As November comes and the frigid 65 degrees - Fahrenheit, sorry to my global Centigrade heads - tundra descends upon Los Angeles, the music from the year past begins to take on a deeper meaning. When did I hear it? What was I doing? How did it impact my mood/energy/enthusiasm? Who did I share it with, and how did they respond? Did I get to see the artist perform the work live? And if I didn’t, do I still want to? The end of the year always provides some clarity of distance from records that felt indelibly inked on my consciousness at the time but perhaps fell out of favor (cough couch Arcade Fire) or at least declined in listening frequency as the months passed. The deluge of music we have been gifted with this year pushed it further from my prefrontal cortex.

This week, give yourself over to some music that has continually percolated in 2022 and, in one case, is brand new but something I have been anticipating for the entire year.

Playlist links to Spotify and Apple Music down yonder after my weekly pontification.

1. Anish Kumar - Bollywood Super Hits! EP / Postcards EP

   For exceptional artists who did not produce a full LP, I often look at their body of work for the year in totality. As such, here we have two EPs from Anish Kumar, who has very quietly been amassing an audience and new music in 2022 after his massive single with Barry Can’t Swim last year, Blackpool Boulevard. Anish’s work pays direct homage to his heritage but is entirely accessible to anyhow who wants to get the fuck down on a dancefloor with tracks that range from funky openers to absolutely massive closers like Lata, which I can assure you will dominate techno club sets for the next year and then some.

2. Hypernatural - Hypernatural

   Do you like Cut Copy? Do you LOVE Cut Copy? Of course, you do; everyone loves Cut Copy, arguably the first and best indie dance hybrid crossover synth-pop band from Australia (deepest sympathies to Rufus Du Sol, but Cut Copy did it first and did it better). Hypernatural is a pared-down project by Dan Whitford of Cut Copy and his contemporaries in Aussie synth-ness, Mike Gamwell (Knightlife) and Mirko Vogel (Mirko). More atmospheric and transportive than most C/C stuff, it sounds like the dawn, just after sunrise, perhaps after you’ve been up all night.

3. Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs - When the Lights Go

   TEED has been nowhere and everywhere for a decade since his seminal video for Household Goods from his 2012 record, Trouble. He’s never stopped releasing music or even stopped releasing excellent music; his EP from 2021, The Distance, was excellent, for example. And anyone around LA knows that Orlando throws killer parties and is beloved by his contemporaries as a producer, singer, and selector. This is what makes his long-awaited follow-up LP When The Lights Go, a full ten years on from his first full-length, so refreshing and just front to back a complete work, produced within an inch of its life, and I mean that in the best way possible. TEED is on track from Grammy noms with this one. I have yet to meet someone who doesn’t love it, and I promise you will too.

4. Low Island - Life in Miniature

   I’ve been waiting for Low Island’s second record all year long. Their debut record last year, If You Could Have It All Again, was undercover, probably very close to my most listened-to record that came out in 2021, and something that I regularly sneak on for friends, just to watch their inevitable response of “Woah. What is this?”. Their second LP, Life In Miniature, out just today, is a bit more quietly emotive than their first but is a perfect compliment to their previous record. I expect further great things from this band, and happily so. They make me feel good. And sometimes music that makes you feel good is more than enough to make it truly outstanding.

   PS - Look at the caliber of electronic pioneers who support and remix their records to how bright their future is - Hello Ricardo Villalobos / Juan Mclean / Gerd Jansen.

Spotify

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7iAiL5kXfYSfvmfKupCJkk?si=b7ec36e7d317464c

Apple Music

https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/in-your-earballs/pl.u-yZyVWRmCzRr1vb

As November comes and the frigid 65 degrees - Fahrenheit, sorry to my global Centigrade heads - tundra descends upon Los Angeles, the music from the year past begins to take on a deeper meaning. When did I hear it? What was I doing? How did it impact my mood/energy/enthusiasm? Who did I share it with, and how did they respond? Did I get to see the artist perform the work live? And if I didn’t, do I still want to? The end of the year always provides some clarity of distance from records that felt indelibly inked on my consciousness at the time but perhaps fell out of favor (cough couch Arcade Fire) or at least declined in listening frequency as the months passed. The deluge of music we have been gifted with this year pushed it further from my prefrontal cortex.

This week, give yourself over to some music that has continually percolated in 2022 and, in one case, is brand new but something I have been anticipating for the entire year.

Playlist links to Spotify and Apple Music down yonder after my weekly pontification.

1. Anish Kumar - Bollywood Super Hits! EP / Postcards EP

   For exceptional artists who did not produce a full LP, I often look at their body of work for the year in totality. As such, here we have two EPs from Anish Kumar, who has very quietly been amassing an audience and new music in 2022 after his massive single with Barry Can’t Swim last year, Blackpool Boulevard. Anish’s work pays direct homage to his heritage but is entirely accessible to anyhow who wants to get the fuck down on a dancefloor with tracks that range from funky openers to absolutely massive closers like Lata, which I can assure you will dominate techno club sets for the next year and then some.

2. Hypernatural - Hypernatural

   Do you like Cut Copy? Do you LOVE Cut Copy? Of course, you do; everyone loves Cut Copy, arguably the first and best indie dance hybrid crossover synth-pop band from Australia (deepest sympathies to Rufus Du Sol, but Cut Copy did it first and did it better). Hypernatural is a pared-down project by Dan Whitford of Cut Copy and his contemporaries in Aussie synth-ness, Mike Gamwell (Knightlife) and Mirko Vogel (Mirko). More atmospheric and transportive than most C/C stuff, it sounds like the dawn, just after sunrise, perhaps after you’ve been up all night.

3. Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs - When the Lights Go

   TEED has been nowhere and everywhere for a decade since his seminal video for Household Goods from his 2012 record, Trouble. He’s never stopped releasing music or even stopped releasing excellent music; his EP from 2021, The Distance, was excellent, for example. And anyone around LA knows that Orlando throws killer parties and is beloved by his contemporaries as a producer, singer, and selector. This is what makes his long-awaited follow-up LP When The Lights Go, a full ten years on from his first full-length, so refreshing and just front to back a complete work, produced within an inch of its life, and I mean that in the best way possible. TEED is on track from Grammy noms with this one. I have yet to meet someone who doesn’t love it, and I promise you will too.

4. Low Island - Life in Miniature

   I’ve been waiting for Low Island’s second record all year long. Their debut record last year, If You Could Have It All Again, was undercover, probably very close to my most listened-to record that came out in 2021, and something that I regularly sneak on for friends, just to watch their inevitable response of “Woah. What is this?”. Their second LP, Life In Miniature, out just today, is a bit more quietly emotive than their first but is a perfect compliment to their previous record. I expect further great things from this band, and happily so. They make me feel good. And sometimes music that makes you feel good is more than enough to make it truly outstanding.

   PS - Look at the caliber of electronic pioneers who support and remix their records to how bright their future is - Hello Ricardo Villalobos / Juan Mclean / Gerd Jansen.

Spotify

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7iAiL5kXfYSfvmfKupCJkk?si=b7ec36e7d317464c

Apple Music

https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/in-your-earballs/pl.u-yZyVWRmCzRr1vb