People don’t often mention classic country and darkwave in the same breath but Tempers make me think of what would happen if Hank Williams and Patsy Cline were simultaneously reincarnated, went out and bought some modern-day gear and settled down in Brooklyn to write electro-tinged laments and darkwave floor-fillers. Electro-pop is the new honky-tonk after all. 

Here’s a game to play called "Is This a Tempers Lyric or a Hank Williams Lyric"?

There’s a space in the night
where I tear a hole
the moon just went
behind the sky
to hide it’s face and cry

Trick question. It’s both. And speaking of both, Hank Williams and Tempers are both adept at taking inconvenient feelings like loneliness, heartbreak and longing and making something beautiful out of them, while each wisely throw some love songs and dance songs into the mix too because we can’t be So Lonesome We Could Cry all the time. A couple caveats to these parallel tracks: Hank Williams never made a concept album based on a German intellectual’s essay on shopping mall architecture and, to my knowledge, Patsy Cline wasn’t ethnically half-Iranian/half-Latvian and nor was she born in Florida and reared in England.

Tempers are the mixed-gender duo of Jasmine Golestaneh and Eddie Cooper and they started putting out singles together in 2013, with their first full-length arriving in 2015. The full-length in question is called Services and just this month they reissued the record on their current label Dais Records–seeing as the original was released on a German label (one factor in their sizeable European following) and only 500 copies pressed on vinyl. Vinyl festishist alert: the re-release can be had in clear vinyl, pink, marble smoke, or plain ol’ black plastic while supplies last.

In conjunction with the reissue, Tempers recorded an aching, acoustic self-cover of “Bright Over Me” the original of which is on Services. Besides this one the other track we got from the duo this year is “The Use of My Belonging.” A bedroom production released over the summer, it’s got a reflective vibe (“Well I didn’t see it coming / now I feel so out of place / what’s the use of my belonging”) written as it was in response to the Black Lives Matter protests and lockdown in the city. And while these two singles are certainly representative of the Year From Hell that somehow still isn’t over, I would submit that Tempers 2019 LP Private Life captures the stupefaction of late 2020 just as well as these other two releases. In fact, I’d go so far to name it the best album of 2020 released in 2019. Read on for further explanation.

Take a song like “Peace of Mind” which both in mood and in lyric captures a familiar experience, especially familiar this past year, that’s rarely addressed in song–namely just f*cking staring at these four walls–where isolation or boredom or insomnia or quarantine or whatever causes your mind to be both dulled and sharpened to the point where you pick up nearly every surrounding detail of your internal and external landscapes: “Lying in the bath, it’s half past three in the morning / this time alone, this time I know, is overrated / my hand’s a wave, my hand’s a tide, my hand’s a flood / picking up the light, water makes shadows on the wall / my hands a sky, my hand’s a bridge, my hand’s a home / this time alone, I’m feeling now, starting over.” But who actually writes a song about this? Brilliant.

Private Life opens with a song that’ll make your spine tingle if you’re inclined to such feelings. It’s called “Capital Pains” and its opening line is “It’s just a way of killing time” going on to describe a strange but seductive mashup of longing, regret, determination, desperation, voyeurism, and maybe even some hint of fulfillment. These divergent sentiments are mixed-and-matched by a musical backing of danceable electro-rhythms, vocals bathed in wraithlike echo, and occasional waves of double-picked/double-tracked electric guitar that envelop the listener. It’s hard to tell if this is supposed to be the sound of “peace of mind” or the start of the breakdown and maybe that’s precisely the point. 

The next song is titled “Leonard Cohen Afterworld” (*ahem* so I can sign eternally *ahem*) and by now you see where this is heading. Taken as a whole Private Life nails the general aura of this current moment in time (including the title) to the extent that I’m convinced Jasmine and Eddie recorded it in 2020 and travelled back in time to 2019 to release the thing and give us all a coping mechanism to deal with the upcoming year. I mean just look at the song titles alone: “More Than You Realized,” “Guidance,” “Daydreams,” “Filters,” and “Sleep.” And the cover image. It’s all so very 2020. Given this evidence, you’d be advised to seek out Tempers’ music released next year to see what’s on the horizon for 2022. (Jason Lee)

It’s 2020 roundup time, whereupon we cast our music blogging net wide and pull in releases that didn’t make it into our annals as of yet.

Slut Magic are a fulsome foursome who make music for moderns, especially those of the sex-positive and queer-positive variety. Their music and image are chock full of good humor, man, beautifully boundary-crossing but still humanistic. With songs full of strum und twang, imagine Orville Peck for the punk rock set (and many other stylistic hybrids besides) and you’re getting warm. They once you actually hear them you’ll be getting pretty hot.

