Just what the world needs; another exhaustive, self-aggrandizing end of year “best of”/”roundup” listicle for the masses to consume. Surely the media landscape is inundated with these comprehensive, competitive rank systems and schemes that attempt to convert the quality of international artistic works into quantified gatekeeping that are more pretentious, lazy and lousy than the pomp and circumstance of any awards programme administered by the various respective worldwide academies and outlets of discerning taste. Week in Pop proudly presents just a brief snapshot from some of our favorite releases (albums, EPs, singles, et al) that does not pretend to be complete or absolute by any means. 2022 saw artists step it up in major ways to release some of the wildest arts into the world that we have witnessed yet. As the 2020s prove to be some of the most challenging, bizarre, difficult and transformative eras that we have experienced in our lifetimes — this year reinvigorated us with a new sense of hope, a chance for a higher state of grace, happiness, humility and a vibrance that inspires and shines brighter than 10,000 suns. The future is yet unwritten and if the whirlwinds of this year are any indication — we are very much here for 2023. So without further ado we give to you:
Week in Pop’s Year in Pop: 2022
Ricky Lake, Altered (Text Me Records)
The rise of Ricky Lake; press photo courtesy of the artist / Text Me Records.
Emerging out of the harrowing throes and smoldering ashes of the global pandemic we have witnessed the dawning of pop polymath radical Ricky Lake. Featured on the pages of our media hub from local artist showcases to our debut of “Choka” — Ricky has traversed the North American trails from Los Angeles, to Southern Nashville before setting up shop in Oakland to find a creative home among contemporaries and friends from Taifa Nia (Same Girls, OCD), Steezxxz, TheMobsJEDi, Stoni, Studio Dad among the expansive Text Me team of genre defying creatives. Surrounded by some of the world’s greatest pop art luminaries, Ricky Lake shatters the conventions of style into a musical blender of sparks that lighten up a messy and cloudy planet. Ricky resists any semantic attempts of reductive containment, tackling the contemporary artistic conundrums of what aesthetics can be that draw from the textile canons of rhythms, blues, beats, rhymes, rhythms, life, trad poetics, fusing and synthesizing art into the double helix core of thesis / synthesis permutations into new terrain and new stratospheres of sensations and sentiments.
Linqua Franqa, Bellringer (Ernest Jenning Recording Co.)
Activist, artist, icon — Linqua Franca; photographed by Sean Dunn.
From the zeitgeist of the fever and fight rises the fearless genius and might of Linqua Franqa. A multi-hyphenate with talents more potent than the semantics of a polymath could ever describe; the Athens-Clarke County Commissioner, linguistics PhD candidate and grad school teaching assistant at the University of Georgia is the queer artist and activist the world desperately needs. Following on the heels of their lauded debut Model Minority (of which we had the pleasure of debuting back in 2018) — Mariah presents the next chapter with the alarm sounding call to consciousness and proactive arms with the release of Bellringer. One of the year’s most monumental albums, it is a necessary interruption from the pratfalls of apathetic complicity to awaken the masses to the systemic issues of reality that are all too self-evident.
Josh Stokes, Bobette (Internet & Weed)
Baltimore artist Josh Stokes bringing the big beat and so much more; press photo courtesy of the artist.
In the maternal tradition of infinite inspiration is the new Josh Stokes’ album Bobette, taking its name from Stokes’ mother who left the material world on December 20, 2006 but a spirit that lives on in perpetuity. Her lessons of creativity, imagination, individuality, self love and love for others shines on in one of Stokes’ most staggering works to date. Incorporating styles that span the world over and back again to the Baltimore beat — Bobette is a dedication to an inspirational figure whose influences live on in infamy; eternally. Bobette stands tall as a remarkable dedication to Josh Stokes' mother and greatest inspiration and shines as one of the most ambitious works in the Baltimore artist's catalogue.
Baseball Gregg, Pastimes (Z Tapes)
Presenting the crown princes of pop — Baseball Gregg’s Sam & Luca; photographed by Giacomo Manghi.
