R▲ZZ D▲ZZ WEEKLY

When I was growing up I adored year-end recaps, countdowns, and the like. I held publishers of best of lists in rarified air – these were timeless artifacts, I thought, that would serve as gateways to the past, sometimes to be cherished as much as the subjects themselves, assembled only by those most qualified to create such things. From time to time a foreign list would cross my path bearing dispatches from alternate realities. I transcribed them by hand and tried to commit them to memory. Year-end lists were an event, but so were the recommended discographies I’d find browsing listening guides and omnibus publications at the book store. I soaked in as much of it as I could along the way. All of these outlets provided what I was missing: Information about what might exist, out there, somewhere beyond what I was aware of.

I couldn’t tell you if it was a matter of resistance or ignorance (both?), but this is the first year I’ve taken to lapping up music criticism in podcast form. In symphony with doing so, I’m finding something of a renewed sense of adventure to exploring year-end and best of lists. And the more I’ve been browsing through this stuff, the more I go to thinking about it – what might be so different about this year? How did things change from when I was young, and when? When did I lose that hunger for exploring the unknown?

As I inched my way out of my teenage years, the impact of the scribes I once held in such high regard softened, soon to be replaced by online publications and blogs. The democratization of publishing opened the door for all to share ideas with whoever was willing to read to them. Everyone who wanted to now had a say in the arena; myself included. Funny enough, I suspect the moment my impression of best of lists began to change was probably when I first published my own through my school’s newspaper. I started blogging around that time, too, and within a few years was putting out all sorts of lists, hoping to curry favor as much with search engines as any potential reader. I wrote plenty along the way, sometimes seeking an odd brand of nuance in the format by compiling such absurd lists as “The Top 10 Musical Performances on Late Night TV of 2007.” I suppose that as I grew tired of participating in the year-end tradition, so too did I seem to tire of paying much attention to others’ lists as well.

In attempting to ride along in the passenger seat while others shared their own favorites from the year, I began projecting outward some of the issues that bothered me about my own process. The sausage of best of lists is typically an amalgamation of incomplete components. How many new albums does even the most culturally travelled, broadly exposed music critic listen to with dedicated focus in a given year? How many times must one listen to them before running these pieces of music through an ever-changing litmus test of personal taste to declare their relative superiority or inferiority to one another? How many works can anyone speak about with expert-level insight in any given year? And what’s to be made of the result? What gives them – me – any of us “he right to call something “the best”?! This is the kind of shit that goes on in between my ears sometimes.

An understandable extension of this is one that’s come through the broad adoption of listening primarily by way of app. With the medium comes access to data, and from data certain narratives can be drawn. A few years back Spotify started its year-end Wrapped recaps, highlighting individual listening patterns by way of data funnel. “While it’s not a competition,” one screen on this year’s installment reads, “There is a leaderboard.” This sort of thing emphasizes a part of the streaming economy that many rightly take offense to: honoring metrics (metrics, I’ll add, which are entirely opaque) as a prime indicator of merit. The more dazzling the statistic, the greater its implication. While the point might be to highlight listening behavior, in practice Wrapped has become something of a surrogate best of list for most, emphasizing play count as an indicator of endorsement. The result is something of a fragmented collage, referencing bits and pieces of moments that tend to paint an incomplete picture. Or at least that’s true for me.

Take, for example, my “top artists” this year. Rancid is fourth on my Wrapped list, which most certainly stems from having them on in the background while working around the house one day, inspired to check out some of their later-stage recordings after hearing a Bandsplain episode about the band. There is a specific period of time where I was a huge Rancid fan. I got to see them on the Warped Tour when I was in high school and they contributed greatly to the soundtrack of my youth. But would I say Rancid was my fourth most “top artist” of 2024? No shade, but absolutely not. And in truth, I don’t even think Rancid is actually even my fourth most played band of the year.

This past summer I cancelled my premium subscription to Spotify. I was a paying subscriber since sometime in 2013, but hit a wall with some of the company’s rhetoric and decided to try something else. I’m in no position to claim ethical righteousness or anything like that, as I merely jumped rails over to YouTube (but if you’re at all curious about what it’s been like – the user experience of YouTube Music is a complete mess and I cannot stress enough that if ad-free video content wasn’t part of YouTube Premium’s overall package, there’s no way I would still be a subscriber to its music product). Not surprisingly, YouTube Music also has its own year-end-round-up-thing, and not surprisingly it’s equally as silly as Spotify’s. Over on that side of the divide, Type O Negative and Nick Cave were, by YouTube’s calculation, my most played artists of 2024 (or at least since I left Spotify). Those probably make a little more sense, to be honest.

