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 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

Anatolian Rock Revival Project

A couple of years ago a friend of mine linked me a playlist on Spotify that’s called Anatolian Rock Revival Project and the description of the playlist is as follows: ”An art project dedicated to bringing non-mainstream pieces from Turkish Rock History (1964-1980) into the light with unique artworks.”. Neither my friend or i speak any turkish, but you don’t need to speak turkish or understand the lyrics to be able to enjoy the purity of the music. However it sure would be fun to understand the lyrics to the songs, alas i’m not sure if i would enjoy the tracks in the same capacity – since rock music from this era in the western world, with lyrics that i understand, sometimes are quite cheesy.

There’s something so wild and excellent about the music, since i can’t comment on the lyrics, the statement before connects to the instrumental parts of the songs, aswell as the singing – because you can get a feel for the lyrics from the voice and emotion of the singer.
However, the instrumentals are so good, there’s just something about that old, raw rock music that really connects back to the time when it was produced. Most of the other rock music that most of us westeners has enjoyed stems from the western part of the world, yet somehow some of the songs in this playlist sounds so similiar to the western counterparts. However, the Anatolian Rock Music from this era also brings in instruments that wasn’t being used in the western counterparts of the music from the same era, since it connects to the more classical and ”folky” music from the Anatolian region, aswell as other elements, of course.

You somehow always fall back into what you’ve grown up listening to, and i assume that the same applies to the rock music in this playlist. You see that in a lot of music, that you implement sounds that comes from the folk music from the region that your roots stem from.

As i’ve been listening through several of these Anatolian rock-playlists during the years i’ve noticed that a few of the songs has been sampled in new and modern music, which is rather fun! I think that speaks volumes for atleast the instrumentals from this region during this era – that rock music from the 60s to the 80s, in the Anatolian region gets sampled into newly produced music. One of the artists that i’ve been listening to a lot before i discovered the Anatolian Rock Revival Project is the rapper Action Bronson – so, figure my surprise when i recognized some instrumentals and some hooks from the Anatolian music, as it turns out that Action Bronson seems to rather heavily sample from these old Anatolian Rock songs. I really enjoy that, it gives people the chance and possibility to broaden whatever music they listen to, as they subconsciously gets introduced to other sorts of music, as they get sampled into different kind of genres of music.

This playlist is something i often find myself wander back into, and i feel that i both listen to it actively, but also keep it in the backround sometimes as it’s so very easy to listen to, in my opinion. I hope that you’ll give the Anatolian Rock Revival Project a chance. I give it my stamp of approval.

Until next time, take care.
SLQT

Lice – Aesop Rock – Homeboy Sandman

Some weeks ago i saw Aesop Rock posting in social media, linking a new single called Catfish. It was released under the collaborative title of Lice, which is Aesop Rock and Homeboy Sandman. I’ve since before known that they’ve done projects together, but i haven’t really listened to anything by Homeboy Sandman. I really enjoyed the new single, Catfish, and i enjoyed the symmetry of the collaboration of Aesop and Homeboy Sandman – they bounce off of eachother in a unique way that empowers their respective verses on the track.

A while later i saw that Aesop posted on social media that he was releasing 3 EPs/Albums under the collaborative project named Lice over the next three coming weeks. This amped me up, i love new releases from Aesop. He rarely misses, and i really enjoyed Catfish. Homeboy Sandman pleasently surprised me with his bars, and i will surely pay him more attention in the future.

Today the first EP, Lice (Spotify-link), dropped on streaming platforms – and firstly it confused me, as i expected it to show up under ”Newest releases”, but instead it showed up as published in 2015. However after some digging it turned out that this EP was released back in 2015, but haven’t been on any streaming platforms (except Youtube, since its debut. This somehow flew above my head.

Lice is a solid EP, it consists of five tracks, that span over 17 minutes and 17 seconds and features a Fort Minor remix. Aesop and Homeboy Sandman bounces off of eachother during most of the songs and the songs differ in style. I must say that Environmental Studies easily is my favourite track of this EP. I think i will dive deeper into why that is, in another post in the future.

I see myself as a big Aesop Rock fan, and somehow i’ve completely missed this EP – maybe, and probably, because it hasn’t been on Spotify since before today. This means that this is a completely new release for me, and for that i am grateful. For others that have enjoyed, consumed and devoured Lice before, this release probably comes as a ease of life release, as it makes listening to the EP, easier than on YouTube.

I don’t know if the other two EPs also has been released before, and that they’ve flew over my head, or not. However, i am eagerly awaiting the release of them.

Until next time, take care.
SLQT.

LORN – YESTERDAY’S PAIN / CUT THE ANCHOR

LORN has released two singles that are found on his bandcamp page, they’re called YESTERDAY’S PAIN and CUT THE ANCHOR. I fell into the music produced by LORN by accident, as it was recommended to me by a friend, he recommended the track called Acid Rain from the album called The Maze To Nowhere. I really like the gritty and dystopic sound of the tracks that LORN produces and i’ve had Acid Rain on heavy rotation ever since it was recommended to me.

