Yellow Magic Orchestra - Expected Way - 希望の路
I almost couldn’t write about this. I might have played it 200 times last week——adderall streaked afternoons where this music followed me, plugged my ears on the sleeping train home and color soaked that limbo as spring began and I wondered about Ryuichi’s multi-pleated trousers.
Boyz II Men - Doin’ Just Fine (español) A Mi Me Va Bien
A considerable warning about the dangers of smoking pot and slipping into a youtube vortex: the grand revelations inspired by slow-jams-en-español will last about as long as that dream where you win the lottery.
Kenny Dixon Jr. - Beautiful Sky
Once I ate mushrooms it became clear that this song, fuzzy edges, hollow soul and house music are all that matters to me.
Mark Kamis was a producer and a resident DJ at New York’s legendary Danceteria night club. He died a few weeks ago in Mexico of a coronary heart attack. Although known for his peculiar, multi-ethnic brand of electronic pop music, his death was uniformly framed by a brief role as the well connected DJ who introduced the world to his erstwhile girlfriend, Madonna.
I looked up the original 1981 demo that Kamins passed off to Sire Records’ Seymour Stein. The track was produced by Stephen Bray, who met Madonna in Michigan before she moved to NYC. He was a friend and collaborator who was pulled back into a production role once she signed to Sire. He eventually wrote (or co-wrote) “Into The Groove” and “Papa Don’t Preach” among other 80s pop smashes.
There is a strange and appealing quality to the demo that is lost on the official release. Something smoky about the drums reminds me that Manhattan once existed.
Robbi Robb - In Time
I went to see Autre Ne Veut last night in Chinatown. During the last song my fried mind slipped and fell into nostalgic hallucination and I started humming the words to “In Time” along to ANV’s “Gonna Die.”
Robb lacks that grizzled delivery that’s making Arthur a star, but there’s something of the appreciable epic that makes “In Time” feel relevant here. It’s something that could only be captured in a movie about the excellent adventure of two stoned high school students, a story that is framed around the loose premise that even though they are terrible musicians presently, they will eventually write music with a cosmic power that will align the planets and create universal harmony.
Smooth blue futures, ultimate potential, late 80s astral projection, and the unbearable urge to hug people or cry every time I hear this song. That is all that I know.
Ghost - Come Back Again
Dancehall freak w/ a TB-303. Does it get better than this?
Stevie Wonder - Love’s Light In Flight (Fuel-Injected Passion)
My favorite Stevie Wonder song changes with the weather, but this one shines like the sun in Los Angeles.
A Guy Called Gerald - Finleys Rainbow
Without classification. Pure Love, loner jungle meditations.
I’m a rainbow too…
Big Moe - Southside We Roll On Chrome - DJ Screw-Sippin Code
That pixelated CD-shiny Texas is like a crisp red Grade A stamp.
This track is all about plastic microphones, syruped up on some Screw Tape.
Trevino - DolDrums [Klockworks 09]
Like the allure of a horrific moment—a slow motion dive into a pool that, unknown, is teeming with black scorpions—a memory from a dream of which I am inexplicably fond.
Or like this song, and a freezing dark Berlin December.