Play count is one thing, but one aspect these summaries can never capture is the impact of a work. For example, one album completely absent from either wrap-up is the Cure’s Songs of a Lost World, which I’d unquestionably rank among my favorite albums of the year. It isn’t something I can see myself returning to casually, nor is it something I’ve listened to in whole more than a few times through, but when I did it impacted me as much as any other piece of music might have in 2024. It’s an unsettling realization, all of this. I keep plenty of music on repeat throughout the year, but more and more I’m finding that what I tend to return to most often typically fails to be what moves, inspires, or challenges me most.

The other day I saw an enthusiastic post about an album I’d never heard of, listened to it, and was sort of baffled by the internal response which followed. It was a creative and clearly skillful work, but not something that falls remotely in line with what I tend to listen to. My tolerance for remaining attentive to it, however, just wasn’t there. Or at least it wasn’t there in the way I think it used to be. I feel like I used to be more open to work that doesn’t immediately agree with my pre-existing preferences. A big part of my reaction showed up in the form of self-judgement for how pedestrian my sense of exploration has become. Here are others, I thought, existing in a world full of meaning and wonder that I don’t quite understand, while my own year-end listening receipts depict someone plagued by the tyranny of familiarity.

This week’s playlist update features a mix of songs which were all featured predominantly near the top of my most-played round-ups for the year. You won’t find any Rancid, but – for good or bad – you will hear plenty of representation from genres that have historically been in heavy rotation for me for the better part of my life. There’s nothing wrong with that, at all, but if this recent practice has awakened anything in particular within me, I think it’s a desire to reach further beyond what I’m used to in the coming year. A new goal has presented itself, which is to listen to more music I don’t understand and wouldn’t otherwise listen to if I weren’t making myself do it. I’m going to take a few weeks away from this space to close out 2024, but look forward to seeing how the mission statement continues to expand whenever things get going again.

Listen to R▲ZZ D▲ZZ WEEKLY on Spotify or YouTube

1) Simple Minds “Theme For Great Cities”
2) Fred again.. feat. Baby Keem “leavemealone”
3) Mason & Princess Superstar “Perfect (Exceeder) (1991 Remix)
4) Yeat & Lil Wayne “Lyfestylë”
5) Glass Beams “Mahal”
6) L’Orange & Namir Blade “Nihilism”
7) Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds “Frogs”
8) deadmau5 feat. Skylar Grey “My Heart Has Teeth”
9) Four Tet “Daydream Repeat”
10) Chase & Status feat. Clementine Douglas “Say The Word”
11) UNKLE “If We Don’t Make It (DJ Nature Remix)”
12) Lil Simz “SOS”
13) Kendrick Lamar “Not Like Us”
14) Hail Mary Mallon “Dollywood”
15) Hot Chocolate “Every 1’s a Winner”

File this one under: Things that an editor would probably encourage me to workshop a bit more before printing. What would a good blog post be without at least a little navel-gazing though? For the better part of a year I’ve been ruminating on something I wrote about “local” music because it didn’t quite feel right once I put it out there. I think I meant it the way I wrote it, but sometimes the things you mean in the moment don’t turn out to be honest representations of a message you’re trying to communicate. In these kind of situations, the spirit of the words might come across, but the message itself comes out a little sideways. At least that was the case with me when I wrote, “The health and vibrancy of a city or state’s music scene is directly influenced by those it relies upon to champion and support it. To not care for local creative work is to communicate that it’s better off existing elsewhere.”

One of a couple issues I have with this is: what exactly is the word “care” supposed to mean there?

I’m not sure I even really had a sense at the time I wrote it. To rely on the spirit of the message, I think what I was hoping to do was signal the value in celebrating local artists, but… actually, there I go again. “Signal the value in celebrating local artists”? This is getting a little dicey. Let me try to get to my point from a different angle.

