It’s about 11pm, you’re alone, housesitting for your Dad’s very wealthy, very weird boss. He’s in the Hamptons, of course, weathering the Nor’easter currently beating down outside with martinis and toast points. The house is unfamiliar, but its massive breadth invites exploration. Outside, rain slams pavement, the wind howls and whips tree limbs into a thrashing dance macabre. Standing at one of its bay windows, you’re lost in thought, getting just a little satisfaction in the destructive wrath nature is taking on this gated suburban enclave.
You’re startled, just for a moment, when the landline telephone lights up. RING. RING. “That’s odd. They said no one calls that number.” You move to answer it, a hollow voice groans to greet you on the other hand. “I’m just… so… happy that you picked up. I just needed to know you were there.” *click*.
Unnerved and annoyed, you slam the receiver a little harder than you’d meant to, then scoop it right back up again to dial the police. The line is dead. What? How? You just answered…something. Minor panic starting to set in, you fish your cell phone out from your coat pocket and dial the local precinct, hoping to traceback that ominous call. “Nope. That’s impossible, ma’am”, comes a dismissive officer on the other end of the line. “The wind tore that phone line down, right in the middle of the North cemetery. Dispatch says the exposed wire landed on some poor bastard’s grave”. Before you have time to process any of this information, an insistent pounding at the door. It doesn’t last long. Must be the wind banging the screen door open and shut. You’re pretty sure you locked it.
You did. Doesn’t matter. The door crashes open easily; a second later, the sound of the hinges which exploded off the doorframe clank heavily against the hardwood. Bony feet shuffle with unnatural speed in your direction – before you have time to react, they’ll be upon you. “This isn’t even my house. Whatever issue this psycho has, it can’t be with me!” Too late. In your final moments, naked fear wraps ten frigid fingers around your heart, and you can’t help but wonder just what would have been if you had not answered…the night call.
—– END OF SHORT STORY: NIGHT CALL —-
As the fall season turns toward winter, I was grateful for about one full week that Sacramento was no longer in the 100-and-somethings, but it quickly gave way to a forlorn mood. Grey skies and cold weather strangle out the sun, leaving a weird, hollow, almost bereft feeling in its place. In that environment, all of the bad thoughts have more bite to them. All this to say I find myself tending back toward somber music that reflects my mood; fortunately, much of the most beautiful music in the world is born from melancholy, though I have to be careful not to wallow in it and just make everything worse. I think you’ll see both forces wrestling for control in this new mix.
We begin with Big Thief’s contemplative, campfire acoustic ballad Change, a track built around lead singer / writer Adrienne Lenke’s warm vocals, which can’t quite manage to hide the haunting emotion it evokes. Lyrically, it’s an excellent piece of poetry, braiding together themes of love and death, even framing the latter as an opportunity for something new rather than an ending, which I thought made it an appropriate opener for a Halloween mix. “Death / like a door / to a place / we’ve never been before”, muses Lenke.
Smino comes through next with the criminally smooth Avalanche; it’s a welcome return to form that plays to the St. Louis native’s strengths, harmonizing with reggie over a melodic beat, balancing heavier subject matter with a few jokes: “I met a dove out in Watts / think she openin’ up / she in her feelings / she want me to fill her fallopians up”. Afterward is a double feature from another returning playlist fave Tommy Genesis, hailing from her newest full length record, goldilocks x. The self proclaimed “fetish rapper” is known for hyper sexual bad-bitch bars, so it’s refreshing to see her get vulnerable on the lovesick-yet-defiant fuck u u know u can’t make me cry. Before you think she might be letting her audience any closer than an arm’s length, though, contrast that with the following club ready banger Manifesto, on which Tommy spits fire over a walloping beat from Charlie Heat, hissing: “you don’t really know me / I’mma keep it that way”.
Megan Thee Stallion, who announced a period of musical hibernation earlier this year, has dropped off a lengthy mixtape of loosies, freestyles and B-sides Something for Thee Hotties to celebrate her recent college graduation. It released on the day of this writing, so I haven’t been able to listen all the way through more than once, but on first blush it really doesn’t break any new ground for the H-Town Hottie. All of its beats come from frequent production partners LilJuMadeIt and Juicy J, as Megan finds increasingly creative ways to shit on haters and extoll the virtues of cunnilingus. That said, her formula, and this project, are still very solid, with Freakend being the most pure distillation of its overall thesis, sporting a woozy beat and memorably horny lyrics like “we been fuckin’ all weekend / I’m surviving off of your semen”.
