Music For the Half-Drowned
We found some real cool sounds. This week’s #Sawce is real nice.
Anders Marshall, Ben E. Waldman and Kevin Yeung.
I almost drowned when I was nine years old.
I was paddling like a puppy through the deep end… of the kiddy pool. At a swimming lesson for kids who think swimming is thrashing around in water wings.
Hey, shut up. There was 15 feet of life-quenching water to the bottom of the pool, and I was a scared, overweight child. Every little struggle is real when you’re fun-sized.
Anyway, I get that same sense of dread — well, not dread, but like… excitement borne by fear? — When these dank ass beats on JET BANDIT’s new EP, BOLT, hit my ears.
Anders says listen to No Show”
Hit that play button and get ready to fall down a flight of stairs. This production is crazy. I feel like I’m falling down the stairway from heaven listening, and that’s an experience I don’t want to endure alone.
Ben says listen to “The Ellen Page”
“We’re funny, but we’re not a joke.”
That’s how Sackville, Nova Scotia band Partner describes itself on their Facebook page. The description is spot on. Lucy Niles and Josée Caron are hilarious, but they’re also incredibly talented.
“The Ellen Page” was released late in 2015, inspired by actress Ellen Page- a Nova Scotia native- coming out as a lesbian. “People say that I talk like Ellen Page. I guess it makes sense, cause we come from the same place,” the song opens. “But its more than just a regional thing, because its 50% maritime and 50% lesbian.”
I saw Partner earlier this year, and they did not disappoint.
Kevin says listen to “Baby Boy”
I strongly mess with New Gambino. You always that Donald Glover had an experimental, creative mind, but Old Gambino, or the Troubled Child of the Internet Gambino, just ended up feeling kind of corny like all of the other troubled Internet children. I’m not trying to listen to Gambino rap faux-existentialist bars about rainbows, sunshine and prom night. (This really happened, and it holds a special place in my heart as the worst song I’ve ever heard.)
Ben was on it when he hit the Internet with the words Maturish Gambino. The sound has matured, the experimental energies refocused into working off the Parliament-Funkadelic build. You could pick any number of bizarro instruments to highlight from his new album, but I’m partial to the organ-backed blues of “Baby Boy.” Credit Gambino for letting the sound breathe; the measured delivery, especially on the outro, really sends it home. Gotdamn. GOTDAMNGOTDAMNGOTDAMN. High level groovy.
And “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”
It’s that time of year. Get pumped up for the holiday season with DMX bark-shouting holiday music at you. The only Christmas canon we recognize is interspersed with Santa yelling COME ON! and carols as rapped by DMX. I wish I could be as passionate about anything as DMX is about rapping Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer in a 90-second YouTube video. X Gon’ Sing it To Ya.
