Baker's Dozen: Queens of the Stone Age, Young Thug, Superorganism

Baker's Dozen is typically for paid subscribers of Larry Fitzmaurice's Last Donut of the Night newsletter, but I'm doing a mix of paid and free BDs for a spell to get through my considerable playlist backlog. Also, how else am I going to give all you free subscribers a taste of what we do behind paid doors? While I'm getting through this backlog, I'm doing a sale on annual subscriptions—30% off, $21/year for the first year. Grab it here, you won't regret it.

Queens of the Stone Age, "What the Peephole Say"

Since the relative letdown of ...Like Clockwork, I've come to expect exactly one very good song from every successive Queens of the Stone Age album. Villains had the proggy-but-nonetheless-slinky "The Evil Has Landed," and I thought this goth-y cut from last year's In Times New Roman... possessed a similar oomph. Kind of an undeniably boring band otherwise at this point, whaddya gonna do...my wife just told me a few minutes ago that the mailman who dresses punk-esque in our area was blasting QOTSA from his cart the other day and I do sincerely love that for him.

Black Rave Culture, "Columbia Rd Uptown"

D.C. trio Black Rave Culture's self-titled effort from 2021 is what I would call an overlooked gem, just get a load of how crisp those sounds are. I still plan on digging into the rest of their catalogue but if you like what they're putting forth here, there's more where that came from.

Sigur Rós, "Fall"

(Smokes cigarette while looking in the distance) I've been through so many "This time, they're back, and you've never heard them like this before" cycles with Sigur Rós, at this point you're better off appreciating that they are more or less delivering variations on the same theme that they established circa ( ), a record that my mother yelled at me for purchasing when I was 15 because she wouldn't want to listen to it, as if that was the point of me buying it...while we're on the subject, Sigur Rós, definitely a band for people who still avidly purchase physical copies of music and you know that's not a knock, they've got a passionate fanbase. Remember when they soundtracked one of the most elaborate Always Sunny sequences put to tape? Anyway, I liked ÁTTA well enough, as I have with the last few records. As I said before, at this point they know what they're doing and they know how to do it, can't fault them for that (and, in terms of sorta-contemporaries, they're doing it better than Queens of the Stone Age for certain).

Origami Angel, "Few and Far Between"

Huge fan of Origami Angel, whose "what if Japandroids were Guitar Fight From Fooly Cooly" formula continues to be extremely winning in execution. The Brightest Days from last year was billed as a mixtape and, after 2021's fairly jaw-dropping Gami Gang, I think it's fair to treat it as a stopgap release of sorts, I thought this song was really winning though, for a band that does "intense and small" really well I think they translated their approach to something more widescreen here very well.

Amaarae, "Water From Wine"

Saw Amaarae earlier this year at Warsaw and was pretty blown away by her level of showmanship at large, when she busted out an acoustic guitar and slowed this one down to a gorgeous, glistening trickle it was unbelievably mesmerizing. What a talent! One or two more of my Fountain Baby faves, and associated musings, on the way...

Vril, "Moon Tax"

Last one I'm sharing from the solid fabric Selects I comp, Vril's from Germany which you can certainly hear in those rolling techno drums that kick things off here as well as what they build to, Teutonic vibes abound.

PACKS, "Her Garden"

I'm a fan of PACKS, I had a colleague recently remark to me that the indie landscape is currently cluttered with music that sounds "like this" and while that may be true, I continue to hear something special in how she does it that sets her apart. Part of it is that she really does create at a very steady pace, she's put out an album every year for the last four and I do think this year's Melt the Honey might be her best to date. Would be good to have on the newsletter at some point, I bet!

Young Thug, "Hoodie" [ft. BSlime & Lil Gotit]

It's obviously still free Young Thug, whose ongoing criminal trial continues to prove that the U.S. criminal trial system is by and large a complete joke (as is the state of music journalism, which apparently can't rub together two nickels successfully enough to adequately cover this damn thing). A couple of songs from last year's BUSINESS IS BUSINESS that stuck with me, this is a god-level hook for me melodically and "Drinkin' Kid Cudi/ actin' all slutty/ In front company/ Trayvon hoodie" is a legit insane series of words to put together, who else gives it to you like this?

Armin van Buuren, "Bed of Rain" [ft. Mila Josef]

Lest you think that I've been talking all this mess about trance but not actually living this life...there was a really funny moment on, I think it was his 2013 album Intense, where Armin van Buuren delivered an insane monologue coated in echo about the love of the game or whatever, and then said in a very baritone and very Dutch intonation, "IN-TENSE." Intense! I always think of that now when I listen to Armin van Buuren. Intense. What else can you say?

Earth Trax and Newborn Jr., "If You - Club Mix" [ft. Aneta]

Newborn Jr., now there is a name that is hard as fuck...where's Newborn Sr. when you need them? A lot of Shall Not Fade comp cuts I've been sharing have been a little woozy, a little hazy, a little lo-fi house-y, but this is so big-room (complimentary) that ol' Armin himself could probably slip it into a set of his if he was actually slipping things into sets. The vocals sound like something that could've popped up on Crosstown Rebels in the early 2010s, again, not an insult.

Sarah Jarosz, "You Can't Go Home Again"

Classic dilettante thing here where I do not know Nanci Griffith's catalogue at all but I enjoyed a few cuts from the tribute album to her that dropped last year...don't hate the player, etc. I really liked Sarah Jarosz's recently-released Polaroid Lovers and you can expect a cut from that in the future, and I'll share one or two more gems from this covers collection soon too.

Lloyd Banks, "Living Proof" [ft. Benny the Butcher]

Obvious pair-up here that works very well, telegraphs the connection between the past and Griselda's present ably (as if it wasn't so fucking obvious to begin with, l-m-a-o), Lloyd's The Course of the Inevitable 2 from 2022 was surprisingly solid, he's kept at it as a low-key seen-it-all guy and it suits him well.

Superorganism, "Into the Sun" [ft. Gen Hoshino, Stephen Malkmus, and Pi Ja Ma]

Superorganism's 2022 album World Wide Pop was very good, and about as good as you're going to get from a band who was almost completely destroyed by the presence of a very bad guy as well as, seemingly, several others who had to leave when he did. (The full story of Mark Turner's alleged misdeeds is something I'm very familiar with and not mine to tell, but trust that it's worse than anything you've read.) Anyway! Their whole thing always seems like it's hanging by a thread but regardless works very well, I think of them as a bit of a new-gen Saint Etienne, let's see if they can keep that going (funny that Stephen Malkmus is across this record btw, not sure he adds anything but definitely another spice in the pot).