Developed over the course of the decade and borrowing its title from a James Joyce passage from Finnegans Wake [“Pastimes are past times.”] — Baseball Gregg have graciously blessed the whirlwind of 2022 with one of the year’s best albums with the indelible and beguiling maelstrom of holistic beauty that is Pastimes. Brought into full realization in Bologna by Italian wunderkind Luca Lovisetto and Stockton, California’s patron saint Sam Regan; the pair create a harmonious album curated by explorations of causality and the correlatives between the photo albums, diaries, picture books, old love letters, vintage social media posts and more from yesteryear and its curious relationship to the present and the premonitions that stand at the threshold of our mysterious grand tomorrow.
Zenizen, P.O.C. (Proof of Concept) (Topshelf Records)
Icon incarnate — Zenizen’s Opal Hoyt; press photo courtesy of the artist.
2022 is the year of Zenizen. The vision of NYC-based artist Opal Hoyt, the new album P.O.C. (Proof of Concept) is not only one of the year's most anticipated releases but a work of staggering genius that fans have awaited since the acclaimed debut Australia. The performer, producer, media boss, multi-hyphenate is your favorite's artist's favorite artist who has worked with everyone from Helado Negro, Suzi Analogue, Sadie Dupuis (Speedy Ortiz, Sad13) and countless more, readying her biggest creative statement to date. Opal’s new album is the most ambitious Zenizen outing yet that draws inspiration from her own life events from being adopted, living in Alaska, making moves to Australia, Las Vegas, Jamaica, DC, Vermont and so forth with New York serving as a home base (one of many). A creative polymath celebrated in the independent circuits and insider circles delivers their most sprawling and spectacular work with a style, attitude and ambition destined for the biggest and brightest lit main stages.
TOPS, Empty Seats (Musique Tops)
One of the world’s greatest bands — TOPS; photographed by Samuel F. Houston.
For over a decade, Montréal, Québec’s beloved TOPS have become an artistic intuition. A group that has lived up to all the hype and more, from word of mouth buzz among their fellow artists to gaining a worldwide following — the group of Jane Penny, David Carriere, Riley Fleck, and Marta Cikojevic have delivered an EP of universal healing and hope with the lauded Empty Seats via their own imprint Musique TOPS. Through an economy of five songs, the quartet paints portraits of our fractured world in all of its turbulent transitions. TOPS with their trademark sophisto-pop of grace and signature suave elements surveys the bad, the good, the anticipation, the hopes and prayers of our universe teetering on the brink of both perdition and a bountiful beauty beyond the measurement of standard metrics.
Total Slacker, ExtraLife (self-released)
DIY legend Tucker Rountree of Total Slacker; cover art from the album ExtraLife photographed by Lauren Underwood.
From cassette collaborations, the beloved Thrashin, Slip Away, Parallels and more — an artist that understands this degree of creative growth and geographical shifts is Tucker Rountree of legendary DIY pop institution Total Slacker. Moving back home to help out family, Tucker traded Brooklyn to work alongside his dad in Utah (his father a musician in the 70s/80s group The Western Reflections) where through the process of painting homes and soaking in the surrounding small towns inspired a new course of songwriting full of new heartfelt/heartland perspectives. On the new Total Slacker album ExtraLife; Rountree presents a new sound and style singing ballads about humble places and people that stand at threshold between antiquity and uncertainty. Tucker takes us to the main streets of everytown USA, extoling its rustic charm in the emotively tinged chords while observing the droughts and economic recessions and depressions that have left them in the dust. The record is dedicated to the pursuit of a much more meaningful existence and echelon of unrelenting grace. ExtraLife is about us. Our life in a muddled time, with infinite hope for a brighter path of better directions and unlimited possibilities of limitless beauty.
Fitting, Minutes (Research Chemical)
Sac town’s own Fitting; press photo courtesy of the artists.
The culmination of veteran independent pop talents Eli Wengrin, Greta Soos and Phil Barkel; Fitting gives us their debut EP Minutes courtesy of DIY imprint Research Chemical. The three piece explodes the minutiae of the moment, the temporality of time, forging the facets of fleeting seconds that make up the hours and measurements that comprise the days, nights, weeks, months and years that can fly by us faster than we can consciously acknowledge. Fitting makes music to find the meaning behind the otherwise menial, perfunctory and procedural actions of which we pay little to no mind that are a part of our day to day. Fitting gives the world something we can feel, embracing the shadow play and gestalt of all the moving parts that are acting and operating beneath the surface when we are just going through the motions.
