I think we lost something the day the Green M&M wasn’t allowed to be a slut anymore.

Wiki – Half God [Wikset Enterprise 2021]

One third of the Ratking trio that broke down in 2016 with two others under his belt, Patrick G. Morales is the half-Irish Nuyorican repping Gotham with pride. His scene, for those keeping up with the lore, is the NY underground that idolizes MF DOOM which includes Navy Blue, MIKE, and Earl, all of whom cameo over humid but cool production as Morales turns his sentimentalities into rhinal rhymes. Will it be enough to move him from the C-list to the B-List? Prolly not. But it sounds like he makes a living, especially to live in Midtown. His beat down on gentrifiers is particularly acerbic (and correct): “What I can’t understand or get through to me is/After all the schooling you did, don’t know what community is?” 3.8/5

Mac DeMarco – 2 [Captured Tracks 2012]

This is for white dudes with B.A.-equipped middle-class parents who either are in their first year of college or decided not to go, which is fine – to each their own. Not to sound like a buzzkill though, but there is such a thing as too many psychedelics. 2.6/5

MIKE – May God Bless Your Hustle [10K 2017]

Out of breath gifted word slinger confirms that depression is real. 2.8/5

The Velvet Underground – The Velvet Underground & Nico [Verve 1967]

Because I didn’t grow up in the 60’s and Spotify wasn’t in my arsenal until I was a junior in college, classics like this weren’t accessible barring a Torrent app’s infection or a YouTube converter’s shittier compression. I knew Lou from his one hit and his one feature on a Gorillaz song, I knew Warhol from soup, I knew Cale from Shrek. I knew no one else. Hearing the squelching sandpaper drones with the post-modern tales of prostitutes and drugs that signify New York bohemia circa the Civil Rights Movement here is an infinitely rewarding experience for those discovering them almost six decades later, however. As always in the time of analog there are a few missed notes or exasperated sighs but the artful reverence these transgressives have for their subject mater reminds over and over and over why the dead eyed poetry that was once so esoteric went on to influence so many other misfits looking to fuse together atonal noise and melody. 4.8/5

Bartees Strange – Live Forever [Memory Music 2020]

Based on all the mentions of it from every one of the few writes ups out there, the press release accompanying Bartees Leon Cox Jr.’s debut MUST mention that it’s an explicit attempt to assert Black America’s influence on indie rock after he noticed he was the only Black guy at a The National show. Aching soul and a bit of 2012 indie pop have never sounded so messiahnistic and so boring though. Even his one hit – per Spotify’s metrics – is more about live and let live than the identity explorations that Brittany Howard or Moses Sumney attempt, or the fun that Bloc Party and the pensiveness TV on the Radio offer. Neither has there been mentioned the one Person of Color who has done more for indie rock than anyone else too – one Brian Burton, super producer and sound architect extraordinaire. Should detractors point out a lack of focus on subject matter let me be tempered but unequivocal; I wish Strange the best and hope his songwriting develops into something truly canon worthy, these 11 songs (while harmless) are flat, devoid of specificity, and rooted in sounds that peaked in ingenuity almost a decade ago with nothing new to make them worth listening to. 2.0/5

noname – Telefone [Self Released 2016]

Hers is the soft-yet-cosmic poignancy in those moments reflecting on love’s limits due to mortality. And it’s smooth too. 3.6/5