Loading Video…

Travi$ Scott feat. Future & Chainz – ‘3500’

Tayyab Amin: I’m into this but it has no business being the absolute odyssey that it is – couldn’t we just, you know, cut out the 2 Chainz verse and roll with it? Love the instrumental, I could count bars over the beat like sheep, as my mind drifts towards the cosmos through sonic star shimmers and asteroid belt drums. (7)

Son Raw: At least this is actual rap music and not a show tune/prog rock track/treatise on a complex social issue, but man, is it long. And unfortunately for Scott, he’s the least essential part of this beast. (5)

Brad Stabler: 2 Chainz kicks off his verse, the third in this seven minute behemoth, by saying his bathroom is the size of a swimming pool. That kind of hits the nail on the head: this is excessive as fuck. The reverb makes the beat sound like it’s been sitting at the bottom of a pool for three days, turning a potential late night jam into something totally flaccid. But the real offensive part is making Future downgrade his 2015 A game into a B- to match business-as-usual from Scott and 2 Chainz. If there’s a chance for a do-over, by all means, take it. (5)

Anupa Mistry: Travis Scott continues to doggedly forge ahead despite pervasive rumours that he’s an industry plant, his agro behaviour on stage at Summer Jam and the chicken-or-the-egg question of whether he’s jacking Kanye or vice versa. Literally none of this matters, because as Big Sean proves the industry churns on despite our petty internet bickering, and Travis $cott just christened summer La Flame Season with a 7-minute baroque-rap opus. 3500 is named for a $3,500 fur coat worn by young North West, which isn’t all that ridiculous if you think about the fact that the Western art canon is celebrated for paintings, music and writing deifying aristocracy. Production is a five-man job but I love Zaytoven’s rippling piano solo toward the end, and the fact that he and Metro Boomin slid a sample of their beat for Nicki Minaj’s ‘Want Some More’ in there. SWISH. (8)

6.3

DJ Koze – ‘XTC’

Anupa Mistry: Really nothing bad to say about this except that I wish I was high rn. (7)

Brad Stabler: Koze has always walked that razor’s edge between compelling deep house and just being too damn polite, and that’s the thing about the razor’s edge: you can only go so far before slipping. Thankfully Koze has always known when to pull back and recognize the difference between a cavernous set highlight and a car commercial, and this is by all rights a great slow burn and exercise in texture. Then that spoken word sample comes in, so on the nose it disrupts the build. Like I said, the razor’s edge. (6)

Tayyab Amin: Putting my hands together right now for the wizard that is DJ Koze. He’s got me into a state where I’m relating to the drug-induced existential crisis despite the fact that I have no grounds on which to relate, normally I wouldn’t connect at all. It’s incredible how seamlessly and subtly Koze can work sounds into and alongside each other, weaving together sheets of fresh air throughout the track’s extended opening. It’s hilarious how happy he is to work in the opposite direction too, throwing that cowbell in from nowhere, then essentially legitimising it with the cymbal work that follows. And by the time I’ve processed that, I’m already half-way through an 8+ minute track. I refuse to acknowledge that that’s anything less than magic. (8)

Son Raw:  “Many people are experimenting with the drug ecstasy”… so we’d better start recycling second summer of love tropes before the comedown hits and everyone realizes that they’ve been hugging sweaty people to bad music. (3)

6

Loading Video…

The Weeknd – ‘I Can’t Feel My Face’

Tayyab Amin: I never got round to the last record so I don’t quite know what happened over in Kiss Land exactly, but it’s brought him to the realms of MJ pastiche. In the meantime, he’s missed the Nile Rodgers resurgence and I feel like that ship’s sailed already. This song makes me want to listen to MJ, or Toro Y Moi, even Blood Orange. This song doesn’t make me want to listen to this song. (3)

Anupa Mistry: Who cares if he’s channeling Michael Jackson? Action Bronson built his off of sounding like Ghostface. This is the sound of the Weeknd shaking off the come down and getting his mind into an actual career. GWAN ABEL. (8)

Son Raw: Somehow this week’s picks have managed to make both mandy and cocaine sound like a chore. I’ll take the Michael Jackson hologram over this kind of third rate karaoke job. (4)

Brad Stabler: Unlike the last slog the lot of us sat through, this one at least has a nice groove and is actually developed beyond “cocaine sucks, don’t it” with bonus points added for catchy from start to finish. Notice how I’ve never said it’s entertaining, but a change in scenery is long overdue – maybe there’s hope yet for something more than making you want to immediately take a shower and sleep for a day. (6)

5.3

Fatima Yamaha – ‘What’s a Girl To Do?’

