Welcome back to Melissa Recommends Music! After an exciting collaboration with Harapeko Magazine, we’re back to our regularly scheduled programming with this week’s Latest Roundup, where I bring you ten of my most liked and most listened-to songs of the past month.
The last newsletter had a lot of legacy artists featured on it, and with those kinds of artists — the kind that have left a lasting impact on music or that have a devoted following — I always feel compelled to do their biographies justice, whatever that means. So because HRPK1 ended up feeling heavy on the bios and analyses of historical significance, I wanted to scale it back on this week’s newsletter and give myself room to riff. Let me know what you think in the comments!
Also, after a short trial period I’ve decided to discontinue the bubble letters imagery I had planned on making for each newsletter. I had to keep asking my roommate to borrow her iPad and forgetting to do it until the last minute, which became stressful and held me back from publishing newsletters when I wanted to. RIP my little bubble letters; going forward I’ll be using Okay Kaya’s “OMG I Love Music!” sticker for every newsletter’s preview image, sans her explicit permission because I don’t know her. Wait, should I try DMing her on IG and ask her for her permission?
OMG I’ve always wanted to use the Substack polling feature.
Read on for pillowcore, a Sephora jumpscare, and an ode to one of the most effective bass lines I’ve heard yet.
Track Listing
“The Fancy Model” - Kandahar
“Whistle Stop / Mama” - Jim Sullivan
“Be Thankful For What You Got” - Love
“Git Ya Sheta” - Hamid Al Shaeri
“Michael Who Walks By Night” - Strawberry Switchblade
“LUV (I KNOW I WANT THIS FOR REAL)” - Q
“Seaforth” - King Krule
“On Formulation” - John Glacier
“Qué Pasa?” - TOLEDO
“Chosen to Deserve” - Wednesday
1. “The Fancy Model” by Kandahar
Strap yourselves in here because this song is one wild ride. It kicks off with a circus-like intro that always hooks me, followed by a buildup that recalls David Lynch sound design with the unnerving squeaks and ominous murmurs and other unplaceable noises. The combination of silly and creepy is a great lead-in to the main event, setting the tone for the exhilarating, jittery, off-kilter odyssey that is “The Fancy Model.”
Emerging from the prelude, we’re launched into a dizzying bass line that, throughout screaming saxophones and insane drum solos, gives us something to hold on to. This bass line is our rock. It’s the sonic equivalent of when sailors would tie themselves to the mast of a ship during a storm so they didn’t get thrown overboard. (Is that historically accurate or am I making that up? Feel free to educate me in the comments section.) But it’s also hypnotically circular and acutely precarious, like it might just make us waltz around the dance floor until we collapse. Like it would dance us to death if we let it. It’s so bewitching it’s making me write metaphors about it. Help! I’m being held hostage by the Kandahar bass line!
Anyways, Kandahar is a Belgian jazz/rock band that formed in 1973. I found them on a playlist that my friend Isaiah posted to his IG months ago, and that I finally got around to listening to somewhat recently. While “The Fancy Model” was originally released on Kandahar’s 1974 album Long Live Sliced Ham, it’s featured on Spotify on a compilation album titled Funky Chimes: Belgian Grooves From the ‘70s, which is fantastic. The compilation comes from Sdban Records, a Belgian record label specializing in re-releasing lost or overlooked Belgian jazz and funk, headed by Stefaan Vandenberghe and his extensive personal record collection.
2. “Whistle Stop / Mama” by Jim Sullivan
After the near-vertigo of “The Fancy Model” we can get some relief from Jim Sullivan’s stripped down, clean demo twofer, which combines his songs “Whistle Stop” (first released on his 1969 LP U.F.O.) and “Mama” (unreleased) with a flawless off the cuff transition. We have Light In The Attic Records to thank not only for the great mastering job, but for bringing Sullivan’s catalogue to light (pun intended).
A “psych-folk-rock masterpiece,” U.F.O. was the first of only two albums that Sullivan put out before mysteriously disappearing outside Santa Rosa, NM in March 1975. Pressed in tiny numbers on a private label, U.F.O. was an “ultra rare” collector’s piece until Light In The Attic made it its years-long mission to give the album a full release. The lore here is as fascinating as it is extensive, not just for Sullivan’s masterful, short-lived career and mysterious disappearance, but also for LITA’s quest to put out his music and solve the mystery (spoiler alert: they didn’t solve it). They have a great writeup of both U.F.O. and If The Evening Were Dawn (their compilation album of Sullivan’s demos and unreleased tracks, where I found “Whistle Stop / Mama”), as well as a short video titled “Light In The Attic Records: The Jim Sullivan Story.”
3. “Be Thankful For What You Got” by Love
Okay I promise I’ll refrain from parenthetical remarks for at least this next blurb. Love first caught my attention a few years ago with “Walk Right In,” a personal favorite, but I didn’t come across “Be Thankful For What You Got” until a couple weeks ago. Here’s another fantastic bass line, but it’s less like the rigid backbone of “The Fancy Model” and more like the swaying hips of someone effortlessly killing it on the dance floor.
Singer and multi-instrumentalist Arthur Lee was the mastermind behind Love, “one of the first racially diverse American rock bands.” He formed the band in 1965 after seeing The Byrds perform, inspired to fuse their burgeoning folk rock sound with rhythm and blues. Love released their version of “Be Thankful For What You Got,” a cover of William DeVaughn’s seminal 1974 hit, on their album from the same year, Reel to Reel.
