UNSLUMP! Volume II: January 2024
UNSLUMP! Volume II: January 2024
January's top 7 tracks worth checking out!
What’s cooking? Welcome to UNSLUMP! The Music Recommendation substack. If you’re getting this email, that means you are finding yourself in a music SLUMP (bad), and I am here to give you some recommendations (good)!
January 2024 was a month of an almost overwhelming amount of great music- I'm still finding myself catching up on some 2023 releases, so those might be sprinkled into the first few UNSLUMP!s of the year.
This month saw Kim Gordon (of Sonic Youth bass glory) releasing this very weird track, a pretty terrible ABBA cover from Declan Mckenna (Slippin Through My Fingers- Really Declan? Really????), a new Green Day album that kind of hits (😲), No Doubt is playing Coachella… the list goes on.
UNSLUMP! can’t feature em’ all, but here’s this month’s top 7 for you to try!
Follow along on Spotify. (Sorry, Apple Music users).
7 - No Pun Intended - Nicholas Craven, Boldy James (Penalty of Leadership) [Jan 2024]
For fans of: The Alchemist, Westside Gunn, tasteful sampling, groovy grooves
Starting out this mix with an instant hip hop classic! Boldy James and Nicholas Craven team up again for Penalty of Leadership after 2022’s Fair Exchange No Robbery. Boldy James is a part of Griselda Records, run by Westside Gunn and Conway Machine. The new album reaches us as the Detroit rapper recovers from a scary life-threatening car accident. ‘No Pun Intended’ was the first single, released right after James was released from the hospital, with the rest of the album out January 12.
6 - Lego Ring - Faye Webster, Lil Yachty (single) [Jan 2024]
For fans of: frolicking, the humor of living life, indie rock with a country twang
All three singles Faye Webster has teased for her upcoming March release, Underdressed at the Symphony, have wowed me (THIS. SONG.), but it’s gotta be this collab with Lil Yachty that floored me most! Faye and Lil (lmfao) have been friends since junior high, how sweet is that? I’d put Ms. Webster right up there with Lucy Dacus in terms of lyrical prowess- her songs have an innocence and twingliness (not a word?) that is almost twee, except not annoying!! There’s tenderness and realness there, as proven by her great 2021 album, I Know I’m Funny haha. The album will boast all live room recordings, some done in the first or second take, steel guitar and contributions from Wilco’s Nels Cline. Looking forward to March, mark your calendars!
See my favorite lyric from Lil Yachty:
Me and you the dream team
Always together like string beans
Your left hand up in every pic
'Cause your Lego ring is sick
Another fun Faye Webster fact: She is a passionate yo-yo-er and has attended the World Yo-Yo Contest. This is her favorite yo-yo.
5 - coelacanth - glass beach (plastic death) [Jan 2024]
For fans of: midwest emo, 100 gecs, Seattle bands, lowercase
glass beach!!! Formed in 2016, this Seattle (hehe) band takes my favorite emo sounds from the likes of Cap’n Jazz and Modern Baseball and refreshes (and revives) it, adding in creative electronics and a big fat kiss goodbye to the sanctity of genre. ‘coelacanth’ is the opening track on glass beach’s sophomore album, plastic death, released this month. Coelacanths are a group of deep-sea fish once thought to be extinct for millions of years, until they were discovered off the coast of South Africa in 1938. Their discovery was a big deal - it challenged scientific assumptions and highlighted the importance of exploring the depths of our oceans.
glass beach could be coming to a city near you on tour!
4 - Valdez Off Crenshaw (feat. Kamasi Washington, Cory Henry & Robert Sput Searight) - Terrace Martin, Curly, Robert ‘Sput’ Searight, Larry Goldings, Nir Felder (Curly) [July 2023]
For fans of: Kendrick, free jazz, insanely talented families, dinner party music but then you can’t focus on dinner
Terrace Martin was a new discovery for me this month. Curly, released July 2023 on Martin’s label, Sounds of Crenshaw Records, is an album I wish I could live in. Martin’s been around the block; he has produced records for Kendrick Lamar, Snoop Dogg, Busta Rhymes, Stevie Wonder, and more. Curly fits nicely into the jazzier side of his releases, with references to his incredible career weaved throughout (an ode to his production for Kendrick: “How Much A Dollar Cost”). This month’s featured track, ‘Valdez Off Crenshaw’, features collaborations from Kamasi Washington, Cory Henry, and Robert ‘Sput’ Searight. The song is fantastic, and even with a runtime of 8:11, I wish it was longer! If you like this track, do be sure to check out the rest of the album!
Fun fact: Martin is cousins with Ronald Bruner, Jr. (Suicidal Tendencies) and his brother is non other than Stephen “Thundercat” Bruner!
3 - Black Widow - Akini Jing (VILLAIN) [Jan 2024]
For fans of: Bolis Pupul, that Bitburger song, unhinged club music
Akini Jing or Zhu Jingxi (朱婧汐) is a Chinese singer/songwriter/music producer from Yunnan. She released her first solo album in 2008, but reinvented herself as the ‘cyborgian’ Akini Jing in 2019. This whole album exploded my brain - Jing combines aspects of Wuxia martial arts culture into the featured track, ‘Black Widow’, complete with Atari-style punching noises.
Here’s a video of a live performance of the song:
2 - No Caffeine - Marika Hackman (Big Sigh) [Jan 2024]
For fans of: Frou Frou, Elliott Smith, solo night dancing, Mitski
Woooooo! English singer/songwriter Marika Hackman delivers a delicious album after a slew of great singles, my favorite being ‘No Caffeine’, and thus it is featured here in this newsletter! Other standouts from the album include titular track, ‘Big Sigh’, Elliott Smith-reincarnate ‘The Yellow Mile’, and of course, ‘Slime’. Big walking in the snow energy for this one, very inquisitive, expansive, warm and toasty yet also cold and controlled. I first fell in love with Hackman with her song ‘Boyfriend’, one of the greatest lesbian anthems of longing of all time!
Fun fact: Marika Hackman was in a short-lived cover band with model Cara Delevingne called “The Clementines”.
1 - This Can’t Go On - Bill Ryder-Jones (Iechyd Da) [Jan 2024]
For fans of: Babybird and the Arctic Monkeys’ lovesick Irish lovechild, Sweet Disposition by Temper Trap, The Shins, the 2007 movie Once
In choosing the final track for this newsletter, I was battling between a few different options- The Smile’s Wall of Eyes was an especially compelling album, but it took listening to this new Bill Ryder-Jones release (after a five year hiatus from Bill!) on a rainy night to know that this album was going to fill the ~sad~ void on this edition of UNSLUMP!
This song is especially compelling in these tough winter months- I hope it uplifts you, too!
That wraps up Volume II of UNSLUMP! Let me know what you thought of this month’s picks, I’d love to know your favorites!
Until February - Stay out of the slump!
Jess