Side effects include…
Wet – Old Bone (Jim-E Stack Remix)
Genre: bedroom rock, electro-folk
Feeling: intro scenes of the city in a mid-2000s crime thriller (I may have just watched Gone Baby Gone on Netflix last night (“Fucking A! You gotta take a side.”))
There are a lot of electric remixes out there, a lot of them bad, a lot of them barely changing the original, and a few gems that produce an entirely different song from the roots of the original. Jim-E Stack tends to fall in that last category. Way back in 2012, he chopped and screwed ASAP Rocky’s “Purple Swag”–a song that no one really thought needed to be more chopped and screwed–but succeeded in sparking the “remix versus original” superiority debate.
Mr. Stack fell off my radar since “Purple Swag,” but he’s back on it now with his take on Wet’s “Old Bone.” Stack turns the pitch way down on Kelly Zutrau’s vocals (yes, those are female vocals) and the calm guitar plucks, and adds some brisk highhats, turning his version of “Old Bone” into less of a remix, and more a cover of Springsteen’s “I’m on Fire.”
Lyric sample:
“But I don’t have anything left to give
I’m like an old bone in the back of the fridge”
about 1892
Childe Hassam (American, 1859–1935)
Tompkins Collection—Arthur Gordon Tompkins Fund
Ritt Momney – Young Adult
Genre: indie rock
Feeling: good to know the youngin’s are still rocking
Salt Lake City’s beautifully, if not simply, named Ritt Momney is the project of Jack Rutter and his classmates. Rutter and co. play a wide spectrum of music, from the straight-forward rock of “Young Adult” to more brooding, vocals + piano tunes like “Paper News,” to auto-tuned Jack Johnson ukulele jams like “Phoebe.” The young lads are quickly garnering hype, and will be performing at the Austin, Texas based South by Southwest festival this month.
“Young Adult” is currently my favorite version of the dynamic Ritt Mom (as they abbreviate themselves on their band tees). The duet is delightful, the riffs and the picks are tight, and the song’s flow is natural. The song pays homage to Weezer’s “Say it Ain’t So” with its chorus’ chord progression–even its guitar solo bears similarities–without ripping the song off.
Lyric sample:
“You will never have to be true till the roses rot
If you’re trippin up you’ll see soon the grounds kind of soft
There is always something to do till you blow it off
Pretty are the simple few, the simple few, the simple few few few”
Big Thief – Mythological Beauty
Genre: indie folk
Feeling: flipping through the family scrapbooks
Since I found Ritt Momney by scouring my sister’s Spotify playlists, I might as well post one of her favorite bands, Big Thief. Headed by Adrianne Lenker, Big Thief has a lot of great songs packed into two albums (check out “Paul” and “Shark Smile”), but “Mythological Beauty” is my personal favorite. Here, Lenker nails her vocal valleys and peaks, the result almost sounds like a duet. James Krivchenia’s drumming keeps what otherwise would be slow, draining song rocking and rather upbeat given the lyrical subject matter.
Big Thief just released the first single off their upcoming album “U.F.O.F.” What does the extra “F” stand for? My money is on “Unidentified Flyi–oh fuck!”, you know, because if you saw a real UFO you’d probably be pretty shocked, if not outright terrified. No? Moving on then.
Kevin Morby – Harlem River
Genre: logjam rock
Feeling: jam induced time warp
What is, you must be wondering, the genre of “logjam rock”? For starters, I believe I made it up. I’m surely not the first to use the term “logjam” in a musical context–there’s a soundstage company out there with the name–but I’m trying to start a genre here, a task no shorter than Apollo 18.
Logjam music is folk and blues inspired songs that feature long, drawn out bass and percussion heavy jams. Logjams often border on the psychedelic, but always upbeat; they’re often surfer tunes. They wander and experiment, but have an end goal in mind, like college student who juggles late night parties with 8 am classes. Kevin Morby’s “Harlem River” is the perfect song for the genesis of the logjam rock genre. Clocking in at 9 minutes and change, the song meanders like, well, a river; the final words are uttered prior to the 6 minute mark–the last lyrical outpost for the listener as they drift further upriver into the heart of the darkness that is the three minute long jam…
Khruangbin – Lady and Man
Genre: instrumental funk rock
Feeling: elevator music you’d shazam
Finishing things off tonight is the always smooth instrumental indiefunk (I’m just pulling genres out of my ass at this point) outfit Khruangbin. If you’re ever in need of lounge music, of something chill that won’t put you to sleep, just throw Khruangbin’s two albums on shuffle and try to pick a favorite track.
And no, I don’t know how to pronouce “Khruangbin.”
Lyric Sample:
“I could’ve been a doctor, could’ve been a lawyer
Oh, come on, not that again!”
Night yinz