Best of Discover Weekly – Week 36:2022

Here comes my three favourite tracks from this weeks Discover Weekly-playlist from Spotify. The tracks are in no particular order. This week we had no tracks in finnish or other languages that i don’t speak, and that’s a rare occasion. Usually there are a few tracks in finnish.

The first track is Here’s Your Future by The Thermals. This is a good rock song, with a slowpaced start that gets into some heavy hitting tempo. This sounds just like a song that was released in 2006, and that’s also when it was released. It has the same features of a mid 00s rock song. And i’m a sucker for it.

The second track is Dum Surfer by King Krule. I’ve been listening to King Krule on and off, but somehow this track flew over my head. I’ve probably never really listened to the 2017 album The OOZ, where this song comes from. This track is a King Krule-esque track, with some pretty interesting and intriguing instrumental parts and solos. King Krule’s voice is one of those things, i believe, that you either love or hate. I had a rough time with it in the beginning, but it grew on me.

The third and final track in this weeks best of Discover Weekly is Something Bigger, Something Brighter by Pretty Girls Make Graves. The album which features this song was released in 2003, so this is also a mid 00’s rock song. We’ve got a female vocalist, whose voice fits this kind of song excellently. This song is very tempo-driven, it changes several times during the track, and i find that this enhances the song for me.

Hope you give these songs a listen, and i hope that you had some good music this week on your DIscover Weekly-playlist.

Until next time, take care.
SLQT.

Best of Release Radar – Week 35:2022

The three picks from my Release Radar-playlist week 35 on Spotify is as follows, without any particular order!

The first song is We are the Children by Fat Soul, Prop Dylan. This is a nice track from Fat Soul with help from Prop Dylan. Easy listening, indie pop rock with some good instrumentals and what sounds like a usage of the organ.

The second song is Another Broken Heart by Tove Styrke. Tove Styrke has been a roll, dropping excellent tracks lately in the form of singles and EPs. Another Broken Heart is a track from her newly released album HARD. Another Broken Heart is a beatiful, and danceable popsong with electronic influences – combined with Tove Styrkes angelic voice. You can not go wrong with this track. I’ll be sure to look into this new album of hers.

The third and last song from this weeks Release Radar is Hidden Land by Ninajirachi, Raj Mahal. I’m not sure how to describe this track. It’s a song with a heavy hitting bass, quick features and dope singing. It intrigued me in a way, and that’s why it made this weeks list.

Honorable mention as this weeks worst track. It’s We Are Fucking Fucked by Muse. I mean guys, what happened here? I love Muse, but holy geez, this new album is out there.

Until next time, take care.
SLQT.

Cracker Island – Gorillaz

Yesterday there was some news that Gorillaz is releasing a new album in February 24th, 2023! And let me tell you, i am very intrigued! I got their debut album Gorillaz, as a kid and it blew me away – ever since i’ve been a very big fan of theirs. I even had the fortune of being able to attend their first ever live concert in Sweden a couple of years ago, and it was amazing. So, new music from Gorillaz always gets me intrigued.

We’ve gotten two singles so far, and my first impression of them is that they are very nice, and very promising!

The first single is called Cracker Island (feat. Thundercat) and it shares the name of the upcoming album. The second single that has been released is called New Gold (feat. Tame Impala and Bootie Brown). One of the things that is so fun with Gorillaz is these sometimes bonkers collaborations on tracks, and that big artists really want to be on Gorillaz tracks, it opens up so many possibilities of potential bangers. And most of the time the Gorillaz projects and tracks has a very interesting way of utilizing the featuring artists in ways that make the whole track pop off.

Both of these singles are, in my opinion certified and absolute bangers, i couldn’t help myself but dance along as i’ve been listening to them. I think the features are used in very good, and interesting ways. Thundercat absolute nails his participation on Cracker Island and how Tame Impala and Bootie Brown bounces off of eachother on New Gold is just beautiful. Thundercat and Tame Impala’s music am i familiar with, but this is the first time i get to experience Bootie Brown, and i like what i’m hearing – and i’ll make sure to inspect what more he has been doing.

I’m sure it’s been seeping through this text, but i am very much looking forward to the release of the new music from Gorillaz. Cracker Island is out February 24, 2023. It’s far away, but i have faith that the waiting is worth it!

Until next time, take care.
SLQT.

Best of Discover Weekly – Week 35:2022

Spotify has a feature that is called Discover Weekly, it’s a playlist that contains 30 songs based on similar things to what you already listen to, and it gets updated every monday with 30 new tracks. It’s a nice way to find some new music, and rediscover old music that you haven’t been listening to for a while. Spotify describes it as: ”Your weekly mixtape of fresh music. Enjoy new music and deep cuts picked for you. Updates every monday.”

