Kendrick Lamar - "The Recipe (ft Dr Dre)". A paean to the west coast and its "three Ws", women, weed and weather. I have never had the chance to visit California, to sun in California, to gawk at the bronzed California women or to evaluate the notorious Californian foliage. But it all certainly sounds good, right here. It certainly sounds very, very good. Producer Scoop DeVille borrows Twin Sister's "Meet the Frownies", but Andrea Estella's Brooklyn coo feels perfectly at home, perfectly blonde; I think of Don Draper waking, bewildered, in a sun-licked mansion. I love Lamar when he is stricken & questing but also here, leaning (back and foward), contented as a field of psychoactive sunflowers. [from Lamar's forthcoming Aftermath / via Nah Right]

Walrus - "Growing Pains". Halifax's Walrus sing in low, flattened notes, with sighing organ. The bass is getting by. The glockenspiel is unconvincing. The harbour is emptying out, one boat at a time, because it's for the best, it's for the best, it's for the best but still there's something sad in the barren pier, the uninterrupted sky, the lick of waves against logs, without anybody around. [bandcamp]

(photo source)