Tuxedo is New York before rap. It's cocaine and sequins. It's disco.
Tuxedo soundtracked closing weekend for me at Aspen. I played it through a bluetooth speaker paddle boarding with friends in NW Puerto Rico. If I'm ever partying on the deck of a yacht, Tuxedo will be playing in my heart if not through the sound system.
Warning: Prolonged exposure to Tuxedo may result in a growing a mustache and the acquisition of a white polyester suit.
Sick performance by @tuxedo at Webster Hall last night. #fuxwiththetux 🎸🕺🏻💃🏽
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I've got a soft spot for late 80's and early 90's R&B - think Bell Biv DeVoe, Tony! Toni! Toné!, Bobby Brown, Janet Jackson, Paul Abdul, etc. I'm taken back to grade school roller skating parties with 3' licorice ropes, hot dogs, and first crushes. I've gotten some weird looks when I put this on the speakers, looks that ask "are you serious or are you trolling me right now?"
I'm serious.
This affection is part of the reason I was immediately hooked the first time I heard NAO. She's got this incredibly unique voice and a striking delivery, but it's set against bright synths and punchy compressed drums that take me back to a day when I was rocking hammer pants.
I've seen NAO a couple of times and she absolutely lights up the stage. Few performers so obviously enjoy themselves as much as she does in front of a crowd. Add to this a very cool human story, and you have someone is tough not to love and root for.
I'm excited to see where she takes her music. Her first album was great but she obviously has a ton of creative horsepower and ambition. Hopefully I won't have to wait too long to find out. She just wrapped up her tour and is headed back into the studio.
With husky vocals, buttermilk keyboards, and a pillowy soft horn section, Júníus Meyvant mixes the folk sounds of The Fleet Foxes with the timeless feel-good sensibilities of Al Green. The result is an experience that is somehow both grand and understated, familiar yet faraway.
After years of listening to him on long flights, on the subway, and cliff-side drives through the harrowingly beautiful Red Mountain pass, I finally had the opportunity to see him at Rockwood Music Hall in April 2017 with my buddy, Terry. Live, Júníus is self-deprecating. He breaks up his set with sarcastic asides and a deadpan delivery. He’s tall, with a beard hides his mouth but somehow not his smile. He seems indifferent to either adoration or criticism. He's simply making music that feels good to him.
Good for: long drives, cooking, dancing in the living room, picnics, good days, bad days.
Finally got to see Junius Meyvant tonight, and got a photo opp. Amazing evening. 📷 @theterrynewman
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Music is getting weird again. There’s this genre bending happening that is making emerging artists tougher to categorize but so much better to listen to. It’s as if everyone is getting simultaneously inspired and frustrated by the status quo.
So when I say “weird again”, it begs the question, “weird compared with when?” While I have an unexpected (and delayed-onset) soft spot for early 2000’s mainstream hip hop, the reality is that 00's pop music is a soupy sameness of party songs backed by Neptunes-inspired beats. For all the thanks we owe Chingy, Lil John, and Ludacris for soundtracking nights at clubs and house parties, today the music only satisfies our nostalgia. There's no enduring creative statement.
Thankfully this "weird v. not weird" music pendulum swings back and forth. Unlike the early 00’s, the early to mid 90’s are noteworthy for music that pushed and even defied genre. I’m not talking about Nirvana here. Nirvana was great but they were of a sound. I’m talking about musicians like:
- Bad Brains
- Arrested Development
- The Pharcyde
- Sublime
- Beck
- Beastie Boys
- Tribe
- Fugees
- Outkast
- Rage Against the Machine
- Red Hot Chili Peppers
- Digable Planets
We look back on all of those artists in context they’re part of the canon. But they were weird at the time. Rap? Rock? Jam bands? Soul? Each one of them were blending genres and pushing things in directions we hadn’t seen previously. Each one of them changed and influenced the direction of popular music – some more than others but all of them making a mark.
Music is getting weird again. It’s been happening over the past few years, but it’s starting to feel like the gloves are off. The horse has left the barn. The genie is out of the bottle. The... ok nvm.
All of which bring us to the subject of this post: Los Angeles based duo, THEY. (That’s “they” all-caps with a period.) Comprising singer/rapper Drew Love and producer/rapper Dante Jones, THEY. describe their music as a mixture of trap, rap, rock, and R&B. While this could result in an overly-designed and eager to please sound, it's obvious when listening that this music is what felt honest to them rather than what felt “promising”. It has integrity. It just happens to be really fucking good.
I love the way the The Guardian put it in their write-up on THEY.:
"It would be tempting to declare them a big, bold culmination of the noirish rap and R&B that began with the release of Kanye West’s 808s and Heartbreak, was further developed by Drake and the Weeknd, and has more recently been advanced by Bryson Tiller, partynextdoor, Tory Lanez and Post Malone. But they’re not exactly that; they’re not quite that stylised or extreme. Their music is more atmospheric and meditative than abrasively emotional, although there are moments of quiet tension and calm fury that signal two young artists using the surface accoutrements of black music as well as the sounds and sensibility of rock to say something heartfelt and personal."
