Baker's Dozen: Jam City, Olof Dreijer, Meat Wave

Baker's Dozen is typically for paid subscribers of Larry Fitzmaurice's Last Donut of the Night newsletter...

OK, breaking the preamble itals vibe for a sec so we can get down to business. If you're a paid subscriber, you likely heard all this from me earlier this week, but—I've got a lot of Baker's Dozen playlists banked, enough for the rest of the year, and even though that's technically great for me planning-wise, bottom line is it results in me sometimes writing about music that isn't as fresh in my mind as I'd like it to be.

So I'm doing more Baker's Dozens for a spell, on the paid and free tiers—partially because, as the newsletter's gained a bit more prominence for my interviews, I haven't reminded people in a minute what you actually get if you pay for this thing. If you pay for the newsletter, you'll be getting even more Baker's Dozens than usual for a spell, which of course can and should be perused at your leisure. I'm sharing a wide range of music and opinions/anecdotes/stupid musings, more than ever—it's a win-win for my readers, I think (I hope).

Most importantly, we're about to hit the 300th free newsletter missive tomorrow via an interview with Philadelphia indie-pop/indie-rock group Another Michael, and the milestone feels substantial to me. In honor of the occasion, I'm kicking off a sale on annual subscriptions—30% off, $21/year for the first year. Grab it here, you won't regret it.

OK, let's get into this:

Meek Mill, "Giving Chanel" [ft. Future]

Meek Mill raps like the guy who's yelling outside my apartment late at night. Fuck, Meek Mill might be the guy who's yelling outside my apartment late at night. We know he's been scoping out South New Jersey wetlands, he's conceivably "in the area." Here's a funny Meek Mill story from when I profiled him (I thought he was a very nice, reasonable guy) in the Guardian way back: When he ordered tea "with ginger" from the server at the restaurant we were at, the guy came back with a whole-ass skin-on hunk of raw ginger on a small plate. Meek looked at him and said, "Are you serious?" And the guy apologized and went and got a grater or something. Skill issue...Meek is quite often too much cayenne as a presence on his stuff and others' but it is a delight to hear Future on this, as it often is. I like how he says "I'm on the jet skis" and then stretches out the rest of the bar like he's literally peeling out on a jet ski, he's one of our greatest voice actors (put him on Family Guy, I bet he'd do it).

Interpol, "Mr. Credit"

It's been this way for a minute (a decade?) now, but it is absolutely insane how huge Interpol are 25 years into their career. I mean, bro, they played to 160,000 people in Mexico City in April. That's crazy! (This also means Water From Your Eyes have officially played to an audience of roughly 160,000 people, which is also crazy. Keep an eye out for an interview with Nate Amos later this month, btw...) I often go against the grain from my peers regarding this band (who else would try to make the argument that their best album is actually Our Love to Admire?), but I've really enjoyed the state they've been in from the surprisingly reviving tonic that was Marauder on. I think they wear the desert-rock slitheriness of The Other Side of Make-Believe very well, they sound like a band relaxed and free of expectations but not exactly lapsing into familiar patterns, which is kind of exactly what you'd want from a band that's been around for 25 years! This is where I'd also like to add that Paul Banks' other band, Muzz, put out a really solid record back in 2020, and its gorgeously quiet and subdued sound undoubtedly had some bearing on this latest one.

BabyTron, "Letters"

Here's the other 6 track that stuck out to me, again, surprisingly shtick-y for someone who's mostly built a reputation on lolling area-of-effect adlibs and references to basketball players. Something about the way he delivers the lines "This is a letter to my ex/ I hope you feel dumb/ Just an ordinary bitch with a regular life" is very funny, there's a bit of sad pathos in how sedate he sounds, like someone who can barely pay attention to you while you're talking to them because they're too fixated on a game of NBA2K.

Jam City, "LLTB" [ft. Wet]

Jam City, what a talent, huh? What a career! Of course I was hyping up his last record Pillowland in 2020, which is something of a modern classic to me...he was also on the newsletter around that time, you can read that here. I loved Jam City Presents EFM from last year, really starry-eyed Radio 1 dance music that possesses the same odd head rush that he's been delivering since Classical Curves. Nice turn from Wet here, who I'm always hot and cold on at large.