Nardo Wick’s Who Want Smoke?? is one of the best posse cuts of the year, with an absolutely deadly tone and exceptional verses from a murderer’s row of today’s biggest rappers: Nardo, Lil Durk, G Herbo, AND 21 Savage. I couldn’t tell you how Nardo Wick, a person I have never heard of until this track, managed to make this collaboration happen, but I’m glad it did. The remix of Logic’s Perfect is a fun, fast paced banger that builds on the hyper flows of the original mix with yet another great guest feature from Lil Wayne in a year already full of them, who drops happily ridiculous lyrics like “I eat every pussy on earth / and still have room for dessert”.
Rising star BIA doesn’t need any features to hang with the best of them; CAN’T TOUCH THIS captures the infectious, turn up energy of WHOLE LOTTA MONEY, with a skeletal, trunk rattling beat (which heavily samples Kelis’ Milkshake) that allows her flow to get inside your bones. I hope I never run into BIA in public, because I just know she is gonna make fun of my clothes.
Next, Jesy Nelson and Nicki Minaj may be making headlines lately for all the wrong reasons, but there’s no denying that Boyz is a hit, incorporating late early 00’s club-rap sounds to create an addictive throwback hit. Nicki salutes her New York roots with multiple shouts out to Biggie, Diddy, and Mase, but I particularly enjoy her description of the dudes around her “actin’ real zesty”. To celebrate the triumphant arrival of her music to streaming services, Aaliyah’s Are You Feelin’ Me? plays next; recorded in the actual 00’s, you can really hear some shared DNA with the song that played just prior. Rounding out this section of the mix is Latto’s (f.k.a. Mullatto) Big Energy, a playful cut which heavily samples Mariah Carey’s Fantasy (must have been expensive) to create, in my opinion, her best song to date. Putting a button on this portion of the mix is Ride For You on which rap’s biggest dork, Meek Mill (who may or may not be a real person) finds easy chemistry with Kehlani. It’s a sexy, smooth highlight on an album which is decidedly mediocre, a real let down considering its cool Neo-cubist cover art.
Lana Del Rey is in an incredibly productive era of her career currently, as if helping to soundtrack the slow moving collapse of the modern world with the apocalyptic and often mythical songwriting she is known for. Blue Banisters is her second full length album of this year, and the superior one, with Dealer being a particular highlight. The track exudes a ragged, kind of weird energy as Lana bounces off of guest Miles Kane over a downtempo hip hop beat, raw vocals pitched up to a an actual scream. Playing next is Kevin Morby’s Campfire (one of the most gorgeous songs of this entire year, to this playlist maker) and then witchy rock-duet Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around. This two hander was shepherded into existence by legendary music producer (and co founder of Bears by Dre) Jimmy Iovine serving as the breakout hit for a then-unknown Tom Petty, who holds his own against Stevie Nicks’ iconic power vocals. This track helped prove she could succeed beyond Fleetwood Mac, and put Petty on the road to superstardom.
Another collaborative effort, Grade A, this time from JAWNY and Spill Tab, brings the energy back up, with heavy electric instrumentation, and what I can only describe as a (surprisingly strong) rap break courtesy of JAWNY about halfway through. I Don’t Want To Talk is another unlikely pop rock hit from the band fronted by Dylan Minnette, aka the kid from Thirteen Reasons Why (although it’s Halloween so I like to think of him as the kid from Don’t Breathe). They manage to arrange discarded sounds from the booming indie scene of 2006-ish and a sad-boy aesthetic (“I’m not alright / but I don’t need comfort”) into something very modern and extremely catchy. On the next song, Reason, a standout cut from new EP to hell with it, jungle drums beat relentlessly under PinkPantheress’ signature soft vocals. It stands out to me for its particularly morbid lyrics; speaking of this show just a moment ago, Hannah Baker may have needed thirteen reasons, but PP only needs five.
K.Flay’s Nothing Can Kill Us strikes me as appealingly immature in the same way, beginning with a relative stillness before exploding into a hyper pop chorus that’s more in line with her usual brand of head banging electronica. What could be more teenage than complaining about an old boyfriend while riding around in an old car, literally screaming the words “nothing can kill us”? Needless to say, the song goes very hard. Shifting down a bit, Hysterical Us is electro pop of a different kind, low key and fun, letting Magdalena Bay coast sweetly over a funky instrumental. The production provides a poetic foil to the lyrics’ paranoiac qualities: “Hysterical us / checking the locks again / remember when we could sleep?” N 2 Deep is another one of the better songs from Drake’s newest album; his verse is good, but what really makes the track is the mid-track psychedelic beat switch, after which Future effortlessly rides the instrumental, easily outclassing Drake on his own song. It’s actually the second time that happens on this record, as Future also carries the more radio friendly hit Way 2 Sexy (not included here).