THEY. released their first album Nü Religion in February 2017. I caught them at SOBs in the West Village in late March with my friend Irene. I convinced her to come along (I had two tickets) even though she had no idea who they were. While the album is incredibly strong, they were somehow even better live. Drew is an incredible singer and both are true performers with a strong creative partnership that comes to life onstage. Most importantly, they're not afraid to be themselves. They're unselfconsciously embracing their inner weird and sharing it with all of us.
Listening to THEY. reminds me of the first time I heard ATliens. It was familiar yet unlike anything I’d heard before. It was also obviously the sound of what’s to come.
Highlights from their east coast tour below, including the show I attended in NYC.
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About 10 years ago there was this shift in music creation. Computers replaced the need for specialized recording hardware, synthesizers ran inside of your laptop, and low cost microphone manufacturers in China started producing microphones that were more than sufficient for the needs of most people. Anyone with a $40 keyboard, a half decent laptop, and a $200 microphone had everything they needed to make some serious music. Simultaneously, products built to support improvisation and live performance emerged, a software product called Ableton being a prime example of this.
This trend was developing for at least a decade prior - I was using software to record and produce music in the mid 90’s - but the costs came down and quality improved to create this tipping point in the mid to late 00’s. An entire generation grew up in this brave new world and the implications were massive. They could have any synth they wanted. They could lay down the bass, keys, drums, and synth tracks without the need to find bandmates. If they didn't play instruments, they could go onto YouTube for tutorials and then play themselves back over and over to accelerate their learning. It’s tough to understate the impact of this shift on the creativity and technical progress for this cohort of musicians and producers.
It’s from this generation that the affable Jack Garrett emerged. He’s a multi-instrumentalist producer, singer, performer, and songwriter. But what makes him so interesting is that he’s all of those things at once. When Jack takes the stage, it’s just him. He approaches a keyboard, drum pads, microphone, looping machine, and laptop. Oh, and guitar. He’s a ridiculous shredder on guitar. He keeps it strapped to his back like a rifle. When he lays down the drums and gets the keys looped, he’ll whip the guitar around and then take your already blown mind and blow it again.
Because Jack is a leader in producing innovative genre bending indie-pop, I think it's easy to miss the traditions in his music: blues, R&B, and jazz. If I was to zoom out, Jack is actually in the tradition of UK blue-eyed soul, but he has pushed the boundaries so far you have to listen close to really hear and internalize what is happening.
I’ve seen Jack three times. Twice at Le Poisson Rouge in the Village and once at Baby’s All Right in Williamsburg, where his parents were cheering him on from the small crowd. Shortly after the Williamsburg show his career took off - getting on the festival circuit in Europe and interviews on Beats 1 radio. I’m not sure when I’m going to see him again, but I’m certain it won’t be in a venue as intimate as Baby’s.
Make sure you at least watch from the 3:00 mark to the end. This is what Jack looks like when he's really going for it.
This song should make your head bob. It should make your face screw up and turn to the person listening next to you with a look that says, “this shit is nasty!” Because it is nasty.
The song doesn’t really start until about four bars in, with a whip-like snare drum establishing the back beat. The melody delicately hangs together, featuring an analog synth with a hint of portamento. This all combines to create a sense of whimsey and lightheartedness.
But it soon becomes unclear where this is going. The buoyant melody hits a minor key and becomes moodier, indicating this may not be the song we were expecting.
Then the opening line hits.
“I know, when it all began / You laid tracks that you don’t feel like going down.”
It’s these contrasts that make this song so interesting. It’s the delicate melody and percussion against dire warnings of self-destruction that border accusation. It's the evolution from whimsey to a fat, nasty, heavy-bottomed synth and layer upon layer of SOHNs insistent admonishments.
“If it feels dead wrong, then it probably is.”
Is your head bobbing yet? If not, turn it up.
This is such an interesting song, and different than many of SOHN’s other songs. His music is generally moody and danceable, or a moody slow drip that makes you want to crawl into a ball on your floor and rock back and forth with all your #feelings.
Still Waters is… reverent, almost hopeful. It reminds me of early Annie Lennox, 90’s Annie, even though I can’t put my finger on any particular song. It’s probably the contralto style in which he sings, also reminding me of Rhye/Milosh's vocal style.
Like Dead Wrong, Still Waters starts incredibly stripped down. Fundamentally it’s just a reverb-drenched horn that hits a single note, a hi hat that hits twice per measure, and what sounds like a cello to round out the bottom end. It’s not until SOHN’s pleas for strength build into a crescendo and his vocals overtake all of the sonic space available, that he finally offers us a kick drum and bass line.
I wouldn’t change a thing.
I missed SOHN in NYC on the tour for his last album, Tremors. I was thrilled to see him announce a show at Warsaw up in Greenpoint for his second tour, celebrating his second release, Rennen. Warsaw is a funny venue - it's a Polish community center and you're watching shows in what's essentially a school gymnasium. But everyone has beer, there are no seats, and the sound is amazing. So it's an... awesome gymnasium? All I know is I've loved every show I've seen there. There's really not a bad place to stand, the beer is cheap, the sound is on point.
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SOHN recently released his second album, Rennen, and is currently touring to celebrate it. Definitely get a ticket if he's coming to your town. Rennen has a distinctly different flavor than his first album Tremors, but both are great creative pieces and worth absorbing.