This band of West Philly-ites used to be called Sports back in their Gambier, Ohio days perhaps in homage to the classic Huey Lewis and the News album—the one that had Patrick Bateman so excitedly touting its merits to his investment banker pal and rival right before hacking him to bits—but changed their name to Remember Sports (RS) most likely because they were too often mistaken for a Huey Lewis tribute band. Which actually isn’t too far off in a certain sense because RS also knows how to write a good catchy earworm hook when so inclined, a fact I can attest to because the album-opening “Pinky Ring” has been stuck in my head for about a week now and may necessitate playing “I Want A New Drug” on repeat here soon just to dislodge it for a little while.

On their fourth full-length release, Like A Stone, the band have really come into their own commercially and artistically. The record features a clear, crisp sound that gives the songs a sheen of consummate professionalism while also serving as a personal statement about the band itself. And yes I’m quoting Bret Easton Ellis via Mary Harron but hey our favorite ax murderer’s words are relevant here because Like A Stone is exquisitely executed and produced (production credit belonging to Carlos Hernandez and Julian Fader, the latter name being almost too appropriate) featuring the band’s always strong songwriting fleshed out with arrangements that move through multiple peaks and valleys and discordant bits and mellow bits and various sonic stalagmites and stalactites like with the occasional appearance of steel guitar or banjo or circuit-bent electronics thrown into the mix. 

Still even with all these compelling musical details there’s a case to be made that the most striking instrument is the voice of lead singer and songwriter Carmen Perry. If you happen to be a classic country music buff, you may have heard the oft-cited quote from countrypolitan record producer and songwriter Billy Sherrill describing the “little teardrop” he heard in Tammy Wynette’s voice when she walked into his office as a complete unknown and then of course went on to become a genre-spanning legend. And that little teardrop was a big part of what made her voice so distinctive—all the little breaks and flutters and shifts in register and dynamics perfectly suiting the heartbreak at the heart of her best known and best loved songs. 

Well it turns out Perry also has a little teardrop in her voice, or maybe more like a medium sized teardrop at least, which likewise suits the heartbreak and romantic longing and emotional resiliance at the core of Like A Stone—from the peppy but bittersweet 39-second reverie over a “Coffee Machine” to the slow-burning-nearly-seven-minutes-long appeal to an errant lover to express their hidden feelings “Out Loud.” Another recurring and closely related theme is the nature of memory itself and the passage of time with lines about “archiv[ing] the past with some shit that won’t last you a lifetime” (“Materialistic”) and “taking in the scenery from the corners of your mind” (“Sentimentality”) and “just sit[ting] here till the clock runs out” (“Clock”) and “my eggs flow[ing] right out of me like clockwork every month” (“Eggs”) which all makes the Remember in Remember Sports suddenly all the more relevant.

But don’t be put off if this all sounds a little bit on the heavy side because the music and vocalizing on this album have an energy and warmth that balances out the darker sentiments and you can see how the band brings it live above. Plus did I mention in the video to “Pinky Ring” above you get to see Carmen Perry pelted with eggs while wearing big plastic goggles and there’s also a part toward the end where the viewer is instructed to put on 3-D glasses (that is, if you have a pair laying around) and in fact it does look like the end part is legit in 3-D so clearly this band know how to have some fun? And since I did just mention it, it’s probably time to take my leave now because I have to go return some videotapes. (Jason Lee)

band photo credit: Sonia Kiran

“Slipshod, down by evening

I needle cabarets

I cannot quit the feeling

I dressed up anyway–“

"Needle” is a word rife with many different meanings. A needle used to be required to hear pre-recorded music and maybe it still is if you’re a vinyl junkie. You also need one to sew a sweater or scarf and other warm and fuzzy things. But "to needle" someone means to bug the hell out of them in a very un-warm and fuzzy fashion. Intravenous needles are used to save lives. But they’re also synonymous with drug addition and deadly ODs. And when you’re on "pins and needles” you’re not sure whether to anticipate or to dread a future event. 

“Needle” is also the first song on Jeremy Bastard’s Everyone Is History, There Is No Memory, his first full LP as the featured performer and producer. The album is full of warm analogue synths tones but mixed with a coldwave sensibility, and the overall sound is by turns murky and sleek or sometimes both at once. And who knows if we’re talking about good needles or bad ones in a song like this, but either way much of music has a pins and needles quality to it in a way that reminds me of the Tech Noir scene in the first Terminator movie.

For one thing there’s the death disco vibe of "Needle" that sounds just right for an 80s club with a chain link fence around a neon-saturated dance floor. But there’s also something about the sound design like in how the soundtrack gets all echoey and distant sounding just as the scene above transitions to slo-mo visuals. And then the music transitions from diegetic to non-diegetic sound, but so gradually and seamlessly you could miss it if you’re immersed in the action too much but it alters your perceptions either way.