Fetty Wap returns with single The Truth, having hardly lost a step during his time out of the public….eye? Sorry, bad pun. He’s one of the progenitors of the melodic trap sound that now dominates airwaves, so it’s good to see he can still hang with the newer generation. Young Thug’s newest album, Punk is stunningly mistitled; rather than the rock sounds that might imply, it’s formed around lovely singer-songwriter tracks like Contagious. Here, Thugger is at his most thoughtful, meditating over the way that the material results of his success can’t provide real contentedness the way that, say, spending some time with his little daughter do.
Rounding out the mix, Phoebe Bridgers rejoins forces with Noah Gundersen for a gorgeous ballad in Atlantis, whose title is reinforced by a watery, finger picked bassline that give the production a submerged quality. I love this kind of shit; the lyrics go from violent to despondent, alternating between poetry and prose, punctuated with moments of dark humor:
“It’s overdramatic / yeah, I know / somebody, cast me in a TV show
Where I play an addict / a drunken romantic / always reaching for another drink
But after a season / I get replaced / by some asshole with a better face”
Carly Rae Jepsen’s twinkling Comeback reappears to close the mix, a track which I firmly believe is one of the most beautiful songs recorded in the past decade. Jack Antonoff’s synthesized keys layer onto each other subtly under Carly’s dreamy lyrics, making for moody pop perfection.
🧟♂️🧛♀️ Resurrections Corner 🧛♂️🧟♀️
- Kevin Morby’s Campfire is basically three different songs braided together by a subtle instrumental undercurrent and Morby’s powerful voice, like a musical triptych. The middle passage (the female voice) was recorded by Waxahatchee’s Katie Crutchfield around an actual camp fire. The track is re-included here as a nod to Morby’s recent release of the Sundowner album demo sessions.
- I’ve already lavished praise on Carly Rae Jepsen’s Comeback, but there are very few people working artists who can construct pop music as art the way she can. Here, she reflects on a breakup and the way touring has led her to lose touch with some aspects of herself. It culminates with a poetic and mysterious verse as Carly invites the listener to “come baby / dance the night down on your knees / dance your heart down onto your sleeve”
🤔 😳 Questionable Lyrics Zone 🧐🤨
“Yeah you know I can’t sleep / blood and cum on my bedsheets” – Tommy Genesis, fuck u. That’s…quite an image.
“Fuckin’ you from Monday / all the way til Friday” – Meek Mill, Ride For You. Does that mean they take the weekends off? Let their junk rest?
“Got more with the heat / when I speak it put rappers to sleep” – A$AP Ferg, Perfect. I get what he’s trying to say but this just makes it sound like he’s boring
“Think my Draco gay (why?) / cuz it blow niggas” – Nardo Wick, Who Want Smoke?? Sigh. A Draco is an AK47 style pistol, so this is basically murder, but make it homophobic.
“Young kids smoke cigarettes / out on the avenue / sun’s going down / so you might as well have a few” – Kevin Morby, Campfire. How young are these kids exactly
👨💻 Stray Observations 📝
- This playlist’s cover art comes from the one sheet poster for 1985’s (excellent) vampire horror comedy Fright Night. The design here is unique and truly frightening, with the cloud-vampire-thing sporting a grotesque mandible (so many teeth!?) covered in inexplicable spirit creatures. Not sure what those are since this design never features in the movie, but as a part time Monsterologist I would hypothesize they are the enslaved souls of its victims.
- The idea in the short story is that the phone line wire broke and fell onto a grave in the cemetery. The contents of that grave were reanimated by the electricity, and came to obliterate our doomed protagonist.
- Megan Thee Stallion manages to work in several shouts out to sponsorship partners FashionNova and CashApp on her new tape, which creates a narrow divider between art and commercialism which very few artists can walk with integrity. This type of vertical integration of product and art is not new but it’s a trend I don’t wish to see continue.
- The album cover for Lana Del Rey’s Blue Banisters album shows her sitting against a BROWN banister. What da hell.
- I am working on a Weird Al style, grocery store themed version of Stop Dragging My Heart Around. It’s called Stop Dragging My CART Around, and it fucking sucks.
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