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Today’s Track: Shabazz Palaces – “Chocolate Souffle”

July 22, 2020 — Leave a comment

This guy wouldn’t Dessert you at the time you need him the most – It’s new post time!

  • Pictured: Ishmael Butler in a photoshoot for “The Don Of Diamond Dreams” (2020) (Photo by Patrick O’ Brien-Smith)

Hey, Hey right back at ‘Cha! Good Morning to you, I’m Jacob Braybrooke and, as per usual, I’m writing about your daily track on the blog because it’s my day-to-day pleasure to write about a different piece of music every day! I only caught wind of “Chocolate Souffle” on Monday. It’s the leading single from Shabazz Palaces’ latest album, “The Don Of Diamond Dreams”, released in April, of this year, by Sub-Pop Records. Shabazz Palaces used to be an Experimental Hip-Hop duo from Seattle, Washington in the US, made up of “Palaceer Lazaro” Ishmael Butler and Tendai “Baba” Maraire, who have been active since 2005, and they have released five albums for the Sub-Pop Records label. They also curated part of the programme for the Dutch “Le Guess Who?” music festival. Butler has since continued the project as a solo act, with the new LP marking the first canonical Shabazz Palaces release since Maraire left the band in 2018. As part of the duo, Butler has worked in the past with George Clinton, Theesatisfaction and Porter Ray as collaborators, but Butler’s now enlisted the help of his own son, emo MC rapper Lil’ Tracey, to produce the new album, which attributes the use of African percussion and Jazz overtones to their family’s musical preferences. Let’s have a listen to futurist Hip-Hop anthem “Chocolate Souffle” below.

Butler proclaims: “You are now in tune” to mark the beginning of his witty, reliably experimental synth-based hip-hop track that feels caught in a thick smog of 1970’s-era Funk, with razor sharp poetic delivery and hallucinatory panning that often obscures the vocals. The verses shuffle with Acid-Funk, a heavy element that adds surreal humor and charming off-kilter effects to the daft songwriting. Butler recites the likes of “Trying to catch mermaids with no hook” and “I’m at the zenith of slick demeanors”, capturing a spirit of woozy synth-funk and strange, unworldly tones. Butler uses hooks like: “I’m a movie, She want a part” and “Nigerian space queens sing the chorus like a row of sirens” to hold an upbeat, sly rap mastery over the top of flowing stream-of-consciousness raps and strong, interweaving currents of drum machine loops. The vocals get even less comprehensible and cohesive as the trap-snares accumulate over the Blues-driven guitar licks, on top of a club-ready drum pattern and a stuttering bassline that lacks sobriety. There is a slower section, leading to the killer refrain of: “My phone’s really not that smart”. The lyrics are delightfully nonsensical, and over the course of the long six-minute duration, the sound gradually increases in distortion. It draws back, very far, into the history of Black rap music in the 1960’s, and the old-school sounds of Funk and Soul combinations in the 1970’s, but the experimental electronic instrumentation gives it a new coat of paint. It’s a similar approach that widely regarded 2020 standout Thundercat used for “It Is What It Is” at the same time, but it feels more drug-infused. This sounds like Will.I.Am (of The Black Eyed Peas) with the volume turned up to eleven, with an undeniably “wonky” appeal that keeps the silly vocals and constant grooves from getting tedious. All in all, I think it’s great fun, although it has very little to do with a Chocolate Souffle!

  • Pictured: Cover Artwork for “The Don Of Diamond Dreams) (Released on April 17th, 2020) (via Sub-Pop Records)

Thank you for reading this post! The Avalanches, one of our recurring personal favourites on the blog, are releasing two brand new tracks today…. well, they’re already out now! 40 minutes ago, at the time of writing this. Therefore, I’m going to check in with the Aussie Sample-Delia duo, with an in-depth review of their brand new single “Wherever You Will Go”, which teases collaborations with Neneh Cherry and Jamie XX, with additional production work from CLYPSO. If you really liked what you just read, why not follow the blog to get notified when each new post is up and like the Facebook page here?: https://www.facebook.com/OneTrackAtATime

Today’s Track: Tropea – “Technicolour”

July 18, 2020 — Leave a comment

Sip down on some Kia-Ora and relax out in the Sun to this! It’s time for your new post!

  • Pictured: Cover Artwork for “Might Delete Later” (EP) (Released on June 12th, 2020) (via Self-Released/Bandcamp)

Good Morning to you, I’m Jacob Braybrooke and I’m writing up your daily track on the blog, and that’s because it is always my day-to-day pleasure to write, up on the blog, about a different piece of music every day! Tropea – a 4-piece indie Tropicalia band formed in Milan, Italy in 2017 – are one of my biggest recent deep dives, since there’s fairly little information about them on the internet, but I had first caught wind of their Summery sounds through KEXP’s Song Of The Day podcast. The 4-piece outfit have been keeping their minds active during the Covid-19 pandemic by self-producing a six-track EP, “Might Delete Later”, via Butik and peermusicITALY, last month. Tropea like to describe their music as “Pajama music for Pajama people” in relation to their pop-driven, dreamy Shoegaze-inspired 80’s synth sound. On the “Might Delete Later” EP, the band aimed to arouse the feelings of a live show, with six tracks that naturally conjoin into one another. Tropea said on “Technicolor”. via a press release: “It’s a very bonding moment and it gives a sense of community with our audience. We wanted to capture the same live energy, but also give it a new meaning since we are facing tough times: it’s a song for dreaming, dancing, or just exercising and taking care of oneself, for burning with love and taking care of each other even in the midst of the difficulties of this absurd world. It’s a tribute to those who help others see the magic, despite our illusions and the lies we tell ourselves”. Let’s get our groove on to it below.

