Quick Note: One more call for Reader Mailbag submissions. Send me a song you would like me to “review” and maybe I will do that. jchiaverina at gmail…
DaeMoney (Feat. KARRAHBOOO) “PENT TALK”
How often should an artist drop music? There are many tempos to choose from. Some rappers pile on mixtape after mixtape, letting their fans do the deep diving needed to retrieve the jewels that lie hidden within an ocean of just OK. On the other hand, there’s someone like KARRAHBOOO. Over the past year, she’s released three singles and four features, a relaxed pace that matches the way she strolls through songs. Her November single “Running Late” snuck up on me upon repeated listens. Here, she goes back-to-back with Detroit’s DaeMoney. Both sound sharp and casual as they play around with a minor Juvenile reference.
Reaper Watch 2024 continues with a tune several cuts above the contempo-jungle fray. “Off The Top Rope” starts with the same hard-boiled ‘80s rock sample Jay-Z once rapped over, one that’s begging to be overlaid with a voiceover about police corruption in New York, before exploding into shredded breakbeat pandemonium. By the time that bassline hit, we had to call for lunch.
Uranium Club “Abandoned By The Narrator”
There was a moment when I thought egg punk was primed to take over indie rock, but more recently, I’ve started to think that the genre might be this generation’s version of third-wave ska: Wacky and aggressive, and built for suburban teenagers. Anyway, last week saw a new release from Uranium Club, one of the last standing OG egg-adjacent bands—their first in six years. Infants Under the Bulb is conceptual even by a conceptual band’s standards; it even has horns, which unintentionally draws out that ska connection. Of course, I picked the shortest track on the record.
It’s another solid collaboration between MIKE and Tony Seltzer, who together and separately make some of the best backpack music in New York City. It would be fun to have a conversation with Tony for the blog. Few know that he was the drummer of a jazzy math rock band called Tippwerk. But I know. Hey, Tony!
Nowadays, you can’t throw a rock without hitting a group of hardcore kids playing middling alternative. Within a crowded crew, a few recent Gouge Away singles have poked out. The Florida band’s been around for a minute, but maybe I subconsciously avoided them based on their name—too on the nose. “Spaced Out” is a relatively straightforward stomper with just enough buzzbin dissonance to keep it relatively interesting. But it’s the chorus—and the effective crew vocals—that keeps it in my head.
MIX OF THE WEEK Courtesy “NTS 3/1/2024”
Copenhagen label Kulør has been holding it down on that neo-trance tip for years now, long before speedy techno became the sound of mass clubbing culture (consult Instagram reels for more information). Last week, label boss Courtesy got in the mix for NTS and delivered an hour of “gauzy, atemporal” dance music. It’s not as fast as it could be, actually, and as a whole, it sounds very pleasant. You can always tell when an expert is in the mix. Makes all the difference in the world.
(Bonus mix: Conducta on The Lot Radio earlier this week. If I had the energy to go out, I would go see him play tonight at Elsewhere.)