Tee Grizzley, "Tez & Tone 1"

Tee Grizzley's Chapters of the Trenches from 2022 is really solid storytelling rap, it's really impossible to deny how well he's doing it here. Very dark record too, this gives a little taste of that (and it's funny to try to single out a track here since this is really a record that's, like, multiple short stories stretched out across several tracks), I was considering sharing one of the "Ms. Evans" songs but (Tony Soprano voice) that shit's too fucked up for me to even think about right now.

Tim Hecker, "Seasick III"

Tim Hecker's serving when it comes to score work, I loved what he did on Infinity Pool (good movie, even though, as with Brandon Cronenberg's work thus far, it's more of a ijbol-fest than anything to take super seriously) and his score for The North Water from 2021 goes hard too. Kind of funny how if Tim Hecker didn't do the score for this five-part miniseries directed by Andrew Haigh(?) and starring Jack O'Connell(!!) and Colin Farrell(?!?!?), I'd never know it existed...peak content overload obviously but what else is new.

Casey, "For Katie"

Welsh emo leavened with some pop-punk flavor and just a dash of atmospheric guitars, not bad, I kind of wish Casey's third record from this year, How to Disappear, went a little harder—but if you're into this kind of sound, it does the trick well enough in general.

22Gz, "EVERYTHING DEAD"

22Gz isn't revelatory and has never really been, but he knows how to rap and he sounds good doing flashy gun stuff over NYC-via-London drill production that has that actual real-deal Joker-circa-2009 wonky/purple/etc feel, so what else do you really want from this sound at this point. I'm always checking out his projects and hearing one or two things that catch my ear, this one from Growth & Development II from this year stood out to me in particular.

Olof Dreijer and MT. Sims, "Liten Karin"

It has been a literal delight to have so much new music from Olof Dreijer in the world recently and I hope it keeps coming. Of course, his work on the most recent Fever Ray record was peerless and spectacular, the recent run of dance singles have been fantastic, he's one of quite a few artists that I'm trying to see at LadyLand later this month. I'm always buying what he's selling, but I'll confess I find his more outré stuff to be a little imposing for my taste—but last year's collab with MT. Sims Souvenir really hit the spot for me regardless, those rumbling steel-drum sounds are like a back massage to me.

TRP, "Leap in the Dark - Live Mix"

Another Shall Not Fade cut, get a load of the beat switch on this, you can practically feel yourself moving in a crowded room to it. I had a wonderful time staring out a bus window on a dusky evening while listening to this recently.

Veps, "Girl on TV"

I like the plodding, deliberate nature of this cut from Norwegian indie outfit Veps. Why is it that, when it comes to multiple European countries, I tend to drop the -pop or -rock from the indie genre signifier more often than not? Perhaps because so much of it seems to walk a line between the two sounds to me, or maybe because "indie" just means something different in the Euro music market than it does in America. Anyway...

Meat Wave, "Tugboat"

I've posted Meat Wave here before, I think they are solid at doing a very specific type of garage-punk sound—not quite noise, but pretty abrasive, hooky but expansive, shouty and raw but with some consideration to how it sounds as well. I still neet to check out their 2022 LP Malign Hex, I'm sure I'm going to enjoy it...this is from the 2021 EP Volcano Park, btw.

Mickey Factz, Blu, and Nottz, "Freedom" [ft. Kota the Friend]

Nice production here from Nottz, pretty much all that stood out for me here. Kota the Friend's whole deal has always been a bit weird to me in general before the allegations, I've weirdly been fascinated with the shape his music's taken since because it's clearly the type of thing where you are hearing someone's work (which, to be clear, unremarkable to begin with) audibly change into something more distinctively revealing (but, I want to stress, not of any quality, and if you don't write about music for a quasi-living, I would wonder why you're listening to his stuff to begin with) about who they are and the perspectives they embrace. Complicated stuff, to say the least!