Synth overload, anyone? As much of an independently produced track by nature as it is by its name, “Technicolor” is a sparkling 1980’s-inflicted Synth-Pop ditty that is, obviously, sung in Italian, with certain auras of New-Wave and Tropicalia gauzing throughout its short three-minute duration. It has a very European club sound, with agile synth rhythms and vibrant keyboard riffs, with a less guitar-driven flair than the other six tracks from the EP. It’s filled with chanting vocals, especially at the mid-way point where vocalist Pietro Selvini exclaims the refrain: “Your eyes in the blinking town/Betraying the night”, prior to a very bouncy synth-led chorus of joyous keyboard melodies and looping synth pads. The pacing is quick and snappy throughout, with a speedy vocal delivery on the verses and glistening synth strobes in the post-bridge. The verses sound fluid and rich, with glitching drum machine loops and fizzling Acid-Pop melodies that complement the Italian lyricism and the Psych-Pop oriented textures with clean and polished production. As for improvements that I could suggest, I think there is a slight over-reliance on the auto-tune machine here, and some more natural vocals would achieve a similar effect of writing a Summery indie pop track, and an incorporation of more World music Elements, such as the use of a West African drum, will also capture the vibe while decreasing the processed sound a notch. On the flip side, the vocal performance is strong, the production is handled with a tidy precision and the Blade Runner-esque 80’s aesthetics are fun. It really reminds me of The Weeknd. It’s not usually my thing, but I can tell there’s more than “just trying to have a hit” here. I want a fancy glass of juice with an umbrella in it.

  • Pictured: Tropea in a self-produced photoshoot to promote the “Might Delete Later” EP (2020) (via Facebook.com)

Thank you very much for reading this post! I’ll be back tomorrow, as per usual, with your brand new weekly edition of our Scuzz Sunday series. It’s the time of the week where we take an in-depth stroll down the memory lane of classic emo-rock or pop-punk releases from between the late-1990s, through to the mid-2000s, to see if they can hold a candle to the new kids on the block (Modern standards, I mean, not the 1980’s boy band that flopped). If you really liked what you just read, why not follow the blog to get notified when each new post is up and like the Facebook page here?: https://www.facebook.com/OneTrackAtATime

Today’s Track: The Radio Dept. – “Could You Be The One?”

July 16, 2020 — Leave a comment

The latest in the sparsely transmitted frequencies of Lund’s Finest! It’s new post time!

  • Johan Duncanson (Lead Vocals, Producer) and Martin Larsson (Keyboard/Synths) (2020) (via Brooklyn Vegan)

Here we go again! Good Morning, I am Jacob Braybrooke and I’m writing up about your daily track on the blog, because, as per usual, it’s always my day-to-day pleasure to write about a different piece of music every single day! I started off a two-part series yesterday, starting with the new single “You’re Lookin’ At My Guy” from The Radio Dept, a cult Dream-Pop/Shoegaze group from Lund, a small city in Sweden. The personal favourites released a new Double Single over the last weekend, and we are listening to “Could You Be The One?”, the B-side of the release, today. The band have decided that, instead of writing and producing a new full-length record, they will be scattering a range of sporadically released singles throughout the course of the year, with the intention to compile the singles onto an album-length compilation later in the year. If you’ve only jumped into the blog today, The Radio Dept. are the Swedish duo of Johan Duncanson and Martin Larrson (along with touring member Daniel Tjader), who got the name from a local gas-station-turned-radio-station-turned-repair-shop called “Radioavdelningen”, which translates to “The Radio Department”. The Dept. have never been a fixture in mainstream culture, but 2006’s “Pet Grief” and 2010’s “Clinging To A Scheme” were relative cult classics within the internet music community. I have a joke with my friend Harrison, where we call them “Lund’s Finest”. I’m certainly not sure what the competition surrounding that award is, but they’re massively underrated, and they added weight to the claim with “You’re Lookin’ At My Guy”, on yesterday’s post. Get ready for part two with “Could You Be The One?” below.

