WIBLT: First of the Month!
What I've Been Listening To, 9/1/21
‘What I’ve Been Listening To’ is a bi-weekly series that highlights 8 projects, 1 song, and 1 video that have been on repeat for me. Be sure to follow the ‘What I’ve Been Listening To’ playlist that is always up to date with the eight standout tracks from all of these posts in 2021.
Listen up, listen up, listen up, it’s the first of the month!
Stardust - Butch Dawson
7 tracks, 17 minutes
Released: August 20th, 2021
From: Baltimore, MD
Genres: Hip-Hop/Rap
Recommended For Fans Of: Baby Keem, Jahmed
Butch Dawson is having a moment. After years growing in the Baltimore underground scene, he’s starting to reap the benefits with his first release on Asylum Records. Not only did he grow from the underground, but he helped it grow with him. Back in 2014, Dawson and his crew (Basement Rap) started a still running monthly Soundcloud mix called Basement Rap Radio. The mixes are inspired by radio stations in Grand Theft Auto and feature, “previously unheard tracks from artists throughout the Baltimore/DMV region as well as original comedic skits and commercials for products that don’t exist in real life.” That all gets done when he’s not modeling for brands like Converse and Telfar too. This EP is Dawson’s first project since he released his sophomore album Ollieworld in 2019 before accompanying JPEGMAFIA on tour. That album saw Dawson experimenting and blending rap with punk rock (like on the electrifying Trigger), while Stardust sees him fully realizing and flexing his rapping abilities. Notably the vocals sound more present than ever on this EP, putting his bars right in your face as the production dances behind him. The spirit and energy of his early Basement Rap days is still ever present, but the execution is much more polished. A seamless EP, Stardust is the perfect introduction to get you on the Butch Dawson bandwagon while there’s still room.
Standout Track: Get Money
My Favorite Star, and the Chapters of Her Ascension - baby.com
7 tracks, 21 minutes
Released: August 12th, 2021
From: Philadelphia, PA -> Los Angeles, CA
Genres: Pop, Dream Pop, Electronic
Recommended For Fans Of: Hannah Diamond, Dizzy Face
My Favorite Star, and the Chapters of Her Ascension is as transcendent a listen as the title implies. This follows up the three song EP Tick Tock released in 2019, and is her longest project to date. Baby.com’s vocals do have a child-like delivery to them at times, and it blends with production that sounds like sped up electronic lullabies. This project can make you feel like you’re floating, just like a chapter of her ascension. After listening to some tracks, it would probably surprise you to hear that she was raised on gospel and soul like Anthony Hamilton before gaining her own internet access at 14 (which has a more noticeable impact on her sound). The name ‘baby.com’ was a very spur of the moment decision when she first started making music, but she says it felt fitting, “I am very much a baby when I want to be, and everyone tells me I look 12.” That was when she first jumped into music as a DJ, and it’s clear from the production that she has roots in working a dance floor, but it’s also clear that she has a future as an artist.
Standout Track: irfmy
Do You Like Salt? - Brnda
10 tracks, 23 minutes
Released: August 20th, 2021
From: Washington, D.C.
Genres: Punk, Art Punk, Post-Punk, Indie
Recommended For Fans Of: Priests, Parquet Courts, Wombo
Brnda, the four piece band out of Washington DC, describes themselves as having two rules, “No covers, No love songs.” So what is this album about then? Well, salt. And avocados. And different shades of iguanas. And when you order a taco at a taco truck, but they get your order wrong. And the existentialism around all of those things. Finding both beauty and ugly in the mundane, brnda is always going to tell it to you like it is. The vocals are sometimes sung, sometimes spoken, but often snarkily coated with sarcasm. Here they’re delivered over tight drumming & basslines. At just 23 minutes over 10 songs, no song overstays its welcome. Each one arrives, packs a punch, then gets out of the way. Do You Like Salt? is the band’s third album, and their first full length release in six years. It’s a noisy and triumphant return. If you’re in D.C. don’t miss the release show at Comet Ping Pong on Sept. 10th with May Rio and Tosser.
Standout Track: Service Losers
ADGTH - Isaiah Flowers
10 tracks, 29 minutes
Released: August 20th, 2021
From: Mission, TX
Genres: Indie Rock, Indie Pop, Electronic
Recommended For Fans Of: Roy Blair, Jimi Somewhere
Isaiah Flowers’ ADGTH follows up the 2019 debut album Take Me Back that the budding artist released at the age of 19. It’s an abbreviation for ‘All Dogs Go To Heaven,’ likely so it doesn’t get confused with the recently released glaive album of the same name, even though Flowers has been working on this project for over two years. This album has the type of passion and energy that you can only reach being a talented kid from a small town with big dreams. It’s clear straight from pressing play that Flowers believes his music. And he has good reason to. The passion is infectious, I mean look at the energy he was able to inspire from a local listening party. It’s a project you’re likely going to want to start again as soon as you finish. Combining elements of indie rock, pop, hip-hop/electronic drumming, and sometimes hyper pop like vocal tunings, ADGTH stands in a league of its own.
