Nightswimming #20: 10/24/24-10/31/24
2 30+ year olds reckon with aging, and 1 legend falls
Highly Recommend! (best of the week)
What A Relief - Katie Gavin (Saddest Factory)
Katie Gavin is one of the 5 best songwriters in music right now. Not since I first heard Patti Smith’s Horses have I so frequently paused the music, taken off my headphones, and let my head sink into the pillow. Lyrically and vocally, Gavin has made some of the most powerful music of the decade with her band MUNA, and her debut solo album is just the next achievement.
What A Relief feels like the other side of the MUNA coin—where MUNA is largely big, swirly pop songs, dance anthems, and arena ballads, What A Relief is stripped down and lyrically raw in a totally different way. It’s a bit Bedroom Pop (As Good As It Gets [feat. MITSKI !!!!], Sparrow), a bit Americana (Insconsolable, The Baton), and plenty of the MUNA/Saddest Factory signature sound—all tied up in a Lilith Fair ribbon. Gavin’s influences are clear, but she doesn’t imitate. Hers is a sound that is totally authentic and modern, but it’s clear the seeds and soil are Alanis, Jewel, and Fiona Apple (Sanitized is, I think, an homage to Apple’s Criminal).
The songs are largely reflective, but feel immediate. They serve as unfiltered dispatches from someone freshly 30 putting the pieces of their 20s together, and being both reassured and ambushed by the discoveries. Each track has a distinct feel. There’s yearning, grief, regret, hopefulness, resignation, and satisfaction. Gavin’s spectacular vocal performances and the airtight mixing/mastering elevate those lyrical themes to the stars.
There is at least one lyrical moment in each song that literally made me pause the music and remove my headphones, as I said above. On As Good As It Gets, it was “I want you to disappoint me, on and on until we’re old / I’m inside folding the laundry, you’re outside fixing the hose”. On Inconsolable, it was “We’re from a whole huddle of households full of beds where nobody cuddled / We don’t know how to be held”. On The Baton, it was “I would tell my daughter she must be her own mother / ‘Cause I can only take her as far as I can go”. Maybe for you it will be different, but it will happen to you. Because the songs are as specific as they are far-reaching. And that’s the magic of a Katie Gavin-penned song.
Queer music is experiencing a true Renaissance, not quite seen since the Lilith Fair days in the late 90’s. From Chappell Roan to Renee Rapp to Billie Eilish, sapphic music is proving not just to be relatable, but profitable. While perhaps not as flashy as Chappell, or stuffing as large of arenas as Billie, Katie Gavin is making deeply honest and bold music that is as cathartic as it is catchy.
Highlights: Inconsolable, The Baton, Keep Walking
Worth a Listen! (good to very good)
CHROMAKOPIA - Tyler, The Creator (Columbia)
Hip-Hop, as it has been since it was created, is at a crossroads. Trap Rap/Mumble Rap/Meme Rap/Fortnite Rap/whatEVER the Hell you want to call it has dominated the game for years, since Migos came on the scene with Versace. I’m not here to debate the artistic merit of Ski Mask the Slump God. I am simply here to say that from a musical standpoint, Hip-Hop is grasping for something. Patron Saint of Hip-Hop, and its best MC since the 90’s, Kendrick Lamar just spent the entire year dropping a dozen tracks calling Drake a pedophile.
To the outsider, and I am an outsider, it has not seemed a particularly fruitful era for the genre. Or perhaps I’m just an oldhead who likes samples over Soundcloud beats!
That is of course, with the exception of Tyler, the Creator, who has put out 3 of Hip-Hop’s strongest albums in the last 10 years (Flower Boy, IGOR, Call Me If You Get Lost). Tyler’s latest efforts have been more introspective, more thoughtful, and more complex than anything he’s done prior in his career. Thematically, these albums and CHROMAKOPIA are a far cry from “My urethra, hole that I pee from, bigger than the obese neck on Aretha”. Of course that guy still exists, and Tyler’s sense of humor is one of the most refreshing and unique things about his music.
