Jai Paul - "Str8 from Mumbai (demo)". Jai Paul's best cuts feel damaged - not drunk, not high, but still wobbly and redoubled, splendidly wavering. It's like someone is playing with the dials on the mixer, spraying samples, bringing volumes up and down, frequencies in and out; these microscopic fades, neurons firing and disappearing. A lurid part of me wants to call it Parkinson's pop. "Str8 from Mumbai" is a necklace of vanishing jewels, gems in and out of phase. A nightclub you can only see in a mirror. The treatment for a short film: mysterious billionaire, private jet to India, five hours out, then back to real grey life. But this song would be too vivid for the soundtrack. It would leave too strong a mark. [Jai Paul's debut is expected... eventually. This was allegedly an "illegal" leak.]

Weather Station ft Marine Dreams - "First Letter". A sunrise that changes its mind. A dawn that shifts, mid-dawning. Weather Station's Marine Dreams duet starts as one song, in silver light, and becomes another, with a different shade of silver. As we approach summer, I am reminded of the way it sometimes is: a long day that quickly changes, a twist ending for the sky. Our hearts watch the clouds, they swerve with the weather, they do what they're shown. [buy]

(Photo source unknown.)

Electrelane - "To The East". I need a mission, somebody give me a mission. An envelope with a folded, typed instruction. A clear cloud. A banner, a crackling radio instruction. Just a sign. Just give me a sign. Let it be plain or filigreed, simple or adorned. Let it be easy or difficult, let it be impossible. I will make love or wage war, I will run or howl, I will shove coke, spade by spade, into the belly of a train. All I ask is that you inscribe my future, so that I need not invent it myself. Give me something to live up to: a destiny, a fate. You will see me at my fullest, in body and indigo. I will stride into the tide. I will sing the rest of the song. I will find the puny needle or fire the long harpoon. I will go home, if that's what I am to do, or believe me darling I will hold out hope. [buy]

(photo source)

Eleanor Friedberger - "Stare at the Sun"

The first drive on the day when the last polluting car has been retrofitted. [Pre-Order]

Jay-Z - "Big Pimpin'"

If I give my whole body to one song, it would be worth it, because what else is there to do but spend yourself on something. Pick the one that will shake you like a rag doll, spread you open, dance like lights, and drip you dry. Crack your hands from shadow boxing, spend your knees from Russian bending, and your shoulders, your shoulders will be the first to go. [Buy]

Atakora Manu's Band - "Palm Wine Seller". Frequently, when I am listening to palm wine guitar music, I think to myself: This is the best sound in the world. It is beautiful and hapless. It is dizzy. It reminds me of my greatest joys and my most witless blues. Imperfect, expert, lo-fi, hi-fi, distorted and clear, oh how many reversing right yeses. I have never drunk palm wine but I have been drunk on it. I have lolled and then shot like an arrow into the heart of the waning day. [out of print]

Mincer Ray - "OMM @ 12.3; Fouled Acme"

This song makes me forget how small I am. And I'm like, extremely small. Like, put your fingers together as close as you can without touching them. That space, that little space, that's like the ceiling in the mall for me, when you look up and you're like oh that's all windows up there, that's how much space that is for me. Now press your fingers together, hard hard hard, cram em together, I still fit between there. Like, cut a hair a hundred times, length-wise, I could still sit on that like a sofa. I'm tiny, I'm real tiny. But when I hear this, it's bad for me, cause I forget how small I am, and I start movin around like I'm big, and I could fall off my perch at the top of this picture frame, curled up in the dust. It's bad luck to forget your size, better to always just behave the size you are.

[PWYC]

Shotgun Jimmie - "Big Sur".
Shotgun Jimmie - "Growing Like a Garden".

Two songs that add up to 2 minutes 45 seconds. Certain songs are like telegrams; no room for pussyfooting. THEY SAY IT RIGHT STRAIGHT STOP. Jimmie's best songs are like hunks of amethyst lobbed at your head. <clunk> The lyrics are handsome straight-shooters - yeah, telegrams, I already said that. He is less muddled than me. He is of purer vision, more suited to: sunsets, riding into. Better at knock-knock jokes and ping-pong. While the lyrics come across the wire, in the hands of a delivery-man, the surrounding music is a conduit, a superconductor, a delivery system. Sugar for the medicine, decorated with rosettes and winks. [Buy]

--

Elsewhere: Stream Young Galaxy's splendid fourth album, Ultramarine.

Marnie Stern - "East Side Glory"

Bowl of them so Telusa Hahahahaha Hahahahaha Hahahahaha Tigeorgess addition just thinking is so old man I love for you to learn how all mom Hahahahaha because it means anything since Atlanta gentleman and man and send to deliberately deliberately and a little bit of time and then send me man don't bump bump bump bump bump bump bump I'll I'll

Marnie Stern - "Hell Yes"

Little bit of a little bit of phone phones I seem to say mama home from work as a pencil Momomo the same thing that's hello, hello come on come on come on home and mozzarella I am sad I am Othyus time I've got this time I am all the time to time to time and I won't that's all that's out tonight and the Andthat that will Heslov the f*ck are clear or or or or is it sale or I'm going to Belmont Balan blog blog or or or or I'll talk to you soon, I got this time

[Buy the wonderful Chronicles of Marnia from Kill Rock Stars]

(image from the enigmatic emiliamullerginorio.com)