New Rotation

Robyn finally corralled those three EPs she scattered out over the year into one album, Body Talk, and I’ve had it running on repeat. If Robyn’s never landed for you, this won’t change that, but if you already live there, it’s the kind of clean electro-pop that doesn’t need to announce itself.

Ellie Goulding dropped Bright Lights last year and I haven’t really gotten past it. The special edition with the live recordings still holds that same precision, that control. She’s 24 and somehow knows exactly what she’s doing.

I got tired of being nice and spun Ghostface Killah’s Apollo Kids—Wu-Tang territory, real hip-hop, the kind that sounds like it came from somewhere actual instead of someone’s idea of somewhere. The beats are thick, gray, exhausted. They don’t let up.

Regina Spektor did something to me once with Samson that I still haven’t recovered from. I was actually crying in bed, the kind of crying you don’t usually get anymore. Live in London hits the same spot—her voice, live, no overdubs, no crowd noise, this woman whose entire being is somehow bigger than it should be. Still devastates.

OFF! put out their first four EPs as one record and that’s exactly what punk should do. Fast and dumb and loud. The kind of thing you crank and let wash over you until your neighbors are genuinely angry.

Solar Bears’ She Was Coloured In was what I needed by the end of the week—electronic but not cold, atmospheric but not trying to prove anything. Something that lets you disappear into it. Beautiful in a quiet way.