Past Palms, Ambient Music For Watering Plants (self-released)
Past Palms’ Sam Friedman; photographed by Nuria Rius.
The prodigy artist’s latest work shines in a damn perfect union of ambient ASMR stems and opulent, electronic orchestration. NYC by way of Richmond, VA pop polymath Sam Friedman has found a way to somehow encapsulate the sensory field sound sample in the raw, articulating it's attributes into the consciousness opening rhythm cycle and spin of expertly applied electro touches. The opening movement of Ambient Music is the breathtaking "Meditation I: Palm" that is the fulfillment of the promise that all the witch house sales people never fully delivered. Think about the trill wave makers of hip hop and buzz band production fodder from back in the 2010s, envisioning another green world where Past Palms presents a new legacy in the electro-ambient canon. Sam demonstrates a methodical approach to atmosphere expanding mixing and sequencing that has long been in the works. Following intuitively along the path from the self-titled, Vernal, When the Sun Reaches Its Highest Point in the Sky, Senescence and Empyrean — we arrive at the lush landscapes of the beauty beholding majesty of Ambient Music for Watering Plants. Friedman invites the listening audience to venture deeper into the greenhouse of growing wonders.
Van Chamberlain, In the Sun (Very Jazzed)
The Van Chamberlain brothers; press photo courtesy of Kevin W. Condon.
Brooklyn based brotherly duo Van Chamberlain lean into existential meditations on their new album In the Sun via the chic cult boutique imprint Very Jazzed. Van and Jacob cut their teeth touring in Eternal Drag, Phantom Buffalo, following up their 2019 demo “L.Y.” (known as “Light Years” on the new album) with their full length debut delayed, like everything else in the world, by the global pandemic. Hunkering down in the Williamsburg studio Strange Weather with engineer/producer Garret de Block; Van Chamberlain creatively crystalize that curious liminal place where the past and present meet like intercepts and plots on a graph of grand vision. The concepts of heart and honest reflection are expressed through a robust sound that resonates like the eternal California sun met by the endless winters of New York.
Young Prisms, Drifter (Fire Talk Records)
SF’s own legendary dream gazers Young Prisms; photographed by Jared Silbert.
We here at Week in Pop have long felt a romantic kinship with Young Prisms. From our San Francisco-based connection, having both shared nascent beginnings among media hubs of our familiar, boutique imprints and mutually adored aesthetes of notoriety — they have always remained a group of great importance in our Bay Area offices. And today the band of Stefanie Hodapp, Matthew Allen, Giovanni Betteo and Jordan Silbert return with the following insightful curation and their brand new album Drifter; released through the fellow DIY institution Fire Talk Records and produced by fellow vision beach breaker Shaun Durkan (Weekend, Soft Kill).
Guerilla Toss, Famously Alive (Sub Pop)
Royal hyperpop majesties — Guerilla Toss; photographed by Ebru Yildiz.
Guerilla Toss are on another level. A different playing field. A different stratosphere. A different dimension and yet are very much an integral part of our shared universe. As the prestigious and lauded group signs to Sub Pop with the blazing glory of Famously Alive; we boldly embark upon the latest chapter from one of the world's most fascinating hyperpop art nouveau phenomenons. Pop writers, critics, editors and fans alike continue to trip over themselves in attempts to describe and pigeonhole, exhausting their lexicon in valiant efforts to describe the group’s style and sound that refuses to take the shape of any convenient (or conventional) descriptive signifier. While we here at Week in Pop have continued to chronicle one of the most beloved and beguiling aesthetic entities over the past decade, we stand in appreciation of Kassie Carlson, Peter Negroponte, Arian Shafiee and their dedicated commitment to maximalist experimentation and artistic excellence.
Death Parade, It Was Worth It to Love, Though It Hurt So Bad (Halfshell Records)
PDX proponents of goth pop nouveau — Death Parade; photographed by Sam Gherke.
