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SOMETHING OLD
In the States, Snow is best-known for “Informer,” which is basically the “Ice Ice Baby” of dancehall. In Jamaica, though, his legacy lies with “Anything for You (All Star Cast Remix)”—and not necessarily because of him. Though the Canadian’s sweet, lilting hook is the glue that ties the song together, “Anything for You” is all about the guest stars, especially when it comes to consecutive verses from Beenie Man and the awesome, bullfrog-throated Buju Banton. It’s one of the hardest posse cuts in any genre, and it’s even more incredible because it’s mostly a love song.
SOMETHING NEW
The new Beast Nest album, Sicko, opens with a distorted vocal sample from the beloved Bollywood rom-com Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, setting the tone for its uncompromising but uplifting vibe and its fascination with pop cheese (several song titles are cribbed from Keeping Up With the Kardashians). These six lengthy avant-techno epics build but never explode, perpetually ascending and ascending along with the listener’s spirits.
SOMETHING LOCAL
Jake Soffer’s new instrumental EP, The Tree That Remained Standing, reflects hard-earned levity—its title is inspired by post-forest fire devastation and implicitly by human resilience against pandemics, breakups, you name it. Though the Easy There Tiger guitarist is only 27, these four tracks crackle with the kind of cozy domesticity that generally shows up in folk artists’ music once they’ve been happy and weird for a long time. It’s great, stoned, early-afternoon porch music for fans of New Age noodlers like Michael Hedges and Ted Greene.
SOMETHING ASKEW
Armed with a breakneck rhythmic sensibility and a discussion-confounding name, DJ Nigga Fox (aka Rogerio Brandão) is one of the most formidable creative forces to come out of Lisbon’s electronic music scene. His new Música da Terra EP must be named as a joke, because nothing here is earthbound; if anything, Brandão must have discovered some sort of anti-gravity technology to make his drums swirl in midair like that. His label Principé Discos, with its hyper-complicated club music and Grecian-inspired cover art, is worth a deep dive.