Following up on 2018’s debut LP In My Mouth the Slut Magic crew pulled out Trauma Queen earlier this year, a full-length musical insurrection made up of songs that run the spectrum from expressing empathy for victims of f*ckery (see the title track) to healthy doses of "just don’t give a f*ck"-ery (fave lines along these lines: “maybe it’s the DayQuil / but you look pretty good tonight”) to righteous howls of "f*ck this sh*t" (“God Is A Bad Dom”) which are all quite appropriate sentiments for this dumpster fire of a year. 

Nearly as exciting as the release itself is the reveal that the band have made full-on music videos for each and every track — ranging from a first-generation PlayStation homage to a Christian broadcast TV montage to a choreographed rooftop assemblage (which rhymes if you say it right). So head on over to the band’s SlutTube and Slutcamp sites and take their full load of content right into your earholes and eyeholes. (Jason Lee)

 "ALIEN HUNTERS DETECT MYSTERIOUS RADIO SIGNAL FROM NEARBY STAR"

No, this isn’t the headline from a recent Weekly World News cover story but instead a legit National Geographic headline posted online two days ago. The mysterious radio signal in question was detected by an organization called Breakthrough Listen, a project with $100 million in funding that’s taken on the task of monitoring over a million stars for radio or laser transmissions. The signal appears to originate from Proxima Centauri which is the star nearest to our very own sun and that happens to have two planets in its own orbit, one of which, known as Planet B, resembles Earth with its rocky surfaces, temperate environment, and extensive network of Wawa franchises (ok, I made that last part up). This transmission has been labelled BLC-1.

The band: Acetone 4. The band’s music: A bit mysterious, more than a bit mesmeric. The band’s identity: Even more mysterious. The music of Acetone 4 sounds like it’s been beamed to this planet from across the universe, and it’s my working hypothesis that this is in fact precisely the case. In other words, BLC-1 equals Acetone 4. A transmission from the satellite heart. A sad, sexy satellite heart. Acetone 4 have released two songs thus far alongside a couple photos posted on Instagram and Bandcamp: one ghostly, blown-out Polaroid of the band in humanoid form (see above) and one other spectral image. And that’s it. Otherwise there’s no names attached and no other information or explanation of any kind provided. So yes, this is obviously the work of extraterrestrials attempting to utilize our primitive social media to reach out to the cosmos. 

The first song to be shot out into the ether by Acetone 4 is called “Linden Hill.” This is a name of the neighborhood in Queens where the Proxima Centaurians clearly plan to set up their first base of operation. The track opens with the sound of an interstellar beacon sending out a scratchy, repeated distress signal. A few seconds later they wisely add a guitar melody to help keep the humans’ attention and next there’s some droney, pulsating synth and a thumping beat accompanied by a female voice simulator unit that appears to be singing in English, but the words are mostly indecipherable. All the while you can hear the Proxima Centaurians in the background working on emergency spacecraft repairs with little bleeps and bloops echoing into the vastness of space. This transmission was received on 17 August of this year and its proceeds benefit the Sex Workers Outreach Program of Brooklyn in solidarity with misunderstood and demonized "Others" across all dimensions.

The second and most recent transmission was received on 5 September 2020. The Proxima Centaurians are clearly beginning to get a better grasp of our modes of communication and psychological points of entry. The track "PSR" (mysterious acronyms!) kicks in straight away with a slinky beat that’s likely to prick up the ears of most homo sapiens and to lead many of them to look up some Internet porn. Then there’s some garbled alien communication not unlike the sounds of truckers on their CB radios to our human ears. Enter the female voice simulator unit again saying something along the lines of “Trying to pull together / reflect in a dream” followed by “call / response / no answer” which aptly summarizes our collective failure to establish contact. From here the voice unit repeats a sort of stressed-out mantra declaring “insomnia / no dreams” and it’s obvious the Proxima Centaurians are getting to better understand this planet and our current precarious situation. Whether this will all result in them wanting to help us out, or to get the hell out of Dodge, remains to be seen.

Here’s hoping that Acetone 4 reestablishes contact in 2021. It may be our only hope. (Jason Lee)

On this, the last day of Hanukkah aka Zose Hanukkah, consider this provocative hypothesis: Hip Hop and Hanukkah are brothers from another mother. For one thing, both are tied to numerology. Hanukkah lasts eight days and nights–the number eight being a “number of completion” that symbolizes the “metaphysical world” in Judaism. Cut that number in half and you’ve got the fabled “four elements” of Hip Hop: DJing, MCing, B-Boying, and Graffiti Art. Plus both Hip Hop and Hanukkah incorporate an extra number “to grow on.” During Hanukkah there’s the ninth candle in the middle of the menorah–called the shamash–used to light the other candles as the holiday progresses. And in Hip Hop there’s the well-known trope of the “fifth element” variously said to be knowledge, beatboxing, basketball, fashion, or some other something. 