It was well-documented, on the blog yesterday, that the A-Side of the release “You’re Lookin’ At My Guy” was a changed-up cover of the Tri-Lites, a 1960’s girl vocal group’s original version, switching up the Jazzy doo-wops for hazy acoustic melodies, mixed up with a little synth distortion. The B-side “Could You Be The One”, however, is an original. Duncanson leads the track with a call-and-response lyric delivery, as he sings over the top of a radiant synth line and a glistening, breezy acoustic guitar riff: “You’ve been wishing away, Aching to be led astray, Anything to be the one who got away”, before a soft chorus incorporates a short and lush Horn section into the instrumentation of the ongoing, guitar-laden hooks. The lyrics are contemplative, but there is a sweet and progressive warmth that downplays the melancholy with a balance of joy and triumph. Duncanson adds “Could you be the one?/Could this be the day” to the vague and minimalist chorus, while the finale feels a touch more sad, but polished, as Duncanson builds up to a sweet, artistic outro of light acoustic guitar licks and subtle keyboard riffs with: “Could you be the one?, The one that gets to say, I took the chance, and got away”, using self-reflective and elegant themes of lust and unrequited romance. The “Turn To Camera One” refrain is intriguing, and it may connote a story of a film director trying to start a relationship with an actress or a producer on set, but that’s just my interpretation. Again, like with yesterday, it’s very subtle and it paints a pretty minimalist picture, but it feels more driven by character and narrative than “You’re Lookin’ At My Guy”. Another solid outing by ‘Lund’s Finest’!

  • Pictured: Cover Artwork for “You’re Looking At My Guy” (Double Single) (Released on July 10th, 2020) (via Just So! Records)

Don’t forget to check out Part one of my two-day spread, with my review for “You’re Lookin’ At My Guy”, in case that you missed it, here: https://onetrackatatime.home.blog/2020/07/15/todays-track-the-radio-dept-youre-looking-at-my-guy/. I’ve also covered a few other tracks previously, you can check out my review for the recent single “The Absence Of Birds” here: https://onetrackatatime.home.blog/2020/03/06/todays-track-the-radio-dept-the-absence-of-birds/, and you can peruse my review for their sleeper gem “Memory Loss”, which I can’t believe was released exactly a decade ago, here: https://onetrackatatime.home.blog/2019/11/21/todays-track-the-radio-dept-memory-loss/

  • Pictured: Cover Artwork for “The Absence Of Birds” (Released in 2020) (via Just So! Records)
  • Pictured: Cover Artwork for “Clinging To A Scheme” (Released in 2010) (via Labrador Records)

Thank you very much for reading this post! A new weekend means another batch of new album releases, so I’m going to be choosing a single from a brand new album to cover tomorrow’s blog post. It’ll be from the new project of an English musician and songwriter who was the frontman of 90’s group Pulp, and he famously jumped on-stage during Michael Jackson’s performance of “Earth Song” at the BRIT Awards in 1996!  If you really liked what you just read, why not follow the blog to get notified when each new post is up and like the Facebook page here?: https://www.facebook.com/OneTrackAtATime

Today’s Track: Manu Dibango – “Soul Makossa”

July 14, 2020 — Leave a comment

Talk about The Lion King, this one is The Founder Of Funk! It’s time for your new post!

  • Pictured: Cover Artwork for “Soul Makossa” (Released in 1972) (via Fiesta Records (France) and Atlantic Records (USA))

Where are you, Sun? Good Morning, I’m Jacob Braybrooke and I’m writing about your daily track on the blog, as per usual, since it’s always my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! Manu Dibango was a Cameroonian musician and songwriter who played both the Saxophone and Vibraphone, and he was born to a father of the Yabassi ethnic tribe, and to a mother of the Duala group. Manu Dibango developed his own unique style of music, covering a vast spectrum of traditional African roots music – and he fused them together with a cohesive range of genres – such as Jazz, Afrobeat, Salsa, Samba, Gospel, Reggae and Blues. His biggest hit was 1972’s “Soul Mokassa”. The name is very self-explanatory, it’s simply a fusion of Soul and “Mokassa” – an Urban Cameroonian style of Jazz that blends prominent use of Brass sections with electric Bass rhythms. The refrain has been sampled by Michael Jackson and Rihanna, and the single was a huge influence on Kool & The Gang. It also led Dibango to frequent collaborations with the legendary Fela Kuti. An interesting fact about this track is that only few copies were ever printed, and after widespread airplay on WBLS (the then-most popular Black radio station in the US), over 20 cover versions were recorded by different groups to capitalize on the high, but limited, demand. Sadly, we lost Manu Dibango on 24th March, 2020 after he caught COVID-19, whilst living in France. Let’s get lost in the sounds of “Soul Makossa” below.