Returning to the lush, raincloud corner of the pacific northwest marches the passionate, maudlin and mesmerizing pop act Death Parade. Lead by Laura Hopkins of Blackwater Holylight, the group [formerly known as Laura Palmer's Death Parade] takes you deep into the woods of a moonless night toward a transportive zone of reckoning with shadows and mirror visage representations and tulpa semblances of the self and the soul. Alongside the talents of Eirinn Lou Riggs, Danny Metcalfe and Robert Grubaugh; Hopkins and company present their ambitious new album It Was Worth It To Love, Though it Hurt So Bad courtesy of Halfshell Records that revels, rocks and roars in songs of triumph, songs of tribulation, songs of trepidation and songs of ecstatic heights. The album pulls back the red curtains from the stage to reveal poignant portraits of pain, testaments to the darkened corridors, twisted hallways and lost highways of candid tales normally reserved for esoteric folklore and nocturnal confessionals shared beneath a coal black sky like a lacy shrouded veil.
Maita, I Just Want to Be Wild For You (Kill Rock Stars)
PNW pop orchestrated by MAITA; photographed by Tristan Paiige.
Presenting a reflective work of nostalgic affinities, Portland pop phenoms MAITA, lead by Maria Maita-Keppeler along with Matthew Zeltzer, Nevada Sowle and Cooper Trail are one of the PNW's most important and exciting groups as of late. From a trajectory spanning pastoral operas and psalms from Waterbearer, the sharp rocking debut album Best Wishes, various covers, to the advent of the new album I Just Want To Be Wild For You; MAITA deconstructs the old worlds we once knew, the worlds we currently know in anticipatory hopes and praise for all that still can be.
VRITRA, VOID (BTM Records / Mint Songs)
The volition of VRITRA, aka Hal Donell Williams Jr.
You already know the portfolio and prestige. From the legendary Atlanta collective NRK (Nobody Really Knows), The Jet Age of Tomorrow, Odd Future, Pyramid Vritra and now just VRITRA — the multidisciplinary shaman pop prodigy Hal Williams delves into the bewitched fun house frequencies in the dizzying dimensions of VOID. A delicately and diligently designed media event is self described as an ‘exploration into fan/artist connection & access to an experience beyond listening / streaming a track.” Inviting audience interaction with access to the stems and other elements, Williams and the world are invited to mine an astral realm of ethereal, lavish experiments that oscillate between elegance and experimental abandon.
Annika Zee, Bleu ( Absurd TRAX / Vain Mina)
Designing the future of pop fashions and more — Annika Zee; photographed by Anika Larsen.
Returning with the follow-up to 2019's conceptual craft of majesty Factory Pageant is NYC by way of Toronto pop art designer of future musical fashions Annika Zee with the new album Blue. A joint release by Absurd TRAX with Vain Mina Records, the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music alum continues to challenge the tropes of style and concept of superstar with an azure saturated statement of unrelenting autonomy. Akin to fellow contemporaries Agua Viva, Zenizen to Luxe / S the Supplicant conceptual provocateur Sally Horowitz; Zee works in the new emergent art spaces that redefines how we see, hear and experience aesthetics. Redefining what it means to be an artist. Breaking the antiquated and obsolete pantheon pillars of preconceived cultural prejudices and gender biases, Annika elevates art and authorship to new enlightened levels and heightened hues of colors that have yet to be assigned with a name or corresponding signifier. Picking up where Factory Pageant left off; Annika Zee once again pushes past the tired shows of pageantry and mechanical motions to paint on new canvases from new palettes to embody the presence of a new kind of iconoclast for a new era of new discoveries.
[also check out Annika Zee’s latter 2022 releases A Faith Made of Silk & LOST DEMOS 2021-2022]
Maggie Gently, Peppermint (Refresh Records)
The suave, sincere and art savvy styles of Maggie Gently; photographed by Amayah Harrison.