Jeremy Bastard’s music does this same thing too with overlapping layers of sound that alters your perceptions. Like when waves of echo seems to coalesce and follow their own rhythmic logic independent of the rest of the song. Or when a sound is pushed into the red far enough that you can get lost in its ruptured, distorted interiors. Overall there’s a clear focus on being diffuse on the record (Official Paradox of the Day) but just don’t get it twisted because this isn’t an experimental noise project. It’s still a dance record but one that threads the needle with sonic experimentation. 

Take for instance the first of the two tracks featuring Electra Monet on vocals, whose singing could be described as Nico-esque or if you prefer Jane Birkin-esque. Normally if you’ve got a voice like this to work with you’d expect the producer to make that voice sound as angelic and ethereal and "pure" as possible. Ms. Monet’s singing on “Shadow Boxing” is all these things except pure (and all the better for it) because the production highlights the grit and grain of her voice (including, most unusually, the sibilance of echoing "Sssss" sounds) and of the instrumental sounds from the pounding drums to the insistent keyboard ostinato to the John McGeoch like guitar outro. These are dreampop angels with dirty faces.

But then next the third track "Love is a Mistake" (featuring Disolve) would be a perfect fit for John Hughes’ never realized sequel to Pretty in Pink because it’s a hooky indie-electro-pop song with romantically tragic overtones that would be perfect for the scene where Duckie drives up to the class reunion blasting the song on his car’s cassette player still bitter at how he didn’t get Molly Ringwald in the end (sidebar: the ending of Pretty in Pink was changed because Duckie wasn’t considered Molly-worthy enough by test audiences). 

And Jeremy Bastard could play the DJ at the reunion prom because that’s something he does too. And on Everyone Is History he holds onto that DJ-minded curatorial mindset by featuring a different singer/lyricist/collaborator on every other track or two, and according to Jeremy himself it was the motivating spark behind the entire project. Exiled to Florida for much of the past year, Jeremy turned to producing and long-distance collaborations as a way to maintain creative momentum and human contact. And in the process he may have found his future musical lane, or one of them, because this one-on-one approach apparently suits his creative muse, at least judging by other recent releases in this format (see below) and bonus non-album tracks from the album’s various collaborators that keep popping up as b-sides to its singles like needles in a haystack. (Jason Lee)

Jesus” is the name of the new song by Native Sun and not unlike its namesake it’s got a certain hippie-freak vibe, and if Jesus Christ Superstar wasn’t already a thing it’d need to be after this song because it makes me wanna put on a flowing white robe and sing my heart out to the hills of Galilee, helped along by the song’s assurance that "it’s ok to lose your mind."

And did I mention it’s over six minutes long–at least in its unedited form, the video version above is slightly foreshortened–and it’s got sections. Like how after an opening minute-and-a-half that’s chock full of rousing guitar fanfare and lighter-waving vocals “Jesus” transforms into more of a glam number (actually it all kind of is) but more of a glam ballad and one that wouldn’t sound out of place on the Velvet Goldmine soundtrack. And then before long we get a dueling guitar solo and another big chorus and then another tag team guitar section that takes up the whole last couple minutes up to the (not) ending complete with fake fadeout a la “Helter Skelter” before returning in even more frantic form but with a fadeout that sticks this time.

So yeah we’ve got a song here that makes even Jesus going to Hell sound cool. And maybe it would be cool because him and the Devil could hold a peace summit or at least just talk things out. But what’s more alarming is how there’s a reoccuring theme here, given that Native Sun’s last single was called “Government Shutdown” and it made that subject sound really cool too, but in more of a punk rock kinda way. So I’m not saying we should call the CIA or anything but maybe keep an eye on these guys is all I’m saying because there’s clearly a subversive element at work. (Jason Lee)

Blatantly disregarding the double-live principle of rock school on their fourth full-length, Spirit of the Beehive instead take the listener on a dark ride. The record is called Entertainment, Death and with its cover image of faceless funhouse patrons being beckoned into the mouth of madness of an amusement ride’s entryway, a mouth belonging to a cartoonish but menacing red-eyed devil, we’re given a hint of what’s to come inside–a carnival ride full of herky-jerky twists and turns. 

Entertainment, Death moves restlessly between ambient floating-in-space “tunnel of love” passages like heard in the song above and whiplash passages as illustrated below, similar to when the midway ride’s bumper car rolls over a relay switch illuminating a skeleton or some other scary creature leaping out of a casket and lunging straight at you, accompanied by a loud cackling laugh and a spray of hissing steam. 