As with my post the other day where i went through my three favourite tracks from my Release Radar playlist, i figured i would do the same thing with my Discover Weekly playlist! I will pick my three favourite tracks from this weeks Discover Weekly and i’ll give some explanation as to why. Since both of these playlists updates weekly, i figure that this could be a good weekly feature of this website. And as with the Release Radar, the three tracks i pick are in no particular order. An interesting thing about my Discover Weekly, that i know of other that have aswell is that some of the tracks i get every week is in languages i don’t speak, it’s often 1-2 tracks in finnish, and sometimes there are some tracks in german. But the only constant is that there’s atleast 1 track in finnish, every week. I don’t mind tho, sometimes they’re good, even tho i don’t know what they’re singing, and sometimes they have excellent band names – like Teksti-TV 666. And as i wrote for the Release Radar text – some weeks you get 10 fantastic songs that you can’t live without, and some weeks you’re scraping by, trying your absolute hardest to even find one track that has some redeeming qualities. And that’s a part of the charm – like Forrest Gumps mom said, ”[…]you never know what you get.”

Anyway, here’s my three picks from this weeks Discover Weekly:

The first track is Another Morning Stoner by …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead. It’s a heavy hitting track, that i don’t really know how to categorize, but it sounds a bit like some like post-punk, gritty sounding, heavy rock with some doom-metal and maybe a splash of shoegazey-ness mashed into it, and i’m all for it. Let me tell you. …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead is a band that i’ve never heard of before, so, i will be sure to check them out! And i belive that this is one of the great features of the Discover Weekly playlist. You get a sort of small introduction to a band, or a sound, or an idea and then you can keep on digging into that hole and discover even more great music on your own!

The second track from this weeks Discover Weekly is Turtle Neck by Bosnian Rainbows. I noticed a pattern during this weeks playlist, and it’s been a lot of shogazey sounding tracks. This song by Bosnian Rainbows stood out a bit, and i do very much enjoy the vocalist and her voice. The production is on par and all the different elements of this track bounces off of eachother. As this sometime’s is a problem with these sort of tracks, that part of either the instrumentals or the songs gets drowned out by other parts of the song. I do enjoy this track a lot, and i’ll be sure to look into Bosnian Rainbows discography.

The third and final track from this weeks Discover Weekly is Revolution 1993 by Jamiroquai. It’s this 10 minute and some long song featuring a lot of different elements, but it is fun, and it is dancey, and it is groovy. It’s like you get a few different songs, in one song, since it features so many different elements and that’s rather fun and interesting to listen to. And it was a good break from all the heavy shoegazy tracks that i got this week. And we got this fabolous trumpet solo towards the end of the track, which lifts the song to new levels.

I had some trouble picking the three tracks this week, as very many of them was rather similar, and none of them really jumped at you. But the three tracks i’ve chosen are solid, and i recommend that you give them a listen! Fun side note, this week the playlist only featured three songs in finnish, which is fewer than usual!

Until next time, take care.
SLQT.

EP: Lice Two: Still Buggin’ – Lice, Aesop Rock, Homeboy Sandman

The second EP from Lice, also known as Aesop Rock and Homeboy Sandman has been released to streaming platforms. Just like the first Lice EP, this music is entirely new to me, it somehow flew over my head. Probably because it hasn’t been available at Spotify, which is my absolute go to for music.

So, i see this as a completely new release, which is fantastic. Lice Two: Still Buggin’ is a 5 song EP that spans over 16 minutes and 9 seconds and the tracks are performed by Aesop Rock and Homeboy Sandman. There seems to be different producers on almost all of the tracks, and you can hear that while listening to the tracks. The different tracks have very distinct sound that separates them from each other. I think the difference in sounds makes this EP even more interesting, however i do believe that i enjoyed the first Lice EP a bit more.

My favourite tracks off of this new-old EP is Oatmeal Cookies, it goes really hard and it just spoke to me in a way.

I hope that you give this EP a listen, and let me know what you think!

Until next time, take care.
SLQT.

Single: There’d Better Be a Mirrorball – Arctic Monkeys

The other day Arctic Monkeys revealed that they’re putting out a new album – the first new music from the brittish band in four years. The new album is called The Car and will be released on the 21st of October, 2022.

However, today they shared a video for their new song, There’d Better Be a Mirrorball, thats supposedly the opening track from their upcoming album, The Car.

My first impressions from the single, There’d Better Be a Mirrorball, is that they’re keeping a bit with the sounds that they worked with on their last album, Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino. A somewhat slow paced, melodramatic and scaled down sort of song. I think it sounds very good, and very promising, Alex Turner has the voice of an angelic creature so these kind of scaled down songs that focuses heavily on the vocal fits him and his voice excellently.

