Deep Voices - Playlist #4
Playlist notes:
The poet on the first track, accompanied by DJ /Rupture, is Elizabeth Alexander. She’s an astonishing writer. She read at Barack Obama’s first inauguration. This poem, “Overture: Watermelon City,” about Philadelphia, is from her book Antebellum Dreambook, which is so alive.
MHYSA’s song “Strobe” has a concept bound for a hit single: walk into the club looking so good that everyone takes your photo; there’s so many flashes it’s like you brought your own strobe light. “Click, click, click, click, click” is really a perfect refrain.
Lamont Dozier is far from a deep voice, having written or co-written endless Motown hits. But he’s less known as a singer himself. “Breaking Out All Over” is a soul/disco favorite of mine. No one can pine better than this.
Once, working at Pitchfork, I had to tell an editor to stop recycling the hokey idea that a song was powerful because it would make you cry on the dance floor. But “Lonely” may justify that praise. The perfect pairing of sample and rhythm, it pulls apart a straightforward drum n bass trajectory into little ripples, while Regina Belle laments. Maybe the best song I’ve ever heard.
I included Ydegirl in the last playlist and have been digging into her world and that of the Danish scene of which she is a part. I opted not to include this incredible if 10-minute multi-part piece on this playlist, as it features a rather long spoken interlude about the architectural features of banknotes. But it led me to listen to the works of that song’s collaborators. I really love CTM, who releases albums on Posh Isolation. The song of hers on this playlist is pleasingly weird, a monotone recitation of how there will be “no babies” or “no breakfast,” improbably accompanied by a kora. I have not even begun to wrap my head around LOL Beslutning’s “Choices,” which is part of an art opera and is “told from inside an SUV in a rained out carpark,” whose two characters “friendship is tested by emo-emotions, dueling expectations and a mysterious double murder.”
I initially became interested in Peter Nu after I stumbled onto a record he made called “Moroccan Reggae.” It seemed like a genre I would like; I’ve still never heard it. His two albums with Maggie Nichols are jazzy piano with cabaret vocals. They mostly suck, but “I Could Write,” clocking in at just over a minute, felt aggressively drunk enough that it could show up on a new season of Twin Peaks. The lyrics were amazing. I googled them, and found out they were actually written by Rodgers and Hammerstein. Sinatra performed the song. According to Wikipedia, it is considered “a standard.” Who knew?!