteen years old and all the things racing through my mind, from the eviction notice on my door, you know, just being on food stamps and welfare and not knowing what's going to happen tomorrow and just, all the wonders. And then the beat changes up and I actually fall asleep. So this is my inner-most subconscious thoughts that I didn't even realize at the time, at fifteen years old, but now, you know, at twenty-four and looking back, reminiscing, I know that those are the things that are on my mind, because growing up in that situation, no matter what, um, the only time I was special, the only time I was anybody was when I was asleep. When I was asleep I was a famous basketball player, baseball player, I was a rapper/artist, I was a singer, I was an actor, I was dancer, I was an astronaut, but when I woke up I was just a boy from a broken home, and that- that was very hard to swallow" (from Genius)

Yeah. Wow. The dreams, the childhood music soundtrack. The way it's related to the waking world but inverted. Damn. That's art. Shoutout to the producers:  Tae Beast, Skhye Hutch, Frank Dukes, and 6ix. 

Song here 

Song of the Day -- Olive Branch & Brown Dove -- Spirit Was

One of my favorite part about rainy days lately is that I've given myself license to have as many cups of caffeinated tea as I like before noon. There's such a satisfaction in holding a hot cup of earl gray tea and looking out at a cold, gray, overcast day, and just thinking "ha. got ya fucker." 

There's a similar satisfaction I find in listening to this song. To me, it feels triumphant, and bright, despite seeming to emerge from something enormously heavy. And when the main hook hits it gives me goosebumps--just like a good cup of tea.

Nick also seems like a nice guy. I saw him play with Strange Ranger in 2019. They played most perfect gold of the century together and it was probably a top 10 music moments in my life. In fact, I sent him an email about that and this song and he actually got back to me which was so sweet. Check out his stuff. 

Here is the song

Song of the Week -- Annapurna -- Om

It turns out that your body has slightly more bacteria cells than human cells, but your human cells weigh 230 times more. That's some heavy shit. You know what else is heavy? This song from OM. 

Coming out of the cosmic void at bone crunching, face melting pace (SLOW) this is probably the most underrated album of my life in that I never listened to it all the way through until today right now. And Annapurna, aptly named after a 26.5k mountain, is a 710 second bell ringer. 

Song here

For a particularly screeching rendition hear them play it live at their first show here

Credit to Ron Sender, Shai Fuchs, Ron Milo, and a probable army of grad students for updating that bacteria number.