Maggie Gently has been generating some buzz here at home in the Bay Area and far beyond for good reasons. A queer artist that is very much involved in her local/global communities, Gently has been making modern pop meditation cycles styled as sincere vignettes crafted with a pointed velocity and sharp volition. Maggie's art concerns the journey of reconnecting us to our selves, displaying the otherwise inner monologues and psychic dialogues as odes to loving our own interpersonal idiosyncrasies. Following up the 2020 debut Good Cry with Peppermint via Refresh Records, the San Francisco-based tunesmith presents a desperately needed creative panacea for our turbulent times. Enlisting fellow local luminaries Pllush and The She’s own Eva Treadway, Sinclair Riley and Maggie's brother Joey Grabmeier; Peppermint offers assuaging anthems of love, care and a profound concern for others, ourselves, with a deep empathy for the human experience along the mercurial plane of existence.
R. E. Seraphin, Swingshift (self-released)
Cult pop icon Ray Seraphin; press photo courtesy of the artist.
It has been postulated that Bay Area artists experience the world differently. From well read understandings of record store savoir faire, the modern and new contemporary canons and other respective troves of influential knowledge and limitless talents; these aesthetes conduct crafts guided by the enchanted breeze of the Pacific offshore winds to create musical paintings of unrelenting splendor. Beholden to this time honored tradition rises the solo works of Vallejo-based beloved cult pop wonder R. E. Seraphin with the release of the Swingshift EP. The latest offering from the former Talkies bandleader distills your favorite power pop phenomena into a DIY blender, riding high into a new stratosphere of new-new romantic revelry and grace unbound.
Joel Jerome, Super Flower Blood Moon (Dangerbird Records)
The prolific Joel Jerome; photographed by Julia Brokaw.
The back to basics approach often yields some of the most raw and realized work from a multidisciplined artist. For LA polymath Joel Jerome, their new album Super Flower Blood Moon for Dangerbird Records was assembled from a rudimentary ritual of recording phone voice memos, organized by way of a four-track application. Having worked with Cherry Glazerr, La Sera, LA Witch, Dios (Malos) and more over the years; Jerome shines a light on stripped down songs from the soul, further aided by atmospheric production touches supplied by Rob Schnapf. Famous for the home studio dubbed the Psychedelic Thriftstore; Joel Jerome leads the audience to lush pastorals of the spirit that lay between the rolling metropolitan valleys and hills and the seemingly infinite spaces of the galaxies.
Loco Tranquilo, “Summer Rain” (Text Me Records)
Love, light and Loco Tranquilo, aka Julián Gervasi; press photo courtesy of the artist.
“Summer Rain” basks in the mesmerizing glow of how wonderful our reality can be (while opening the door to new realities of grandeur and bliss that you never thought were even possible). Loco Tranquilo has blessed the world with one of the most gorgeous songs to commemorate the summer of 2022. Otherwise known as Julián Gervasi, the song is a collaboration with Mackenzie Bunch that was developed during the lockdown days of quarantine that accentuates the inherent bliss that exists in the here and now of life. A song that embraces healing and a degree of self-actualization that our world desperately needs now, more than ever before. The sun-kissed, morning dew christened anthem to inspire new degrees of carpe diem and higher levels of learning and loving has valiantly arrived (and not a moment later or sooner).
Sleap-e, Pouty Lips (WWNBB Collective)
The arts of Asia Martina Morabito, aka Sleap-E; photographed by Maicol Guidetti.
Sometimes a certain stylized bouquet of sounds can sweep you away to new places, rich with feeling and collage boards of thought. Such is the art house fashion chic of Pouty Lips — the new album from Sleap-e, aka Asia Martina Morabito of the illustrious Italy by way of the Bay Area WWNBB Collective (We Were Never Being Boring). Having been over two years in development with instrumental assists from Luca Gruppioni, Francesco Bonora, Natan Dall'Aglio, Jacobopo Finelli and other assorted members from Baseball Gregg; Pouty Lips is a record that exists in a Euro café or thrift store boutique of its own. Asia expresses brass inflected exhibitions of emotively charged observations, idea fragments and other miscellaneous short stories that are sung in motions that mist like the steam from a ristretto shot of espresso or the fog from a lit cigarette ember.
Lissie, Carving Canyons (Lionboy Records)
Modern pop legend Lissie; photographed by Lili Peper.
