Hannah’s Roundup + Hannah update
Reviews of new songs by Slayyyter, Troye Sivan, and most!
Hello! Before we begin, I’m letting you know I’m playing a show at Sleepwalk Bar, opening for the lovely Kirstyn Hippe and Lizzy Hilliard :) Get your tickets at this link!!
Troye Sivan - She's the Best
RIYL: Women!!!!!! Gay men!!!!
"She's the Best" feels like revisiting the lushness of early Troye with some of Jack Antonoff’s best post-Norman F**king Rockwell production. He remembered it’s okay to compress drums again! The quiet-cacaphony thing I always call out with his work, where he layers dozens of instruments and mushes them together, particularly bothered me on Lost Weekend – but it’s great for atmospheric trip-hop (Sivan has notably shouted out Sophia Stel, and I hear her influence). I wasn’t sold on the spoken-word, nor the Charli gang vocals, but it’s a perfect contrast to the chorus – as if “Lullaby” by Shawn Mullins wasn’t the creepiest song ever made and Beck’s “Loser” was actually about something. The double-time climax blasts this song past pastiche, especially refreshing compared to acts like After that play it completely straight, and (obligatory pun incoming) I mean straight. Leave it to a gay man to celebrate women at a time we’re all literally shrinking ourselves down.
Kim Petras - Brutalist
RIYL: honestly I don’t know… I didn’t ever think she’d be on here
I never thought Kim Petras would have my song of the year, but since this came out in June I’ve been captivated and deeply moved by it. She’s spent most of her career working with Dr Luke, and was largely Luke’s ticket to coming back well before he did “Say So” for Doja Cat. I called her music “blind, bland assimilation”! But she left Luke and while I haven’t listened to this full record, this song is unbelievable. I remember all the comments like “it’s a transition for everyone else, too” - statements that, while accurate, are excuses to let people grieve the person they knew, often standing right in front of them. It’s impossible not to internalize that. I love that she compares her pre-transition self to a brutalist structure; indeed, functional but hollow. The delivery and production are a little stiff, but that just makes it more claustrophobic and uh, brutal: it’s holding itself back from being full Springsteen, because the topline could easily get there. It weirdly reminds me of Against Me’s “Because of the Shame” (they share a key and nearly a chord progression); where that song was released in the thick of dysphoria, this one looks back and reflects on how far she’s come. But also, with a lot of shame attached. Her best song by a wide margin, a song about trans guilt it’s finally possible to enjoy guilt free.
Ayleen Valentine - Routine I Love You
RIYL: Eurythmics, Oklou
This is an immaculate vocal arrangement, but I’ve never felt more “dancing about architecture” than I do when trying to articulate why: I feel like a lot of pop music would leave negative space on the line “Is! N’t! Just! Gone in the morning!” but there are “ahs” in between every syllable and it just gives the song so much more life. My favorite ad-lib is the backing “uh-huh” response on “I remember it’s just a movie!” (1:57, for those curious) There’s, of course, very real heartbreak beneath that: Valentine’s concern here is that even if she gives herself over to somebody completely, she still might be left the next day. Ow!
I imagine this will get a lot of 80s comparisons with the synth arpeggios and snares (Annie Lennox once again comes to mind, as it did when I first heard Valentine’s voice on "Love U Thru The DJ"), but I also think of 00s tracks like “Bleeding Love” and “Say It Right”, where Ryan Tedder and Timbaland respectively contrast airy melodies with clipped percussion.
Mal Not Bad - Amorph(e)ous
RIYL: James K, Baths
You’ll hear more from me about this soon, so I’ll keep this brief, but Mal Hauser is an LA-based musician who’s collaborated with the likes of Mk.Gee, Hayley Williams, and Jay Som. You might think you know what this sounds like from that description, but you don’t; this is indeed a constantly morphing song, about trying to transcend the self through dance (specifically rave culture). I really appreciate the way they work into a reference to Lois Lowery’s classic YA book The Giver, where the titular character is one of two characters able to see the world in color when everyone else is in black and white.
Slayyyter - Brand New Chanel$
RIYL: Katy Perry but IN A GOOD WAY OKAY INTERNET???