I saw a social media post yesterday; a version of which I’ve seen no fewer than dozens of times over the years. You might recognize it. It goes, “Following someone = $0. Liking a post = 1 second. Replying to a post = 10 seconds. Supporting doesn’t have to cost anything.” Yes, there is no financial cost to commenting on someone’s social media post, though I might add a “Yeah, but…” So here it is: “Yeah, but even a small army of individuals dedicated to following, liking, and replying isn’t going to pay someone’s bills.” I’m not dismissing the value that can come from the compounded impact of small public gestures, but in terms of creative work being shared online: if the end of the transaction between someone creating work and someone consuming and enjoying that work is a only ever a follow, like, or comment, that’s creating an imbalance. This is one of the reasons curmudgeon musicians aren’t wrong when they gripe on about how the digital economy has stripped artists of their means to earn an income: Because posts like this, no matter their earnestness, fail to value the cost of creative work. They don’t “care” in the “right” way.

When I was growing up, my dad helped run a non-profit, working with transitioning homeless youth off the street. I gained plenty of life lessons with all the different worlds I was exposed to through that project, but one stands out now that has nothing to do with the work itself. For whatever reason, I was in the office one night and mail was being opened. I think it was around the holidays and I remember watching as letters were being sliced open, including some with checks from donors. I couldn’t tell you what exactly led up to the moment, but I remember seeing one that was for a modest amount of money. My memory says it was $2, which even back then wasn’t a hell of a lot. Ever the smart-ass, I made a comment like “That’s it?!” I couldn’t tell you who it was, maybe it was my dad or maybe someone else who was working there, but they looked at me and said, “Maybe that’s all they had to give.”

“Care” doesn’t mean the same thing to different people, nor does it mean the same thing to the same person at all times. There have been times of my life when I’ve paid to see local musicians play live, and bought merch, dinner, parking, and tipped the waitstaff, while there have also been times where all I had in me was a passing like on Instagram. One of the things I want to make space for, as this store idea continues to develop, is a sense of care for local music in a way that genuinely makes a difference. I know I want to add actual value to local artists beyond any token gesture of adding songs to playlists very few people will ever see, let alone hear, and I want it to be something more than a bin in the back of the store with a stack of forgotten albums. But what form that needs to take isn’t quite clear to me yet. I have a few other gripes with the particular piece of writing that inspired this thought, but what I’m grateful for is that it helped me ask questions about what level of support I’m capable of delivering when it comes to something I purport to care about. How can I show up in a meaningful way?

This week’s playlist is littered with “local” music. “Local” to me, probably doesn’t quite mean quite what it means to you, however. Over the past two years I ran through a self-imposed crash course in the Iowa music scene (and I have the playlists to prove it), and this week’s mix includes recent tracks from a small selection who stood out to me along the way. A wide spectrum of tastes are represented here, ranging from rap and hip-hop with B.Well to Big Teo The Trap Man and NickWit2Ks to Bo Ramsey‘s grizzled twang to Early Girl‘s spicy garage fuzz to the electronic post-punk of Mr. Softheart. For over a quarter of my life though, I lived down in Tennessee, and for this week’s update I figured I’d share some (relatively) recent releases from “local” Nashville artists, as well, including music from Starlito, Gee Slab, Super Duper, and JOTA ESE. (For anyone looking to explore those further I, once again, have some playlists to help you on your way.) The mix also includes a swell of psych in the form of “The Glory I” by Moline’s Condor and Jaybird, taken from the band’s 2020 album The Glory. If the latter toots your horn and you’d like to get your hands on a copy of The Glory for yourself, I have a few copies of it up over on Discogs.

Listen to R▲ZZ D▲ZZ WEEKLY on Spotify or YouTube

1) Gee Slab feat. AndreWolfe & Namir Blade “TALK TO ME NICE”
2) Denzel Curry feat. TiaCorine & A$AP Ferg “HOT ONE”
3) Starlito feat. Tha Landlord, Don Trip & Propain “Ultimate Team/Road to Glory”
4) B.Well “Darling”
5) Underworld “Techno Shinansen”
6) Super Duper feat. Daniella Mason “Silver Lining”
7) Salt Fox “STARS”
8) Big Teo The Trap Man & NickWit2Ks “Sacrifices”
9) Bo Ramsey “Down To Bastrop”
10) Mr. Softheart “It Happened Like This”
11) Early Girl “STR8”
12) Condor & Jaybird “The Glory I”
13) RIFF & The HEIST “Lost Souls”
14) JOTA ESE “Your Love Makes Me A Wiener”
15) Flying Lotus “Ingo Swann”

I’d have to place the moment somewhere around 14 months ago — it was a casual social media or podcast reference recommending Fred again..’s Tiny Desk Concert. I knew of Fred. I knew of Tiny Desk’s general vibe. But what came of the pairing was something I hadn’t anticipated. The entirety of the near-half hour set is impeccable in its gentle brilliance and delivery, and I can’t recommend it enough, but The Moment for me came 28 seconds in.

