Semipop Life: Nothing mid ’ere

Romy, DJ Finale, the Replacements, Paramore, and more!

Romy: Mid Air

The critical love R. Madley-Croft’s solo debut has received in the U.S. has been somewhat perfunctory, when it’s better sung and written than most and maybe all of the xx’s albums. True, the beats can feel more dated than retro: Stuart Price does what he’s been doing since the 2000s, and Fred Again displays the structural conservatism you’d expect from someone whose Wiki page lists his family tree’s peerages. And woman-for-woman desire is hardly taboo anymore—only it’s difficult for me to think of entries in the genre this intense on that topic. Tegan & Sara’s at their horny semipop peak, say, weren’t as quite as amorous as “She’s on My Mind” (“but I wish she was under me.”) Romy’s vocal coolness works in her favor: repeating “I love her” doesn’t scan as any kind of overstatement; it’s a state of being. And the datedness is itself a strategy, amplified by roping in ambient pioneer Beverly Glenn-Copeland (b. 1944, came out as a trans man in 2003) to emphasize the same feelings were experienced by LGBT generations past, even if their opportunities to express them publicly were limited. Turns out the 2000s were special for more than for being the time Calvin Harris got famous, and that’s worth a little nostalgia.

Grade: A (“She’s on My Mind”, “Loveher”, “Strong”)

DJ Finale: Mille Morceau

Kinshasa-via-Kampala DJ Finale was a standout in one or more iterations of Fulu Miziki; here, Nyege Nyege Tapes gives him a solo album to expand the post-Congotronic tradition, mixing analog instruments, digital bleepery, and sounds made out of garbage. The fourteen tracks’ grooves vary from four-on-the-floor bangers to “I can hear the continuity between soukous and this” to "is that an ancient central African rhythm or did he just make that up?” Busy and approachable is “Moi Jesais”, which has an impossibly gentle treble sound that does relate to the main progression synths that stop it from getting lost. As with so much art music, it’s strongest when melodicism, however abstract, is foregrounded: the junk bumps on “Tobandi” are as rigorous a tune basis as is risking a copyright strike from the writers of “C’est la Vie”/“Vivir Mi Vida”. The failsafe is his bass: don’t know if he’s using the same homemade instrument he deployed on N’Djila Wa Mudujimu, but whenever things start to get diddly, its phatness reasserts itself, threatening to envelop the planet. All of the dream, how does it mean?

Grade: A MINUS (“Moi Jesais”, “Tobandi”, “Pitschu Debou”)

Drain: Living Proof

The parent group of Gulch is that rare Cali hardcore band that does right by its metal influences. Singer Sammy Ciaramitaro semi-screams comprehensible syllables, and I don’t regret taking the mental energy to parse his beefs with assorted imposters and parasites, even if the wisest song-qua-song outsources words of love to the Descendents. His external and internal demon battles illustrate a Manichean worldview that might make you hope he has a therapist, except available social media evidence suggests he’s an aggressively normal human when he isn’t at his night job yelling at assholes to kill themselves. Guitarist/obvious Metallica fan Cody Chavez has an arsenal of low-end riffs that play off each other like this is classical music, which it almost is, and he’s not above microshredding to emphasize a point. Drummer Tim Flegal manages the tempo changes while dropping runs of demisemiquavers that dissipate chugginess. The one with a (decent) guest rapper that doesn’t really work gets points for effort. That Descendants cover might dare to risk midcore, yet there’s little danger of them soundtracking a Taco Bell ad anytime soon.

Grade: A MINUS (“Good Good Things”, “Weight of the World”, “Evil Finds Light”)

Kate NV: Wow

Moscow-based experimental popster, very much against current Russian foreign policy which is brave plus you do have to check don’t you, who, against prevailing trends, has answered my kvetch that 2020’s promising Room for the Moon would’ve been even better with actual songs. Not the verse-chorus stuff, mind you: songs in the sense of that other Kate it’s bad form to compare every individualistic woman to (but c’mon, she called her record Wow.) She arranges her digital interjections and anime sparkles coherent and digestible collections of related ideas, with concepts to match the musical strangeness. The unusual syncopation on “D D Don’t” intensifies the stuttering nonchalance of the title. “Oni (They)” participates in the recent nanotrend of songs in Japanese about roadside produce. “Meow Chat” sounds like a cat made it. Contrasting sunny, pure tones with not-quite-to-the-Hertz squiggles and quasi-verbal vocalizations that nevertheless sound oddly humanoid (or cat-oid), she makes the pop avant-garde more fun than it’s been since the good old four-digit gec days.

