Silent Shout: Carly Rae Jepsen’s British Accent, Chance’s Latest Feature & A Catcall Protest
Silent Shout is our recurring dispatch from pop’s fringes. It may not be music for the masses, but — to paraphrase *NSYNC — this might be pop.
These last couple weeks in pop have been kind of dead, so I don’t have anything to grouse about. But that’s a good thing; there’s too much music and rehashed content pimping it out. We’re overloaded. Sometimes we need stretches like this just so we can catch up on all the new material that’s dropped this year or revisit the more demanding listens. Or — here’s an insane idea — so we can go back to old stuff we missed out on merely for the purpose of improving our music knowledge base even though such stuff can’t be parlayed into Twitter hot takes.
As for catching up on new cuts, in our latest alt-pop roundup we’ve got big names Chance The Rapper and Carly Rae Jepsen showing up with assists in service of idiosyncratic epics, along with some other loopy offerings. Check it all out below.
TALK ABOUT POP MUZIK
Blood Orange feat. Carly Rae Jepsen — “Better Than Me” There are many reasons to love Blood Orange’s just-released album Freetown Sound. CRJ whisper-singing with a fake British accent is one of them.
Ice Choir — “Unprepared” Kurt Feldman was a member of Pains Of Being Pure At Heart and co-produced Kristin Kontrol‘s album, but under his Ice Choir moniker he fully flexes his nostalgia-pop wizardry. His ’80s-inspired solo project has been dormant since 2012’s Afar, but he’s back with sophomore LP Designs In Rhythm, out September 9. Lead single “Unprepared” is a billowy memory cloud of pastel synth washes, gooey drum pads and effete vocals.
Negative Gemini — “Don’t Worry Bout The Fuck I’m Doing” Following Empress Of‘s “Kitty Kat,” we have another agitated anti-catcall haymaker that uses chilly electro-pop as the delivery system. The New York producer/singer says it’s meant for the hottest days of summer, which I’m going to go ahead and assume are also the days in which catcalling is most frequent. It’s off her forthcoming sophomore LP Body Work, out August 12.
Brian Fresco feat. Chance The Rapper & Blue Hawaii — “Higher” This is a strange song! It hopscotches over about three different beats and as many vocalists, none of which are particularly interrelated, so it’s an unpredictable and thoroughly enjoyable journey. Fresco, another of Chicago’s SaveMoney talents, shows off a sing-songy side and a straightforward one, Chance closes things out with a string of casual, mumbled bars and Blue Hawaii‘s Raphaelle Standell-Preston (also of Braids) snaps the listener to attention between verses. It’s impossible to absorb it all on one listen.