The first song of the Tiny Desk set is one called “Kyle (i found you),” which is complemented by a visual accompaniment on a screen in the background, behind Fred, syncing visuals of a poet — a poet named Kyle — sampled and mixed to accentuate a rumbling of tender piano. It’s beautiful. It absolutely is. But that’s not the “holy shit” thing about it for me. I’m revisiting it again now, as I write this, and again I’m overwhelmed by it. I used to know Kyle. Our paths crossed for a while when I lived up in Minneapolis. I was in bad shape at that stage of life though. I made a lot of mistakes in those years and burned many bridges on my way out when I left town, but in the few exchanges I had with Kyle in the years that followed he never seemed to hold anything against me. I always appreciated that. And when I saw that moment on the Tiny Desk video, a strong feeling of pride came rushing to and through me. I’d lost track of his work somewhere over the past few years, but man, was this ever one hell of a way to be reminded of someone from your past.

In the most recent update to his Red Hand Files series, Nick Cave recalled recent experiences on the road with his band, writing, “The world had grown thoroughly disenchanted, and its feverish obsession with politics and its leaders had thrown up so many palisades that had prevented us from experiencing the presence of anything remotely like the spirit, the sacred, or the transcendent – that holy place where joy resides. I felt proud to have been touring with The Bad Seeds and offering, in the form of a rock ‘n ’roll show, an antidote to this despair, one that transported people to a place beyond the dreadful drama of the political moment.” For me, Fred again..’s music is an antidote to despair, and to see him re-contextualize a familiar voice in a way that delivers a worthy message to a whole new audience awakened within me a feeling of revived spirit.

About two months ago Fred again.. played the Target Center in Minneapolis. The Target Center, for those who don’t know, is the big arena that overlooks and dwarfs First Avenue. First Avenue, for those who don’t know, is a special place. And for that show, in the big sports arena, across from the city’s spiritual center, Fred gave the stage to Kyle. As a fan, I can’t express how proud of him. I wasn’t there, but even watching a clip of it on YouTube inspires within me a much needed break from the collective despair Cave mentioned.

“And they never name the villain / Like a single burning bush is a sign, but not a million?”
-Guante & Big Cats “Whatever You Do, Don​’​t Put the Words ‘Climate Crisis’ in the Title”

Kyle performs and makes music under the name of Guante. He and his longtime collaborator Big Cats released a new album titled All Dressed Up, No Funeral this past summer, but they’re only just now celebrating it with a proper release show. Theirs was the last show I saw in Minneapolis before I left the city, and I wish I could be there as they once again take the stage together. The new album is solid, led by a strong opener, “Whatever You Do, Don​’​t Put the Words ‘Climate Crisis’ in the Title,” but for more context I also added my favorite track of theirs to this week’s mix (the YouTube version, at least, as it’s not on Spotify). I also suggest you check out his website, as you might appreciate some of his other work (hell, you might have already come across it, and didn’t even know it!).

As best I can recall, the first time I saw Guante perform was at a pro-union street festival in the summer of 2009 called One Day in July. While I moved on to another event after his set that day, in doing so I missed out on seeing another of Minneapolis’ finest perform as Brother Ali headlined the event. I started feeling an itch of Twin Cities nostalgia last week after spending some time with a Nardwuar interview with Ali, but I’ve since dug myself deeper into that feeling by immersing myself in some of his most recent work. Beyond his collaboration with producer unJUST, which was featured on last week’s update, this week’s mix bears a track from Ali’s forthcoming full-length release, set to drop in February. Included here is my favorite from a handful of tracks released as a primer for what’s to come, titled “Head Heart Hands.” Additionally, another track of his is included, titled “Uncle Sam Goddamn” from his 2007 album, The Undisputed Truth. While Ali has, himself, moved on — having relocated to Turkey nearly a decade ago — he kept the Twin Cities connection going by linking up with longtime Atmosphere producer Ant for the upcoming project. For those interested in hearing more from the latter, Ant just released an album of his own in the form of Collection of Sounds: Volume 1, which dropped in September via Rhymesayers.