Grade: A MINUS (“D D Don’t”, “Confessions at the Dinner Table”, “Meow Chat”)

The Replacements: Tim (Ed Stasium mix)

By 1985, they were on their way to becoming, on disc at least, a well-behaved band; the muddy original mix of Tim feels in retrospect like a last gasp of insouciance. Thanks to Stasium’s painstaking work, an excellent album that wasn’t Let It Be has become an excellent album that isn’t Let It Be that you can now hear better: not nothing, not transformative. The closest it comes to the latter is “Waitress in the Sky”: its improved backing vocals in particular make it much more clear it’s a pisstake (a common apology for a country move) aimed at its douchebag narrator, though you might’ve worked that out before 2023. So I won’t poke fun at anyone who’d still rather listen to the old mix; nostalgia isn’t nothing either. As a bonus, I’ll also decline to dis anyone who enjoys the alt versions and live tracks that fill out the Let It Bleed box, because I’m not going to do my due diligence on that.

Grade: A MINUS (“Bastards of Young”, “Hold My Life”, “Kiss Me on the Bus”)

Pangaea: Changing Channels

If this is the intellectual end for Pitchfork, I’m gonna miss having it around to kick against, however righteous it is to make fun of their residual Puritanism. Philip Sherburne calls this “a vaguely guilty-pleasure insinuation of getting away with something naughty”. What’s there to feel vaguely guilty about? This is micro-label garagey UK dance, not Skrillex, whom one should also not feel guilty about! But who else is going to pay Sherburne to write a thousand words laying out how this sounds with higher fidelity than an EDM dabbler like me can manage? “Rosy sunrise pads smooth out the choppy groove while a mosquito-beaked synth riff nods simultaneously to ’90s Eurodance and Y2K-era dancehall”—yep, that’s the standout “Installation”. Other language captures the peculiarities of the chopped-up vocals and varied percussion. Summary: fine record; “Best New Music” if you want; if every valuable Pitchfork writer is going to start a Substack it’s going to cost me a lot of money.

Grade: B PLUS (“Installation”, “If”, “Changing Channels”)

Paramore: This Is Why

Some time between Sour and Guts, it became apparent that Paramore had become the band most influential on 2020s English-language rock, such that they nabbed everyone from Julien Baker to Wet Leg for their remix album. Their elder statespersons’ role means this only has to be good enough, and, the odd well-meaning vacancy aside (bad things still happen if you turn off the TV!), it is, if not to the extent of getting me to listen to the remix album. “This Is Why” and “Running Out of Time” are radio-ready, Taylor York and Zac Farro remain as reliable a guitar-drum combo as nu-New Wave has, and, if they must produce well-meaning vacancies, Hayley Williams has the experience endorsing Beto to sell them. As she says, “c’est comme ça” (rhymes with “na na na na na na na”.)

Grade: B PLUS (“Running Out of Time”, “This Is Why”, “C’est Comme Ça”)

Nourished by Time: Erotic Probiotic 2

What’s not to like about these lush electrotextures and useful beats, constructed in Baltimore resident Marcus Brown’s parents’ basement? Okay, Brown’s singing is, uh, distinctive (probably on purpose; they did time at Berklee); mumble “outsider art” and get over it. Brown can layer his knacks for melody and pitchbending into songlike forms, even if I’m not sure what his point about Christianity under capitalism is. Their Roland might date from the mid-’80s and the harmonies are reminiscent of how ’90s R&B might sound on ’90s rave drugs, but their throwback sounds are no rote retro move: the overall palette can’t be tethered to a single time, place, or recreational substance. Brown’s a Mulholland Drive fan; is David Lynch looking for a composer?

Grade: B PLUS (“Daddy”, “The Fields”, “Rain Water Promise”)

RVG: Brain Worms

Melbourne rockers so un-big overseas that they toured as support for their friend Billy Nomates (Billy Somemates now, I guess), led by one Romy Vager, who, while the second best-singing Romy in this column, has an appealing contralto drawl that emphasizes her lyrics. If those include much woe-is-me-and-the-world, at least she’s specific about it. If she’s going to write about watching a “white lady funeral” through a patchy stream, then in addition to detailing her emotional state, she’ll make sure you can feel “Drops of Jupiter” playing through a Chrome tab. The rest of the music is journeyman-like in a positive way, with decorative guitar and produced drumbeats effective and shunted into the background. Riches beyond Australian prizes might not be immediately forthcoming to them, but they’re good somemates to have at your back.

Grade: B PLUS (“Midnight Sun”, “Tambourine”, “It’s Not Easy”)