American Pleasure Club - “Let’s Move to the Desert”
The band formerly known as Teen Suicide (the name change is a wholly welcome decision, long overdue) dropped a music video this past week in anticipation of their upcoming album, “A Whole Fucking Lifetime of This,” and while it bears the mark of a different project — namely, the song culls...
Bad Bunny
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ws00k_lIQ9U
To listen to Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny is to be pulled in by his deep, almost monstrous, modulation. His bars mesh with one another between autotuned melodies and spoken word in a way that is reminiscent of Future’s delivery. At first listen, it can be off-putting and awkward — like in “Soy Peor,” which cruises between spoken...
Discourse - “Sanity Decays”
South Carolina-based hardcore band, Discourse, released “Sanity Decays” in 2015. Each track’s message can only be delivered through a rawness that consolidates the harsh vocals with powerful drums and momentous guitar. Tracks such as “Bars Surround” and “Time Pries” bring forth the intense introspection with hardcore rhythms to get their messages across. While sonically driven by...
“Neo Yokio”
Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig has an American anime on Netflix starring Jaden Smith and it’s as wacky as that sounds. Smith is Kaz Kaan, a super-rich kid with nothing but loose ends who also happens to hail from a family of demon slayers known as Magistocrats. He and his pals live in Neo Yokio, a futuristic reimagining of...
“Younger Now” - Miley Cyrus
Miley Cyrus has been many people. A revolving door of identities has dizzied Cyrus between the clean quirks of Hannah Montana or the accelerated rage of “Bangerz,” collapsing into the hedonistic haze of her “Dead Petz” epoch. For her sixth studio album “Younger Now,” rumination of the future caves into a pensive nostalgia for “the...
Music:
Frank Ocean - “Provider”
Four singles released post-“Blonde” — not including features — and Frank Ocean still holds the title as the most elegant singer in the mainstream. His best solo track since “Chanel” finds the enigmatic singer shouting out the late Stanley Kubrick on a catchy bridge and reminiscing on a former lover on a dreamy hook backed by...
On our final “Things We Enjoyed …” column of the school year, we take a look at the releases that we’ve yet to discuss, yet nonetheless enjoyed as some of the best works released from September 2016 to June 2017.
Vagabon - “Infinite Worlds”
Vagabon is the indie rock project of Laetitia Tamko, a Cameroon-born New Yorker whose music is textured...
“Nirvanna The Band The Show”
In the vein of comedy characterized by publicity stunts and feigned ignorance — the kind Sacha Baron Cohen and Mega64 have become known for — Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol’s Viceland mockumentary series, “Nirvanna The Band The Show” is gut-bustingly hilarious. An updated take on their web series of the same name, the show revolves...
“Malibu” - Miley Cyrus
Miley Cyrus returned this week with “Malibu,” a song about her rekindled romance with Liam Hemsworth. “Malibu” sheds “Bangerz’”s Mike-Will-Made-It intros for California cool guitar chords. In other words, “Malibu” sounds like the pop songs indie band Real Estate have always written but the difference is Cyrus’s commitment to an infectious cheeky joy. It’s a catchy...
“We Bare Bears”
The reason why I don’t watch many cartoons nowadays is not because I outgrew them (I’ll never outgrow them), but because so many of them seem to rely on the same tropes. Animated shows just seem rampant on cracking jokes at breakneck speeds and being over the top, only catering to children. That’s all fine and dandy,...