Standout Track: Send it To The Ground
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You Online - Take Van
10 tracks, 26 minutes
Released: March 31st, 2021
From: Miami, FL -> Los Angeles, CA
Genres: Pop, R&B, Electronic, Lo-Fi
Recommended For Fans Of: PinkPanthress, Abra, Kilo Kish, (also if you liked the baby.com project from a few spots up)
Let this be a reminder that when your friends post a song to their IG story, it’s probably worth checking out (unless your friends have bad taste, in which case…sorry? but that’s your own fault). This is how I just got tuned into Take Van’s debut album from earlier this year, You Online. The name Take Van originates from her own name and the connection she wants her music to make. “Everyone calls me Van so it’s like take me with you. Take Van with you. If you connect with the music in any sort of way then that’s the whole idea behind that,” she told First Place Magazine. Van’s vocals seap into the spacey beats that create their own world within the project. In some ways if feels like a mesmerizing study on the identities we create for ourselves on the internet and the disconnect it can have with reality. The title track drips with infatuation over the internet image another person’s built for themselves, while the closer Live Online further explores the disconnect between life and the internet with the repeated lyrics
“Trust me, it isn’t just me”
“you will live on, you will live on”
All in all, it makes for an ethereal listening experience that you can’t miss.
Standout Track: You Online
Pleasure Pain - Grace Vonderkuhn
10 tracks, 42 minutes
Released: August 13th, 2021
From: Wilmington, DE
Genres: Rock, Alternative, Garage, Indie
Recommended For Fans Of: The White Stripes, Oceanator, Lande Hekt
I was first introduced to Grace Vonderkuhn running sound for a 2019 show in DC where she opened for Thin Lips. Since then I’ve been eagerly awaiting the followup to their debut album Reveries, and this month it arrived in the form of Pleasure Pain. The band is the brainchild of vocalist/guitarist/songwriter Grace Koon, with Dave McGrory on drums, and Brian Bartling on bass. This project is not short on heavy power chords and shredding guitar riffs, and it feels very garage in a way that’s sometimes reminiscent of early White Stripes albums. Regarding the album’s title and themes, Koon said in a press release that, “there is something so comforting in the idea of just ‘riding the waves of life.’ The album follows my path out of my own head and into self-awareness and objectivity. It’s about growing pains and identifying my patterns.” Sonically, these songs sometimes feel like waves, with many songs featuring a soft verse before a huge chorus comes crashing in.
Standout Track: Defeat
Selling Air - Benjamin Earl Turner
11 tracks, 32 minutes
Released: August 7th, 2021
From: Antioch, CA
Genres: Hip-Hop/Rap
Recommended For Fans Of: Saba, Bas, My Favorite Color
Selling Air is Benjamin Earl Turner’s first album since 2019, but he’s kept quite busy since then. In addition to a steady music career, he’s starring in the Starz series Blindspotting, a spin off of the 2018 movie of the same name that starred Daveed Diggs. Turner even wrote one of the show’s episodes. Capitalizing off the season one hype, he comes through here with his third album. I honestly used to mistake Turner for a Chicago rapper when I first discovered him, as he is also known for frequent collaborations with Chicago artists like Saba, Noname, and PIVOT Gang. But Turner is Bay Area through and through. As a result, his music is a unique spin on Chicago’s sound mixed with Bay Area rap and Turner’s own charisma. This makes for a versatile album, giving songs you can relax to, turn up to, and anything in-between (like the reggae tinged Luv2Luv).
Standout Track: Pop Out
Twin Plagues - Wednesday
12 tracks, 34 minutes
Released: August 13th, 2021
From: Asheville, NC
Genres: Rock, Indie, Shoegaze, Lo-Fi
Recommended For Fans Of: Snail Mail, Moontype, Another Michael
I first heard Wednesday on their lovely 2020 album I Was Trying To Describe You to Someone, and they’re already back with the follow up, Twin Plagues. The new album takes the direction, style, and tenderness of that 2020 debut, and turns up the volume. All the tender feelings that album explored remain, the packaging is just different. Twin Plagues’ pacing is somewhat lackadaisical, as the five-piece band drifts between softer, more melancholy moments before erupting into a wall of sound at other points. In this sense the sound owes a lot to 90s rockers like Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr., and My Bloody Valentine. As Stereogum eloquently put it, “with no shortage of ’90s throwbacks…if you’re channeling these influences, you’d better be throwing heat.” Needless to say, this is a hot record (would not be included in this post if it wasn’t, that’s the DBA guarantee). Wednesday thrives in the plain honesty of the lyrics by singer Karly Hartzman, who wrote all but two tracks. Fitting that, rather than other musicians, she names poet Richard Brautigan as an influence. Any given track could make you want to throw down in a mosh pit, or sit down and cry. Either way, you’re going to feel something.
Standout Track: Handsome Man
A Song
in the aeroplane over the sea - raegun
Hyperpop Neutral Milk Hotel cover, cause why not.
A Video
Track & Field (Feat. Kali) - Enchanting
Enchanting’s vocals have a, well, enchanting quality about them. Feels unique in almost a Pop Smoke kind of way.
Make sure you’re tapped in!