Track of the Day

This is our track of the day. Be sure to subscribe to The Best Songs of 2018 (So Far)for regular updates.What It IsThis is the new single from Anderson.Paak. The rise of Anderson.Paak is pretty much everything you’d want out of a rags-to-riches story in music. The guy is a preternaturally talented multi-instrumentalist/soul singer/rapper who has tons of credibility thanks to a co-sign from Dr. Dre. He also spent his early years on Stones Throw Records, one of the West Coast’s most respected underground labels, which endears him to all of us old school hip-hop nerds. If we had a daughter, we’d want Paak to whisk her off her feet and take her to live in his gold-plated funk/soul castle.What It Sounds LikeAfter releasing his breakthrough project, Malibu, Paak focused on touring and working with producer Knxwledge on their NxWorries project, which was decidedly more lo-fi and retro than his solo work. “‘Till It’s Over” feels more like the proper follow-up to Malibu. It has a polish that suits well with the track’s widescreen sonic pyrotechnics. Isolated vocal lines punctuate jittery EDM-esque builds and fluttering synth lines. Its all very pretty and ornate, but the track doesn’t lose the plot; there’s a warmth and intimacy that is pure Paak.

This is a track of the day. Be sure to subscribe to The Best Songs of 2018 (So Far)for regular updates.If Daniel Avery’s 2013 debut, Drone Logic, was a techno record that was frequently districtacted by the drone and twitch of experimental electronic, then his 2018 follow-up, Songs for Alpha, flips that equation. The songs feel like steely, minimalist sculptures -- chunks of audio constructed with dubby electronic flourishes and swooning synths envelop and at times overwhelm the beats’ more austere techno wiring. The entire album is great, but “Sensation” is an obvious standout for us. It feels utterly alien, with a vibe that is both barren and majestic, like the song a DJ would play at the sunrise of the apocalypse. If you want to explore the outer limits of techno in 2018, it’s a great place to start.

This is our track of the day. Be sure to subscribe to The Best Songs of 2018 (So Far)for regular updates.What It IsIn 2017, at the ripe age of 26, Tyler, The Creator seemed a bit artistically exhausted. His teen-savant Southpark-lite provocateur pose was becoming a drag, and his last album -- 2015’s Cherry Bomb -- was a pretty-much unlistenable hodgepodge of N.E.R.D. retreads. For a second, it seemed like he was best suited as a fashion magnette -- his clothing line Golf Wang was pretty fresh -- with a side career as a sub-Hannibal Buress sketch comedian. The 2017 Flower Boy changed that awfully fast. Full of uncluttered, delicate melodies and surprisingly mature emotional themes, the album was ambitious without being pretentious. If his earlier work was intentionally distancing, Flower Boy felt subtle and embracing. Kendrick Lamar’s DAMN may have been the most important hip-hop album of 2017, but Flower Boy was the most enjoyable, and surprising. “Okra” is his first song released since that album dropped.So, which version of Tyler shows up on Okra?This isn’t exactly the adolescent Tyler of old -- nothing here seems intentionally provocative, per se -- but this also feels like a bit of a retreat from his more emotionally nuanced persona of 2017. He talks a lot of shit. He tells critics to fuck off. He brags about his cars. There aren’t a lot of pretty melodies here.Is that a bad thing?Not really. The track bangs. Beneath a bed of churning, speaker-busting sub-bass, Tyler simply raps his ass off. It features some of the most dexterous flows of his careers, and it also pushes forward a couple of Tyler’s personal uber-narratives. He’s sexually fluid (he calls out Tim Chalamet from last year’s LGBT-friendly indie movie Call Me By Your Name). Odd Future is over (“Golf Be the Set/No More OF”). It feels more like a low-stakes victory lap than a big next step, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