These two new singles follows the kind of patented LORN sound, with that dark, gritty and dystopic sound that reminds you of some kind of haunting of the soul. I love the sound, and you can sense that LORN has been influenced by Burial and his earlier sound, from Burial and Untrue. I am writing a text about the new EP released by Burial, it should be up any day now.

I got very happy when i saw on /r/ElectronicMusic that LORN had released two new singles and i went to check them out as soon as i could. As i wrote earlier, the sound follows the classic sound that is almost to be expected by LORN. The sound is almost atmospherical and eerie and it builds a tingle and a sense in your body. Some parts of YESTERDAY’S PAIN made me think of some tracks by Oneothrix Point Never. I really like these two new singles, and hope that there’s more to follow in the same direction. Looking forward to the future of more LORN.

Until next time, take care.

SLQT.

The Weeknd – Dawn FM.

I have a friend that listen to a lot of new music and releases, every year he publishes a list of albums and artist, with a simplistic overview of the score that he gave the release. This has inspired me to try and do the same, but also try to write more here.

This weekend i listened to the new release called Dawn FM from the canadian phenomenon called The Weeknd. This is his tenth album and i believe that there are few who have missed his rise to stardom and fame. During earlier album he’s done collaborations with giants such as Daft Punk, Lana Del Rey, Kendrick Lamar, Ed Sheeran and Drake, to name a few. Giants within the business and musical sphere.

I will state that The Weeknd isn’t one of my favorites, and i rarely listen to him on purpose as his music isn’t for me. I have tried, because i don’t believe in writing any artist off, without listening to them and forming my own opinion on their work. However The Weeknd isn’t for me. However, with that in mind i listened to The new album, Dawn FM, by The Weeknd.

The Dawn FM concept runs through this album like water and it really tries to conceptualize something but it doesn’t go the whole way. The obvious concept that this album tries to connect to is the FM part of the album title. The album has soundbites that could be used on a real radio show, and there’s even a segment with a fake commercial – however, does anyone want this? Every day we’re constantly bombarded with messages from persons and business the second we jump into the car, to when we go down in the subway, to when we watch TV, or try to watch a video on YouTube. Especially in a time where atleast i, do what i can, to get away from commercials and advertisement, i do not want to hear it blown in, inside of an album. It made me think of the first of second season of Donald Glovers show Atlanta, where they had the concept of a fake tv show, within the show, filled with very well produced, but fake commercials.

The production and the sound quality of the album is very good, and the instrumentals for some of the songs are stunning and beautiful. This is the redeeming quailty of this album, however not without some criticism. A couple of months ago i read the book Ghosts of My Life: Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures by Mark Fisher, and since then i’ve been thinking about the concept of nostalgia and how rarely anything ”new” is published. That often the thing that is ”new” is just an old thing or concept, put in a new suit. I had the same feeling when i listened to An evening with Silk Sonic by Silk Sonic (Bruno Mars & Anderson .Paak), it’s so flirty with the funk and the disco, but it sounds better, it’s too polished, it doesn’t feel alive, or real. It’s so clearly a product that took an old concept, in this case, genre of music, and refined it with modern tools – however in the proccess, the soul within it died a bit.
I had the same feeling with Dawn FM, it’s extremely well produced and the melodies, the instrumentals and the sound is so good, but it doesn’t make me feel anything other than: ”hey, this sounds good.”.

And to the last part of this text, and what to me is the weakest part of this album.
Unfortunatley the weakest part of this album is The Weeknd himself, or atleast his singing. I’ve been watching Seinfeld lately, for the first time, and there’s the same case there, that Seinfeld himself is the weakest link of the show. This album sounds like nothing new, it feels like i’ve already heard the lyrics in his other albums, years ago.

As for some end disussion i’d like to point out that the quality of the production is stunning, yet rather lifeless, the commercials inside of the album wasn’t for me, i have however read that people have been enjoying that element. The lyrics and the singing from The Weeknd himself is the weakest link in this album, but as i mentioned in the beginning of the text, i am not a fan of his, and i want to be as transparent as possible. The Weeknd is one of our biggest artists and acts right now and his songs has been streamed hundreds of millions of times.
This album is a product that is very well put together, it’s excellent for commerce and if seen as a product, it’s good. But seen as an album with conceptual ideas, it’s not good.

Dawn FM by The Weeknd can be found on every streaming platform, and wherever you buy your music.

The weakest link of this review might be me, myself and i.

Until next time, take care.
SLQT.

New releases.

The other week we had many new releases from big artists, and as always smaller acts. However the bigger the release seems to be, the bigger the performing artist, the bigger the drum and PR around the release. When it in face should be the smaller acts that gets written about. This inquiry from me will be hypocritical since i am going to write about one of the bigger releases.

