Semipop Life: Ha! I kill me!

Craig Finn, Bashy, Dlala Thukzin, Buck 65, and more!

Craig Finn: Always Been

I don’t have the relistening time to make certain this is his best project ever, so let’s just say it beats Nebraska. The easy way into the work is to treat it as a collection of stories, heartbreaking by degrees—stories that are new to him and to rock and roll as a whole. To depict “Luke & Leanna” on their own terms requires both an intellectual modesty (they don’t know what’s right for themselves, so how should I know, you think I’m an omniscient narrator) and a willingness to consider that maybe being cool won’t satisfy one’s yearning for meaning; that rules out almost everyone who’s been successful in the music biz. Once you’ve digested each track, you can piece together the overarching narrative (perhaps with the assistance of the elegant if expensive-per-word companion book, sampleable on Finn’s Substack) and work out how Luke and Leanna relate to Los Angeles and the TV show NYC ICU and a failed actor who ODs somewhere up the Pacific coast. This would matter to me about as much as the median record in Finn’s honorable career if he hadn’t turned into a genuine singer-songwriter over the last quarter-century. There are proper tunes, Finn hits the notes as close as anyone needs to, and his voice can get inside his characters in first or third person. And the backing is as responsive as he’s ever had, and it appears that for that I have to hand it to the most overrated band of the 2010s, the War on Drugs. Redemption: it’s possible for the least of us.

Grade: A (“Luke & Leanna”, “People of Substance”, “Clayton”)

Bashy: Being Poor Is Expensive

Theatre kid turned bus driver turned grime rapper turned actor takes a break from complaining about the marginal tax rate on his Netflix paychecks to make his first album in 15 years. “Sweet Boys Turned Sour” outlines the pre-BRIT School chapters of his biography succinctly. While he came from a stable, loving household, looking up to culture heroes like Ian Wright and Davey Boy Smith, as soon as he went out into the ungentrified Borough of Brent he ran the risk of a friend putting a gun in his hands (the friend, to his credit, wiped it clean afterwards.) Bashy evokes brokeness well, yet he knows what he went through was nothing compared to his granny immigrating during the “no dogs, no Irish, no… you already know” era. The beats, produced by a team led by Toddla T and himself, pay tribute to his family and personal history, generously sampling or interpolating Dennis Brown, Soul II Soul, and MJ Cole. His skill set has expanded over time, letting him pastiche his chicka-Bashy-chicka grime past and control the intensity of his speech like he’s an actor or something. No idea if kids will make him a culture hero, but he’s a role model for us grown men.

Grade: A MINUS (“Sticky”, “Sweet Boys Turned Sour”, “Midnight in Balans”)

Dlala Thukzin: 031 Studio Camp 2.0

Nobody else in popular music is releasing excellent projects with such regularity; if you expand to demisemipopular music, I’m not sure that James Brandon Lewis does better than match him. With “Sohlala Sisonke” from September’s Finally Famous Too still charting, along comes another 53 minutes of novel recombinations. The not-so-secret recipe is to have maybe four formulas, and to tweak and mix them so that you don’t repeat yourself. So his 3-step leaves latitude on how to vary the fourth step, his tech-house and amapiano blend into each other, his gqom origins are always lurking lest anyone gets too comfortable. It’s helpful to be finally famous enough to have everyone in the SA dance scene on speed dial, not least for moral support. Godfather Kabza’s on the opener and the dramatic “Muthi” to assure audiences things won’t get too unruly; Goldmax is on the finale to satisfy the quota of what-is-that noises. Current It Singer Zee Nxumalo appears, well-behaved, on “Mali”, taking care of the hit. Recent It Singer Simmy surpasses her on the bad romance song “Ekhaya”; just as gorgeous is the subsequent male equivalent “Ngeke Balunge”. It’s South Africa’s party, but you can cry if you want to.

Grade: A MINUS (“Ngeke Balunge”, “Muthi”, “Ekhaya”)

Backxwash: Only Dust Remains

Feeling terrible’s one thing; feeling guilty about feeling terrible’s another. (I think Sabrina Carpenter said that.) No matter how positive changes to your lifestyle and/or gender might be, if you’re wired a certain way the struggle to keep your brain on your side doesn’t stop. Backxwash’s self-reported desire to self-harm matches Sarah Mary Chadwick’s for credibility; amidst this, she’ll throw in a “why the fuck am I complaining here when there’s kids in Gaza with a missing father”. Guilt, however, can be useful if it keeps you alive a little longer, as can video games. What makes me feel like I’m not just activating my own atrophied guilt reflexes is the most varied music on an English-language record so far this year. The opener is built on cut-ups of Brazilian singer Zeferina. All manner of samples and guests follow, and Backxwash’s flow is more than capable of waltzing over darkwave or whatever challenge awaits. When you let the world in, beauty and ugliness both flood in; how they balance out in your head depends mostly on your neurochemistry at the time. Music reminds you beauty’s always there.

Grade: A MINUS (“Wake Up”, “Undesirable”, “History of Violence”)

Horsegirl: Phonetics On and On

Chicagoans turned limited-term New Yorkers who, whether at NYU or elsewhere, learned less is more. Their follow-up to 2022’s EW Poll-acclaimed Versions of Modern Performance withstands comparison to Oh-OK or whomever your favorite collegiate minimalists are. Their best riff is a two-chord “Roadrunner” variant, supported by Gigi Reece’s dense if low-mixed drumming; their best lyric “2, 4, 6, 8, dadadadadadadada”—far from their only da da das, the most telling being the response to “say, say, say, say what you wanted to say” on “Switch Over”. There are mysteries, like who’s shy in “Well I Know You’re Shy”, but their flatness of affect (relieved by the odd jumping note) means you won’t be kept up at night pondering them. What they’ve gained, adult professionalism aside, is a sense of absolute togetherness: three bandmates in absolute musical and spiritual sync. Penelope Lowenstein has opened up as a vocalist, and she and Nora Cheng add their weird guitar noises sparingly. A fine album that makes future finer albums appear probable.