This is a track of the day. Be sure to subscribe to The Best Songs of 2018 (So Far)for regular updates.There are an increasing number of second acts in indie rap. Little Brother’s Phonte recently returned with his strong new album No News is Good News, and Kool Keith reunited with Dan the Automator and Q-Bert for their thankfully batshit indie synth-hop opus Moosebumps: An Exploration Into Modern Day Horripilation. There’s also been plenty of chatter about Mos Def and Talib Kweli reuniting for a sophomore Blackstar album, produced by Madlib. Still, the return of Jean Grae is surprising. When indie rap was really popping in the late 90s and early 00s, she was always a bit of an outlier. To state the obvious, she was one of the few females in hip-hop’s boys club, and unlike her counterparts in mainstream hip-hop, she didn’t position herself of a hyper-stylized, endlessly sexualized ubermensch. She was emotionally neurotic, with a thematic palette and persona that was more straight-forward, more real. She was also a supremely technically gifted emcee; her bars stood up next to the rhymes-for-days, meat-and-potatoes emcees of that scene. But, despite this, she never achieved the success or acclaim she deserved.But it’s 2018 now. She’s changed and so have we. It’s seems a little aspirational to say that we as a culture are more inclusive and tolerant when Trump is president, but certainly there are pockets that have opened up to be more accepting of different voices, hip-hop among them. Grae is still doing Grae, but Everything’s Fine -- her recent collaboration with Detroit rapper/producer Quelle Chris -- is the most conceptually adventurous work she’s ever done. It’s also perhaps the most outward looking. Yes, she’s still wrestling with her own competing impulses and trying to reconcile her own conflicting internal narratives, but she’s also doing this in the context of the shitstorm that’s raging outside (Trump, police shooting, etc).“Gold Purple Orange” is an obvious standout track from the album. The beat has a droopy, loopy quality and sounds like the hip-hop equivalent of a giant, stoned sloth. It’s the perfect backdrop for Quelle Chris’ loose, punch-drunk flow and intoxicatingly ironic raps that examine racial and gender stereotypes: “Everybody black dick gotta be long...Every Jew, golden rule, gotta save bills...Every young nigga gotta deadbeat daddy.” His verse kicks off the song, and is a nice counterweight to Grae’s verse, which is both more structured and more personal. She’s the frizzy hair, bookworm” who’s an “immigrant children watchin Buckwheat late night” and listening to “Depeche Mode, Big Audio-o Dynamite.” This leads to an “identity crisis” and “coming later, vices.” It’ deeply autobiographical, and also pretty self-critical, but this is part of her process. Later, she’ll conclude that “With difficulty comes learnin” and “I aint got to be nothing for you but me.” Despite the new collaborators, focus and sonic veneer, this is archetypically Grae -- difficult, honest, and dope.

This is a track of the day. Be sure to subscribe to The Best Songs of 2018 (So Far)for regular updates.What It IsA meeting of the minds. On one side, afrofuturist chanteuse turned technicolor neu-glam enthusiast Janelle Monáe; on the other, Montreal retro-futurist, electro-wallflower-turned-pop-music-debutante Grimes. This is the second time they’ve collaborated (the first was on Grimes’ single “Venus Fly”), and is the second single from Monáe’s upcoming Dirty Computer album, which we’re hoping will evolve into an extended mash-up of Prince’s Dirty and Radiohead’s OK Computer.What It Sounds LikeLike the best bop from the radically queer future we’re all hoping for. Or maybe an anthropomorphic lullaby from our eventual alien masters, who’ve derived their knowledge of the human race by watching old David Bowie and Erykah Badu videos. Or maybe, more directly, like the maximalist experimental pop of Grimes’ last album Arts Angels crossed with the pan-sexual, slightly roboticized R&B that Monáe has been mining for most of her career.Playlists PlacementA “coming out” playlist for family or friends, perhaps. A road mix for space travel, maybe. The best tracks of 2018…definitely.

This is our track of the day. Be sure to subscribe to The Best Songs of 2018 (So Far)for regular updates."Opal - Four Tet Remix," Bicep What It IsConsidering that Belfast DJ duo Bicep took their name from the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie Pumping Iron, there music isn’t nearly as cheeky as you’d expect. The tracks bounce between Chicago house and Italo-disco and have a nice sheen that belies a mid-period Detroit influence. They’re also quite well known for their influential blog, Feel My Bicep, which is a destination site for fans of underground electronic music. What It Sounds LikeThe original “Opal,” from Bicep’s self-titled 2017 album, is a sludgy chunk of flangy, metallic synth sounds and downtempo drums that is surprisingly melodic for the duo. Four Tet doesn’t tinker too much with the formula. As is his wont, Four Tet adds whirring ambient textures and isolates the track’s melody, adding a layer of distortion that draws out the tracks blurry qualities. The track takes a minute to build, but, by the end, it’s vintage Four Tet: both transcendent and completely ephemeral. Suggested Playlist PlacementHedonist Hangover Music.

