This whole Flex TMG EP is stylish funky punky type stuff that could’ve worked in Portland in 2002 or New York in 1982. But it was made in Oakland in 2022. How many dance punk revivals will I live through before I finally check out and get really deep into sports and religion? Good song, though!
Florida and Louisiana connect for 2:26 of tough talk over spooky strings and tweaky drums and a bassline that will likely make you scrunch your face a little. The “slowed and reverb” version of the track is even better.
Glaive “minnesota is a place that exists”
I think there are only two Glaive songs I really like, but those two? I like them a lot. I played this all the time last year. The other song I like is the one that goes double time on the chorus.
Speaking of digital pop: been doing a lot of early Young Thug lately. “Keep in Touch” is perfect, and it’s only improved by the very subtle audio watermark that loops throughout. Also from that tape: "Twitter Song."
Tha Retail Simps “Hit and Run”
Saw Tha Retail Simps play during a rare recent rock show outing, did a few tunes… Any good songwriting was contrasted with my own personal flashbacks to the garage days of yore: to the Fonzies, to the Austin Powersesses, to the misanthropic potbellied record collectors with a hatred of contemporary rap music. But I ended up checking the LP and it is a fire, damaged take on 60s-style frat rock. If they would’ve had keys and sax live, I would’ve been sold there and then.
MIX OF THE WEEK: Physical Therapy “The Year in UKG ‘22”
Now to a very different kind of garage music: UK garage. I wonder if Tha Retail Simps have ever heard of UK garage. I wonder if they have ever heard of the other kind of American garage, the disco kind, the kind that was named after the club Larry Levan spun at. These are the questions I ask myself as I wander through contemporary alternative music culture like a damn horse with no name. As I slog like a grandmother in a “Tough Mudder” competition. Anyways, the final stretch of this mix is my favorite part, when Physical Therapy just lets it rip with the 4X4 and the bootlegs and all that.