Despite the seeming stream-of-consciousness of much of Entertainment, Death the album is organized around a conceit that makes thematic sense out of its through-composed structure. Album opener “Entertainment” begins in medias res and ushers the listener through a sonic birth canal of rumbling drones, squealing test tones, scuttling percussion and intense ethereal whooshing. But relative calm then descends with a loping rhythm and chirping birds and a pastoral folk song melody with harmonized vocals informing us that “I woke up when I heard the blow / heading east towards KSMO” a calm that’s broken only slightly by the entrance of glitching synths and a warped string section. 

Guitarist/vocalist Zack Schwartz and bassist/vocalist Rivka Ravede have explained elsewhere that while on tour for 2018’s Hypnic Jerks they suffered a tire blowout in route to a gig in Kansas City, Missouri (a tour that had them opening for the band Ride no less) which led to them imagining a scenario where they perished in the aftermath of a car accident and where their new album would be conceived as a series of fleeting thoughts and musical fragments and distant memories triggered in the split-second leading up to their imminent death occurring on the last track fittingly called “Death.”

More than just an inner space travelogue the record also serves as a reckoning of sorts for lives spent creating and consuming “content” (a.k.a. entertainment) with the Beehive crew expressing some ambivalence and admitting “I regret some choices I’ve made / entertainment only remains / while I keep descending / who will decipher the pain from the lie?” and between the bookmark tracks of “Entertainment” and “Death” the album delves into a sonic and lyrical purgatory for the rest of its running time, descending into Hell for the penultimate multi-part “I Suck The Devil’s Cock,” a song that doesn’t so much advocate demonic fellatio as it advocates demonic fellatio used as a metaphor for the Faustian bargain of selling one’s soul for rock ‘n’ roll or of serving the servants by serving new content to the modern-day deity of the Internet server.

Just in case you’re not finding it easy, one good way to get on the wavelength of Entertainment, Death is to read up on what the Buddhists call “bardo”–intermediate, indeterminate state of non-being (based in becoming vs. being) like the twilight state between wakefulness and sleep (a.k.a. hypnagogia) or the cosmic void between life and death or between death and rebirth. Spirit of the Beehive cross the dharmata bardo or “luminous void” described in the Tibetan Book of the Dead with Guy Debord’s Society of the Spectacle as represented by the record’s shifting tempos, warped pitches, flanged timbres and vacillations between chaos and stillness where “enough is never enough” and where the “remember[ed] promise of a future” is replaced by an eternal present. 

Both the quotes directly above are taken from “There’s Nothing You Can’t Do” which transforms a cheap ad slogan into an aspirational mantra and a luminous void (“Property of Void Industries”) and for almost two minutes it comes on like a song you’d hear at a sexy alien discotheque–with a slinky groove wedded to a strangely alluring detuned trumpet and wispy vocals that declare the merits of a “heavy hand, middle class / chemical in a bag / all I want; love me all the time” before lifting off into s hook at 1’13 that’s sublime enough for one to overlook the quiet desperation of lyrics like “Could it all be in my head?” and “I made my bed, I’ll lie in it”–a song that just about any other band would leave untouched and promote as their radio-ready new single. But instead SotB drown their potential hit song in the bathtub toward its end, submerging it under waves of feedback and distortion and paranoid-sounding screaming that promises “I’ll be your friend” over and over again but which I usually hear as asking “Are you afraid?”

And so with Entertainment, Death the Philly-based three piece (reduced from five on their last LP; Zach and Rivka are joined here by multi-instrumentalist Corey Wichlin) Spirit of the Beehive have assembled fragments of their musical past–ranging from early shoegaze and noise-based music to sample-based collage and dreamy indie rock and electronic experimentation–into a cut-and-pasted musical journey that combines the aforementioned elements with other influences (e.g., vaporwave) resulting in a manifesto for the end times that beckons you to enter the void and to buy their band t-shirts and art works. (Jason Lee)

Air Devi is both a band and a person which is like a PJ Harvey kind of deal. And also like PJ Harvey, she’s got some serious musical and songwriting chops. Air Devi, the person, is alternatiely know as Devi Majeske and she’s a violinist, sitarist, guitarist, bass guitarist, keyboardist, and a fairly recent U. Penn grad who writes cool songs that come across pretty laid back at first but then get under your skin and into your heart and head. Like on the recent single “Mosquitos in the Backyard,” a song that floats by like a big marshmallow cloud and with images of “wash lines swaying” and “lush perfume hanging” to match. Except when you dig a little deeper it’s not all strawberries and cream because the song appears to either be about contracting malaria and/or it’s a pretty brutal take down of a pest and narcissist with lines like “you’ll feed on anything that breathes / you never loved anything." Another clever touch is how the choruses sound a little bit like a buzzing mosquito with the chopped-up guitar chords and circling bass line on the high strings so there’s much to comtemplate here.

