by Dâm-Funk
(Stones Throw)
For 10 seconds shy of 10 minutes, this L.A. synth-funk futurist and
Nite Jewel fan piles cresting waves of undulating synths and his own
vocodered falsetto over an unyielding medium-tempo groove: hi-hats with
so much delay on them they sound like they came from a Ginsu TV ad,
four hard electro downbeats that keep an element of surprise even as
they recur regularly. “Brookside Park” leaps out of Toeachizown even as it’s surrounded by a very similar-sounding two hours and 10
minutes’ worth of additional material; the track has a coolness and
total formal mastery that makes it addictive, but it’s also
wraithlike—a funk séance. It’s long, but it stops time;
every time I think it’s halfway over, I look at the playback and
discover it’s got about a minute left to go.
by Solange
(MP3)
When the Dirty Projectors put this song out ahead of Bitte
Orca, Stereogum called it “Hot 97-ready,” referring to the New York
rap-R&B FM station. Normally this would be like Mr. Rogers starring
in a remake of Super Fly, but they had a point. The Projectors’
track is clearly the product of immersion in R&B, and it wasn’t
hard to imagine a singer in that vein doing something with the song.
Anyone familiar with Solange’s recent work couldn’t have been surprised
that it would be her, though she’s never burned up Hot 97 any more than
the Dirty Projectors or Animal Collective have (as one wild-eyed
Brooklynite recently insisted to me) supplanted Dave Matthews or Phish
in America’s dorms.
The mid-November leak on Pitchfork was wiped within 24 hours at the
request of her label, Universal, but it had already gone viral. The
remake doesn’t quite have the élan of the original—it’s a
straighter, more conventionally R&B (duh) arrangement, built on a
weeping guitar sample already familiar from Erykah Badu’s “Bag Lady”
among others; the focus is the vocal, not the arrangement. But it’s an
unobtrusive fit, an excellent performance of a great song, and a hell
of a hat-tip.
by Simian Mobile Disco feat. Beth Ditto
(Wichita)
Lovely though the electro-pop original is—Beth Ditto always
sounds best when she lays back a little—it’s the version by
slinky dubstep kingpin Joker that really nails it. It’s the usual for
him—throwback synth riffs, skipping hand-clap snares, and glowing
low end—but he’s on such a roll that its predictability only
makes it more lovable. 