Undoubtedly driven by it’s very Saxophone-based grooves, many have claimed “Soul Makossa” to be the very first, true Disco record. There are no traditionally written lyrics to really speak of, but there is a prominent use of Lead Vocals. Manu Dibango’s claim to fame was the “Mamma ko, Mamma ka” rhythm pattern that gets scattered throughout the track, and the “Ma-mako, Ma-ma-Sa, Mako-Make Ssa” choral refrain that played a massive factor in defining the significant sound of a “Disco” record. The vocal refrain gets repeated by a choir in the backing vocals, but the instrumentation clearly has an even more lasting effect. Dibango plays beautifully on the Saxophone, and he is a great arranger. The track gradually adds layer upon layer of bright, warm Saxophone riffs. These are very upbeat and cheerful in tone, but it’s not so much of an uplifting pop sound, as there’s noticeably a tight edge of Jazz in the loose Vibraphone sections and the Congolese rumba sounds, wrapped in ensemble Conga drum patterns and ongoing, mid-tempo Trumpet shifts. He also mixes the catchy vocal patterns together with the key shifts between major and minor, to add new elements of Afrobeat and Ska to the persisting, recurring Brass-centric patterns. This is delightfully repetitive and breezy, with a summery warmth that makes it sound like the musical equivalent of grabbing a can of San Pellegrino (I assure you, this is not sponsored) on a scorching hot day, and just necking it down. Rest In Peace, old friend!

  • Pictured: Manu Dibango playing a live set at an undisclosed music festival (in 2014) (Photo via Wikicommons)

Thank you very much for reading this post! As always, I will be back tomorrow for our first-part (of two) look at the brand new double single by an indie Dream-Pop group from Lund, a city in the South-West province of Sweden. They’ve often been compared to The Postal Service, and the group got their brodcast-related name from a local petrol-station-turned-radio-station-turned-repair shop called “Radioavdelningen”, and giving you the rough translation will ruin the suprise I’ve given to you from these clues! If you really liked what you just read, why not follow the blog to get notified when each new post is up and like the Facebook page here?: https://www.facebook.com/OneTrackAtATime

Today’s Track: 박혜진 Park Hye Jin – “Like This”

July 10, 2020 — Leave a comment

Do you like it like that? I really like it “Like This”! It’s time for your new daily blog post!

  • Pictured: 박혜진 Park Hye Jin in a photoshoot to promote the release of the “How Can I” EP (2020) (via NinjaTune.net)

Good Morning, Afternoon or Evening – I’m Jacob Braybrooke and I’m writing up about your daily track on the blog, because it’s always my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! You know how it works by now, I give you my honest thoughts on an interesting or exciting track, old or new. The latter is the case for today! 박혜진 Park Hye Jin is an emerging rapper, DJ and producer who has recently signed to Ninja Tune. Born in Seoul and later based in Melbourne, Jin has become a renowned producer by the internet music community for her work in light, ambient electronic textures that feel majestic, dream-like and influenced by a wide range of cultural movements from across the globe. She’s just 26 years old, and she’s already performed at international music festivals such as Primavera and Dour – a personal favourite of her’s. She has also performed alongside British Indie stalwart Jamie XX in London last year. Two Fridays ago, on June 26th, Jin released her latest six-track EP production – “How Can I” – which thematically deals with the conflicted emotions that came to life touring around the world, with infectious whispered vocals and new sonic directions. Let’s have a listen to the EP’s lead single, “Like This”, below!

“This lead single has no English lyrics in it at all”, says Ashley Yun, a project manager at Hye Jin’s label Ninja Tune, “It’ll be a really good benchmark for how ready society is to hear music that isn’t in English. That prospect is really exciting.”, she elaborates. It’s a statement that pushes well-deserved diversity in Asian electronic music production and sonic music development as a whole, but I also feel the result of the overall sound adds a hazy, slow-moving effect that plays off Jin’s strengths in her specific right. “Like This” sounds carefree and delicate, with widely scattered vocal effects and a soft, meditative ambience that seems freeform and gently minimalist. The grooving vocal section, particularly beginning from the first verse, has an intangibly sensual delivery and uses a simple gliding effect to form up a light crescendo of chiming melodies, creating a vivid dream-like effect. Her vocals feel tranquil and sweet, in contrast to the slightly chilling percussion. The tempo is slightly raised in the chorus, and it suddenly becomes easier to dance to. However, they also feel very hypnotic to me, and it creates a firm, albeit faint, melancholy. It’s almost as if Jin is contemplating her missing absence of her family or simple home comforts at a time when she’s in the middle of a rowdy, prime-time live DJ set. I like to intepret the textures in the ambient tracks like these, but I don’t think the production of this style of music is really meant to be discussed, but felt instead, so it’s open to your own ears too. In my case, the swelling synthesizers of the minimalist house vibe feels creatively layered, and the intricate methods she uses feels inspired by Aphex Twin’s work on Selected Ambient Works Volume II, while it sounds more beat-driven, akin to Peggy Gou, a similarly contemporary DJ of Asian origin. Overall, I think this makes for excellent background listening. Mild and lush, with a catchy Earworm hook.

