Free from the trappings of influencer-informed tastemaking, and instead from the ears of your friendly public radio station, it’s 3 Songs You Have To Hear! For conversations and recommendations about music the good old-fashioned way (from friends, neighbors, and curators you trust), you can always turn to us over here at Novaphonic, like you’re doing right now! (And thank you for doing that, as always). From sounds of the past refit to now, to things we can’t exactly explain vocally (more on that below), here’s your latest 3 Songs selections:
“Get Me Down” by Nia Archives & Jorja Smith
If you’ve hung around our local DJ scene for any length of time recently, you’ll know that jungle is alive and well once again. Enter Nia Archives, who’s been genre-blending with breakbeats as the skeleton for years, and also enter Jorja Smith, who further reinforces that intention on “Get Me Down” from Archives’ upcoming album, fittingly titled Emotional Junglist. The Nia Archives/Jorja Smith vocal duo floating effortlessly overtop the jittering, driving drum production is an opposites-attract match made in heaven, and a great track to pull for your next electronic DJ set perhaps.
“Portal To The Past” by Lily Seabird
Lily Seabird’s gearing up for her next album Lightspheres On Their Way (which you may have heard a vague gesturing at during her recent studio session here at WYSO), and she’s turning the volume back up from the more acoustically-focused Trash Mountain. Previous single “Election Day” was bracing and gritty, and her latest entry “Portal To The Past” takes that same texture to a more sprawling place (quite literally, the track just passes the seven minute mark). If you’re not already keeping tabs on Seabird (especially any fans of Lucinda Williams or Neil Young out there), now’s a perfect time to hop aboard as all signs point toward a great record dropping later this year.
“༼༭ຶཬɷԾㅍ◟ㅍ)აِّّْٕٔٓٓ ˓˚✧₊⁎❝᷀ົཽ*ೃ:(꒡͡ ❝᷀ົཽ ꉺლ༽:̸͎̟̯̂̓̌:̶̢͙͙͕̠̩͆(̷̮͍͚̫͚͂̍)̵̳̗̊( ̟̞̝̜̙̘̗̖҉̵̴̨̧̢̡̼̻̺̹̳̲̱̰̯̮̭̬̫̪̩̦̥̤̣̠҈͈͇͉͍͎͓͔͕͖͙͚͜͢͢͢͢͢͢͢͢͢͢͢͢͢͢ͅ l̡̡̡ ̡͌ Ɵʅ͡͡͡͡͡͡͡͡͡͡͡(̸̢̛̼̞̭͋ͅ)̸͚̰͛̔̾̀̿͒͂v̴̢͚͚͎ȯ̶̞̮͖̑̈́)̸̳̥̰̜̥̺̐ͅ)̴͎̜͍̱̋̌͋̓̾̚ ̷̨ ☼⃝◞⊖◟ ∷፨◉☼⃝◞⊖◟☼⃝ꉂꆭ(☼⃝❁)ᕗ ҉⃝ ʅ͡͡” by ⣎⡇ꉺლ༽இ•̛)ྀ◞ ༎ຶ ༽ৣৢ؞ৢ؞ؖ ꉺლ
Do not adjust your television set (or phone or laptop screen rather), the above text is in fact an unintelligible string of Wingdings potentially breaking your browser’s brain trying to decipher it. For things we can’t read aloud on the radio, we turn to text format! What I can tell you is that this is new music from producer (and eternal trickster) Four Tet, and that I have no idea what any of this says or means. (And according to anecdotes, if you try to load it into iTunes after downloading it, the program crashes immediately). Behind its clearly meddlesome exterior is classic Four Tet production, and I think that’s worth slogging through the wild walls of text this album creates on your screen (and critically, is findable on streaming platforms if you search “Four Tet”). Best of luck telling your friends about this one!
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