The week of releases i am thinking about is the week where Kanye West released Donda, Drake released Certified Lover Boy and Iron Maiden released Senjutsu. The smaller release that i was hinting towards in the beginning of the paragraph is Space Werewolves Will Be the End of Us All by Blockhead.

I’ve given them all a listen, however, i have very different feelings toward them all, apart from Kanye & Drake. I can’t, i was able to listen to like four or five songs from their respective albums. I’ve never been a fan of Drake, he has a couple of songs that i’ve had on repeat and that follows onto every newly created playlist on Spotify, but overall i find Drakes music rather bland.

What to say about Kanye? I don’t know.
I really enjoyed The Life of Pablo and i strongly feel like that’s the last good album Kanye has released alone and under his own name. I do however think that the KIDS SEE GHOSTS project he did together with Kid Cudi was fresh and intresting. I felt a bit let down by Donda because of the route Kanye’s been taking these last years doesn’t please me and my taste. I prefer when his album contains rap with some chorus, and not like it’s been on these last releases, chorus with some rap. I don’t want artists to be stagnant and get stuck in whatever they’re doing, i love when they try different things that might push the artform forward, and i believe that is what Kanye’s doing – he’s trying, and that, i appreciate greatly. I value his work and what he’s trying to accomplish, and i believe that something amazing will come out of it, however, Donda, isn’t that, for me. Compared to Kanye, i feel that Drake has become stagnant in his style, it works, he sells and streams a lot, but it is no longer appealing to me.

I’ve been listening to Blockhead on and off for a couple of years, i discovered him through the discovery of Aesop Rock. I read somewhere that they went to school together and through that they started to make music. Periodically i’ve been more into Aesop than Blockhead, and for periods it’s been swapped.
With that background, i’ve been listening to snippets and stuff that Blockheads been releasing for this new album, leading up to its actual release. I have a softspot for electronic artists that actually release albums. It usually tend to feel like there’s releases of singles and EPs, but rarely albums. I think that Space Werewolves Will Be the End of Us All is very well worth a listen. Blockheads style of producing and putting songs together is very well done and overall i find that this is a good album that i will be rotating for a while.

The last, but not the least.
Senjutsu by Iron Maiden. I must admit, when i saw the name of the upcoming album, i was skeptic. I felt from the name that the old rockers were trying to be woke. However, i was very wrong, and i was floored by this album. I’ve had it on repeat since release, and it keeps on growing on me. It’s full of that classic imagery that you find in Iron Maiden lyrics and i feel like that the sound that they’ve found their way back to a sound that resembles the sound of older albums. I know, this sounds hypocritical of me to say, but an Iron Maiden-album sounding like an Iron Maiden-album will always be the best sounding Iron Maiden album. Senjutsu for me is a strong contender for the best album of the year so far, and i think, and i recommend you to listen to it!

I’ve been walking a lot over the summer, i got a good application on the phone for tracking steps, so i can easily get oversight of my progress. Since May, and 4 months ahead, a couple of days ago, i registred my 750km (465 miles) in four months of walking. It feels good, and it feels like an accomplishment.

I also feel like i should adress the fact that i haven’t finished listening to the new Kanye and Drake album and the fact that i give my opinions on them here. I will finish them, and i will listen through them thoroughly and i might write something about them in the future.

Until next time, take care.

SLQT.

Brightest Star Tonight – Daedelus.

In an effort to try and work around this whole feeling of music being lackluster, i’ve tried to listen to some new music. And on fridays Spotify updates their Release Radar-playlist. If you’re unaware of the Release Radar-playlist, in it’s essential its a playlist that automatically once a week updates with new releases from artist that you’ve previously listened to, or that Spotify choses for you! I try and listen to it atleast once every week, with some reservation.
One of the songs i got on the Release Radar-playlist this week was Brightest Star Tonight by Daedelus. I stumbled upon him a while ago when i was researching who made the original song, that is sampled in Accordion by Madlib and the now late MF DOOM in their duo project Madvillainy. And i learned that the sample is from the track Experience by Daedelus. I got impressed and i liked the sound, so i kept Daedelus in my rotation!

I fell for the sound of Brightest Star Tonight, it’s so soft and somewhat comforting, it almost resembles somekind of lo-fi, and it sounds much different from songs like Experience, albeit, be it, these songs do have many years between them.
Daedelus keeps on impressing me, and i recommend that you give him a listen, and his now song, Brightest Star Tonight that is out today (26/2-2021) on all platforms where you can experience music – i assume. Atleast, i’ve seen that it’s available on Spotify and Youtube.

Other honorable mentions from this weeks Release Radar:
This is love – demo – PJ Harvey
Another World – Kimchii Remix – Rebecca & Fiona, Kimchii.
TOXIC – Pussy Riot, Dorian Electra.
The Princess and the Clock – Kero Kero Bonito.

Also, i’ve been thinking about writing about books i read. Nothing’s decided and time will tell.

Until next time, take care.

SLQT.