Air Devi draws from diverse musical roots ranging from first-wave punk to Bollywood soundtracks to bedroom singer-songwriter pop to folkie psychedelia but there’s one recurring motif to my ears in how she/they often combine a blissed out vibe in the music and vocals with lyrics that are a series of sharply observed slices-of-life and streams-of-consciousness–pulling from disperate stands of thought and stands of identity and even from different languages with code-switching into French and Gujarati on a handful of songs. 

The latter Indo-language is heard on “Move Without Place," a song that rotates gracefully between styles—the Gujarati comes at the end of a sequence that moves first from ambient indie pop to a syncopated baggy beat with a Bollywood-like vocal melody and then Air Devi wondering aloud “Am I colonizable? Capitalizable?” when everything suddenly stops for a split-second and a bell chimes and then it goes into what sounds like traditional Hindustani music complete with dholak drumming, which is simlilar to a tabla but double-headed, and electric guitar and entrancing ornamented singing but then it all unwinds down to a single repeated guitar note and then back to the syncopated beat with the amibient indie pop backing and back around again. The restless musical arrangement perfectly captures the theme of the song to "move without place [and] make my own space" even if one’s skin and the whole world itself is "splintered" and "sensitive."

It’s all equally visceral and heady stuff–a dialectic that can be applied to much of Air Devi’s music in my humble opinion. But you can make up your own mind by listening to the two aforementioned singles and then 2020’s Swanning About EP above ("No Clearances" is a particuarly lovely statement of purpose). And if you need more you can check out earlier singles like "Standoffish" and "Alchemist" and the stripped-down DIY of 2018’s Chicken Nuggies & Rosé EP with some of its contents later rearranged in full-band form on Swanning such as "My Landlord Is An Asshole!" and who can really argue with a sentiment like that. And then, if that’s not enough, you can dig into Air Devi’s Soundcloud page and find even earlier works like the anti-Putin diss track "Kremlin Bop" that doubles as a Ramones-like sing-a-long with the title perhaps even being an homage to said band. 

But hey let’s not fixate on the past because cheap nostalgia is so 2020. And plus it’ll be even more interesting to see and hear what Air Devi does next. (Jason Lee)

Queen Mob are a two-piece from Psychedelphia, who as individuals go by the names Beth and Colin, and if they placed a band personals ad it’d probably read something like “freak-folk-shoegaze-vaporwave band seeks absolutely no one because we don’t collaborate and we don’t cooperate.” 

Over the past year Queen Mob have released one album and one EP (Easy, Liger and Against A Pale Background) and three singles (“Comeback,” “Sidecar,” and “Pop Sickle”) the last of which I’m declaring to be the best runaway-carousel/broken-calliope music I’ve heard since MGMT’s “Lady Dada’s Nightmare”. 

In their recorded work to date the band have already demonstrated impressive range by alternately sounding like an inebriated Beck, an inebriated Swervedriver, and an inebriated Jandek (so, just, Jandek). Or maybe instead of inebriated they’re just experimental. It’s not really our business how they get to that place. 

Beth herself describes the single above as “haunted dystopian electronic music” and that strikes me as pretty accurate for their lastest music. So hop on to the merry-go-round and hold to your horse pole becuase Queen Mob will take you on a ride. (Jason Lee)

If the long awaited Cagney & Lacey movie ever comes to fruition (sorry, I don’t consider the TV movies canon) I’m going to immediately start an online petition to make "Asphalt Homeland" the opening credit music–played as the camera slowly pans over the asphalt homeland of Lower Midtown Manhattan until landing on our two sometimes harried but always resolutely determined lady detectives. And sure, the new single by Ghost Funk Orchestra is a good deal less boob-tube bouncy and peppy than the original TV theme song, but that’s good because it’ll help Cagney & Lacey make the transition to the big screen with the help of some dramatic, cinematic music.

Of course this isn’t to imply that bandleader/songwriter/arranger/producer Seth Applebaum only writes music appropriate for a Cagney & Lacey type show. To the contrary, Seth is a one-man "library music" machine whose music could just as easily be used to score urban dramas, medical dramas, gangster epics, or even wild comedies and super action films but with a distinct golden-era approach harkening back to a time when jazz and funk and rock and Latin music and psychedelic music (and many other genres besides) often shared equal space on a single soundtrack.