“Welcome to the United Snakes / Land of the thief, home of the slave / Grand imperial guard where the dollar is sacred and power is God”
-Brother Ali “Uncle Sam Goddamn”

A recurring theme in my life while growing up was that of owning a lot of music, but rarely listening to much of it. What I mean is, I’d buy an album to listen to a track or two, while saving my full-album binges for artists I cherished. This week I revisited one such album, which I certainly owned in the past, though had failed to ever fully listen to — that being Orbital‘s In Sides (available on Amazon).

Aphex Twin recently released a pair of remixes to his mind-bending single, “Blackbox Life Recorder 21f” (I can’t recommend the music video for this song enough, in case you haven’t seen it), but they both drifted by me without consequence. What they did do was inspire an appetite for some ’90s electronic music; cue In Sides. It’s not so much that I have a memory of buying the album, but rather that it just appeared in my life. Its cover is sticky in the way hazy dreams are sometimes hard to shake — I vividly recall the feeling and general makeup of it, though its exact details evade me. I most definitely picked up In Sides somewhere around the time the English duo found success with “The Saint” (it’s kind of wild to think about how espionage-chic was a thing for a minute; like, the Propellerheads did well by leveraging a retro aesthetic and James Bond vibes; crazy, huh?), but that’s largely where I stopped with my exploration of it.

In now listening to In Sides, it creates a much more clear picture of the duo’s sound during that period than “The Saint” would otherwise paint. The album’s proper single, “The Box,” is strong (as is its video, which is ripe with ’90s electronica visuals and also somehow eluded me ’til now) and it has a glitchy track, in the form of “Petrol,” which helped satisfy my thirst for ’90s Aphex Twin. “Adnan” is the pick I went with for this week’s mix though, as I appreciate how it progressively builds across its nearly nine minute run-time; orchestrating a layered bed of sound in the process that left me frustrated I hadn’t given it the time of day all those years ago.

Listen to R▲ZZ D▲ZZ WEEKLY on Spotify or YouTube

1) Guante “The Hero” (produced by Big Cats)
2) Brother Ali “Uncle Sam Goddamn”
3) Kendrick Lamar “reincarnated”
4) Blockhead “Orgy At The Port Authority”
5) Naughts “Obnoxious”
6) Orbital “Adnans”
7) Ab-Soul “All That”
8) Big Cats & Guante “Whatever You Do, Don’t Put the Words ‘Climate Crisis’ in the Title”
9) Brother Ali & Ant “Head Heart Hands”
10) Amyl and The Sniffers “Chewing Gum”

“Rap snitches, tellin’ all their business / Sit in the court and be their own star witness / ‘Do you see the perpetrator?’ Yeah, I’m right here / Fuck around, get the whole label sent up for years”
-MF DOOM “Rapp Snitch Knishes”

“That’s the thing about him, he really can perform at a high level. So when he did that stuff that he did – and he did do it, I was there, too, when he was on stage and his mic wasn’t connected and there’s lyrics coming out […] it’s not that he’s lazy and it’s not that he can’t perform, it’s really that he wants it to be about the music to where anybody could be DOOM, as long as the music is DOOM.” This comment from an old Nardwuar interview with Brother Ali is something I think of regularly when listening to MF DOOM (which is, itself, something I do regularly), though out of context it might not make much sense. In the interview, Ali talks about his interactions with the MC, granting him a generous amount artistic grace regarding his long-held tradition of pulling stunts like using a stand-in on stage. I could only ever gawk at that sort of thing at one point in time, but the older I get, the harder it is for me to draw any conclusive boundaries around what it means to be an “authentic” artist. Even if as little artifice as possible ends up in the final product of an artistic work, how much of any creation is only ever a performance of an idea? And can any performance then be authentic? And who am I to judge any of this anyway?