This is our track of the day. Be sure to subscribe to The Best Songs of 2018 (So Far)for regular updates.What It IsFor the past 20 years, Koze is the clown prince of German electronic music. First as a hip-hop DJ and then later as a outre house producer. He’s unique because he takes a lot of chances, and he does a lot of stuff that is formally interesting -- check out the clomping wood box on “Magical Boy” -- but his tracks feel less serious and more whimsical and fun. His previous album, 2013’s Amygdala -- is one of the most adventurous and approachable electronic albums of this decade, and his upcoming album, Knock Knock, is one of the more anticipated albums of this year. “Illumination” is the second single from the album.What It Sounds Like“Illuminations” is surprisingly straightforward. As where some of the producer’s other work felt as if it wandered into its own brilliance, this track feels more focused and immediate. The drums are forefronted and looped over the entirety of the track, and though there’s an occasional guitar line or synth swell, the basic structure never veers into abstraction. The track is build around the punchy vocals of Moloko frontwoman Róisín Murphy. Unlike other Koze tracks, “Illumination” is hard to imagine as an instrumental -- the production is great, but it largely services the vocals. It’s a little bit of a stretch to call this a banger, but it’s has enough of a pulse that it’s not difficult to imagine it lighting up certain dance floors.Suggested Playlist PlacementA “wake and bake” playlist for mornings when you never went to slept.

This is our track of the day. Be sure to subscribe to The Best Songs of 2018 (So Far)for regular updates.What It IsHot off their appearance on the the TDE-curated Black Panther Soundtrack, SOB X RBE (a merger of crews Strictly Only Brothers and Real Boi Entertainment) release their album Gangin. “Anti-Social” is the single, and it captures the crew’s Bay Area retro-rap vibe, and has gotten a decent amount of buzz both in the Bay and in the hipster blogsphere (Pitchfork named Gangin’ Best New Music).What It Sounds LikeClose your eyes and imagine you’re back in 1999, smoking a blunt in East Oakland, with Mary J. rippling out of a nearby car speaker and Mac Dre bumping from a from a nearby house party. You’re close now. DaBoii raspy voice flows nicely over the summary beat as he relays tales of “big glocks, long clips,” while Yhung T.O. offers shots at dick-riders and fake rappers. They ain’t saying much new here, but it sounds great.Playlists PlacementDo you have a playlist dedicated to smoking blunts? Go ahead and put this on there.

This is our track of the day. Be sure to subscribe to The Best Songs of 2018 (So Far)for regular updates.What It IsThundercat is a monster on the bass, and has collaborated with everyone from Kendrick Lamar to Flying Lotus. He’d always had trouble positioning himself as a solo artist -- his albums were more interesting than accessible -- but that changed last year with his Drunk release. Imagine Yacht Rock performed by goofy prog-funk-enthusiast extraterrestrials. Throw Kendrick, Michael McDonald, and Pharrell into that mix and you’ve got one hell of party. This track is taken from a recently released chopped-and-screwed version of the album, which essentially slowed down the tracks rhythms to approximate the sludgy, narcotic high of a codeine cough syrup. What It Sounds LikeMuch of the track’s visceral appeal is lost -- it effectively goes from a funk bop to a warbling slouch -- but the slowed down version has a pixelated quality that amplifies its more psychedelic qualities. The original is a certified classic, and it remains the definitive version, but this is definitely a nice addition/curio for Thundercat fans. Playlists PlacementThis is the perfect song for your playlist dedicated to lazy Sunday afternoons spent squirming around on the floor because you’re too high to answer the door for the pizza delivery guy. Add it to that playlist and then please see an addiction specialist.

This is our track of the day. Be sure to subscribe to The Best Songs of 2018 (So Far)for regular updates.What It IsEverything is Recorded is the solo project from XL Recordings head honcho Richard Russell. If you imagine yourself a connoisseur of hip sounds then you should already know XL Recordings. But, if you somehow missed that one, check the back of your M.I.A., Jamie XX, White Stripes, Thom Yorke, and The xx. Yeah, it’s a stack discography.What It Sounds LikeIt sounds like the Beach Boys and Pharrell Williams went on a summer picnic together and blasted dub reggae while Stevie Wonder served prosciutto and manchego. A track that appears on a label head’s vanity project, and features four guests, two of which (Kamasi Washington and Sampha) are certified buzzbin legends, is likely going to disappoint you. And while no one reinvents the wheel here, this shit is tasty. Playlists PlacementIf you find yourself on a picnic with Brian Wilson and Pharrell Williams, give us a call. We’d love to hang. Then slip this onto the playlist.