Play/Listed Weekly for Aug 21, 2020

I’m starting a new project! For the moment, I’m practicing sharing a few new songs and an album or two every week that have stood out to me from my New Music Friday listens. I’ll be adding the songs to an updated monthly playlist, with the newest (freshest) tracks on the top.

This week I unfortunately have no new CHIKA to share, but nevertheless, this was a solid New Music Friday. I am buzzing with excitement about a few new artists who’ve come to my attention in the past few weeks as well as some classic artists who have blessed us with new-to-us tracks. Let’s get to it!

Here are my highlights from today’s New Music Friday:

1. Hurt - Arlo Parks

   I am completely excited to share an Arlo Parks original, since I recently binge-watched her covers on YouTube. She’s been releasing original material throughout the pandemic, and at the moment, “Hurt” is my highlight. I’m very excited for this queer South Londoner’s come up, and based on how much content she’s been creating this year, I feel like we have an album to look forward to very soon.

2. MACHIAVELLI - Vic Mensa featuring Eryn Allen Kane

   Vic Mensa’s new EP V Tape was a strong contender for the album feature below, so if you’re a fan of slick and agile rap music paired with an autobiographical vulnerability, you should 100% check out the rest of the collection. “MACHIAVELLI” was a standout from my first listen, probably in part because one of my favourite Chicago vocalists, Eryn Allen Kane, is featured on the chorus. But it also has a beautiful stylized music video worth a watch here.

3. Stupid People - Pip Millett

   A friend of mine told me to listen to Pip Millet at some point last year, but she got lost in my streaming services and I forgot that she existed until today. It’s possible that I confused her with Jorja Smith, since both women are Brits making Sade-inspired soul. Anyway, now I know they are two different artists, and I love them both. As for the song, who hasn’t been let down by stupid people? It’s beautiful and relatable!

4. IN A DREAM - Troye Sivan

   Although I was a little disappointed with Troye’s new EP of the same name (without the all caps), this song is a capital-B Bop. No wonder he named the EP after this. The best moment is about 3/4 of the way through, when the low pass filter pulls the guitar out, leaving Troye’s voice crisp and exposed on the line, “that’s the hardest thing I’ve said,” right before cutting into the expected big chorus.

5. Save the Day (2020) - Mariah Carey featuring Ms. Lauryn Hill

   Apparently Mariah and producer Jermaine Dupri have been sitting on this track for 9 years. “Save the Day (2020)” is the lead single from an album of rarities to be released this October. Just to adjust your expectations, the feature here is a sample from Lauryn’s version of “Killing Me Softly” with the Fugees. Still, it’s something special to hear these two legends on the same track. And obviously the song is fire from one of the only vocalists who can bring both the chops and the nostalgia factor that a sample like this deserves.

6. Thong Song - Amber Mark

   Speaking of nostalgia, yes, this is the song you think it is. And Amber Mark is the perfect person to cover it for us. It’s both hilarious and also I want to dance to this for real. Looking forward to spinning this at just the right moment at a party (whenever we’ll be able to do that again).

This is what I love about New Music Friday: Sometimes you come across a new artist you’ve never heard before and you become an instant fan. Although there were several albums released today on my suggestions, for whatever reason, I couldn’t get excited about them. I came across Wafia’s Good Things and at first made the mistaken assumption that this was a rapper that put a beautiful woman on the cover. But then I clicked on her name and read about this soulful, poppy singer/songwriter with wide International experience - born in the Netherlands to Arab parents, and now based in Australia.

Of course I’m very late to the party. Once I did a wider search for Wafia, I found that she was on Tiny Desk 3 years ago with her fellow Aussie collaborator, Ta-ku.

Anyway, by some small miracle, before I’d even had a cup of coffee, I decided to play this short EP this morning. From the first few bars of “Hurricane,” I became an instant fan. Her productions and clean vocals remind me of an older Alessia Cara. And like Alessia, she has a great self-love anthem in the second track, “Pick Me,” which is accompanied by one of the cutest quarantine-made videos yet.

The EP keeps this perfect, bouncy vibe all the way until the end, when her final song “How to Lose a Friend” strips everything down to a piano and Wafia’s voice. It’s a quiet, emotional moment that speaks to the universal experience of having a friendship end. It’s a vulnerable place to end, but it certainly leaves me wanting more.

SuperGood was the first new release I clicked on, so excited for whatever upbeat vibes Duckwrth had prepared for us, and I was not disappointed. This is a solid 45 minutes/16 tracks of danceable beats, although it does drag slightly at times. Also some of the songs like “Money Dance” are so short, you can put them on twice just to keep that energy going.

Duckwrth is the kind of West Coast rapper that give us relentlessly upbeat dance flavours, but about 6 songs into this album, he slows it down for “Kiss U Right Now,” which has a sexy dream quality.

“Come Closer” steps up the tempo and brings a couple guest verses from young Oakland rapper, G.L.A.M. (who’s one to watch) and the buttery vocals of Julia Romana. This song lets him transition back to the danceable vibes we’ve come to expect from Duckwrth while maintaining the sexier sound of the track before it.

Two of my other highlights (after the first listen) come near the beginning and end of this record respectively. Before choosing to write about this album, I put “Quick” on the playlist. By the time I was grooving to the skate anthem, “World on Wheels,” I knew this was one of my albums for this week. The only thing that was missing from the latter was a Chance the Rapper verse.

SuperGood ends with possibly the most joyful song here, “Find A Way,” a collaboration with Alex Mali, Radio Ahlee, and BAYLI. This song has a video complete with animations of each collaborator, and is absolutely worth a watch as well. By the way, all the songs above have “Official Visualizers,” which as far as I can tell just means a simple music video..