  • Pictured: Cover Artwork for “How Can I” (EP/6 Tracks) (Released on 26th June, 2020) (via Ninja Tune)

Thank you very much for reading this post! Don’t forget that I’ve got a new weekly edition of Scuzz Sundays coming up in two days time, but I will be warming you up for it tomorrow with a contemporary, recently released Alternative Punk track from a young, emerging 4-piece from Liverpool. The new track is named after the “Badside” of a very famous British-American musician, theorist and filmmaker who was the lead singer/guitarist of the influential 1970’s band Talking Heads. If you really liked what you just read, why not follow the blog to get notified when each new post is up and like the Facebook page here?: https://www.facebook.com/OneTrackAtATime

Today’s Track: Enigma – “Sadeness (Part 1)”

July 8, 2020 — Leave a comment

This interesting German-Romanian electronic music producer managed to crack the “Enigma code” of the mainstream singles charts in the 1990’s. It’s time for a new post!

  • Pictured: Enigma (Michael Cretu) in a photoshoot to promote “The Fall Of A Rebel Angel” (2016) (via ParisMatch.com)

Remember this one? Good Morning to you, my name is Jacob Braybrooke and I’m writing up about your daily track on the blog, since it’s always my day-to-day pleasure to write about a different piece of music every day! It’s a strange sight to behold – a composer managing to have a big chart hit with an ambient chillout track that was built upon Gregorian Chants and tribal Flute sounds, but somehow… before I was even born…. It happened! Enter Enigma, the alias of German-Romanian music composer Micheal Cretu. The inspiration for his experimental project was a product of his desire to make a kind of music that did not obey “the old rules and habits” of commercial pop music, and presented a new form of artistic expression with mystic and experimental components, according to his interview with Melvyn J. Willin. Thus, he produced atmospheric intercultural soundscapes which dabbled in elements of New-Age and Worldbeat. He became a very successful artist for doing so, selling a total of over 70 million records worldwide, and receiving three Grammy Award nominations. He’s still going, having released his eighth ambient LP – “The Fall Of A Rebel Angel” – in 2016. He burst onto the scene with his international hit “Sadeness (Part 1)” in 1990, a track that somehow reached the #1 spot of the singles charts in 24 countries, which includes the UK. Let’s have a listen back to his breakout track below!

I’ve always wanted to join the Gregorian monks, but I never got the chants! There is no denying that Engima’s “Sadeness (Part 1)” is probably the most profoundly odd track to reach #1 in the UK, but I feel there is a nice amount of artistic merit to it, as opposed to it being a ‘fad’, and just a novelty. Starting off with an ominous line of Gregorian monk chants, Cretu gradually adds the layers up to combine the Gothic themes with ambient dance beats that were in the contemporary boom period of the time. Cretu repurposes a sample of the drums in Soul II Soul’s “Keep On Movin'” to create a gentle hip-hop beat, and Cretu combines them with a shimmering Pan-Pipe hook to get a downtempo, sultry groove going. It creates a very multicultural and strange ambient texture, and Cretu expands the idea out with the sound of a woman panting after a breathy line of odd foreign language vocals, paired up with the unexpected, short burst of a guitar solo in the middle. The climax (No pun intended) matches the ongoing Flute melodies with the sequence of more beat-driven synthesizer riffs, and the bizzare Gregorian monk chants bring a full-circle effect to the cerebral, trance-inducing 4-minute duration of ethereal, rich sound effects and dense, world-based instrumentation. The Peruvian flute melodies are the highlight for me, and the combination of strange sounds are quite appealing in a surprising number of ways, such as the seductive vibe of the light female backing vocals and the chemistry the different sections have in creating the visionary style that amounts up to an ambient fantasia. I’m probably just reading a bit too much into it, but it does still sound imaginative, and deeply sensual. The layering is quite solid. Sadly, I have a feeling that – much like the ancient customs of an old Gregorian tribe – it will sadly be forgotten as time wares on, and ‘Chart Pop’ gets more meme-oriented by the second!

  • Pictured: Cover Artwork for “MCMXC a.D.” (Released on 10th December, 1990) (via Virgin/Charisma Records)

Thank you very much for reading this post! I’ll be back tomorrow, as always, with an in-depth listen to the (Pssssst… it’s really bad) brand new single from a Scottish folk-rock band who originally performed the track, “When We Collide”, that The X-Factor winner Matt Cardle had the UK’s Christmas #1 Single with in late 2010. If you really liked what you just read, why not follow the blog to get notified when each new post is up and like the Facebook page here?: https://www.facebook.com/OneTrackAtATime

Today’s Track: Thundercat – “Funny Thing”

July 2, 2020 — Leave a comment

The lady who shouts “Thundercat” on The Undateables would love it! New post time!

  • Pictured: Thundercat (Stephen Lee Bruner) performing at the 02 ABC, Glasgow (2017) (via WikiMedia Commons)

Good Morning, I’m Jacob Braybrooke and I am writing about your daily track on the blog, since it’s always my day-to-day pleasure to write about a different piece of music every day! For today’s track, Thundercat is obviously not their real name. It is, indeed, the stage name used by Stephen Lee Bruner – a Funk, R&B and Soul singer-songwriter from Los Angeles, California – who adopted the name as a tribute to his love for anything Geek culture-related, such as his love for 1980’s cartoons and the Japanese Manga/Anime franchise Dragonball. It’s all a part of his brand! His fourth studio album, “It Is What It Is”, was released earlier this year, and it is dedicated to rapper Mac Miller, who sadly died aged 26 in 2018, as you might know. Bruner produced his new record with Flying Lotus, and it features guest appearances from Childish Gambino, Kamasi Washington, Ty Dolla $ign, and many others. A single that grabbed my attention from the album, while listening to BBC Radio 6Music in the daytime, was “Funny Thing”. Let’s have a listen to “Funny Thing” with its video below.

