What I’m listening to the week of November 11, 2024. Listen along on Spotify.

1. Frequency – Lou Hayter

I know when you’re calling me
Don’t need a phone
Cause I feel you in my body
It’s extra sensory

I discovered Lou Hayter during my mission to track down every Steely Dan cover on Spotify, and she earned a place on my radar for her immaculate indie pop take on “Time Out of Mind”. This song was a standout from her latest release. It’s seductive, slick, and spooky, with an icy finish that even a saxophone solo can’t melt.

2. x-ray eyes – LCD Soundsystem

Every busboy, cigarette girl
Dental hygienist or backpacking teen
Newspaper seller and the nightclub MC
You’re everything, you’re all I can see
The bones in your body, the blood in your veins
Your hasty decisions and behavioral chains

LCD Soundsystem returns just in time to remind the world why they will never be replaced by The Dare.

3. Nightmare – Grace Ives

First: I fucking love Grace Ives. Second: this song sounds frighteningly like the inside of my own brain. But even if it didn’t, I’d still think it rules. It’s a sparse, under-2-minute gem with layers and layers of meaning.

Deftly captures how apocalyptic imagery has become commonplace and even banal, whether it’s seeping into our words, on our screens, in our newspapers, or inside our heads while we sleep. Ives floats in and out of reality and dream with the detached attitude of a spectator; I think it’s telling that when the lyrics refer to a conversation at a party, it’s one she overheard.

4. Can You Look In The Mirror? – Fabiano Palladino

Don’t know why I keep dancing
Don’t know why I came out
I guess I need attention
Some kind of affection

This song (and the whole album, one of my favorites of the year and an impressive debut from Palladino) is a strong argument for Jai Paul producing everything.

5. Nice Girls – Eye To Eye

Wanna stay out late
With those ostracized guys
Silver glitter on my face
Smear a little round my eyes

I rediscovered this song while listening to an old playlist and thought for sure it was an artfully done pastiche from a modern artist, in the vein of 79.5 or Say Sue Me. I realize now that the quality I was misidentifying as “contemporary” was actually a timelessness. This is just a really good jam, in no small part thanks to Steely Dan’s producer, Gary Katz.

6. Take My Phone Away – Caroline Kingsbury

Somebody take my phone away
I’m calling you a thousand times
I’m in the bathroom on another date
Somebody take my phone away
In the middle of the dance floor with two girls who wanna see my place

Can’t wait for the Chappell Roan crowd to discover there’s another woman making big, vocal-forward pop about lesbian heartbreak. This song is a blatant 80s tribute, but it feels like being alive right now, like scrolling through your ex’s Instagram while you’re going pee.¹ “I don’t want to be better if better means I am living without you” is a heartbreaking line about holding onto the pain of losing a lover when it’s all you have left of them.

7. Bleeed – Oh Land

When I was a kid, I used to have this dream
That I would be remembered, I would have a legacy
But memory’s destroyed, nostalgia is a toy
I’ve already forgotten what I came here to enjoy

Scandinavian pop hits different. The lyrics are on the nose but I think there’s an authentic struggle being expressed in this track. This was further illuminated for me by an interview with Oh Land where she said the song was inspired by a realization that she uses her phone as frequently as she interacts with other people.

8. TAAHLIAH – 2018

It was long ago
2018
But I’m still here
Fucking empty

A case where maximalist production feels absolutely necessary. Those BIG booms hit like a shot to the chest, communicating the depth of TAAHLIAH’s pain more than lyrics can.

9. It’s A Cold World – Quay Dash and K.G. HELM

It’s a cold world and I love my life

Quay Dash is so underrated, and her EP from this year is no exception.

10. Heaven – Alan Sparhawk

Heaven
It’s a lonely place if you’re alone
I wanna be there with the people that I love

Sparhawk opened for a tour in my city and although I didn’t attend, one of my friends was so deeply moved by his set that I checked out his album. This one brought me to tears.

11. Lose You – Peaches

How does it happen
All of a sudden
Fingertip button
Push it and nothing

Peaches is best known for her in-your-face and hypersexual bangers, but I like this softer side of her. It’s kind of like if Robyn made a Halloween song. Produced by Simian Mobile Disco, one of the best of the bloghouse era.²

12. Afterlife – Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory

Will you see me in the afterlife?
Will you tell me it’ll be alright?
Will you tell me that l’ll be just fine?
Will you tell me in the afterlife?

I didn’t find a lot to click with on Etten’s last album, but her work with her band has reignited my interest in her (and brought a new energy to her craft, if the press cycle around these singles is to be believed). This song has all the makings of a great anthem: dark and hopeful, heartbreaking and affirming.

1. There’s a whole other conversation you could have about this song and how smartphones allow us to act on our worst impulses, including torturing ourselves with the presence of someone from the past (or forcefully exerting our presence into the lives of those who have moved on). It makes an interesting contrast to “Frequency”, where Hayter experiences a long distance, but specifically non-digital connection to her lover due to their physical chemistry. ↩︎
2. Weirdly, this song has a remix by a completely separate Alex Jones and Matt Walsh. ↩︎