Take the song called "Fuzzy Logic" for example (see video above) which stays true to its title by rejecting Boolean either/or logic in favor of multiplicity and suggestive ambiguity. It starts off sounding like the dramatic opening moments to a classic spy soundtrack or a caper movie with its dissonant stabs of brass and syncopated hi-hat cymbal–not to mention how the music video’s use of color gels and multiple exposure give it a strong Bond pre-credit sequence vibe–before sliding into a groove that’s laid back enough to be Sade-approved but with some vaguely uneasy lyrics (and a brief Bill Withers "I know" interlude, may he rest in peace) sung to enchanting effect by regular vocal collaborator Romi Hanoch (PowerSnap). And then about one minute in the song takes another turn with a breakdown section featuring flamenco-style clapping and dub-like echo and surf guitar reverb before circling back to the second verse and then later ending with a concise but still pretty epic solo outro traded between baritone sax and flute.

Seriously, put this song on in the car next time you’re cruising around and it’s guaranteed to make you feel like a total badass even if you’re just heading to 7-11. Or put on almost any GFO song because they rarely skimp on the funkiness, the ghostliness, or the intricate orchestrations. And did I say "one-man show"? In reality, Ghost Funk Orchestra is more like a ten-to-twelve-man-and-woman machine because you know it can’t be easy making music this elaborate alone and especially not if you plan to play live. And by the way seeing GFO live is a wonderful thing that will presumably happen again someday soon. 

So, if you lack familiarity with the Ghost Funk prior to "Asphalt Homeland," their most recent full-length An Ode To Escapism (2020) is a good place. The album features a shift array of musical emotional hues that still manage to flow together as a continuous whole–more that fulfilling the promise of the album’s title. And just case you happen to forget the stated purpose of the album while listening there’s an intermittent GPS Lady voiceover reminding you that "as long as your headphones are on…you’re safe, and hidden" and it never hurts to be reminded of that. (Jason Lee)

Mars Rodriguez is an independently-operating, Los-Angeles-based, Nicaraguan-American singer-songwriter-producer-multi-instrumentalist and so far her early releases are living up to that multi-hyphenate description. Mars released her first full-length last September, Don’t Wait for Nothing, and over its 30 minutes you never have to wait too long for some new sonic wrinkle or other musical ingredient to be thrown into the mix which makes for a compelling and propulsive listening experience. And while I may be reading too much into things here, I could see how this restlessness could possibly derive in part from being part of a population displaced by political crisis and state violence.

If forced to come up with my own original hyphenate to describe Mars Rodriguez’s music I think I’d go with "Café-Tacuba-meets-Shirley-Manson-meets-Massive Attack" because that at least hints at the stylistic eclecticism and the multilingualism and the mix of grungy guitar, power pop melodies, trip hop ambience, dub- and psych-inspired production, rock-en-espanol rhythms and drum machine rhythms. It’s one of those albums meant to be taken in all at once in full, a continuous sonic journey.

Take the album-opening instrumental track "Tous Les Jours" for example, which starts off with almost a full minute of ambient planetarium-style celestial sounds before launching into a funky percussion loop that wouldn’t sound out of place in a Chemical Brothers song and then a fuzzed-out zig-zagging melody that brings to mind Radiohead’s "Myxomatosis" or it does to my mind at least. After a minute or two the fuzzone starts to disintegrate and get swallowed up by swirling echo effects. Then the whole thing topples and transforms into a slower, stripped down groove–but with vibrating tones and reverb-drenched voices still hovering overhead before fading out to sounds of distorted radio signals and sine waves.

From there each subsequent song on Don’t Wait for Nothing explore a new direction or two. One of these directions is the "potential pop crossover hit" and there would seem to be at least a couple on the album–like "Now" with it’s singalong refrain and motivational message and steady build to a big finish–but always with a quirky touch or two to keep it more on the alternative side of things. Mars’s new single released on Friday ("The End") continues down this path of pop music with frayed edges–evoking Brian Eno one moment and Republica the next, with the listener exhorted to "exit your mind". And with all this talk of ends and exits, here’s to new beginnings because I’ll bet Mars Rodriguez has some more interesting ideas in store. (Jason Lee)

Here at Deli Enterprises Inc. we don’t cover nearly enough of the freak folk. And so to make amends we present the debut single out today by Anastasia Coope called “Norma Ray.”

Or not. Because there’s really no obvious label to apply to this music (plus who am I to gauge the level of freakiness?) which is an encouraging thing to say about any new artist. About the best way I can come up to describe the sound of “Norma Ray” is to say it’s like if Liz Phair went in a more experimental ambient post-rock direction early in her career (or later in her career). Or like if PJ Harvey made a psychedelic acoustic album produced by Brian Eno. Or like if Joanna Newsom hired Jane Birkin, Kate Bush, and Diamanda Galas as backing vocalists and gave them an echo box and told them to imitate a flock of seagulls. No, not the band, actual seagulls. Or like if…well, just listen to the song below and insert your own scenario because I don’t get paid by the musical simile sorry to say.

