Baker's Dozen: Kings of Leon, JHAYCO, David Gray

Yup, I'm finally back. I went on an extended vacation and had my computer break down on said vacation—fun stuff. But, hey, that's what it takes to feel restored again...we'll be operating on normal schedule on this newsletter again, there'll be an interview with comedian Brandon Wardell going live tomorrow and I decided to do a Baker's Dozen for all readers today.

Why did I do a free BD? Well, to promote my week-long newsletter subscription sale commemorating the fact that I had a birthday yesterday. I turned 38, so I'm doing 38% off on monthly and annual subscriptions; you can grab the monthly deal here, and the annual deal here. In the meantime, happy to be back and amongst the living; it feels like I've been on an intermittent publishing schedule aside from the vacation time, but slicing your thumb open and having norovirus back-to-back will do that to you. Now let's get into it:

L'Orange, "Talk to Friendly Walls"

L'Orange is one of those names I've seen written on my screen more than I've actually spent time with his music, but I thought 2021's The World Is Still Chaos was a nice enough slice of post-Dilla instrumental hip-hop fare, he's put out a few albums since (including one with Joell Ortiz, whose unintentionally hilarious and extremely revealing 'memba-when track about Slaughterhouse's "heyday" I recently unpacked on here).

Dehd, "Mood Ring"

A few years ago, friend-of-the-newsletter Nic Offer of !!! helped me get on Dehd's wavelength after I professed indifference to their buzzy peak (for now) Flower of Devotion; the way Nic put it to me was more or less "It's kids free-spiritedly making indie rock, what else do you want," which, extremely fair point...the music press seems to have slightly cooled on their post-Flower material but I honestly think they've continued to get better, or maybe I just understand them more now. I thought last year's Poetry was a solid turn into '50s sock-hop indie, they know how to hit on a good chorus when they find one.

Kings of Leon, "Don't Stop the Bleeding"

Did it really happen? Did one of the worst rock bands of the 21st century finally make a good album? After the anti-gravity post-Imagine Dragons-isms of 2021's When You See Yourself, which I thought came sooooo close to being an Actually Good Kings of Leon Album (mostly because of this song), Followills and Co. returned last year with Can We Please Have Fun—which, yes, for the love of God, let's!—and the result was a strangely unburdened band finally sounding relaxed and easygoing after 20-plus-years of lockjaw-inducing Southern Strokes ripoffs and the type of arena rock pablum that makes Foo Fighters sound like Björk by comparison. If they continue to head down this path, it's possible Kings of Leon could enter a mid-to-late-career "band redeemed" era, but I'm not holding my breath for these guys—doing so in the past has resulted little more than ending up blue in the face.

Gunna, "time reveals, be careful what you wish for"

I've started to informally refer to the type of rap music that Gunna makes as narco-rap, in that it sounds so sedate and checked-out that it might as well be made by literal dead people...Gunna's career started out as "the Thug protege who sounds kind of chill" and over the last five years or so every successive release has been one thick slab of beige miserabilia, his voice suggesting someone who has a pulse only when he's talking about buying jeans. Last year's seriously-don't-call-it-a-comeback One of Wun certainly continued this trend, but I was slightly taken aback by the Nothing Was the Same-isms of this track, he ends up doing a better Drake impression than Drake does of himself these days.

Bomba Estéreo, "Conexión Total" [ft. Yemi Alade]

Really nice and vibrant cross-continental connection here from Bomba Estéreo's 2021 record Deja, which grabbed me intermittently albeit not constantly...seems like they're due for a new one soon, I like them in colorful synth mode so hoping we get more of that type of sound whenever they return.

Kareem Ali, "Finish Line"

A lot of the Kareem Ali catalogue tracks I've shared recently have been in either jazzy or glowy rave-ish lanes, this tune from his 2021 EP Breakaway differs a bit in that it opens with that tough, almost electro-ish backbeat before opening up into lush piano and a tickling synth run...something I'm very impressed with re: the breadth of his catalogue is how he's able to offer slight but meaningful variations on the highly melodic sound he's established.

Nuage, "Pink Television"

Longtime subscribers know I've been dropping drips from 2023's excellent 20 Years of Phonica compilation, and here's another one from Russian producer Nuage, a nice and positive-sounding techno build-up that makes it clear why this guy's also released on Anjunadeep (not a slag).

JHAYCO, "Esta Dejá"

Still have to run through last year's JHAYCO record but this track from 2021's Timelezz goes down super easy, some good stuff on the record in general including this very appealing beat-switch.

Tim Hecker, "Heaven Will Come"

Friend-of-the-newsletter Chris Richards recently mentioned on his own straight-to-email newsletter that he was surprised at the high attendance for a recent Tim Hecker show in D.C., attributing it to Hecker nabbing listeners via ambient playlists; whatever works, although I also think the guy has attained cult-of-personality status a la Grouper when it comes to his not-quite-ambient approach to woozy noise. Hecker's latest record, the aptly titled Shards from earlier this year, pulled together a lot of his soundtrack work from recent, so it's not exactly a full work by design but if you haven't been dialed in to his every release it provides a good "here's what you missed on Glee"-style catchup.

David Gray, "The First Stone"

There's a bit of a White Ladder renaissance going on in recent years; there was the Gang of Youths and Caracara records, and I just did some background work on a campaign for a forthcoming record from a fairly popular artist that has similar White Ladder vibes as well. Unfortunately, David Gray's Dear Life from this year is way more in the straight-up acoustic vein, which doesn't make for an interesting listen—but there's flashes of fascinating texture, like this slithery and moonlit and quite melancholy post-Bon Iver cut from it.

Dear Seattle, "Cut My Hair"

My wife recently heard me play this song from this Australian pop-punk (I think?) band's latest album Toy from this year and said that she loves the song but hates the guy's voice, that does happen sometimes but I do think the extreme 2000s-ish timbre of it suits this "Swing, Swing"-redux of a cut pretty well.

Anxious, "Counting Sheep"

Anxious' Little Green House from 2022 was a good album with one incredible song, and their follow-up Bambi from this year is just flat-out great, definitely in the running for the best explicitly rock-ish emo record of the year so far...I have a friend who pointed out that their melodic sensibilities provide a good Brand New replacement, which, hey, if you're looking for one, it can't hurt to have it!

The Murder Capital, "Love of Country"

Here's another band whose previous record had one incredible song...Dublin post-post-post-punk outfit the Murder Capital's third record Blindness from this year unfortunately didn't hit "Ethel" paydirt again but, similar to a band like Shame, they continue to make music in this vein that isn't quite terrible (I'm looking at you, Yard Act) but not quite revelatory, in the end landing somewhere in the territory of "nice to have on."