Cha-cha-cha, it is me

New Music 31/03/25

Me when I am waiting for the good songs

Every week I’m like “here are some songs to love,” but sometimes I would also like to just go “ta da some songs to hate.” I’d like to tip my little top hat at you while doing a jazzy dance that expresses the many ways in which certain songs have annoyed me. Someone referenced Humpty Dumpty in the lyrics of an alt-rock song they are calling a manifesto? Cha-cha-cha, it is me sashaying up to you with my angry little face and my snapping words about it. Someone has covered Wuthering Heights with a ukelele? Do not be afraid, it is just me tango-ing into your living room wearing a t-shirt that says “I hate it.”

All the songs that end up on this playlist initially get put on a master playlist that I add to over the week as releases come out. I listen to the songs, or albums many times: while taking a walk, while driving, while I should be working. It’s actually very exciting to have this sort of mass of potential to go through, and amidst often a lot of music I don’t like, the moment something starts and I sit up a bit straighter because I do, is really pleasurable. Yes, I am often displeased by songs, but it only makes the ones I end up liking even more delightful, and although sometimes I would like to, I don’t write about songs I hate because I think it would be bad for my soul to have to find new and exciting ways to be displeased every week!

The playlist is extra short this week because I sent it out a little late last time, giving myself a smaller window for new releases. Still there are seven little pleasures on it for you!

5 things that pleased me this last week:

1. I wasted a lot of time watching The Criterion Closet, a new way for me to judge celebrities. Basically they pick their favorite movies from the Criterion Collection. One million points to Isabelle Huppert for simply choosing a movie she is in. Pamela Anderson’s one is my fave!

2. Anni Tabagua
   wrote about “Megrelian: The Wild, Beautiful Language of Western Georgia” and linked to this beautiful song. I loved this in particular:

   “In English, you’d just say, “He’s walking.” But in Megrelian, the verb changes depending on how they look. If they’re fat, there’s a verb for that. If they’re skinny, there’s a different verb. If (to you) they look tired, lazy, bored, awkward, overconfident, lost in thought, or struggling with heavy bags, the verb shifts to reflect that. Even if someone has loser vibes or cool vibes, there’s a specific way to describe their kind of walking.”

3. I’m having a Paolo Sorrentino phase. I watched The Consequences of Love and The Great Beauty this weekend. Obviously if you haven’t watched them you should. The Great Beauty will make you feel like you’ve never been to a good party. This song was in The Consqeunces of Love. It’s very fun, a sort of recipe for love. She sings, “You need luck/For it to work/Shivers up your spine/And good ingredients,” which seems like a pretty good summary to me.

4. I was recently reminded of this old piece — I don’t want to call it a take down, because it’s a bit boring and dramatic to call it that — on Susan Sontag by Terry Castle. It is very revealing though and it contains what sounds like a dinner party from actual hell and some very highbrow CD trading.

5. This radio show on NTS is extremely nice, something to put on in the morning to ensure a very good day!

On each release from this upcoming album we’ve had a different member of the British sextet singing, and this time it’s pianist and accordionist May Kershaw. Aside from having 3 singers and composers, each member of this band plays so many instruments and not in a sort of like “well I play 5 instruments, the triangle, the drums, the bongos, the congas and the whistle” way. It makes a difference to listen to music that is so clearly created by people who understand not just the emotion of music, but the nuts and bolts of it too. There’s a certain kind of freedom knowledge gives you and you can hear that here in the meandering structure, the shifts that can feel disjointed, but are put back together perfectly.

There were so many contenders for the playlist from this album. I would recommend listening to it in its entirety. A lot of the album is concerned with anxieties around grief and this song, in which Hadreas imagines a time without his mother, really stood out to me with its warm pads, the way it never strays too far from itself, like a wave that washes the shore over and over again. Six months after the album was completed Hadreas’ dog died from a snake bite and so the album is dedicated to her, making it one of two albums (the upcoming Sleigh Bells album) at the moment for dogs. I feel like this is unusual and worth noting! Dogs it is your time! Here’s a very, very sweet interview about his dog, Wanda.

Ah limerence, my favorite way to lose weight. The overwhelming longing for emotional reciprocation from another person, something like a consuming infatuation is so wonderfully mad making and I think of the times in my life I’ve felt like this as having hundreds of tiny needles sticking out of my skin and being like “this is living.” This song deals with that feeling of wanting to ruin your whole life just to “feel alive,” but it’s also all over the album. The state of falling in love — in this case with boygenius bandmate, Julien Baker, is the bread and butter of Forever Is A Feeling and this is to my mind the most sophisticated track on it, with its arrangements by violinist Phoenix Rousiamanis, and its sweet sailing piano.

You blink, a year passes, and Kali Uchis is once again releasing a new album. I love this first single with its dreamy, romantic and hopeful tone. “Through sunshine and rain, as seasons change/We all need somebody that makes the Earth feel heavenly,” she sings and I agree!

While you’re waiting for the next Haim single here’s something by Montreal duo, Foster Kirkpatrick and Dylan Konrad Obront, to keep you going!

This is a modern re-imagining of Spanish singer, Jeanette’s 1981 ballad El Muchacho de los Ojos Tristes, which is definitely the version I’m going to be listening to, but thank you to this song for bringing it to my attention. It’s also interesting that the Maria’s are on this, because this song sounds so much like their song No One Noticed, the first melody line is actually identical, but just double time. A full circle of inspiration/copying?

Salin is a Thai-born drummer merging traditional Northeastern Thai rhythms with the psychedelic funk of West Africa. Very fun! Salin heard the instrument that opens this track during a trip to the Nyah Kur Tribe in Isaan, in the Northeast of Thailand and recorded it being played and it just happened to fit perfectly with the rest of the percussion that had been recorded for this track. Serendipity!