Songs You Need To Hear Now #20

If your AC is broken, listen to the latest and greatest from Palehound, Deer Tick, Zivi, and more to cool down.

Jun 28, 2023

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Here are all the highlights from the great new music I’ve been listening to this week. Thanks to everyone who is saving the playlist! Please be sure to follow and save the playlist for all of the latest updates:

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Last week’s playlist included the announcement for the latest Mama Mañana Records (for the new subscribers, this is the indie label founded last year) release, with Lost in Love by Zivi being our fourth release and first LP. It’s also Zivi’s debut LP after 2021’s Under the Palm Tree, so this collaboration has some fun milestones.

Zivi’s whole vibe is creating timeless melodies meant to grease the wheels of a hangout’s mellow sway, and there is no better example of this on Lost in Love than his new single, “Move Along,” which dropped yesterday. I’ll let him explain it himself:

“‘Move Along’ has a hazy and dreamlike quality due to its unconventional structure. Typically, four-chord pop songs run on a four-bar loop. What makes ‘Move Along’ interesting is that it functions on a six-bar loop which makes it drone in its lethargy while still being upbeat. It’s all about the unexpected backbeat, which is a little tumultuous, like a three-sided tire sort of chugging along.”

“Move Along” comes from his recording sessions at The Market Recording in Echo Park, a familiar setting for a musician who shares time between Los Angeles and Santa Fe. Speaking of familiarity, the studio musicians on this track include many of SoCal’s finest indie cats, who have played on many of the albums I’ve covered in the newsletter over the past three years. They include drummer Josh Adams (Fruit Bats, Beck, Jenny Lewis, Tim Heidecker’s Very Good Band), bassist Neil Wogensen (Valley Queen, Wild Reeds), organist Isaac Plummer (Cherry Glazer, Marinero, The Crudes, and Peter Recine (Alison Weiss, Yellowbirddd), who lends the wicked lead guitar licks in addition to sharing co-production duties with Zivi and Kyle Biane (Pacific Radio, The Dumes). What a lineup!

While we work towards Lost in Love’s release date of September 15, Zivi and myself genuinely appreciate your streams, playlist adds, and YouTube views - if ya dig it, I appreciate you spreading the good word!

This week’s playlist also includes a few new songs from Lowmello’s musical family - keyboardist Jake Wonder’s band Dream Noise recently released their new record, Starcasm, and That Sweet Breath’s producer Kendall Jones has a new single called “Blowin’ Smoke” from his band, Homebody - the northern New Mexico music scene is pretty damn underrated!

Special thanks to Substacking friend Kevin Alexander, who included Lowmello’s That Sweet Breath in his mid-year round-up of favorite records for his newsletter, On Repeat Records. If you missed his interview with Lowmello a few months ago, it’s well worth revisiting.

Besides this great local music, I also want to point out a few others I’m really enjoying from this week’s stacked playlist. I’m hit or miss on the Providence, Rhode Island heroes, Deer Tick, but their latest record, Emotional Contracts, fires on all cylinders. “Forgiving Ties” sounds like Tom Petty and Paul Westerberg dueting over an outtake from The Beach Boys’ 1985 self-titled record (good, not fantastic if you’ve never listened. Much better than anything that came after, though), so if you’re a regular reader, you know this is my idea of a good time. The entire record is solid, but stick around for the closer, “The Real Thing,” a nine-minute cathartic release via chunky power chords.

Finally, we have the return of Palehound, their first since the excellent Black Friday four years ago. We last heard from leader Elle Kemper when she teamed up with Jay Som to form Bachelor, and their record Doomin’ Sun was one of the best of 2021 and still in steady rotation around here. The seasonally appropriate “Independence Day” is from their upcoming record, Eye on the Bat, which is out in a few weeks.