4. “Git Ya Sheta” by Hamid Al Shaeri
We’re keeping the good times rolling with a track that exemplifies the impeccable repertoire of Libyan-Egyptian musician Hamid Al Shaeri. While he’s a legend in his home country of Egypt, he’s gained international traction in recent years thanks to Habibi Funk Records’ reissues of his music. Everything I’ve heard by Al Shaeri is absolutely excellent, and I’m thrilled to finally feature a song of his in my humble newsletter.
“Git Ya Sheta” opens with a clean electric guitar that sounds like classic summery indie pop, although it predates anything close to that by a few decades. It comes off Habibi Funk’s compilation album The SLAM! Years (1983 – 1988), which “collects the results of what became a long-standing partnership [between Al Shaeri and notable Egyptian record label SLAM!]. The LP focuses on his 1983-1988 output, which fused his Egyptian and Libyan heritage, with disco and synth pop influences” (according to an article from The Vinyl Factory). If you haven’t yet, I highly recommend listening to the whole album — it’s flawless. If you’re curious about Hamid Al Shaeri, I found some good reading on him from Bandcamp, as well as an interview with Afropop that predates his collaboration with Habibi Funk.
5. “Michael Who Walks By Night” by Strawberry Switchblade
Oh Strawberry Switchblade (affectionate sigh). A Scottish New Wave girlboss duo, their 1982 demo of “Trees and Flowers” is an indie kid classic and one of my favorite songs ever. I only recently discovered the extended mix, which brought a tear to my eye and got me perusing the self-titled 1985 album it’s off of. That’s how I found “Michael Who Walks By Night,” a fun, sweet little track I’ve been enjoying bopping around the city to.
6. “LUV (I KNOW I WANT THIS FOR REAL)” by Q
I was at the Sephora in Union Square the other day (fatal mistake) and it was so crowded that at one point I could have sworn I heard this over the speakers. In that split second my blood froze — could I still feature this song in LR4, or did hearing it in a Sephora disqualify it from the running? — until I realized they were actually playing Michael Jackson. But it was already too late for me… the track’s latent potential arose before me like a specter, the ghost of H&M’s and Forever 21’s past, fluorescent lights mingling with corporate-approved indie pop that verges on edgy while remaining steadfastly digestible.
I found this on Michelle’s playlist, and when I told her it made it onto LR4 she confirmed my fears — surprised, she confessed she hadn’t been able to decide if it was “too Instagram” to really convince her.
And yet for all my bitching I really like this song. It’s catchy, it’s kind of edgy, maybe a little too reliant on nostalgia factor but very danceable, and it’s H&M-core but hey, so is, like, Sky Ferreira.
7. “Seaforth” by King Krule
Of all the songs on today’s playlist, this is the one I keep coming back to. “Seaforth” is Archie Marshall AKA King Krule’s latest single, romantic and serene amid the sounds of waves crashing and gulls calling. The outro is such a highlight, not just for the delicate strains of woodwind instruments but for the ambient sounds of a shoreline somewhere not too far off. Sometimes (often), you get an ambient intro/outro that just feels like filler, but I live for those that work just as hard as the meat of the song (see: my passionate review of “K” in LR2).
In typical King Krule fashion, the lyrics are as bleak as they are romantic:
Despite the, the brick walls, the ceilin'
Up here, I'm freer than the birds
We soar above the broken Earth
The train line in Seaforth
We sit and watch the planet dyin' up above
We sit and smile without concern
Now walk through shop centres together
Our love dissolves this universe
If anyone can be both starry-eyed and starkly morbid it’s this guy. And I eat it up! The picture he paints of mundane, suburban moments made consequential by love is utterly convincing. He takes walking through shop centres, undeniably unglamorous, and elevates it to Big Bang levels of significance.
8. “On Formulation” by John Glacier
John Glacier is a British rapper who released her first album, SHILOH: Lost For Words in 2021. She’s worked with Babyfather, Jeshi, Vegyn, and a host of other collaborators and producers. My friend Jill, who runs the fabulous “Crooked Bay” radio show on KPISS FM, put me onto her a couple weeks ago. Thanks Jill!
9. “Qué Pasa?” by TOLEDO
Actually, this track could compete with “Seaforth” for the title of Most Listened-To on LR4. Maybe because they’re both songs I put on when I want to relax, which is often. Capable of clearing out the clutter in my head while encouraging me to slow down, “Qué Pasa?” fits right in with gentle indie kings Kevin Krauter and Andy Shauf.
This song comes off of TOLEDO’s first EP, Hotstuff, which came out in 2019. The Massachusetts duo has been called “pillowcore,” a term I’d never heard before but which immediately made sense to me.
10. “Chosen to Deserve” by Wednesday
Closing us out is a track off Wednesday’s latest album, Rat Saw God, which has become ubiquitous in the American indie scene at large since its release on April 7th. Case in point: Pitchfork called them “one of the best indie rock bands around” and lauded the album as “outstanding” in a recent review. While it’s the fifth album from the Asheville, NC quintet, I had honestly never heard of them before this past March. Suffice to say I’m late to the game, but “Chosen to Deserve” has been on repeat in my library for the past three weeks.
There’s no real chorus here, just verse after verse punctuated by the “chosen to deserve” refrain. It can sometimes get a little stale, but never enough to lose my attention. What really keeps me coming back is the element of storytelling and the fantastic instrumental fill between each neatly packaged verse, with a riff reminiscent of Southern power ballads and a very awesome slide guitar.
Thanks a lot for reading the newsletter! As always, if you care to share your thoughts, reactions, suggestions, etc. I’d love to hear from you in the comments.
The next newsletter goes out in two or maybe three weeks. Happy May!
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