Anyway we have it straight from Anastasia herself that she “draws from influences such as Vashti Bunyan, Family Fodder, David Berman, Animal Collective, and early electronic composers in the vein of Daphne Oram” and that she’s also way into “Stereolab, the Everly Brothers, Steve Reich, Neu!, Pylon, Silver Jews, Spacemen 3, Faust, Broadcast, and many more” which means there is probably some more interesting music coming down the pike because that’s quite a list. (editors note: see the Purple Mountains/David Berman ((RIP)) cover version appended at the bottom of this entry)

Anastasia goes on to explain she “began writing music in a serious sense when quarantine began” and that she “continued this endeavor throughout my first year at Pratt Institute where I study painting.” Which points to some interesting parallels between some of Ms. Coope’s paintings with their oversized pointillistic portraiture (check out some of the paintings here) and the musical architecture of “Norma Ray” with its swarm of pinging echoes moving across the stereo spectrum like dots against an open-skied horizon created by faraway avian creatures in flight. And speaking of avian creatures in flight, I feel like this must be something like what bats hear when navigating by bio sonar aka “echolocation” and hey there’s a good name for this musical style or we could go with batcore instead. (did I say seagulls before well nevermind)

So, like, “Norma Ray” is a cool headphone listen for sure and it may even serve as good bio-sonar training for aspiring vampires. But the unorthodox vocal sounds are grounded by acoustic guitar backing and a small choir of overdubbed voices singing incantatory phrases in unison meaning this song could be used to ward off vampires and vampire bats too maybe. Quoting from Anastasia’s bandcamp page the combined effect is both “disruptive and whimsical” and that’s pretty dead-on, much like a tragicomic mime who experiences love and loss with a ragtag traveling circus or better yet a moonstruck Pierrot. And speaking of Pierrot Lunaire the seductive sonic disorientation of "Norma Ray" is mirrored in the song’s lyrics with its opening image of reflective surfaces (“maybe five screens will do what she wants them too”) a line that’s repeated and refracted through a new melodic contour followed by additional shards of impressionistic imagery and interior thoughts.

In conclusion, you can take your pick whether the song is more like a Kate Bush fever dream or a gaggle of vampire bats or a transitional Fellini movie or a ritual of mystical incantation or the musings of a moonstruck clown–or maybe if we’re judging by the title it’s an imagined dialogue between the nearly-titular labor activist and surrealist painter/photographer May Ray because why not. (editor’s note: remember, you don’t get paid per simile or metaphor) But whatever. The real takeaway is that Anastasia Coope paints a vivid, memorable picture in just under two minutes even if you can’t quite make out what the picture represents which is probably why I used/abused the word "like" eleven times in the text above. (Jason Lee)

Based on the music video below–presented here for the very first time anywhere, a DELI exclusive premiered in collaboration with our new DELI TV affiliate–the young men of Pan Arcadia give off a strong Meet Me In The Bathroom vibe. And bigger picture, this music video brings to mind New York City’s long and storied history of black-jacketed miscreants and misanthropes who are all still too lovable not to love like Lou Reed or the Ramones or the Strokes for example. So maybe it’s no coincidence that all the aforementioned artists also liked to hang out on NYC rooftops, especially with some beer and a pack of smokes handy.

And not only did they hang out on rooftops in their formative years but there’s a less noted but equally important shared trait between Lou Reed, the Ramones, the Strokes, et al. in that they were all also (or still are) great pop songwriters, at least when they wanted to be, with a proven track record for creating just the right mix of earworm melodies and lyrical phrases backed by musical textures and rhythms and bottom end (bass is the place) to produce an undeniable physical and mental frission in the listener even when, or especially when, joined with abrasive sounds and attitude.

So not to put too much pressure on the gentlemen of Pan Arcadia, but they seem to have a knack for joining these elements together in an appealing way too. Take the song "Drag It Out" for example, taken from their debut EP Weeks Ago that’s available on all and I mean all platforms, which does anything but drag itself out. In fact after the reverse fade-in it leaps straight into the main guitar hook (warning: this melody will get stuck in your head after a couple listens) played first with stripped down rhythm section backing and then with full on rawk energy before quickly bringing things down again along with some self-reflective lyrics and phased guitar chords in the background. But then things start ramping up again with some palm-muted guitar arpeggios moving into the pre-chorus where it’s declared "we can drink until the dawn" and I’m grateful for that and then launching into a full-throated chorus featuring the title phrase with backed by a Greek chorus from the other band members which then transitions into a brief guitar solo featuring a tasty opening lick and then back to another iteration of the whole enchilada and then the big ending which ends on an unexpected major chord. And all this in just over three minutes. Welcome to Songwriting 101.