As someone who’s been listening to Arctic Monkeys since day one, i must admit that i love their earlier, fast paced, hard hitting albums and tracks. I do however enjoy this new direction that they’ve been taking lately, as i love when a band let’s their creativity live on and that they feel like that they can experiment with different styles and genres. Nothing is more boring than a band that gets stuck in a sound, and refuses to leave it. Since you’re always able to go back and listen to those earlier releases, whenever you want to.

I am very intrigued and i am looking forward for the release of the new music, and upcoming album from Arctic Monkeys. Give this new single a listen, will you!

Until next time, take care.
SLQT.

Lazy Summer Day / Chinese Restaurant – Yung Lean

Today Yung Lean dropped some new music. A two track single featuring the songs Lazy Summer Day & Chinese Restaurant. I always get a bit excited whenever the swedish phenomenon Yung Lean drops new music, and i’m always quick to check it out, whether it’s an album or a single.

I love these strange, no context, tracks that drops as singles whenever he, Yung Lean, feels like it. It’s one of those things that the internet and streaming platforms has made possible, and i think that it’s very fun that it is possible for the creators to just throw it out there, without long waiting times and always having to do a big release out of it. These two tracks has a combined lenght of 3 minutes and 37 seconds – so it’s two songs in a short fashion, which is straight out of Yung Leans playbook. The production is interesting and Spotify lists Rami Dawod as the producer. According to Genius these are the first two tracks that Rami Dawod produces for Yung Lean, however he’s listed as producer for a Frank Ocean track, and also a Camila Cabello track.

Both of these songs sound like Yung Lean tracks, and i got more excited and intrigued by Chinese Restaurant, than i got by Lazy Summer Day. However, i find both track intriguing and interesting. Chinese Restaurant is going straight into my regular rotation!

Give these new singles from Yung Lean a listen, and make your own opinion. I, recommend both of them!

Until next time, take care.
SLQT.

The Pine Walk Collection

I had some ideas this morning of some projects that i could be writing about. But i wasn’t really feeling any of them, so i started to go through in my mind what i’ve been listening to lately, that i could write about from heart. And hence this post about The Pine Walk Collection on Mixcloud.

The first time i heard about his project was serveral months ago when it was brought up in the swedish speaking podcast called P3 Klubben, and one of the hosts introduced this musical project to us listeners – and i got hooked immediately.

The Mixcloud page of this project describes itself as:
”DJ Sets from Fire Island Pines & New York City (1979-1999). These tapes were found in a recently purchased house on Pine Walk. There are over 200 tapes in total and they have been carefully digitized and remastered and offered to stream for free here on Mixcloud with permission from all of the living DJs we were able to contact.” and it also links to this The New York Times article about it.

There’s so much pure joy in these sets, and you get introduced to so much new and fun music – however, sometimes it’s rather frustrating since some of the tracks never got officially released – so it’s impossible to find them outside of the sets from The Pine Walk Collection. This musical collection is a sort of a time capsule. I have listened to far from all of the sets from the collection, but i’m working myself through them. My favourite so far is this set: Michael Jorba . Heaven Must Be There . May 1985 .

I hope you give this collection a listen! I recommend it! Only unfortunate thing is that you can only listen to it on Mixcloud, either on the website or in the app. And while it’s free, some ease of life features are behind paywalls.

Until next time, take care.
SLQT.

The Forever Story – JID

Atlanta rapper JID released his third album yesterday. And i’ve been listening to it. Following is a brief text about JID and the new album The Forever Story. I will preface this text with some transparency and honesty – i have never actively listened to JID before, somehow he’s flown under my radar. Which made this release of new music from him, all more exciting for me, as i get to experience a whole new artist and his artistry. I came in with zero expectations, and zero knowledge of what i was going to hear – since i had no clue of JID’s existence until like yesterday when Anthony Fantano, TheNeedleDrop, wrote a tweet about listening to this new album on his segment called New Music Friday. And i figured, hey, maybe i should give it a listen aswell. So have i done.

It’s an interesting album since it has a wide variety and range in the elements featuring the album. You got a real heavy bass, that hits incredibly hard on some tracks, following piano features, and same sample as Mos Def uses in Ms. Fat Booty. And then you have wide range in the singing, from extremely quick rapping, to RnB sounding songs, some spoken word and also some gospel. This album points in every direction. Yet, it doesn’t sound strange. Somehow the tracks come together in a beautiful way and that i find very interesting and impressive.