I reviewed this, but I don’t think the review got across how much I absolutely love this song. It's like a prime Katy Perry thing but with a less obvious topline than Bonnie McKee would write, and without the stench of a Dr Luke production credit. After losing my mind over the Charli record and dealing with a summer of mellow country, a chorus like that feels seismic. Slayyyter let Serban Ghenea and Randy Merrill off the leash - right before the last chorus, the volume dramatically increases. This contrasts 2020s pop like “Run Away With Me” did 2010s pop, and yet fits perfectly into the 2020s obsession with meta-commentary: real life lore! callbacks to previous songs! The last time an artist leveled up this much, “Good Luck Babe”, felt almost accidental; even as it’s not the total game changer Good Luck Babe was, this is wholly intentional.
Park Hills Circle - Where I Can See You
RIYL: Bess Atwell, Billie Marten
I love the vocal delivery on this record - "I move from room to room,asifbetweencountriesorpartsofmylife" and "afteracertainnumberofmiles, the truth catches up to you" It soothes, but keeps me on my toes throughout. The stand out for me is "Where I Can See You", where a ballad blossoms into something surprisingly catchy. I always love raw musicianship, and there’s plenty of it on this album, particularly the guitar work. Maris' vocals are the standout; her voice reminds me a bit of the Anchoress, but the arrangements around her are a little more laid-back. Even when saxophones and other instruments come in across the record, it's her double-tracked voice at the center.
secretpizza
Hana Stretton - Seagull Theory II
RIYL: Maria BC, Gia Margaret, Becky and the Birds
Ambient music is mostly a blind spot for me (literally what about me suggests I have any significant Tone Glow overlap), but devoid of context I just love how much of a sound collage this is, like an aural I Spy. Starting as a personal foley project, where she used a plank of wood and multiple pairs of shoes to imitate line dancers, it quickly grew to include over 50 voices, looping and building on each other. Organs and bassoons, while not credited, appear to enter the periphery, before the wall of found sounds disintegrates, befitting a quietly unpredictable record.
Mount Eerie
Lex Walton - In This House, We Don't Call The Cops; We Call Chosen Family
RIYL: Velvet Underground, Car Seat Headrest,
When I see work like Lex Walton’s, there’s a temptation in me to make a cutesy quip conveying my nervousness (“I won’t put THAT on my Instagram story”) or call it “intense” or “edgy” but it’s more rewarding to sit in the discomfort and meet the art where it’s at. That’s where I was when seeing an all-trans bill at Night Club 101; Walton shared a bill with experimental post-punk quartet Pop Music Fever Dream and genre-hopper Asher White, and where I already knew the other two, I hadn’t heard Walton’s music.
I really admire someone who can go for it like this. I’ve tried really hard to be a respectful and gentle person, as if any more complicated feelings may put my “woman” card in jeopardy. The truth might come out in the music I make or the pieces I write, or maybe a stare a second too long, or a question slightly too intense. Walton seemingly gives no fuck about any of that, and her music is both funny and frequently sad; something this song captures as soon as its title.
Why does a song like the currently unreleased “Raped by a He/They Blues” make people nervous, other than its glib title? Fiona Apple once called the first word of that title something “awkward” to put in a song, and that’s exactly why it’s in the chorus of “For Her”. We only break the cycles by breaking the taboo around them; anyone can hurt anyone, it’s just cishet men who get away with it the most. “Messy” is a word I almost used, but it's really just a word people reach for when they can’t sit with something straightforward.
Walton revels in the discomfort, though, beyond just her music; she even came on stage to “Best I Ever Had”, one of Drake’s first crossover hits. I have no idea why, but I guess Drake’s messiness has only made him more appealing and (for some; not me) oddly endearing since the beef. He's somehow turned into an underdog, even as he regularly streams with far-right figures. But we pick and choose our battles.
I want to give praise to Pop Music Fever Dream here; a band that kept the pit open for every song, leaving unwilling participants like myself against the wall like a Gravitron. When frontperson Tim Seeberger left the room during a song, the bandmates - bassist Carmen Castillo, guitarist Nicole Harwayne, and drummer Violette Grim - broke into a sincere cover of Coldplay’s “Yellow” before Seeberger came back. Maybe they want to be gentle, too.
jnna