"Drag It Out" is also a good example of the classic songwriting trick of combining downbeat sentiments with unbeat music and as revealed to the Deli by one of the band members from an undisclosed location (possibly the location pictured above, the rumored hideaway and work space of Pan Arcadia): "The song’s about wanting to extend something past its time: a night, relationship, human existence etc and dragging it out for drags sake–a feeling that was all around us last year stuck in a box with the world going to shite" and I couldn’t have said it better myself. Here’s another song off the EP.

In conclusion I recommend you keep an eye on these boys because they may be up to something. Like they were about a month ago when Pan Arcadia partnered with the Sweet Relief Musicians Fund to present two days of streaming live music featuring several dozen artists all to raise money and help Save the Scene. So, you see, underneath the black leather and the nice hair and the rooftop partying you just know these guys are cool like Fonzie in every sense and that they know how to write a song. (Jason Lee)

A couple years ago I got a chance to see Yeti: Giant of the 20th Century on the big screen—a film first released in 1977 to capitalize on the recent hit King Kong remake starring Jessica Lange—and boy I’m glad I did. An Italian film production shot in Canada and then poorly dubbed into English, Yeti: Got2C tells the familiar story of what happens when boy meets Yeti, grandfather of boy attempts to exploit Yeti as corporate mascot, sister of boy inadvertently seduces Yeti after brushing up against his gigantic nipple, gang of miscreants frame Yeti for murder and get the public to call for his head, Yeti gets fed up and ransacks Toronto, dog belonging to boy saves Yeti from gang of miscreants, boy and dog run across field towards each other in slow motion and meet in final ecstatic embrace. The End.

I’m sharing this absurd movie synopsis not only because the album discussed here also has “Yeti” in its name or because now I know you want to watch it immediately, but also because I bet that if El Michels Affair could go back in time that they would end up happy and well-compensated by writing soundtracks for movies just like this one–tho’ not only Yeti-sploitation movies of course but also Spaghetti Westerns and Italo giallo shockers and conspiracy thrillers and Kung-Fu/martial arts movies of course, plus writing music to go with whatever other movie genres and trends are popular at the drive-in at the time. And conversely I could see the 70s Italian Yeti entering the El Michels Affair universe because if you took the super funky opening theme song to Yeti: Giant of the 20th Century (called "Yeti" and credited to The Yetians, naturally) and slipped it onto an El Michels Affair album then I think I’d probably be none the wiser and you could even do that with some of the other music from the soundtrack too.

Likewise, if you took the cover image from the 1977 "Yeti" 45-rpm promotional vinyl single (thank you, Internet) which features our hulking hero positioned in such a way that he appears either to be dancing or to be squatting and about to take a Yeti sized dump (the weird almost sheepish expression I dunno) with the words “funky disco sound” superimposed over his hairy crotch (talk about potentially funky in more way than one) all set against the backdrop of a blue-tinted, badly blown-up photograph of the Yeti’s ancestral home on a rocky mountain somewhere, and then if you told me this was the cover image to the new EMA album I would totally believe you because the soundtrack song cover image fits so perfectly with the playful cut-and-paste aesthetic of EMA’s music plus it’s vaguely psychedelic feel (on this new album especially) and equally with EMA’s sly sense of humor and the pure kick-assitude of the band’s "funky disco sound," so that when you peep the real cover below it’s more than a little uncanny how there’s a blueish, cartoonish backdrop there too with yellow lettering and how the Yetis are both in a similarly off-center foregrounded position and how in both images it clearly looks like a man in a Yeti suit. The only major difference I see between the two record covers is that the Yeti in the EMA version has a kid in his arms and its the kid who is possibly dancing. 

Really and truly, I’m trying to avoid spreading conspiracy theories in this space about purported connections between this film and this album, but it’s not easy when you find so much overwhelming evidence and plus you know how people today love their conspiracies so maybe I should write a book or something.

And sure ok, the band’s namesake leader, arranger, producer and multi-instrumentalist Leon Michels has shared an origin story for the album’s title with another magazine that shall remain nameless and the story doesn’t involve Yeti: Giant of the 20th Century. Still, I’m not convinced, because who tells the truth in the pages of the Rolling Stone anyway? But even if Leon Michels isn’t a time-traveler in real life I can see why he would call his music "cinematic soul" because there’s such a kinship to my ears between the sounds on the album and some of the sounds I’ve heard not only in Italian film music but also in soundtracks from Bollywood and Nollywood and other global film industries making productions designed to be polyglot, and aimed at multi-lingual and multi-ethnic audiences. So perhaps no mistake that from around the late ’60s to maybe the early ’80s a good number of these soundtracks pointed the way to a nascent "world music" sensibliity based on globe-spanning eclecticism, but at the same time equally based on a bedrock of melodic hooks and funk grooves and tight arrangements.

