Listen Up
An ambient remix, a funk-influenced tune, an impassioned hip-hop collaboration and more new music from this week
Tegan and Sara: I Don’t Owe You Anything (Tim Mislock Remix)
LA-based ambient artist Tim Mislock’s diaphanous take on Tegan and Sara’s “I Don’t Owe You Anything,” from the recently released Hey, We’re Just Like You (The Remixes) EP, lifts listeners from earth into a breeze of sonic beauty. The official music video, created by Stevan Cablayan, is equally elemental as a sun-soaked figure moves about larger-than-life landscapes—both natural and artificial—with a desert wind farm, an industrial complex and the ocean included. Mislock’s remix is one of six on the new EP, all of which stretch their original source material into something very different.
Aminé feat. Injury Reserve: Fetus
A track from Aminé’s newest album, Limbo, “Fetus” features the rap group Injury Reserve. Over a dark and distorted beat, the three rappers—Aminé (aka Adam Aminé Daniel), Ritchie With a T (aka Nathaniel Ritchie) and the late Stepa J Groggs (born Jordan Groggs)—debate bringing life into the world. “They giving guns with every muthafuckin’ happy meal / A shooter every month and they pretend it’s daffodils / My son’ll probably see that fire before a fire drill,” Aminé raps in his first verse. A verse later, Groggs delivers an emotional message, recorded shortly before his passing: “Can’t believe my baby girl’s already turning six / Pray you nothing like your daddy, stay away from drugs / Hope I can be half the father that my mama was.”
Jim-E Stack feat. Dijon: Sweet Summer Sweat
Producer Jim-E Stack’s newest single, “Sweet Summer Sweat,” uses an “unlived memory of young summer love” as its foundation, the artist (aka James Stack) says. The song features LA-based singer Dijon, whose freestyle vocals include the chorus: “Keep your hand in my / Pocket / Sweet, sweet, sweet summer sweat.” Stack’s distorted, guitar-heavy melody acts as the ideal backdrop for Dijon’s crooning, which conveys the familiar story of a summer romance.
Omar Apollo: Stayback
A funk-influenced tune by Indiana singer-songwriter Omar Apollo (aka Omar Apolonio Velasco), “Stayback” is, the young artist says, “the song that I’ve been wanting to make my entire career.” About longstanding unrequited love, “Stayback” features rubbery bass, warped effects and a minute-long guitar solo by Dreamboy Oscar. The Aiden Cullen-directed video furthers the storyline, casting Apollo as a lovestruck partygoer forced to part ways with his dream man when he sees his attention is drawn to somebody else.
Listen Up is published every Sunday and rounds up the new music we found throughout the week. Hear the year so far on our Spotify channel.
