Baker's Dozen: Caroline Kingsbury, Nils Frahm, and Stuff I Used to Do in College

Baker's Dozen is a weekly thing I do where I share music I've enjoyed recently along with a playlist containing all that music. It's for paid subscribers only, sometimes I do it for everyone but not today.

Dogleg, "Neon Glow" (Glass Beach cover)

The other track from the Glass Beach remix album that I enjoyed. Dogleg, great band. Glass Beach, great band. Dogleg and Glass Beach: Two great bands!

Craig David, "Reload"

Craig David's latest album, The Time Is Now from 2018, is about as good as a Craig David album from 2018 could possibly be (not very). Chase and Status lace the track on this, they're occasionally good at big-box bass and EDC-core stuff and they supply some dumb fun over here, David's barely a presence on it which is beside the point.

Calexico, "Thrown to the Wild"

Back in college I had to take a few business classes at my parents' behest, because there apparently existed the notion that a 19-year-old solely invested in writing would suddenly change his mind and become really invested in business law? So I took a business law class at NYU's adult studies program and aced it without paying much attention during the class itself, treating the class time as an exercise to see if I could write entire an entire album review in 90 minutes without having the album to sonically refer back to in the moment. The only record I remember doing this with in total clarity was Calexico's Garden Ruin, which I really liked at the time, but there were others. Calexico are one of those bands where I'm kind of bored (in a "not for me" sense) by most of their music but when they hit something beautiful it's undeniable, and this track from 2018 is solely in the latter camp.

Evidence, "To Make a Long Story Longer" [ft. Jonwayne]

I'll admit that 60% of the appeal here for me is Jonwayne shouting out Bo Bice. Bo Bice! He hasn't been doing amazing in the last few years but I'll let you look that up for yourself, YouTube has the answers.

trayer tryon & Uppy, "AM"

Another Doom Trip Vol. 5 selection. Sounds like Lone, and by extension a lot of golden-era rave music, always my sweet spot.

Yoshinori Hayashi, "Go With Us"

Full disclosure that I did the bio for this record, but it's something I would've loved regardless. Hayashi's just so good at doing totally disparate sounds—he can hit the deep house vibe something fierce before turning around and diving deep into jazzy textures that are really appealing. Here he's operating slightly more on a junglist tip, and it's incredibly effective.

dj blackpower, "Marge Simpson"

MIKE is so prolific that I'm constantly posting songs from him in these posts and then he's got like two more records I haven't heard yet. Really talented! Continues to get better with every project in my humble opinion (trying to cut out some of the acronyms from these).

awakebutstillinbed, "floor"

Back in March I posted a song from the latest awakebutstillinbed EP and said that I needed to go back and listen to the debut again because I loved it the last time I heard it. I did so, still bangs! Great band, I can see how they're a bit strident for some but it works for me.

Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou, "Monolith"

Listen to this track on Bandcamp.

I swear this is coincidental, but here's another thing where I highlighted these guys' latest EP before I highlighted the full-length that preceded it. Sick song, really grunge-y and I don't even like grunge all that much.

Nils Frahm, "Momentum"

As a society we still have not come up with a satisfyingly denigrating descriptor for the music Nils Frahm makes, possibly because the music itself is frequently too boring to inspire such creativity??? It's, like, gallery techno maybe, but the types who are already described as such are making more literal noise than he is. Crate-and-Barrel-core? Restoration Hardware 2step? I'm getting out of control at this point. Anyway, at his best Nils Frahm makes music that patiently shimmers with a very basic beauty, like this track, at his worst you're just standing around waiting for something to happen. Turn it up!

Caribou, "Never Come Back (Four Tet Remix)"

Ah yeah that's more like it. Didn't like the last Caribou album all that much and said so in one of the first installments of this here newsletter, but his music always provides lots of raw materials for dance types to build something new out of. Four Tet takes a straightforwardly pleasing piano-house tactic here, to great success, because he is after all one of the real ones. Gonna end up posting a few tracks from the remix album this is from in the weeks to come.

Caroline Kingsbury, "Kissing Someone Else"

Lots of really good songwriting on the Caroline Kingsbury record, the worst thing you could say about it is that it's a sound that's been done many times before but she does it well and with personality. At times her sound kind of reminds me of (chokes on vomit) Alex Cameron, aesthetically a collab could be pleasing...but otherwise she should just do her own thing obviously.

Johnny Jewel, "What If"

Kicked up a minor dust storm on Twitter recently when I suggested that Chromatics just really weren't it for me regarding Johnny Jewel's genius and overall appeal...they were more aesthetics than actual music for me, obviously had heaters in their own right but I get more out of Jewel's thing elsewhere. Digital Rain was a really pretty and melancholic collection of soundtrack work and instrumental pieces, this bit is just a gorgeous sigh of a track.