Last time I sent out a newsletter I said, verbatim, the vibe could not be quelled. It has in fact been quelled, dear reader. The sky does appear to be falling, again, but I’m back nonetheless. And, to be frank, I’m coming to you here hot off the heels of a really fun trip to Europe: I DJed in Glasgow alongside mi-el and Obeka (shout out the very cute Healthy x Polyterror crews), in London at new club Lost with Florentino, and in Geneva with Bony Fly. I made it to the opening of Tracey Emin’s new retrospective at the Tate Modern (touching, good), and I saw Dexter in the Newsagent live in Bristol (touching, good).
Upon arrival back to New York, I got completely blindsided by the Oscar-nominated movie Sirāt - a mad cinematic experience with a serious long tail.
I won’t say much about it in case you haven’t seen it, but I will say for all the reviews I’ve read, I haven’t seen many people touch on the idea of the ethics of the rave culture it bases itself on. It seems caught between complicity and critique - it’s not clear if it’s self-aware enough to interrogate that world (especially given the director’s proximity to it, as a raver himself), but it’s also not clear that the ambiguity is by design.
It’s extremely confident in its feeling - the sound design and music are really impressive - but when it comes to thinking, perhaps less so. It has all the what-the-fuck-did-I-just-watch energy of a Gaspar Noé film, with less of an authorial grip. In any case, Sirāt is absolutely worth seeing in the cinema - it’s such an intense experience.
And now, time for the links!
I am banging on about the recent UK come-up, but PinkPantheress is now number one in the USA. All it took was her making a song about America with Zara Larsson. Go on, girl. Meanwhile, more niceness from the UK underground, from Sade Olutola.
It seems like French Caribbean genre shatta is crossing into new lanes. You can hear the shatta influence in J Balvin and DJ Snake’s latest track “Tonto”, and in Shenseea & Vybz Kartel’s “Talk To Mi Nuh”. Meanwhile in Jamaica, Skippa has eight of the top 20 songs in the country right now, and the WYFL Riddim that I mentioned in the last newsletter now has something like 200 artists who have released their voicing. 200!!! Is that a record?
Related, Lil Uzi has one of the biggest songs in New York at the moment, which samples a song by a French-language artist called Indila (the video is very Zoolander, it’s worth watching). In any case - the point is French-language music is in, bébé. Like this Miami bass meets baile funk from Boyg1rl in Haitian créole, or this fun one from Martinique’s Meryl.
Related, the allure of fast-paced bouyon music has now made it to Brazil.
Daft Punk’s “Veridis Quo” is back in the zeitgeist after being in a prominent scene in HBO’s Industry, and is now doing numbers on TikTok via this cumbia remix.
Portuguese label Príncipe have released a follow-up to their wonderful DJs Do Guetto compilation, which throws back to mid-2000s raw batida jams. FL Studio at its finest.
The detuned doubles on this vocal from Dominican artist Jezzy El Chef!
A bit of Kenyan drill.
London producer/DJ Shy One’s nice new album.
I also want to send one up for Chris Athens, a legendary mastering engineer who sadly passed away recently - one of those invisible hands behind so many records, including a few I’ve been close to over the years. Salute.
I’ve only just now come across Marc Isaac’s short documentary Lift, which was shot in a lift in a London tower block in 2001.
Lykke Li gives us a myth of Sisyphus style video for her new song.
Robyn for Acne Studios (shot by Nadia Lee Cohen) - so dykey! Love it.
Kelsey Lu’s “Running To Pain” video.
The artwork for this Devon Rexi x John T Gast record (and the music!).
This Venezuelan guy Arquimedes crushing it on the harp:
“Sorrow as the content, ecstasy as the form”: Jia Tolentino on Robyn’s new album Sexistential, and her wholly inspirational career.
RIP to The Face magazine (again). Sad to see it go.
Long-running independent label Ninja Tune was bought by Concord. Not a bad thing, per se. But what is the fate for independent labels from that era, and can new labels of this size and calibre emerge in this day and age?
That said, could AI help indie labels level up by alleviating the costs of using extortionate SaaS companies?
This year’s IFPI report on global music revenue has dropped, showing recorded music revenues at their highest since 1999.
Rolling Stone reports on how prediction markets are changing the music industry. I have more to say about this, maybe in another essay - and who knows if these sites will survive long. It seems wild that the regulation for “prediction markets” means that insider trading is totally legal (for now). Technically, if you worked at the distro dealing with Drake’s upcoming record and knew the release date, you could put money behind this “outcome” below:
That’s all for today - thanks for reading! If you missed them, here are some reader favourites:
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