This edition, we bring you sultry and suspicious, promises to the self, grand narratives and dreamy ocean vibes.
Listen to the whole playlist right here:
Leon Prince – “Sexy Cami Set”
Working inside retro soul’s oldest playbook, where the story is just as important as the melody that tells it, this track about betrayal plays on a loop. What begins as a simple confession turns into something akin to detective work.
Creeping suspicions, unexpected visitors, doors opening slowly enough to change the meaning of an entire series of memories – it seems less like the story of a heartbreak and more like a mind reliving the same moment over and over again, searching for an explanation that can never be found. In the end, all that was left was hurt pride and a feeling that things could go in a different direction.
torched porsche – “stay young”
Every few bars, the beat roars and slows down with purpose, as if the track is stopping just long enough to convince you it’s still under control. Behind all this movement is a calm, low, deliberate voice that contrasts with the surrounding tempo.
Desire and nostalgia appear simultaneously, one receding while the other continues to expand – “Stay here forever/ perfectly perfect/ and now I’m wishing/ for your skin.” The track unexpectedly hits you with a few techno-like detours with xylophone lines, giving the song a burst of flavor just as it began to settle. It is delightfully refreshing.
C’batch – “Next Time (I Won’t Be Falling)”
The track begins with a sweep, like the sound of a heavy door opening in an empty room , followed by a dead snare drum beat. This is followed by a scene in which a man argues with himself. Insisting that he will never fall again because he has already lost control of his senses, like a bee going after honey – and that he is being controlled.
It is a well-known form, a wish made immediately after a burn, that most people know cannot be sustained. A pulsating mid-tempo groove built from spacious synths, carries faint echoes of old club beats buried beneath. The song straddles the line between resolution and breakdown, never committing to falling one way or the other.
Kelesha Martin – “Fly My Way”
Twenty years is a long time to sit with a song before releasing it into the world, but that’s precisely the path “Fly My Way” took. It was originally written under the name “Butterfly” early in Martin’s career before it was released.
Together with violinist Darcy Lynn Ford, cellist Peter Xiong, and co-producer B.Z. Lewis, the track’s arrangement has a cinematic feel to it that makes you feel as though you’re in front of the big screen, watching something grand unfold.
It’s best played with your eyes closed, with enough patience to allow two decades of editing to transform into something amazing.
Kiey – “phan thiet”
The song, which traces a coastal trip once taken with someone the narrator can’t quite let go of, moves like a dream you’re not ready to wake up from. The quiet fear beneath is only made more difficult to shake by the warmth and vividness of every memory.
Kiey’s voice has the same hazy quality throughout, blending R&B and indie-pop into something relaxed and unhurried. Here, grief develops with each little detail building into the next until it is hard to ignore.
This is a track that sticks with you more for what it makes you sit in silence with than for what it says explicitly.
