New Shit playlist for 092725*:
*(when these are started. not when they’re finished.)
dec 2025 – welcome to the quiet part of the year, at least here in the states.
that time of negative space between thanksgiving and xmas/new year’s where everything feels more quiet and more slow. or something. trust me: i’m not trying to get poetic or anything.
i just notice that the entire month of december often feels a bit sleepy to me. especially once christmas ends and we have those kinda random days to get done with before we move onto whatever horseshit the next year has in store for us.
(cleo sol – 23)
it’s not FOMO if you knew full well you were going to lame out anyway. is what i tell myself.
everybody, they bestie, they bestie’s uncle, and their dog were at cleo sol’s show here in new york back in march. but as much of a SAULT stan as i am, as much as i’d been looking out for her all this time… i couldn’t talk myself into radio city. it’s this toxic trait of mine that i apparently need everything to be knitting factory levels of intimacy or i refuse to watch the show.
and speaking of intimacy… phew. yes, this is the usual deeply, hauntingly beautiful vocal from cleo sol, but it’s harsh territory. she’s doing a cathartic examination of her relationship with her mother, and you’re coming along. a relationship that nearly left her broken, from her own telling… but set to such a stunning melody, that you must must listen.
(lady wray – guilty)
i love a good r&b vocal. like, a good ass 60s soul vocal. and that’s what we get here: something that could fit firmly in that “woman’s response to the doo wop ‘baby baby please’ standard” that was really getting to be a thing in the late 60s and then became a bit of a standard in its own right (think “do right woman”, “what cha gonna do for me”, etc)
and having the idea is great, but having the chops to really take it home is something special. it’s one thing to want to do this, but another to be able to pull it off. lady wray pulls it off.
(chris n teeb – wake up)
“IWAKEUPEVERYDAYFEELINGOOD… IWAKEUPEVERYDAYFEELINGOOD…”
2015 was a year and summer filled with sweaty last minute trips to random bars and shows to see friends from here and out of town. it was hanging with special people and the places you associate with them and… sometimes the downsides of all that. and so it goes. (do i owe royalties now?)
it was a breathless year, at times. in some ways i miss it.
especially the music… the music from back then… MAN. (the band called) the internet would drop the legendary “ego death” and phony ppl would fulfill the promise of their earlier crashing of the neo-neo-soul scene with “yesterday’s tomorrow”. (“under control” and “why iii love the moon” are my personal standouts)
DRAM’s “cha cha” was everywhere, awful records were intriguing and confusing the fuck out of everybody, and “hotline bling” is about the most tolerable drake will ever be again.
in so many ways this track “wake up” feels like something out of that year: that dizzy moment of praying to the gods of prince and the soulquarians while having an almost punk-like disregard for whatever rules were in place.
this track – a simple expression of positive energy delivered in monotone over thumping, almost trap-like beats – immediately brings back nights smoking outside “friends and lovers” or any of a million teensy dj spots all over crown heights and bedstuy and… wherever else. dropping in 2019, it’s a few years outside the epicenter of that sound… but probably just in time to catch the tail end of the “insecure” generation.
and i mean, remember all the fucking great music THAT show brought to our attention. “happy/healthy/wealthy” indeed.
(el michels affair feat florence adooni – say goodbye)
this track has endless charm. it’s warm and lovely and feels like black folks’ cleaning music.
if all you know about el michels – the soul section fronted by composer/producer leon michels – is his stunning nod to RZA’s work with “enter the 37th chamber”, then you don’t know enough.
i feel like i more really “got” him on the brilliant “24 hr sports”, one of my absolute favorite albums from this year. just how much he really loves music. here he partners with florence adooni, an artist who trades in frafra: a form of highlife from ghana that is sincerely upbeat and lively in a way that you feel has gone out of style in our jaded society. here florence and a backup vocalist tell tales of an under-appreciated lover, but you somehow still can’t help but grin and sway to it.
i dare you to not randomly hum “never gonna find a girl like me… say goodbye” to yourself.
also, more from king krule, james blake, a classic one from ohio crooners “switch”, a dreamy lovelorn one from la lá, and an absolutely breezy charmer called “bad btch energy”.
happy 2025 and hopefully a happier 2026.