Tayyab Amin: The track itself is just, well, really nice! The textures, that melody, the room it has to breathe and its pace feel so right. A small moment of serenity siphoned from uncertainty in such a big, big world. Lauren Martin recently went in on the track’s resonance with the Glasgow crowd, ‘07 onwards, though the tune itself came out in ‘04. With DJs spinning it, the new reissue on top of 2012’s digital, plus Hudson Mohawke’s sample of it I think a whole lot more people are about to become familiar with it over the summer. It’s a nice testament to the longevity dance music can have – it hasn’t been resurrected by an advert, or a meme, or anything other than people’s renewed desire to listen and play the track. As someone that’s part of the latest (youngest) clubbing generation, that’s a really heartening thing. (9)

Anupa Mistry: I get that this is now a new classic and it moves, I agree, but sorry, why has a white man taken on a deliberately gendered and racialized alias like Fatima Yamaha? Just a question. Carry on with the dance. (7)

Son Raw: Obviously great, even if I’m not entirely certain what it is about this specific track that makes Glaswegian superstar DJs lose their shit. Personally I’m all about Plum Jelly’s bird chirps and chords. Either way, go grab a copy of the record. (8)

Brad Stabler: Take notes, Koze – this is how you groove and work an on the nose vocal sample to your advantage. So happy this is finally coming back out – can’t recommend it enough. (9)

8.3

Loading Video…

Jabu feat. chester giles – ‘Slow Hours’

Tayyab Amin: As sincere as this is, it’s also simply not wholly interesting. Sometimes it feels as if the lull is intentional, moments of deliberate déjà vu, whereas other times it’s a case of boredom on my part. Things pick up though, and it’s a special moment when the sampled singing drifts into the record. (5)

Brad Stabler: I’m all for a good sad bastard tune and more Jabu as the next guy, so if this doesn’t do it for you right away, just wait until it rains. Either that or embark on a Young Echo primer and swing back around come Christmas. (7)

Son Raw: I’m a certified Young Echo fan, but we need to set up an intervention to tell them that sticking mopey poetry on their beats is not the wave. It’s a shame because this takes an immediate and definite turn for the listenable when that neo-soul hook hits, but I’m not sure I can deal with MC Sulk-a-lot for another listen. (6)

Anupa Mistry: Dig Jabu’s sleepy crawl but I could do without the poetry, yeah? (6)

6

Wen – ‘She Giv’

Tayyab Amin: I wanted to talk about how through the Commotion EP, the Signals album and over to ‘She Giv’, Wen’s always worked with finesse – then I clocked that he even released a record entitled as such. The bass whooshes and padded drum strikes are on some videogame shifting platform puzzle Hogwarts stairs clicking into place type of tip – they daze, they’re to be marvelled at and they take finesse to navigate too. And the vocal sample is unshakable in that typically Wen way. (8)

Brad Stabler: Wen just keeps getting better and better since Signals. That should come as no surprise if you’ve been playing attention, his mixes have grown more focused, and each unreleased tune that’s trickled out has shown more command over how many ways there are to play with a simple chord and a bottomless bass line. But even by that measure, ‘She Giv’ caught me by surprise. Quite fond of this one. (8)

Son Raw: It wasn’t safe to use the d-word during Wen’s first ascent, but all the MC samples in the world can’t hide that his music ultimately has more in common with dubstep’s meditative vibe than Grime’s aggressiveness. She Giv might be his boldest step yet towards the hazy jazz usually associated with the Medi world, but that rhythm is pure Wen. One for the sunset sets. (8)

Anupa Mistry: The texture and pace of this programming is hypnotic and a little bit crazy-making, in a good way cos it also has so much soul. Please continue to feed it into my ears. (8)

8

Final scores:

Fatima Yamaha – ‘What’s a Girl To Do?’ (8.3)
Wen – ‘She Giv’ (8)
Travi$ Scott feat. Future & Chainz – ‘3500’ (6.3)
DJ Koze – ‘XTC’ (6)
Jabu feat. chester giles – ‘Slow Hours’ (6)
The Weeknd – ‘I Can’t Feel My Face (5.3)