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New York Times
a day ago
- Entertainment
- New York Times
An Unearthed Joni Mitchell Jazz Demo, and 11 More New Songs
Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week's most notable new tracks. Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes) and at Apple Music here, and sign up for The Amplifier, a twice-weekly guide to new and old songs. Joni Mitchell, 'Be Cool' The first preview of 'Joni's Jazz,' an archival collection of Joni Mitchell's collaborations with jazz musicians, is this 1980 demo of 'Be Cool,' a song that featured Wayne Shorter on saxophone when it was released in 1982 on 'Wild Things Run Fast.' This version — two guitars, drums and a click track — doesn't have all its lyrics yet. It doesn't need them. Instead, Mitchell flaunts some bold, sure-footed scat-singing. The groove and the attitude — '50-50 fire and ice' — were already fully formed. Sarah McLachlan, 'Better Broken' Sarah McLachlan ponders giving a second chance to a fraught, long-ago relationship in 'Better Broken,' her first new song since 2016 and the title track of a coming album. It's in vintage McLachlan style: a stately piano ballad with a melody that climbs gradually and holds some aching notes. She knows the possible rationalizations, envisioning 'a jagged edge worn smooth by time'; she also, it seems, knows better. Caroline Polachek, 'On the Beach' It was probably inevitable that Caroline Polachek — whose pop pushes toward the posthuman without losing physical connection — would fulfill a videogame commission. With the hyperpop producer Danny L Harle, she created 'On the Beach' for Hideo Kojima's game Death Stranding 2: On the Beach. She sings about Sanzu — the Japanese analog of the river Styx, dividing life and death — in a slow march with a melody that leaps to superhuman, computer-tuned peaks and valleys. She still sounds awe-struck. Us3, 'Resist the Rat Race' In the 1990s and early 2000s, the British group Us3, led by Geoff Wilkinson, backed rappers with jazz grooves, mixing samples — primarily vintage Blue Note jazz tracks — with performances. Now Us3 has returned as Wilkinson's instrumental band, still merging loops, beats and live musicians — now with arrangements for 18 brasses and reeds. A low-slung piano vamp and programmed trap drums run throughout 'Resist the Rat Race,' topped by tootling synthesizer melodies and dense horn-section outbursts worthy of Gil Evans and Henry Mancini. It's a swaggering alliance of human and machine. Camilo, 'Maldito ChatGPT' Artificial intelligence matchmaking fails completely in Camilo's 'Maldito ChatGPT' ('Damned ChatGPT'). When he tells ChatGPT the attributes of his ideal partner, the system insists he's chosen the wrong person, sabotaging his confidence. 'I make a list of everything I've always dreamed of / And it looks nothing like the person next to me,' he sings. The track feels transparent, with a steady, subdued beat and skeletal piano chords. But as with an A.I. interface, there's a lot going on under the surface: percussion, vocals, pizzicato strings, echoes. True to chatbot conventions, the A.I. ends its response with a question; Camilo can barely sputter an incredulous reply. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
The Guardian
20-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Add to playlist: James K's downtempo dream pop and the week's best new tracks
From New YorkRecommended if you like Caroline Polachek, Voice Actor, Vegyn Up next New album Friend released via AD 93 on 5 September Pull up your beanbag, light a lava lamp and crack open the Vicks VapoRub: downtempo is back. New compilation Telepathic Fish documents the 90s south London ambient night; Logic1000's latest DJ-Kicks mix would barely register on an ECG; there's none more languid than even the summer's flagship pop album, Addison by Addison Rae. New York producer and musician James K has been dabbling in trip-hop – and various shades of experimental pop and club music – for more than a decade, but nonetheless, her new album, Friend, arrives right on time for summer's wind down. (What is autumn if not the chill out room to escape the year's most hectic season?) While the accompanying text around the record speaks impenetrably of 'oneiric fogs' and a 'gaseous halo', its many pleasures are in fact immediate and enveloping. These songs bob along on sleepy breakbeats wreathed in liquid, shoegaze guitar and angelic atmospherics; K's melancholy falsetto is self-possessed, tracing its own hypnotic path through the blissed-out clouds she spins like candyfloss. (Fans of the more evanescent end of Caroline Polachek's catalogue will find lots to get lost in.) Over repeat listens, this dreamy record leaves stronger impressions, of soft Balearic ecstasy on Peel; a little dank post-punk on pop gem On God; liturgical awe on Rider. Seductively slow it may be, Friend nevertheless seems primed to accelerate this cult hero's emergence from the underground. Laura Snapes Zuli – Care Following up his acclaimed 2024 album Lambda, the title track of the Egyptian producer's new EP is skittering, splintered, symphonic trip-hop, with bells and whispers reaching across the uncanny valley. BBT Titanic – Gotera Mabe Fratti's duo with Héctor Tosta returns, channelling the astonishing metal energy of their recent live sets into an epic where Fratti's ragged voice pierces ceaseless rounds of artillery-fire drums. LS Sophie – OohA deep cut from the 10th anniversary reissue of Product: 'I'm your Play-Doh baby / Push me to my knees,' a female voice pleads, starkly melancholy against the rubbery bass and ecstatic synth blurts. LS Cass McCombs – PeaceA riff that's like sunlight on the broken surface of a pond powers the latest stunner from an artist who, coming up to 12 solo albums, has amassed one of the great bodies of American song. BBT Mark William Lewis – Still AboveAfter May's beautifully brooding Tomorrow Is Perfect, the enigmatic London songwriter lets the light in, splicing strangely sweet, jazzy harmonica into his deep-voiced lyrics on off-kilter relationships, whether narcotic or romantic. LS Sombr – We Never Dated The lad with the sharpest cheekbones in pop made the heartbreak anthem of the year with Back to Friends. His new one goes from hurt to outright bitter, but the sturdy chorus scans just as satisfyingly. BBT I Jordan – An Angel (ft Tom Rasmussen)You can practically feel the throbbing walls and rushing skin on this grounded yet celestial rave hymn to rebirth and transition, with more than a little Pet Shop Boys in its DNA. LS Subscribe to the Guardian's rolling Add to Playlist selections on Spotify.
