LIGHTNING ROUND: May 29, 2020

Welcome to the LIGHTNING ROUND! The nation is on fire! This country sucks! Let’s not hide it anymore! God it’s exhausting to be conscious right now. Anyway, here’s some cool new music.

1. Bitch Fits – “Two Birds Stoned”

Bitch Fits’ new single, from their upcoming EP Invitation to Love, is about as righteous and explosive as we’ve heard the Seattle four-piece yet. It’s glorious. But “Two Birds Stoned” isn’t just a ”fuck-you”, it’s a “fuck-you” done gracefully, winding and twisting like it’s coming together on the spot. Frances Eichlan’s voice hits that same sweet spot as Al Menne and Frances Quinlan: the words come out like a waterfall, but each syllable is carefully released for maximum effect. Exciting as fuck.

2. Flatbush Zombies – “iamlegend”

The Brooklyn legends are out with a new song/video released yesterday, and both are done supremely well. Meechy Darko’s verse, which opens the track, is incendiary and is immediately the highlight of the entire thing. The video, a four-way split of surveillance footage, is captivating because of how tactfully your attention is expertly led around each screen. You see exactly what the trio wants you to see; that’s a music video done right.

3. Spirit of the Beehive – “The Door Is Open”

With every new release, Philly indie legends Spirit of the Beehive continue to somehow sound more confident, more accessible, AND more subversive. We already know where Zack Shwartz head is after [draag me], and similar to that project, “The Door Is Open” sounds like so many different styles at once: it’s dancey and spacey, with elements of lo-fi waviness, fractured production a la 100 Gecs, and, of course, the band’s signature psychedelia. 

4. Duende Libre – “N’gri (Wassoulou)”

Duende Libre’s 2018 record, Drift, may have caught the attention of local jazz enthusiasts, but many of its standard piano- and keyboard-led arrangements hungered a little for a stronger identity. The Seattle quintet’s newest song, comparatively, makes a huge impression from the get-go. “N’gri (Wassoulou)” is built off pure West African rhythm (soboninkun), but the samba percussion infuses the track with a Latin flavor. It’s a lovely, intriguing first glance at an upcoming album that will no doubt further define these Seattle jazz upstarts.

5. Moscow Apartment – “Halfway”

Brighid Fry and Pascale Padilla are a duo writing indie rock that sounds like a split between Snail Mail and Martin Courtney. It’s breezy, but it’s also unassumingly structured well, pretty great stuff. “Halfway” is the first single off of their upcoming EP, Better Daughter, and if this track is representative of their new worl it’s a sign of good things to come.

6. Protomartyr – “Michigan Hammers”

Everyone’s favorite growling politically-incensed post-hardcore band is back with a searing, Walkmen-like track and an uncomfortably relevant music video. The track itself is dynamite in a dark cave, starting at 10 and dipping in energy only a little. “Hammers,” for the uninformed, is slang for cops who feel their actions are always justified. Here, the focus is monomaniacally on the authories: the boys in blue, then the businesspeople, then the money and corrupted power that fuels it. The carnage that follows is only implied and always out of frame, which makes it all the more terrifying. It’s all made from stock footage which unfortunately cheapens the effect a little, and it’s hard not to cringe a little considering what’s happening in Minneapolis right now, but buried underneath it all is a righteous anti-cop sentiment that’s prototypical Protomartyr.

7. George Clanton & Nick Hexum – “Aurora Summer”

A pioneering vaporware artist and the lead singer of 311? That’s a May-December romance if I’ve ever seen one. I kid, but the pairing seems so unlikely that its that much of a surprise when it succeeds, as it does on this first single from the duo’s upcoming self-titled record. “Aurora Summer” is truth to words; it’s sublimely warm with a hint of nostalgia, and Nick Hexum’s voice works well in this context.

8. Big Floyd (George Floyd) & DJ Screw – Sittin On Top Of The World

And finally, a recently unearthed mix from George Floyd, the man who was unjustly murdered by Minnesota PD in cold daylight. Floyd was apparently friends with DJ Screw, the creator of the chopped-and-screwed technique; Chapter 318 of Screw’s legendary freestyle mixtape series is a whole collab between both men. Between Floyd’s flow and its screwed-down nature the track is pure H-town, and once upon a time it was a fun listen. Right now it’s so much more than that; considering Screw’s been dead for twenty years and Floyd’s death is painfully well-documented, the track is a haunting reminder of yet another couple of lives snuffed out under a broken system.

That’s all for the LIGHTNING ROUND this week! Go support these artists where you can! And if you want to help the protestors out in Minnesota, there’s a fund that started up that will help them post bail!