This week Rhymesayers dropped an updated version of MF DOOM’s album MM..FOOD, commemorating the 20th anniversary of its release. Listening to it has me thinking about and reflecting on a lot of things, including that Ali interview, what it means to be a “performer,” and how perceived “authenticity” influences my appreciation for a work. The other day I was listening to something that mentioned Dwight Yoakam’s new album, which apparently features a Post Malone collaboration. I know next to nothing about Post Malone, but I still don’t like him. I’m willing to be swayed from that position, but the point of bringing him up here is to share how much I’ve been turned off of him by my own interpretation of his transition from rapper to country star. To me, an ill-informed outsider, he seems to have capitalized on cultural trends both coming and going. But, to challenge myself, even if he is cosplaying every step along the way, what distinguishes the product of his creativity as any less “authentic” than anyone else doing nearly the same damn thing?

Adult Swim was my gateway to DOOM’s music and DANGER DOOM was the starting point for me becoming a fan of the MC. As much as that album still stands on its own legs musically, it was absolutely benefited by DOOM’s persona when it was released. And for as much as I’d like to say I’m a fan of the broader work of Daniel Dumile, the man behind the mask, I’m really not. I’m fine with KMD, but their music was never really for me. Instead, I have to be real that I’m probably more a fan of the persona than I ever was the person. I’m a fan of the concept. I’m a fan of the execution. Dumile wasn’t dull to this and was vocal that DOOM’s fanbase didn’t care about him so much as they cared about the mask he wore. That said, when he passed a few years ago I was really shook. It felt like something more than a man had died.

While FOOD isn’t my favorite DOOM release, its Mr. Fantastik collab titled “Rapp Snitch Knishes” remains one of my most played DOOM tracks. The song lyrically roasts cred-thirsty rappers for flaunting crimes in their songs (to their own detriment, no less), but musically it picks up on an unshakable earworm of a sample that speaks to how sharp DOOM was as a producer. It wasn’t until this past week that I looked into where its guitar sample came from, which turns out to be lifted from a musician named David Matthews. More specifically it came from Matthews’ disco-infused cover of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity,” released on an intergalactic concept album called Dune, which also featured an equally bizarre interpretation of the Star Wars theme. Weird as all that might seem, the context surrounding such an obscure track feels right at home with why I’ve come to love DOOM.

While my only experience working at a record store to this point is brief, it still afforded me ample opportunity to make mistakes. I have this one memory of talking with this cute girl about hip-hop and recommending an album to her. I’m not sure what we were talking about specifically, but it must’ve been boom bap or some backpack rapper stuff, because I suggested she pick up a Homeboy Sandman album. Surely there was a part of me that wanted to impress her, but it didn’t quite go the way I’d planned. I don’t recall which album it was, but she paid for it and took it home with her. Now, I liked a few Homeboy Sandman tracks, but I didn’t love his stuff. Nor did I really even know much of it. I guess I just thought the somewhat-obscure recommendation would garner me bonus points even if it didn’t hit just right. The next time I saw her in the store though, she was like, “Nah, that wasn’t for me,” and went about her business flipping through the racks by herself. That soured my stomach. My failed performance had backfired.

It’s strange, the memories that stick with us. That’s an interaction I can’t seem to shake. There’s no way to go back in time and be more honest with myself and that girl, but what I can do is be more honest now. This week’s update features music from the upcoming solo release from TV on the Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe, a song from the Cinematic Orchestra’s score to a century-old paradigm changing silent film, and homegrown selections from Iowa’s Husoul and Why Bother? It also includes a Beastie Boys remix from a disc I had up for sale in my online store. (In a stroke of coincidence the CD I had sold several days ago, so technically I’m not here to sell anyone that album. but regardless…) One of the roles I’m inching my way closer toward is that of a salesperson, whether I like it or not. And as that becomes a thing for me, I anticipate it will come with its fair share of performance. Unlike how I played that one interaction with that girl however, I want how I proceed to come from a place of honesty. And honestly, I like all this stuff.

I shared a little about my goals with this playlist series in last week’s update, and am realizing just how much more work I have to do to get comfortable with where it is I’m heading. About a week ago I listened to the Root Down EP, and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this particular remix of the song, despite how tired I’ve become of the Beastie Boys over the past several years. I don’t mean that I’ve soured on ’em or anything, just that their music isn’t really where I’m at right now. Well, most of it, but not all of it. Wound throughout their catalog are these odd, funky, jammy instrumentals that have become what I enjoy most of theirs at this stage in my life. This remix sounds largely attuned to that particular vibe, and I thought that if I was going to play the part of salesman this week and share something that I liked from the shop, I’d better be authentic with it. This is a lesson best learned later than never, I suppose.