Over the course of the past decade, Lissie has valiantly risen to the illustrious heightened prominence as one of the singular spirits of the mystic North American heartland. From the quilted farmlands, valleys and fields of the Midwest; the Iowan homestead-chic artist makes triumphant hymns that survey our whole wide world as a vast stretch of farms, peaks, rivers, ranches, townships, forests and friendly cities. An organic, ethereal, earnest and commanding presence like a Stevie Nicks-esque bohemian raised on the range — the art of Lissie’s work is in the keen ability to transform the hectic world that we know into a quaint global village surrounded by the roaring splendor of the natural realm. A delivery that awakens the weary and dormant sprite from within and strums the electric chords and strings of the heart, Lissie’s songs make a lonely roadhouse dive sound like a magnificent amphitheater or a Royal Albert Hall sound like a humble wooded cantina outpost in the middle of Nowheresville, USA. Continuing in this tradition is the new album of conflicts, care, quandaries and catharsis titled Carving Canyons. A record developed in Nashville with fellow femme luminaries such as Sarah Buxton, Madi Diaz, Natalie Hemby, Bre Kennedy, Morgan Nagler, Kate York and production by Curt Schneider; Lissie delivers a rugged, raw and righteous epic of love, loss, healing and the limitless prowess of perseverance.
Wild Arrows, Loving the Void (self-released)
Communing in nature with Mike Law of Wild Arrows; photographed by Lindsey Law.
Wild Arrows unleashed an apparition of amour with “Here’s the Ghost” from the album Loving the Void. Lead by Mike Law of EULCID and New Idea Society, the NYC-based artist works under a thesis to make some of the most incredible art never before attempted. While elements might strike notions of familiarity of previous movements and anachronistic aesthetes and such, Law alongside assists from Stephen Brodsky (Cave In) and Alan Cage (Quicksand), Gary Atturio, Grady Walker and Nick Krill collaborate together to create the tones, note sequences and progressions that have never before been heard, felt or experienced before. Far from the futile task of a re-inventing the wheel, Wild Arrows takes aim at the arrangement of moods, textures and tonal landscapes that the world has never before witnessed.
Jennifer Hall, “Belonging Forever” (self-released)
Chicago’s own star Jennifer Hall; photographed by Matthew Gregory Hollis.
Chicago artist Jennifer Hall focuses on the infinite healing powers and properties of art in the face of all obstacles. Having recently graced these pages with the debut of “Why Cut Time” — Hall returns with a simmering synth studded symphony dedicated to the power of creativity and the mesmerizing properties of music with the premiere of “Belonging Forever”. The baggage of unbearable weights beset by the world’s overwhelming tilted whirl is countered with life affirming sung shouts that ring out and resonate to places beyond the material realms that we know all too well. Jennifer edifies the importance of the aesthetics and avenues that lead us toward the precipices of the eternal, stepping through the ineffable slipstreams of vision into new arenas and dimensions of the unknown and never before embarked upon.
Ecstatic International, self-titled (Sister Polygon)
DC’s own disruptors Ecstatic International; press photo courtesy of the band.
Introducing DC’s latest upstarts Ecstatic International, interrupting our regularly scheduled programming with something that is not a technocratic application nor a reproductive health supplement (as seen on tv and on the net, hawked by toxic wannabe demagogues). A group devoted to the radicalization of new riveting rhythms, G.L. Jaguar (Priests) Laura Harris (Ex Hex), Nikhil Rao, Anno (Olivia Neutron-John) and Jacky Cougar Abok (Des Demonas) have banded together under the self-styled banner of ‘radical optimism and energies sourced from Purple Music's outer reaches.’ Collectively EI blends the inner and outer tensions in a synthesis that takes on the conflicts and paradoxes that plague the mind, body, spirit, populous and other aspects of hive consciousness into a cathartic art form.
Katie Lass, Hypnopomp (HHBTM / Remove Records)
Detroit’s rising wonder Katie Lass; press photo courtesy of the artist.
