<\/p>\n
Folks, summer is no joke. Between my vacation, and everyone else\u2019s vacation, and then the fair, I somehow have not had time to whip up any additions to the playlists since\u2026 the end of June<\/a>?\u00a0<\/p>\n That\u2019s ridiculous! So let\u2019s kick this mother back into gear now. If some of this week\u2019s selections feel a little dated, well 1) good on you for keeping up without me and 2) I\u2019ve had half of this column in the can for a month.<\/p>\n But enough apologies. I think the songs\u2019ll make up for the wait.\u00a0<\/p>\n Astronomy Town, \u201cQuina\u201d<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n As genre neologisms go, \u201cjazz-gaze\u201d is worthy of Simon Reynolds<\/a>, and this Jazz88-approved quartet backs it up on their new EP, Lamps<\/em>. The group\u2019s overlaid Badalamentian melodies are at their most lulling here.\u00a0<\/p>\n Mati, \u201cDifferent\u201d<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Some Can Relate<\/em>, out last month, may be this Ethiopian-born Minnesotan’s full-length debut, but his preceding EPs were hardly slapdash. Still, you can hear his tuneful flow maturing on this characteristically introspective track.<\/p>\n Riffin\u2019 Trio, \u201cRiffers Theme\u201d<\/strong> VIAL, \u201cCreep Smoothie\u201d<\/strong> Xina, \u201cCruel 2 U\u201d<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Of her new EP, the genre-expansive singer declares, \u201cI want to take you deep into presence, into reflection, into the world of IRON X. the Spiritual Awakening of the Self-Identified.\u201d On this particular track, that means a thumpetty and ever-shifting pulse, slurred vocals that occasionally drop an octave, and a pinched guitar squeal, all of it enticing and disorienting and unique.\u00a0<\/p>\n Amaarae, \u201cS.M.O.\u201d<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Somehow, Amaarae just keeps getting hornier (title stands for \u201cslut me out,\u201d if you didn\u2019t know\/guess) as her music gets more rhythmically complex. This track, the highest peak on the formidable mountain range that is Black Star<\/em>, rises from a moody base of South African gqom and incorporates a stabby synth bass that, like so much of its keyboard hookery, is pure Greg Phillinganes. Meanwhile, A\u2019s own aggressively small voice, like Janet Jackson without the demure airbrushing, coos over a lover who \u201ctastes like Lexapro.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n MOLIY, Silent Addy, Skillibeng, & Shenseea, \u201cShake It to the Max (Fly)\u201d<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n A longtime skeptic on the need to anoint a victorious \u201csong of the summer,\u201d I\u2019ve found many of this year\u2019s nominees wan or opaque or just plain off-base. But this one just leaps out of the pack, its bass and keyboard hook pushing the singers forward as inexorably as a Spike Lee double-dolly shot. Like Amaarae, Molly (or MOLIY if you insist) is Ghanaian-American, but her collaborators\u2014producer Silent Addy as well as Skillibeng and Shenseea\u2014are Jamaican. The diaspora is out here doing the damn thing.<\/p>\n Syd, \u201cDie for This\u201d<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Has the solo success of guitarist Steve Lacy ended R&B band The Internet as a going concern? If so, let Syd thrive on her own, as she excels at voicing infatuation, with just enough of a carnal edge to let you know she won\u2019t settle for a cuddle. It\u2019s admittedly not a good sign that folks apparently stopped updating her Wikipedia entry three years ago, but as she\u2019s opening arena tours for Rene\u00e9 Rapp and Billie Eilish this year I\u2019m not too worried about her.<\/p>\n Sudan Archives, \u201cMy Type\u201d<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n L.A. by way of Cincy R&B violinist and all around visionary Brittney Parks has a follow up to Natural Brown Prom Queen<\/em> in the works, The BPM<\/em>, and this housey track is as upbeat as that title suggests. In case you\u2019re wondering, her type is a gal who admits “I ain’t never been from the Chi to Dubai\/But I’m down for the ride.”\u00a0<\/p>\n Miimii KDS feat. DJ Skycee, \u201cS\u00e9 Miimii\u201d<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Dominican bouyon ain\u2019t nothing new but it\u2019s finally having an international moment, and truly these galloping steel drums and rippling electronics (like someone strumming a cartoon skeleton\u2019s ribs) are far from the digitized folk that birthed the hyperkinetic soca offshoot genre decades ago. Your girl Miimii can get slack and boastful (\u201cGive me di respect on di pussy, yeah\u201d) but she\u2019s casual about it, content to bob along the groove.<\/p>\n Kings of Leon feat. Zach Bryan, \u201cWe\u2019re Onto Something\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cWell dang,\u201d the Followill boys musta thought to theyself while listening to Post Malone, \u201cWe\u2019re actual<\/em> Tennesseans, we can dupe folks into thinking we\u2019re country too.\u201d And so, with Bryan lending cred and Harry Styles\u2019s producer on hand, Caleb drawls something about never leaving the land before heading back to his VS model wife and \u201cBohemian 1930s Tudor Revival\u201d in Nashville<\/a>. But why is there so damn much harmonica? I mean, Postie would never.<\/p>\n Wanna get a local song considered for the playlist? To make things easy on both of us, email keith@racketmn.com with RACKET PLAYLIST in the subject header. (Don\u2019t, as in do NOT, DM or text: If I\u2019m in a good mood, I\u2019ll just ask you to send an email; if I\u2019m in a bad mood I\u2019ll just ignore it.)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source racketmn.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Folks, summer is no joke. Between my vacation, and everyone else\u2019s vacation, and then the fair, I somehow have not had time to whip up any additions to the playlists since\u2026 the end of June?\u00a0 That\u2019s ridiculous! So let\u2019s kick this mother back into gear now. If some of this week\u2019s selections feel a little […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1981125,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1981124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Better-Late-Than-Never-Time-for-the-First-New-Music.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1981124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1981124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1981124\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1981125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1981124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1981124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1981124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Local Picks<\/h2>\n
<\/a>The lead track from their playful debut EP Introducing the Riffin\u2019 Trio<\/em> could be the theme song to an unjustly forgotten \u201970s cop show. Nelson Devereaux\u2019s sax and Jacob Hanson\u2019s guitar state the tune in tandem as Ted Olsen\u2019s upright bass hustles underneath, and then they all cut loose.\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/a>There will never not be creeps, which sucks, but also means non-dudes will never run out of reasons to scream things like \u201cI’ll blend up your brains and make a creep smoothie.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\nNon-Local Picks<\/h2>\n
Worst New Song<\/h2>\n