Just shy of two minutes long, Thundercat could have a potentially big hit on his hands if he allows the bouncy electronic drum grooves and the celestial synths of “Funny Thing” to swell. Bruner uses a playful fusion of old-school Funk, Soul and R&B, with a modern synth-led instrumental twist, to detail a romantic moment as a dancehall-like, drug-infused love party nears toward it’s end. There’s a cheeky idiocy in all of his lyrics: “Someone hold my phone/Cause’ I can’t hold my tongue” and “Then I’m gonna ruin the fun/ that’s not your problem because I’ve seen to much baby, Sorry if I get a little PTSD”, as Bruner delivers the honeyed vocals, layered above the backdrop of a bouncy, stomping bass line and a skittering drum loop to create the wonky, synth-soul sensibility. In the chorus, he intonely warbles “I just want to party with you tonight, because you make everything alright” over a soft, lo-fi keyboard riff. The visual aesthetic is vintage Funk-Soul and animated, and the sonic direction is rickety and psychedelic, but I also find there to be a sadness to the track as well. The synth lines are mid-tempo and downbeat, with an expressive vocal delivery that makes me feel like Bruner could also be lamenting a failed relationship or an unstable life decision at the party. It sounds intimate, and the poignant Falsetto lyric delivery is what makes this track stand out for more than it’s playfulness and it’s quirky humour. It’s a very old-fashioned sound which harkens back to the thematic racial unity of Funk and Jazz in the 1960’s and 70’s, and it’s more appealing to mature listeners than a teenage audience. The contemporary lick of synth makes it compulsively listenable.

  • Pictured: Cover Artwork for “It Is What It Is” (Released on April 3rd, 2020) (via Brainfeeder Records)

Thank you for reading this post! In regards to #BlackLivesMatter, we endorse the peaceful protests on One Track At A Time. Please go and check your local area for good charity causes that help those directly affected by racism and injustice. I’ll be back tomorrow with an in-depth look at the new track from an emerging female solo artist, who I have covered and positively reviewed beforehand, whose last music video was co-directed by Loyle Carner, and she landed a spot on the BBC’s Sound Of 2020 poll. If you really liked what you just read, why not follow the blog to get notified when each new post is up and like the Facebook page here?: https://www.facebook.com/OneTrackAtATime

Today’s Track: Man 2 Man (feat. George Parish) – “Male Stripper”

July 1, 2020 — 2 Comments

Novelty classic, or “Stripped” of it’s quality in the years since? It’s time for a new post!

  • Pictured: Cover Art for “Man 2 Man: Hits & Rarities 1985-1990” (Released in 1995) (via Retro Disco Hi-NRG)

Good Morning to you, I’m Jacob Braybrooke and I’m writing up about your daily track on the blog – just like always – because it’s always my day-to-day pleasure to write about a different piece of music every day! I’ve been looking at a lot of very serious, big new releases for the last week or so, and so I thought it would prove to be a nice palette cleanser to kick off the new month, of July 2020, with a look back at a novelty club classic that became a big hit in the golden age of 1980’s dance and disco music. “Male Stripper”, by Man 2 Man Meet George Parish, was originally released in late 1986, prior to it reaching #4 in the UK Singles Chart after a re-release in 1997. The project originally started as a New York Punk-Dance band called The Fast, it was part of the HI-NRG movement of uptempo and risky club music around the time, but two brothers who were part of the band – Miki Zone and Paul Zone – continued the act as a duo, teaming up with cult electro-pop producer George Parish to record “Male Stripper”, a song which gained big steam on the European club circuit, under the aliases of Man 2 Man. Sadly, Miki Zone became a victim of the AIDS Epidemic and died in 1986, shortly after it’s release. Since then, Paul continued as a solo producer under the name of Man To Man, and released a few tracks that had moderate success, but didn’t trouble the Top 40 singles charts very much. However, Paul Zone did even get to perform “Male Stripper” on Top Of The Pops with George Parish, so it’s not entirely awful. Let’s have a listen back to “Male Stripper” with the original music video below.