Listen to R▲ZZ D▲ZZ WEEKLY on Spotify or YouTube

1) Tunde Adebimpe “Magnetic”
2) Why Bother? “Chasing the Skull”
3) Beastie Boys “Root Down (Free Zone Mix)”
4) Tyler, the Creator feat. Doechii “Balloon”
5) Husoul “be there for you.”
6) MF DOOM feat. Mr. Fantastik “Rapp Snitch Knishes”
7) Ab-Soul feat. Blxst “The Sky is Limitless”
8) The Cinematic Orchestra “The Awakening of a Woman (Burnout)”
9) Conductor Williams feat. Benny the Butcher & Wiz Khalifa “Hold You”
10) Brother Ali & unJUST “Nom De Plume”

“Once upon a time, a wild god zoomed / All through his memory in which he was entombed”
-Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds “Wild God”

In corporate terms, what I’ve started here would be referred to as an “iterative” process, a small business owner seeking to define pathways toward “cross-platform success.” I hate how much this sort of jargon has infected my thinking. The other day at work, something slipped out of my mouth and my supervisor commented on how it’s hard for each of us to shake the verbal tics we picked up while working at start-up companies. It’s true. Call it by any other name, but what I’m doing here is still, at its core, “digital marketing.”

When defining my goal in public it feels so crass. I want people to buy stuff from me so I can support myself. I want to support myself by way of a path I’ve decided to take, rather than one I’ve landed on out of financial necessity. Furthermore, I want people to listen to read or listen to what I have to say. I want to develop an “audience.” Many foolhardy influencers call themselves “curators” when they are nothing of the sort. They are share-ers: They consume and share so that others can consume and share. And I suppose that’s what my hope is here: To share so that others will consume. Everyone everywhere is vying for attention with all things created and shared online. I want some of that attention, too. The hope is a few of the people whose attention I attract become customers. Maybe patrons. Hell, maybe friends. These are, after all, unprecedented times we’re living through.

“Been up late a couple nights / I’ve been tryna close my eyes
But I keep staring at my phone / I can never be alone”
–Alison Wonderland “Down the Line”

The connection between a playlist and a retail store might, at present time, only be a theoretical one, but I figure that’s quite alright. In 2022 I started what has become an online store. Calling it a “strategy” might be generous, but the thought was that if I could develop online sales to cover expenses for an offline business, then maybe it would be possible to make that work. If I could do that, then maybe a business selling music and movies in a small midwestern city would have potential. I’ve never owned a business. My projections were largely arbitrary. I didn’t know what steps would be necessary or which order they’d need to be taken in. I thought maybe in five years I’d be able to transition away from an office job and do this thing full-time. From there, maybe I could figure out what’s needed to open a physical space. Surely the build would be slow, I imagined, selling disc media in a digital society. But this year it all escalated faster than I imagined it could. Five years has turned into six months. I plan on taking my next big leap in the spring by trying to do whatever “this” is becoming on a full-time basis.

In preparation for that I want this digital space to support whatever physical space might present itself. I want anything I write or share here to be true of where I’ve come from and how I arrived. More specific to the music shared below, I want this playlist to reflect music I’m listening to, not merely music I’m selling. But I do want it to reflect that, too. I want to share what I think is good so that whoever is willing to listen will start to follow along with me.

“I don’t ever sleep, nah / I just go on standby”
–Spark Master Tape “$TNDBY”

This first playlist covers a lot of territory. It picks up from around the time I put an end to a music blog I had called villin, and features several acts that I found in the months which followed. Little Simz and Glass Beams are included in that category, and to some degree Fred again.. and Chase & Status are, as well. The latter two are artists I’ve listened to off and on in the past, but this year I leaned back in heavily following TikTok recommendations, regularly swiping myself to sleep. The algorithm makes the world go round.

