45 RPM | 27 June 2024
Featuring Gold Panda, Burial, Moses Sumney, JPEGMAFIA and much, much more. Noisy. Even when it's quiet.
Makes a change from thumbing through old copies of Viz, I suppose.
That’s right, in the week in which Tasmania’s Museum of Old and New Art took to hanging Picassos in the women’s toilets, 45 RPM returns with 10 new Future Jazz tracks, that will leave you in a rêve and help you avoid a lengthy Blue Period. (Tazzie - as the Antipodean members of my readership will attest - is a region known for it’s progressive attitudes and took the action after a man complained about an experiment they conducted, which involved closing off certain areas of the exhibition to men to make them feel as excluded as women often are.)
So polish up on your history of the cubist artform as give you a quick run-down of what’s on the mixtape this week.
SIDE A
Shmaya Cohen: Mother Nature (War)
Guitar player Shmaya Cohen loves jazz so much he capitalises the whole word in his Spotify bio for apparently no reason. He does the same, though, with the words “INNER URGE”. So take from that what you will. I take from ‘Mother Nature (War)’ that he’s very good at the JAZZ, and that there is no way such a breezy track as this could be in any way about war. What my views are on Cohen’s INNER URGEs - I’m still not sure.Suedejazz Collective: Spinal Chord
What Suedejazz Collective do to my INNER URGEs, however, is entirely clear to me. Another multicultural many-headed beast from London’s Total Refreshment Centre scene, their track ‘Spinal Chord’ bounces with that venue’s apparently infectious energy.Yannis and the Yaw: Under the Strikes
No track has grown more on my this week than ‘Under the Strikes’. Fundamentally a meeting of legendary Afrobeat drummer Tony Allen and Foals frontman Yannis Philippakis, it combines the latter’s disarmingly softly-sung vocals with some discombobulatingly powerful horns, and the track goes on a real journey by its conclusion. The project wasn’t completed before Allen’s death in 2020 but what remains of it will be released under the title “Lagos Paris London” later in the year.What Are People For?: illusions
If you’ve ever wondered what Cypress Hill would have sounded like played on live instruments (not that shite they did with ‘Rock Superstar’, like, which was essentially a re-heated ‘Everybody Get Up’ by 5ive) this cover of DJ Muggs & Co’s mid 90s banger is here to help. What Are People For? describe their output as “dystopic dance music” and “dark provocative content” and ‘illusions’ certainly fits that bill.GIFT: Wish Me Away
This is the soundtrack to your next long-distance car journey in the sun. Like The Cure meets The War on Drugs, GIFT’s sound is as good for you as cures or drugs (the good-for-you kind) and just as addictive as the bad-for-you kind.
SIDE B
Gold Panda: Cool Bro
Look. Technically, the rule is that if you’re cool, you don’t need to tell anyone. And those who do, aren’t. You can take it from me. I would know. Because I’m extremely cool. And although rapper Infinite Livez breaks this rule on many, many occasions on ‘Cool Bro’ I’ll let him off simply because, when rapped over Essex producer Gold Panda’s (somewhat atypically funky) beats, frankly, anything becomes automatically cool.JPEGMAFIA: don’t rely on other men
Peggy’s latest fare is as dark and sinister (complete with ominous-sounding church bells) as anything he’s released previously. Where it ups the ante is with the inclusion of a Stadium Rock guitar line fresh off a Bon Jovi or Guns N’ Roses record for its second half. I’m looking forward to him growing a matching mullet for the live shows.Burial: Phoneglow
Burial rears it’s ugly head once more (by which I mean his music - not the guy himself. I happen to think he’s very dashing in that one image we’ve all seen of him.) But his music is bloody ugly. Usually. New single, ‘Phoneglow’ is somehow… fizzier, though. I’m not going to patronise you by saying it’s anything other than fucking dismal, but there is a certain light-heartedness, a somewhat playful edge to it. And, speaking personally, I enjoyed it more than anything I’ve liked of his since ‘Untrue.’Daniel Casimir: Balance
One of the definitions of ‘balance’ is moderation. For example a ‘balanced’ diet means nothing in excess (as the dietetics professionals in my readership will attest). Strange then, that in a song of the same name, bass player Daniel Casimir serves up a feast which is so gluttonous and rich, it’s practically a cardiac arrest waiting to happen.Moses Sumney: Vintage
He’s sexy bastard, isn’t he, Moses Sumney? He’s so sexy that I think, if you get home to find your wife listening to him on her own, you are within your rights to fast-track a divorce on grounds of cheating. She gets sweet FA. On ‘Vintage’ we hear the nu-soul smoothie talking about “low light”, “nectar sweet” and sniffin’ a paramour’s old knitwear. Kinky it may be, but it’s also very bloody good.
And on that note, I’m off to leave a few copies of Roger’s Profanisaurus around the Tassie MONA’s gallery spaces in case some men get bored at the lack of art on show to them, leaving you to enjoy this week’s collection…