Magic Mike will be pleased. You can have that for free, Channing Tatum. A single that sounds almost like the quintessential European disco club classic from the late-1980’s because it more or less was, “Male Stripper” aimed to draw a crowd to the dancefloor, and it succeeded. Beginning with the funny, recognizable Horn sounds, the Zone brothers take the lead with an upbeat synth groove which they interweave with a robotic backing vocal which repeats “I was a male stripper in a go-go bar”, before Paul Zone recites lines such as “Ripples on my chest/I never got an address” and “A modern day jock, A jock with an act” over looped, bouncy drum machine sequences and echoing Vibraphone melodies, with a neat Conga Drum solo added in the bridgefor the good measure. The chorus is absurd: “Strip for me, babe, Strip for you/Strip for you cause’ I want you to”, completed with dueling female backing vocals and the odd “OOh” or “Ahh” from Miki Zone. More gloriously moronic lines: “Built like a truck/I’d bump for a buck” and “Tips in my G-string/I made my living” add humor, layered over the consistently repeating drum machine hooks and synthesized instrumentation sounds. Whilst it’s clearly not designed to be an emotionally challenging display of fine art, it’s entertaining to listen to, and it stands out as a relic because nobody would really write a club track about a gay Male Stripper in this present era, because it’s seen as risky in the sense of modern cultural representation. Conclusively, it sounds like the quintessential 1980’s club track. It is, but it’s good fun.

  • Pictured: Cover Artwork for “Male Stripper” (Single/UK Mix) (Released in late 1986) (via Recca Record)

Thank you for reading this post! In regards to #BlackLivesMatter, we endorse the peaceful protests on One Track At A Time. Please go and check your local area for good charity causes that help those directly affected by racism and injustice. I’ll be back tomorrow, continuing to kick off the month in style, with an in-depth look at a track from a Grammy-winning American singer-songwriter and producer from California who is a huge fan of the Dragonball Japanese Manga/Anime series, and he uses it as a big part of his brand. If you really liked what you just read, why not follow the blog to get notified when each new post is up and like the Facebook page here?: https://www.facebook.com/OneTrackAtATime

Today’s Track: Arca – “Mequetrefe”

June 30, 2020 — Leave a comment

The Venezuelan producer breaking all musical boundaries is back. It’s new post time!

  • Pictured: Cover Artwork for “KiCk i” (Released on June 26th, 2020) (via XL Recordings)

Good Morning to you, My name is Jacob Braybrooke and I’m writing about your daily track on the blog, because it’s always my day-to-day pleasure to write about a different piece of music every day! Last month, I had a look at “Time”, the new single of-the-time by Venezuelan music producer Arca, who identifies as a Transgender Woman. Arca was building up to the release of her fourth studio album, “Kick I”, set for release on June 26th via the XL Recordings label. Lo and behold, the date has come and gone, so “Kick I” was unleashed into the world over the last weekend. I remember writing that “Time” left me wanting more, so I’ve decided to stream the album and cover the follow-up single, “Mequetrefe”, on the blog. I first discovered Arca through her work on Bjork’s “Vulnicura” and “Utopia” albums, from 2015 and 2017, respectively. She has also produced for the likes of Kanye West, FKA Twigs and Rosalia. Let’s hear her unique brand of shapeshifting europop on “Mequetrefe” below.

“Mequetrefe” derives from a derogatory term, roughly translating to “lazy”, used to describe men in Spanish, as explained by Arca in a press statement, a term she heard in Venezuela while she was growing up – it’s an exploration of gender identity that she tackles to a distorted effect on her strange Euro-Pop dance track. “Mequetrefe” sees Arca croon often unintelligible Spanish lyrics over the top of a mildly danceable and constantly shifting soundscape. Armed with a relentless delivery that never truly sees the track settle into a consistent rhythm, Arca drenches pounding drum beats in a stuttering, percussive shatter effect, completed with heavy Squarepusher-esque retro video game-style acid lines, and cut-up splicing effects mixed with disembodied vocal chanting which sound like a lovechild made between the likes of Aphex Twin and A Tribe Called RED. An underlying Techno and IDM direction creates a fairly tense and uneasy atmosphere for the most part, as Arca builds a commanding presence from the experimental dance-led production, but there is a brief interval when a tranquil synth-line relaxes the tempo down a notch, interrupted by a strobe effect which deforms the synth refrain, before repeating the sequence. Arca uses her vocals to dispose the glitchy Europop-dance vibe, but it sounds more nuanced than your typical Eurovision novelty affair. I really like the ambition on display, and Arca carries an air of self-assurance that intrigues, but it’s a mixed bag for me personally, as the heavy use of distortion effects make it feel jarring and a bit violent to listen to, to a point where it sounds uneven and a bit incohesive due to the sparse use of a pop melodicism. The production shows good attention to detail, but it simply sounds a little too aggressive for my liking. Furthermore, I don’t feel the vocals add very much to the topics of gender at hand. I really enjoyed the downbeat and intricate synth sounds on “Time”, and I ultimately prefer that track for it’s futuristic sci-fi approach. There’s decent creativity here, but it is a disappointing step down from “Time” for me.

