ON REPEAT: Mary Jane Dunphe, Amaraae, Milky, Buffalo Daughter & Cibo Matto, Miss Grit, Yazmin Lacey, Dislocation Dance, Sneaker Pimps, bar italia
Air, I need some air
Still recovering from my surgery. Finally hit that sweet spot any every little movement doesn’t cause excruciating pain and me to make an involuntary “AHH-AHH” noise.
Ok, enjoy my song picks, compiled here.
Miss Grit “Follow The Cyborg”
One thing I’m weirdly a sucker for—when a musician implies they are either a robot or an alien. The “Klaus Nomi” effect, if you will. (Hell, I even kinda like Poppy.) Margaret Sohn created Miss Grit as an outlet for some self-exploration while recording in solitude, taking on the persona (or lack thereof) of a gender-fluid cyborg.
'Cause I was born to pose
Oh, I was born with clothes
DAIISTAR “Tracemaker”
DAIISTAR really knows what they’re doing, aesthetically speaking.
Yazmin Lacey “Late Night People”
Yazmin Lacey is a singer-songwriter from London, who I guess dabbles in the jazz world. Her quote about this song speaks to me!
“I’ve always been inspired by what goes on when the rest of the world is sleeping. Sometimes, people only associate nightlife with debauchery, which has its place, but it’s also much more.”
Mary Jane Dunphe “Always Gonna Be The Same”
Another jam from Mary Jane Dunphe of CCFX and CC Dust fame. Also joins the pantheon of music videos where it’s just a person riding a bicycle like Erika De Casier’s “Do My Thing.”
Amaarae “Co-Star”
Another cool one from Amaarae from 2022. “Air I need some air” is a reference to a toxic relationship but it’s also how I’ve felt the past few days since I can only take shallow breaths.
Dislocation Dance “Independence”
I have a thing where there are certain songs I like but can’t get into unless my mood is really positive. Like, I can only listen to “Walking on Sunshine” or “Sussudio” or something when I’ve just fallen in love or had some huge deus ex-machina type event. This song has been sitting in a playlist for months and I only really got into it while on hydrocodone post-surgery, so maybe this is one of those.
bar italia “world’s greatest emoter”
A newer track from Bar Italia, from their second 2023 album release.
Hot take: bands should only be able to release one album a year. Less confusing.
Hotter take: I really don’t like this video! But the song rocks.
Milky “Just the Way You Are”
Milky was an Italian house music duo in the post-Daft Punk era and had some success with this song that samples both The Go-Betweens and Wings. I don’t think I knew this song then, but in 2002, it hit #1 on the Billboard Hot Dance Airplay in the U.S. so maybe it was in a Kia commercial or something.
I feel like I absorbed a lot of this era of dance music via commercial, like this Dirty Vegas “Days Go By” Mitsubishi Commercial and this one where Juliette Lewis dances with Daft Punk in Gap denim.
Buffalo Daughter & Cibo Matto “Stereotype C”
Another jam from this era. Tokyo’s Buffalo Daughter didn’t always sound like this throughout the 90s, but something about Y2K got these rock bands on the dance floor. I guess this was on the Lost in Translation soundtrack, which makes too much sense.
THE GOLD STANDARD
Sneaker Pimps “6 Underground”
In my “revisiting trip-hop” phase still and I’ve regained a fondness for this song which was definitely put on a mix CD that I liked but didn’t love by my first girlfriend alongside songs by Zero 7 and Ladytron.
But I keep going back to it! And this video, wow. What a perfect time capsule of a very particular brand of 1996. Maybe it’s just in vogue right now but I can’t get enough of the deeper cuts from this era. Send me stuff!