But CHROMAKOPIA is Tyler’s most mature work yet. With a throughline made up of literal voicemails from his mother, the album is a deconstruction of themes that Tyler poked fun at in past albums. Between the ever-present reflection on his father, and reckoning with his own place in the Hip-Hop game as he gets older, the album shows real growth as a person.
From a production standpoint, CHROMAKOPIA is everything I love about Hip-Hop—soul samples, gospel choirs, live instrumentals from Thundercat, and real, true melodies. It, like much of Tyler’s recent work, is reminiscent of early Kanye West (who tragically disappeared in early 2016 and was never seen or heard from again).
CHROMAKOPIA has great writing, interesting samples/beats, and surprising features (I was hooting and hollering on Sticky). It’s fun and has high relisten value. I hope Hip-Hop lets Tyler carry the torch for awhile.
Highlights: Take Your Mask Off, Sticky, Noid
R.I.P. Phil Lesh (March 15th, 1940 - October 25th, 2024)
I was in Chicago, Illinois when I found out Phil Lesh passed away. I was waking up from a Devil’s Nap, in a hotel room exactly 6.2 miles away from where the final Grateful Dead show was played.
I was not particularly shocked. The man was 84 years old, on his 2nd liver, and had beaten both prostate and bladder cancer over a decade ago.
But it still took the wind out of me. I was immediately awash with memories from the last half dozen years of my life. I am not a lifelong Deadhead (though I would find out, in a cosmic twist, that my estranged father is).
I discovered and became immediately enamored with the Grateful Dead in 2018, like all noble and worthy pursuits, while trying to impress a woman. The Dead stuck, but she didn’t.
I made new friends, reconnected with old friends, and deepened my relationships with others still, all because of the music of the Grateful Dead. To borrow an analogy from Jerry Garcia, the Dead is like black licorice. Not everyone likes them, but the people who do REALLY do.
The Grateful Dead totally blew open my understanding of music, improvisation, and community. They reignited a passion in me that reminded me the majesty of live music.
Phil Lesh was as instrumental to that music as anyone else. He described the members as the fingers on a hand. In so many ways, he played “lead bass”—doing the rhythmic duty of a bassist, but taking every liberty available and wildly swinging the Dead’s live performances to his will when it was his turn.
When I first discovered the Dead, someone told me to try and focus on different musicians one at a time. Listen to Jerry, see what Bobby’s up to, hone in on Billy and Mickey, focus on Phil, check in with Keith/Brent/Bruce/Vince. There were moments I got to Phil in neat order, and plenty still where Phil BUSTED through everyone else and bombed the shit out of the jam. And that was the beauty.
Every good Deadhead has a “Phil blew out my speakers” moment. For me, it was the Wharf Rat on 7/8/78 at Red Rocks. For others it was the 1/26/69 The Eleven at The Avalon Ballroom. 10/31/71 Dark Star at The Ohio Theater. 10/19/74 Eyes of the World at Winterland. 6/25/91 Scarlet>Fire in Bonner Springs.
And it was always, uh, a treat? To hear Phil sing. Sort of like when your Uncle has 9 Michelob Ultras at Thanksgiving.
I think the passing of the members of this band is especially tough because of the infinite nature of the music. The music feels like it has been going on forever and will go on forever, and so we just assume the guys will too. It wasn’t true of Jerry. Or Keith or Brent or Vince or Pigpen. And it won’t be true of Billy, Mickey, and Bobby. And we have to reckon with that and cherish them while we can.
“The Grateful Dead group mind was in essence an engine of transformation. As such, it had no mortality of its own — it made no judgments, took no positions — it merely opened valves for music to pour through. As long as the only things we cared about were exploration and ecstasy, that’s how long it remained pure.” - Phil Lesh