Grade: A MINUS (“2468”, “Where’d You Go?”, “Well I Know You’re Shy”)

Buck 65: Keep Moving

You know what you’re gonna get. Nova Scotia and “Soul Makossa” are the first verbal odd couple to be conjoined like Chang and Eng. Even the Gen X-est listeners will have to resort to database queries at some point: I can tell you Greg the Hammer Valentine’s finishing moves and recognize stranded rapper Gordon Shumway (“Stuck on Earth”, 1987, NZ #3) but had to go to Baseball Reference to verify some of the more convenient rhymes. Funniest line is the Hasbro one, which I expect any Barbie sequel will steal. What else? Oh yeah, beats: fast ones to start, letting him speed-rhyme on “Def Leper” like a uh bereft zephyr. Slower ones later, which while technically impressive are also slower. Drums fit for a constitutional monarch. Average length well under two minutes. Some of the samples are defamiliarized; the “Good Times” bassline gets resyncopated. The whole thing sounds a lot cleaner than his previous comeback records, thanks perhaps to mixer Sixtoo. Recommended to fans of Buck 65.

Grade: A MINUS (“#3 on the Phone”, “Def Leper”, “Burners”)

Mellow & Sleazy and Tman Xpress: Midnight in Diepkloof

There are the expected passive-aggressive low-end noises on this return to form from 2023’s amapianists of the year Mellow & Sleazy, but there’s also a bass on the opening “Welele” that sounds very acoustic (until it doesn’t.) Their sound is only a clappier 2 and 4 away from being trop house, to the extent that someone keeps saying “energy” on “Marikana”—though without too much energy, that’d kill the vibe. The Diepkloof, Soweto native is Tman Xpress, who isn’t the most tuneful singer, yet in the Rogers-Astaire tradition gives the music some lustiness, whereas M&S give him class. Hit “Inhanoyi” has jazz-doodles from a faux metallophone and a plausible sax before Tman and friends start chanting about avoiding the haters; the groove ensures everyone remains chill about the situation. The most useful guest is LeeMcKrazy, who crams in syllables with Tman on “Babekelele Bona”, a rare track with a vocal climax. Otherwise there’s barely a pause during seventy-five minutes of low-key delight. At this moment in history, that’s not something I’ll turn down.

Grade: A MINUS (“Welele”, “Yi Mina Loyo”, “Babekelele Bona”)

BunnaB: Bunna Summa (Ice Cream Summer Deluxe)

Forget song of the summer, Bunna’s “ah da da daaaaaa” (sometimes “da da daAAAaa”), on almost every track here, is the sound of the summer. It’ll be annoying if she’s still spamming it next year; we’ll worry about that if there’s a next year. She’s at the career stage Cardi was at circa Gangsta B— Music: unique flow (in Bunna’s case, melodic to the point of being technically melismatic), a pleasure to listen to, starting to get video and social media traction, not quite sure how to turn it all into a musical identity. Opener “Ice Cream Girl” has her rapping to the tune of “Turkey in the Straw”, but don’t let that distract you from her very adult appetites. She likes fun; she likes men inasmuch as they measure up, and if none of us do she has options—“never saw myself eating cat, now I just might.” A Southern rapper who takes that name has boots to fill; she’s confident she’ll grow into them.

Grade: A MINUS (“Ice Cream Girl”, “Staddy”, “Bunna Summa”)

Wolfacejoeyy: Cupid

“Sexy drill” remains the decade’s silliest genre name, like something Huxley cut from Brave New World because it was too ludicrous. Nevertheless, this is the most pneumatic sexy drill album I’ve encountered. I wouldn’t vouch for him as a long-term partner—he asks for your star sign not because he knows the first thing about astrology, instead because he approaches the Zodiac in a “Travelin’ Man” gotta catch ’em all way: better than STIs, at least. In the moment, however, he knows what he has to do, acting as “that n— since you met me” and slipping from your memory as soon as he slips out your front or back door, your choice though he does have a preference. The watery beats help with this, the occasional block-rock helping to mark the passage of time, since you don’t want him to hang around all night. A 34-minute man, which isn’t bad for our age.

Grade: B PLUS (“Number”, “Ronaldinho”, “Remember Me”)

F*ck U Skrillex U Think Ur Andy Warhol But Ur Not!! <3

AKA Skrillex now going door-to-door trying to annoy people. It’s not as provocative as it was fifteen years ago, in part because his hyperpop children have raised the bar for “annoying”, in part because he’s too nice a guy to grate on people on purpose (his moment of silence isn’t as fuck-you as John Cage’s), but more so because he’s developed some kind of taste he can’t turn off. That doesn’t prevent him and his chosen family from playing to his true strength: groty sounds. “Spitfire” has dolphin chirps, the Joker collab the good old wubs, “Druids” a buzzy synth plummeting into a breakdown, “Voltage” one last megadrop to save the friendship. Saws and squeaks and the noises they play to scare birds away abound. If the superstructure that integrates all this neither interrogates nor destroys the concept of guilty pleasures, well, you can dance to it. And the In a World voiceover does get funny eventually: “I heard that snare took him two years to make.”

Grade: B PLUS (“Spitfire”, “Recovery”, “Booster”)