On a recent episode of Uproxx’s IndieCast podcast, the new Jamie xx album was referred to catering to a basic base of electronic fans, or something like that. I haven’t put much thought into what a basic electronic music fan might be, but I’m fine with that label. I don’t want to listen to experimental music when I’m driving to work or going to the gym. I want to listen to Chase & Status. I want to listen to Alison Wonderland. I want to listen to Jamie xx and Fred again.. This isn’t to say I’m only seeking bass drops or “basic” sounds. Four Tet is a perennial favorite of mine and this spring’s Three is a release has stuck with me this year. I wouldn’t consider that “basic.” Similarly, and despite her breakout year and widespread success, I wouldn’t consider Charlie xcx‘s “365” remix basic. Whatever though. This one’s a strange listen. It stood out to me and stuck with me not merely of its own merits, but because of how much it reminded me of another space and time. More specifically it reminded me of “Jericho” from the Prodigy’s 1992 Experience release. The label makes no difference: What is basic to some is all the same a challenge to others.

Two more albums released over the past couple months stood out to me as options that I’d love to stock (on the shelves of this imaginary store I’m building toward). Wild God from Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds and Songs of a Lost World by the Cure are both magical records. Each of them create a feeling of conflict for myself as a share-er as there isn’t a particular track or two that stand out to me as “the one” I prefer to share here. The songs are of an album, the album is not of its songs. The same holds true for Kelly Lee Owens‘ ethereal Dreamstate, though each release is brilliant in drastically different ways.

Unique on this playlist is “Upon Sober Reflection” from Japandroids. This song has stuck with me the past couple weeks for a different reason. Beyond a couple past tracks (“No Known Drink or Drug,” “Fire’s Highway,” “Young Hearts Spark Fire“) I haven’t kept close tabs on the band, but was still surprised to learn that the Canadian duo put this new collection out as a means of bookending their time together. No tour would follow. No press, really. They just put out Fate & Alcohol and called it a day. The writer who I learned of the release from asked himself a question about their process which led me to listening which led me to writing this. A version of his question is akin to something I’ve thought about for myself and writing I’ve done in the past. He asked what the point was of creating this music then moving on, full stop. I’ve considered that before. When creating a work, does the creator then owe it to that piece – even if only as a sign of respect – to market it to one’s fullest capabilities? Like, as a creator, in promoting a work you’re honoring that effort and that creation by putting it in front of as big an audience as you can, maybe? I don’t know. I guess I don’t think that’s true. Spirit exists, divorced of reception. Spirit also exists as a concept severed from any potential audience. In this case, the band created something in a way that was meaningful to them, or they wouldn’t have gone through with it. It’s no one’s business but theirs to define whether an album of music achieved its goal based on how much of the story around the album is explained. It just is. We just are. Temporarily. All of us.

“At night I lay awake, wondering why / I’m always the one who’s standing by […] / Fucking had enough of the unknown / And I’m making that known today”
-Japandroids “Upon Sober Reflection”

The weeks pass. As they go, in the moment, there is at times a hyper-awareness of that moment. It can be unbearable. Why won’t it pass more quickly. Why must tomorrow remain, seemingly, forever out of grasp.

“Once this ends,” I think to myself, “then things will be different.” As if the passing of time will bring about ideal circumstances where the days will yield optimal satisfaction, where inspiration will bloom and motivation is in high supply. I can’t wait for x to be over so I can begin to enjoy y.

But looking back, the adage of the journey and the destination seem to hold true. There is no end point. Tomorrow is just the projection of an ideal, a ghostly carrot dangled in front of the the ego’s eye, coaxing it out of the present moment and into a space where gratitude, understanding, and mindfulness are each disregarded. Today is only about survival; a necessary step to reach the goal of tomorrow.

Listen to R▲ZZ D▲ZZ WEEKLY on Spotify or YouTube

1) Little Simz “Gorilla”
2) Spark Master Tape “$tandby”
3) Lord Apex feat. Freddie Gibbs “Phoenix”
4) Cookin Soul “Gotham Nights”
5) Mogwai “God Gets You Back”
6) The Cure “I Can Never Say Goodbye”
7) Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds “Wild God”
8) Kelly Lee Owens “Love You Got”
9) Alison Wonderland “Down The Line”
10) Glass Beams “Kong”
11) Jamie xx “Still Summer”
12) Fred again.. feat. Jozzy & Jim Legxacy “ten”
13) Jamie xx & the Avalanches “All You Children”
14) Four Tet “Skater”
15) Japandroids “Upon Sober Reflection”
16) Chase & Status feat. Hedex & ArrDee “Liquor & Cigarettes”
17) Charlie xcx feat. Skygirl “365”
18) Jungle “Dominoes”
19) Caribou “Come Find Me”
20) Fred again.. feat. Obongjayar “adore u”