And so thank goodness that El Michels Affair is out here in 2021 making cinematic soul soundtracks for these modern times, because I’m not really quite comfortable going back to the movies yet, and EMA’s music makes it easy to create movies in your head. Like on the 2020 release Adult Themes which–fair warning, be prepared to take its title literally–provides the listener with a series of sweeping, pulsing musical themes to an imaginary film of the sexy variety, probably quite similar to the movies that would run for months on end in Times Square until Deep Throat came along and got the mafia involved, that could provoke your mind to make some movies that will fully solve the mind-body paradox once and for all. But if that sounds too taxing then I’d recommendYeti Season instead, because to my ears it aspires to a more spiritually-inclined form of elevation that’s ideal for creating critical-hit Oscar-bait movies in your head. But just to be clear, the funk is still in effect on Yeti Season. It’s just a little more mellow overall and also the funk gets mixed to intriguing effect with everything from a stately overture played by Turkish-American qanun master Tamer Pinarbasi ("Fazed Out") to some exquisite and emotive singing by Piya Malik (Say She She) on four tracks to some strong doses of the Turkish psych pop and folk rock styles that served as one of the musical inspirations to the project according to Michels himself.

So in closing this all makes me think that fake soundtrack music should be more widespread today–not only for the benefit of movie-in-our-heads makers but also for composers because the fake soundtrack is a great concept to inspire stretching out and exploring new sounds and new creative pathways and who knows maybe new career opportunities too. For even if El Michels Affair has a lock on not-faking-the-funk on film right now, it can’t last forever. And when it ends, who will write disco funk anthems for future generations and for future sad-eyed Yetis if not you? (Jason Lee)

Stas THEE Boss kept impressively busy in 2020 by releasing two impressive EPs, guesting on the most recent single (“Mega Church”) by space-rap commanders Shabazz Palaces, and oh yeah moving from her native Seattle to Brooklyn. Pretty impressive for a year otherwise marked by pestilence, political and social turmoil, soy sauce challenges and toilet paper wars. 

As one half of the now defunct THEESatisfaction—whose legacy includes 2 LPs on Sub Pop and a truly slept on EP called Sandra Bollocks Black Baby—the rapper, producer, beatmaker, and Black Constellation collectivist has continued her explorations across a range of musical territories ranging from breakup albums to instrumental records, but never straying too far from her trademark futurist vibes and polysyllabic rhymes (well, not on the instrumental records) and sharp sense of humor. 

On her first EP of 2020, On the Quarner, Stas THEE Boss gifts the listener with a Miles Davis-referencing tone poem weaving together 12 miniature compositions into one seamless piece of music chock full of blissed out beats and head spinning bars and livestreaming memes and Liquid Swords samples and Earl Sweatshirt song quotations and unsolicited invitations to a blind date at the Cheesecake Factory, and on her second EP, recorded after moving to Brooklyn, the listener is presented with woozy psychedelic-soul grooves and seductive vocals, mostly sung rather than rapped as indicated by its exclamatory title, Sang Stasia! 

While you may expect all this activity to merit a day off come 2021, on New Years Day she posted a new single which I’m going to go ahead and declare the party jam of the year called “Pandemy Stimmy.” Rapping alongside Nappy Nina and over a pared down steel drum and drum machine beat Stas lays out her demands to the new administration: “Joe Biden better run the bag / the cabinet better be black” then goes on to advocate that they “abolish the prisons and feds” plus the “Nazis and Confederates” and who can argue with any of this. And also, who can say romance and politics don’t mix when Stas pulls off “politicking for bread [with] a poly bitch in my bed.”

Even now Stas THEE Boss is still out on the campaign trail—dropping a new track on Bandcamp just the week before last called “Pretty Boy in Spring Colors” which sounds to my ears ready made for On the Quarner 2 (hey, I can dream) and then earlier this week a new video appeared for one of the mini-compositions from Quarner itself called “Penny” featuring Stas as an astronaut floating in space (see video at top of page) or perhaps on a soundstage in St. Petersburg, Russia if its closing credits are on the level. So here’s to wishing Stas THEE Boss safe travels both to and from other spheres and a continued busy 2021 and welcome to Brooklyn… (Jason Lee)