Also, both celebrate the warrior spirit. The Jewish holiday honors the Maccabees, the rebel warriors who took control of Judea, while Hip Hop celebrates verbal warriors who brandish liquid swords in street cyphers or Verzuz battles, and DJs who battle each other in parks, playgrounds, and turntablist competitions. Zooming out another level, hip hop celebrates the warriors who battle socio-economic oppression and white supremacy. 

Finally, Hip Hop is sometimes described as the art of making “something from nothing," and likewise, Hanukkah celebrates the miracle of a paltry supply of lamp oil somehow lasting eight days inside the newly retaken Temple of Jerusalem. So you see, practically the same thing! Let’s go ahead and declare “Hip Hanukkah” the portmanteau of the day and get Lin-Manuel Miranda to write the musical.

Which brings us to the real subject of this piece and the inspiration for the chin-stroking thesis above: the Brooklynite rapper of Jewish-Ukrainian ancestry known as Your Old Droog, who yesterday released the Hanukkah-dedicated single seen at the top of this piece. For five years-plus YOD has been making waves in the hip hop underground, a favorite of heads who recognize his formidable skills and appreciate his verbal acrobatics, encyclopedic references (forget about consulting Genius since YOD had all his lyrics removed from the site), clever punchlines, and grimy ‘90s-style beats. Collaborations with the likes of Danny Brown and Heems have only cemented YOD’s reputation. 

Often compared to such upper echelon verbalists as Nas and MF Doom, YOD achieved early notoriety when he first started posting tracks on SoundCloud minus any additional social media presence or photos or personal info of any kind. This quickly led to rumors that YOD was actually Nas recording under a pseudonym. After positively IDing himself in a 2014 New Yorker profile and subsequently selling out a show at Webster Hall, it was revealed that he was actually a heretofore unknown white dude from Coney Island. Your Old Droog had seemingly come out of nowhere and created “something out of nothing” right out of the box.

But in reality more than just “some white dude” as his last two records have made clear–concept albums focused, respectively, on his Jewish heritage and Eastern European ethnic ancestry. On the first day of Hanukkah, late in 2019, YOD dropped Jewelry. The third full-length released in an insanely prolific year, the album opens with a track called “Shamash” (the ninth menorah candle referenced above!) that opens with the sound of a matchbook being struck which transitions into a hazy, dubby beat with incantations over the top that all sounds either highly spiritual or like someone coming down from a latke binging session. 

[[Editor’s note: A Jewish colleague informs us that this track "samples someone reciting the blessings that we say each night as we light the Chanukah candles." We advise caution to Deli readers looking to this publication for advice or instruction on religious practices of any kind. And now back to our regularly scheduled programming…]]

But soon you’re snapped back to lucidity with the track “Jew Tang” (Ain’t Nuthin’ to F*** With!) that with its buzzing, lumbering beat feels like nearly getting run over by a Mitzvah tank barreling down Eastern Parkway with (one time?) Hasidic reggae icon Matisyahu in the passenger seat. Here and elsewhere on the album YOD spits bars that slant-rhyme “Cash Rules…” with “Kashrut” (Jewish dietary standards!) and chrome mags with Cro-Mags (NYC hardcore legends!) and lots of other mind-expanding lyrical mashups besides. If there’s a better portrait of punk rockers and hip hoppers and multi-hued Brooklynites of all types existing together in all of NYC’s true grit and glory I’d like to hear it.

if there one thing you can surely say about Your Old Droog is that you’ll never find him “writing the same thing over and over / like Bart Simpson in detention"–a charge he levels against wack rappers in “The Greatest To Ever Do It”–since on every project he takes on a new direction. And the recently-released Dump YOD: Krutoy Edition is no exception as YOD code-switches between English and Russian (his first language) on tracks named after locales such as Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan. It’s a bold assertion coming from someone who’s been frequently misperceived in the past: “if you were my complexion and poor / they just thought you were Spanish.”

A sonic travelogue, Dump YOD is a trip in the truest sense with train whistles and barrel organs and mournful horns and hammered dulcimers and that’s all on the first couple of tracks. These sounds help to sketch the plight of a “legal alien” as described near the end of “Ukraine,” which opens with YOD thinking back on being “outsiders since day one / been there since way young / used to squirm in the seat / when teachers called out my name, son.” In an age of widespread Nativist zeal it’s a potent message for immigrants and children of immigrants–who are well aware that “the hardest thing to be is yourself.” (Jason Lee)