On some songs we get this insanely heavy rap music, with extremely quick rapping on the track Can’t Punk Me (feat. EARTHGANG). This track goes very hard. And the tracks that are similar to Can’t Punk Me are the ones that i prefer on this album. I appreciate the range, width and variety of the album but i have a hard time getting into the tracks that sound more like RnB. I do however believe that this album benefits greatly from the variety of musical genres and elements as it lifts the whole experience. And however much i love the hard hitting, fast paced rap-songs, i think that for just under an hour (the lenght of the album), it might have become a bit stale.

The lyrics are sometimes very introspective and feels like pure poetry. And from time to time i thought that we had features from Kendrick Lamar, as the lyrics and the voice got into a similar range as Kendrick Lamar does. On Genius.com you’re able to read the lyrics to all the tracks to get a better understanding of the lyrics.

For me this was a great introduction to JID, and after publishing this post i will check out his two previous albums and hear what they are about. I find it hard to rate albums and give them a score, but i am sure i will get more comfortable doing it, the more i do it. I’d rate the new album from JID as a 7/10. There are parts i thoroughly enjoy and there are parts that i found rather slow. However connecting these different elements together helps to lift the overall feeling for this album. I recommend that you give it a listen!

Until next time, take care.
SLQT.

Best of Release Radar – Week 34 – 2022.

Spotify features this thing called Release Radar, which consists of 30 songs that are newly released. The description of the playlist is, rougly translated from swedish to english, as follows: ”Listen to the newest music from artists that you follow, and also new singles that has been chosen for you. Updated every friday.”.

And i figured that this could be a fun part of the Laces Shoes & Funky Tunes website could be a consistent update. Every week, i pick my three favourite tracks from my Release Radar Playlist. I will however preface that many tracks on my Release Radar Playlist is remixes of older songs, that has been released a long time ago, and already has been remixed several times – but sometimes, these mixes are golden. An example of this would be that i this week have gotten a remix of Avicii’s track Malo, a track that was released back in 2011. So, it’s always rather fun to go through and see what’s been released lately. I assume that these remixes mostly connects to the artists that i follow, and the rest of the tracks on Release Radar can be whatever Spotify imagines that i would enjoy. I do want to preface this list with, that some weeks you get 10 absolute bangers that go into your regular rotation on Spotify, but some weeks it’s a struggle to even find one track that sticks out.

I will list the three songs that i pick, without any special order. If they’ve been picked, i enjoyed them.

The first track that i will mention on this weeks Best of Release Radar is the track called Let It Breathe by the rapper Joey Bada$$. This track was released as a single that features on his new album called 2000. I must admit that i have a somewhat of a soft spot for Joey, i’ve been listening to him for a long time and i think that most of his releases are very good. I was bumping his 2017 album ALL-AMERIKKKAN BADA$$ so much when it was released, and i still come back to it regularly.
I enjoy the sound of Let It Breathe, it’s hard to describe closer what it is, but there’s something in it that speaks to me. And i’m always fascinated by the flow and lyrics of Joey and his tracks.

The second track that i will mention on this weeks Best of Release Radar is a track called Before You and its by BCee, Charlotte Haining and Emba. This is some sort of electronic, possibly a liquid house track – let’s say that it is. I always find these kinds of songs hard to put in a genre of sorts. The track is rather soothing and it has this strong female lead voice, that a lot of songs in this genre has. However i feel like the singer, who i assume is Charlotte Haining, complements the track in a good way. I believe that Before You will go into my regular rotation of songs.

The last track that i will mention on this weeks Best of Release Radar is a track called ‘Til Dawn by Rebecca & Fiona, Chinaski. I’ve been a fan of Rebecca & Fiona for years, and i do enjoy the path and direction that they’re taking with their new music. I get the feeling that they’re not afraid to try something new and different from what they’ve done before. I have no prior knowledge of Chinaski, however i am going to dwell deeper into Chinaski and see what kinds of music has been produced by them before. ‘Til dawn gives me a feeling that i am driving in Miami in the mid 1980’s on your way to a cool party, and i enjoy it. It sounds nice and comforting. Like the world lies before your feet.

Honorable mention as the worst track that i got on this weeks Release Radar is You Make Me Feel Like It’s Halloween by Muse. This is, i don’t even really know how to describe it. Give it a listen. I feel like there are no redeeming qualities to this track. Which had me rather surprised as i do enjoy Muse a lot, and i’ve seen them live in concert once. However, this time they are completely off the rails

It seems as this was one of those weeks when the tracks on the playlist is rather weak. I had some trouble picking the three tracks that i enjoyed the most. I hope that you have an easier time picking out your favourites from this weeks Release Radar playlist.

Until next time, take care.
SLQT