Video & Audio: Whadda you mean “only” shallow

you ought to think before you speak

Dylan Hicks & Small Screens: “I Ain’t Forgotten You”

About age-associated memory loss, it’s one of the great tearjerkers of recent years, and yet Hicks still finds time for a cheap shot at Bernie Taupin. Sorry, a cheap, on-target shot.

Piri & Tommy Villiers: “Words”

The lite turn-of-the-millennium beats indicate we’ve reached the “influenced by PinkPantheress” stage of pop evolution. They soundtrack Piri talking to a boy (not Tommy, although he’s an ex too now I see) as if he’s a preschooler—except best practices now say you shouldn’t tell kids “use your words”, so a preschooler she hates, then.

Antony Szmierek ft. Yemi Bolatiwa: “Working Classic”

For those of us who think Mike Skinner did necessarily lose some edge once he attained microfame, here’s a quiet-talking Manchunian who uses his reputation as a published author to get away with following up “police around dusting for prints” with “Fresh Prince, Fresh Prince” over garage beats. Get in while his shit is still charming.

Benito 80, José Mariano: “Além Do Arco-Íris”

Romulo Froes et al. come up with an uncommonly beautiful arrangement for an MOR classic about rainbows, with trebly guitar and piano, Mariano singing like the Seventies never ended, and Marcelo Cabral anchoring the song with his bass like he does the whole Sao Paulo alt-samba scene.

Machine Girl: “Vainglorious Chorus”

The breakbeat soundtrack to a video game stage called “Only Shallow”, so maybe it’s not a coincidence that the chromatic chord progression sounds a bit MBV.

Pool Kids: “Arm’s Length”

Christine Goodwyne and her fellow late-millennial kids are mistaken when they think their generation invented ennui, but they did invent both “a group chat with twenty-one goddamnned people” and art-Paramore (the latter more or less simultaneously with actual Paramore.)

Aaron Raitiere: “At Least We Didn’t Have Any Kids”

Miranda’s protege gives us one Oxford American-worthy line after another, from the title to his self-identification as “redneck, white, and blue”, and the only problem is it sets a standard the rest of his respectable album can’t possibly match.

NewJeans: “Hype Boy”

Top of K-pop’s class of 2022 with a very solid EP (which has already been superseded by two US hit singles, but this is the world’s tardiest new releases column.) Absurdly young and comfortable in English (they include a couple of Australians), the ease with which they sashay through the descending prechorus convinces me they’ll be around for a while.

Overmono: “So U Kno”

Resident Advisor’s 2021 track of the year (remember, this is the world’s tardiest etc.) metes out genuine pleasures with the austerity of a David Cameron government, as if having the cool vocals and cool synths going at the same time for too long might result in overemployment. 

Jensen McRae: “Dead Girl Walking”

Finally, the Boygenius-meets-El Lay recombination you’ve been waiting for, and for the three-and-a-bit minutes here, it flies. It’s initially disconcerting to hear lines like “Mouth full of blood like I just flossed/Does the bleeding mean I’m still alive” sung without the defenses of excessive reverb and mush-mouthedness—that is to say, sung well—but it does force one to ponder why she and so many others feel like this. (Phones. Also capitalism, but mostly phones.)

DJ Guuga: “Mostra O Que Ele Perdeu”

A big phat bass note on the one, ersatz tuned percussion that turns sixteenths into triplets as the bar ends, lyrics about uma mulher bonita: São Paulo!

Jens Lekman: “The Linden Trees Are Still in Blossom”

Just when you think Jens’s remake of Night Falls Over Kortedala is failing to artistically justify its existence (there is of course a legal rationalization), here comes the fifth bonus track and it’s a sequel to “A Postcard to Nina” which gets to Proust in its third line, and oh shit, it’s one of his The Arc of the Moral Universe Is Wigglier Than We’d Like But That Doesn’t Justify Hopelessness songs and fine, Jens, make the lawyers happy.