Meet Detroit-based artist Katie Lass who has pressed some of your favorite records on wax and now steps into the spotlight with the debut album Hypnopomp for HHBTM / Remove Records. The gatekeepers of the world might lavish the breakout record with superlatives alluding to subversive artistic movements past, present and future, but what becomes abundantly clear on Hypnopomp is an ambitious approach to experimental world building. A fancy free dawning springs to form on "Can You Take Me Back", to the night riding shades of midnight of "Luster", rhythm collage experiments on "Hypnopompamus", the mesmerizing twinkle and shine of "Ctan6 - !", the echoing coastal balladry that comprises "Shadow on the Shoreline", to orchestrating new takes on the construct of genre with "Nonpop". Atmospheres are created in some unusual manners that oscillate the mind like the coolness of "Claw", the waterside psychotropic escapes of "Seaweedhead", to the further transcendent splashes heard and felt on "Pin & Ripple", weaving new textiles of new wonders with "Porous Rags", producing portals to new realms through "Long Window", as "Eidolon Orbit" summons specters from the netherworlds, concluding the song cycle with the experimental candied canyon warp of "Sugar Chasm".
Tiny the Dream, “Many Selves” (self-released)
The visceral vision realms of Tiny the Dream; photographed by Jeanette Chwan.
Introducing Tiny the Dream, the latest incarnation from Buffalo, NY artist Suzanne Bonifacio that bridges heart beat pulsing beats and evocative atmospheres. Presenting the debut of “Many Selves”, Bonifacio explores the multiplicities of being that re-imagines that infinite roles and realities of everything an individual can be. The moody EDM imbued ambience of the track takes on a subterranean feeling, like adventuring into a clandestine cavern, turned discreet makeshift club by a band of stylish partygoers occupying an abandoned subway station or an ancient repurposed water utility. The serious tone implies pensive and diligent dance step motions, with chopped vocal stem utterances that contribute to an otherworldly sense of awe and elevated headspaces. Tiny the Dream is a re-imagining of the self, the transformation of the artist on their own terms, on account of their own perceptions, thoughts, feelings, visions and more that manifests a rhythmic meditation on the myriad possibilities of personal and creative re-invention. Decidedly different from the emotive chamber guitar pop of Bonifacio’s single “Condense” from last year; Tiny the Dream takes kinetic forms of aesthetic fusions and syntheses to the far out places beyond the constraints of linguistic expressions.
Teen Daze, “New Spirits” (Cascine)
Wizard of wondrous waves — Teen Daze; photograph courtesy of Faked Potatoes.
For over the course of the past 12 plus years, thus has been the creative trajectory of Teen Daze’s Jamison Isaak. The Vancouver-based artist has spanned works that have been lauded with all sorts of innovative superlatives from every corner of the blogosphere to the last bastions and vestiges of print media in praise of Isaak’s breakthroughs of ushering in new degrees and valence levels of ambient rhythmic dimensions. The latest in a catalogue of countless releases is the fresh and fantastical beauty of “New Spirits”. Drawing from the European ambient works of the 1970s to Japan’s city pop movements of the 1980s and even deeper, dustier, record bin grooves — Jamison entertains the mystery of the sensations and worlds that we cannot fully define in the structures, syntax and logic of established lexicons and polytechnical schools of associated sciences. The newest Teen Daze compositions concern themselves with the worlds that are left to the writings, paintings, discourse, et al. of vague conjecture, ethereal questions with ambiguous answers that remain open ended outside the auspices of the experiential mind’s eye [and ear] of the beholder.
2022 releases of import & note:
Beyoncé, Renaissance (Parkwood Entertainment / Columbia Records)
Cites Aviv, Man Plays the Horn
Denzel Curry, Melt My Eyez See Your Future (PH / Loma Vista Recordings)
Alex G, God Save the Animals (Domino)
Cam Maclean, Secret Verses (self-released)
Mitski, Laurel Hell (Dead Oceans)
PLAINS, I Walked with You a Ways (ANTI-)
Sault, Air, 11, AIIR, Earth, Today & Tomorrow, Untitiled (God) (Forever Living Originals)
Steve Lacy, Gemini Rights (RCA)
Terrace, Just Say Maybe (self-released)
Toro y Moi, Mahal (Dead Oceans)
Weyes Blood, And in the Darkness, Hearts Aglow (Sub Pop)