  • Pictured: Arca in a press photoshoot to promote the release of “KiCk i” (2020) (Photo Credit: Hart Leshkina)

As I mentioned beforehand, I have also covered the previous single from “Kick I”, the new album by Arca, on the blog beforehand. Why not have a read of it here?: https://onetrackatatime.home.blog/2020/05/28/todays-track-arca-time/

  • Pictured: Arca (Alejandra Ghersi) in a still image from the “Time” music video (2020) (Photo Credit: Rolling Stone)

Thank you for reading this post! In regards to #BlackLivesMatter, we endorse the peaceful protests on One Track At A Time. Please go and check your local area for good charity causes that help those directly affected by racism and injustice. After a weekend of various big releases, I will be switching things up on the blog tomorrow, as we’re going back to 1986 for a look at a club classic which is named after the same profession that the fictional film character Magic Mike occupies. If you really liked what you just read, why not follow the blog to get notified when each new post is up and like the Facebook page here?: https://www.facebook.com/OneTrackAtATime

Today’s Track: Nadine Shah – “Kitchen Sink”

June 29, 2020 — 1 Comment

Does it belong away from the kitchen or on the cutting room floor? It’s new post time!

  • Pictured: Nadine Shah in a photoshoot to promote “Ladies For Babies (Goats For Love)” (2020) (Photo by Fraser Taylor)

Good Morning, Afternoon, Evening – or Whenever you are reading this! I’m Jacob Braybrooke and I’m writing about your daily track on the blog, since it’s always my day-to-day pleasure to write about a different piece of music every day! A British Muslim of Norwegian-Pakistani descent, Nadine Shah is an English songwriter, musician and producer – born in Whitburn, South Tyne and Wear – with a lot of interesting thoughts to get off her chest using the power of music as expression. This has led to her becoming a very critically acclaimed figure who regularly pops up on the British indie music circuit. She’s got four full-length albums to her belt, with her third LP effort “Holiday Destination”, released in 2017, bagging her the “Independent Album Of The Year Award” at the AIM Awards in 2018. It’s been a big week for new releases, and her follow-up to her AIM award-winning LP record came out on Friday. Titled “Kitchen Sink”, the album tackles the role of women in their 30’s in the sense of domestic gender politics, with the album’s tracks chronicling multiple anthology tales of women with the desire to end up anywhere but the kitchen sink. Let’s see her perform “Kitchen Sink” at the Moth Club in Hackney, in front of no live crowd, below.

On the titular track, “Kitchen Sink”, Shah uses a very serious vocal delivery and a haunting post-punk backing track to discuss the expectations that she feels burdened with, referencing her multicultural ethnic background as a literal device to evoke pressure given by her neighbors and onlookers. Shah sings: “Don’t you worry about what the neighbors think/They’re characters from kitchen sink” and “All they see is just a strange face/Whose heritage they cannot trace”, referring to the adversaries as ‘Curtain Twitchers’ during an early verse, over a minimalist bass guitar loop that commands her presence with it’s quiet effect. Shah uses a single line for a chorus: “And, I just let them pass me by”, with the guitar riff increasingly becoming more bitter and aggressive as the track progresses. A stuttering lead guitar solo slowly begins to implode, and a range of distortion effects and mild synth lines end up creating an irregular pattern which implodes at the later points in the track. The vocals are deliberately low-pitched and evoke a very bleak emotion, with a harsh throbbing bass sound meshing with the vocals to craft a Shakespearean style, playing off her snarky remarks. The concept of the album sounds a bit dull and typical of our modern time on paper, but it’s more fun than it sounds. She invokes humor with a bizzare tale of a farmer husband dismissing his wife for his farm on “Ladies For Babies (Goats For Love)” and evokes elements of Samba on the opener “Club Cougar”, about a riotius “Cougar” who dates a much younger man. This adds some accessibility, although she takes herself more seriously on the title track, with low and moody guitar lines conveying a melancholic emotional state. Shah gets lauded by critics, but she doesn’t seem to be that popular in the general public eye. That has the chance to change with “Kitchen Sink” and I hope that it does. It sounds thought-provoking and original, whilst harkening back to the Murder Ballads that Nick Cave bought in the 1990’s as inspiration for her narrated storytelling. Anyone can get something out of it.

  • Pictured: Front Cover Artwork for “Kitchen Sink” (Released on June 26th, 2020) (via Infectious Music)

Back in February, I also covered the lead single “Ladies For Babies (Goats For Love)” from the new album “Kitchen Sink” on the blog. Why not have a read of it here?: https://onetrackatatime.home.blog/2020/02/27/todays-track-nadine-shah-ladies-for-babies-goats-for-love/

  • Pictured: Nadine Shah wins “Independent Album Of The Year” the AIM Awards (2018) (Photo Credit: Callum Baker)

Thank you for reading this post! In regards to #BlackLivesMatter, we endorse the peaceful protests on One Track At A Time. Please go and check your local area for good charity causes that help those directly affected by racism and injustice. As I mentioned, it’s been a big weekend for new album releases and so tomorrow, I’m going to be taking a look at another track from “Kick I”, the new album to be released by Venezuelan euro-pop upstart Arca! If you really liked what you just read, why not follow the blog to get notified when each new post is up and like the Facebook page here?: https://www.facebook.com/OneTrackAtATime