Lav's Music Corner

  Review by k tessa Melancholy sapphic troubadour Lucy Dacus could probably make a good song out of the ways I feel about her. I admire her immensely, both for her consistency as an artist and her courage as a soft, butch-y celebrity in our contemporary culture. I think she's an excellent guitarist and a great songwriter. But (and it breaks my heart to say this), much as I've tried to make it work, I don't know that I've ever loved her. Such emotions would fit right in on her fourth solo album, Forever Is A Feeling . Typically, my apathy would be unremarkable - but Dacus clearly expects her listeners to feel, very deeply, about this record. Its opening track, "Calliope Prelude", is a brief crescendo of soaring violins. It's named after the greatest of the Muses from Greek myth, the one who inspired The Iliad and other epic works. The cover presents Dacus herself inside an ornate gold frame, draped in golden silk like a deific Renaissance subject, the album...

jasmine.4.t is a British singer-songwriter who was announced last year as a new signee of the Phoebe Bridgers-led Saddest Factory record label. You Are The Morning  follows a trio of singles that dropped last year and features Phoebe Bridgers' entire group, boygenius, on production throughout the record as well as occasional backing vocals from the trio. I was extremely excited for the release of the album after loving all of the singles and this style of indie-folk and singer-songwriter music in general. Delightfully, Jasmine didn't disappoint. When I say my expectation were high for You Are The Morning  I mean it, because the album's three singles are an astounding bunch. Lead single "Skin On Skin" is a wonderfully written tune that's able to convey some unique sensations with the physical descriptions in its lyricism. It's also the moment where I first fell in love with Jasmine's subtle but beautiful singing and when the song rushes into its surpris...

boygenius is the beloved trio of critical darling singer-songwriters Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus, and Julien Baker. The trio first united in 2018 for a short EP that received lots of critical acclaim but in the years since they've each, Bridgers in particular, become even more critically and commercially successful. After each of the trio released studio albums in 2020 or 2021, they've returned as a group for a formal studio debut project.  Review by Lav: Some of my biggest haters are waiting to feast on this one. While hip-hop reviews will always be the most controversial because hip-hop fans have very little to do other than complain about reviews online, my apparent tirade again singer-songwriter girlies is a close second. I think everyone in boygenius is very talented but with all of them, Julien Baker in particular, I've been far lower on their work than the critical consensus. In fact, this reared its head with boygenius itself when I gave the EP a just okay verdict t...

5.  Worms  - Ashnikko I can see this not going over well since on the surface this song is a pretty severe aesthetic mismatch with lyrics that don't seem to particularly add up to anything and a plucked bassline placed precariously over a rattling trap beat. Once I gave myself into the theme of the song, having brain worms, it's sonic clashes started to click with me a bit more. Whether this will hold up will be put to the test on the album but I see the potential in what Ashnikko is going for here more than on the first single.  Listen 4.  Since I Have A Lover  - 6LACK The decision to switch from darker, moodier R&B to something brighter and even a bit indie flavored was one I didn't understand at first but it did grow on me ever so slightly. Maybe it's just that I'm so excited for 6LACK to be back but some of the things that normally bother me on songs like the weak hook or the track just bowing out completely out of nowhere at the end didn't really dampen...

5.  Same Problems?  - A$AP Rocky While Rocky has been far from silent over the past few years. this song's live debut last month and the serious nature of its subject matter feels like the biggest sign of future endeavors since Rocky dropped 2018's Testing . That's exciting enough on its own, making the song's meditative style an interesting choice, but one that grew on me as the week went on. Ultimately, how much I enjoyed the messaging of the track and how well it fits the presentation won me over.  Listen 4.  brrr  - Kim Petras Like a lot of recent Kim Petras singles there are things I don't like about the track, they're just overpowered by the things I do. The instrumental here is basically a "we have SOPHIE at home" type beat, though if I wasn't so familiar with Sophie's work I might be a bit more interested in the beat because it really does match the song's icy demeanor. What really sells me on the song as usual is Kim's confiden...

Snail Mail is the indie rock and singer-songwriter alias of musician Lindsey Jordan. She first turned heads in 2016 with her Habit  EP before signing with Matador records and releasing a fan favorite debut album Lush  in 2018. Now three and a half years later we are finally getting the follow-up, which quickly became one of the most anticipated new albums of the year for many young indie fans. Review by Lav: Every time one of these records comes out I suppose it's a chance to redeem myself from the narrative that I hate them. By "one of these" I mean a young indie singer-songwriter girl that is probably huge on tik tok and with people who have Smiths fan accounts on Instagram. Faye Webster, Clairo, Caroline Polachek to some extent and pretty much the entirety of boygenius. Every once in a while when I toss out a good review for one of these albums like Phoebe Bridgers last year or Faye Webster earlier this year I hope that it can turn the course, but no. I still get plent...

If there is one genre that always had way more releases than I could possibly ever cover, its rap. But a close second is indie/singer-songwriter records which are easy to produce and there are a LOT of them. It is also one of the most homogenized genres out there with so much of it sounding functionally indistinguishable sonically and relying on the personality or story-telling of its artist to bear the entire weight of the project. This means that I typically don't enjoy these style of projects as much as most, but I still think it's appropriate to get my thoughts out there on some of the bigger ones.  Home Video  - Lucy Dacus While I haven't been head over heels for much of Lucy's work so far it's difficult to deny her talent as a vocalist and her infectious personality. When she's at her best as a soloist or member of boygenius she is capable of great things and after hearing a few good singles I was hoping that Home Video  would be her best outing yet. The r...

Julien Baker is a Tennessee based singer-songwriter who first emerged in 2015 with a breakout debut album Sprained Ankle . She followed this up with a critically acclaimed sophomore album and as a member of the indie supergroup Boygenius with Lucy Dacus and Phoebe Bridgers. This collaboration explains the uncharacteristic 4 year gap between studio album releases that has lead to Little Oblivions . Review By Lav: While I enjoyed the versatility and creativity put on display on the short but incredibly sweet Boygenius  project I haven't been quite as in love with Julien's solo work. While 2017's Turn Out The Lights  was an improvement I saw Julien Baker as merely above average prescence in the incredibly saturated world of singer-songwriter music. While she is no doubt a gifted lyricist I feel like her music so often falls into the same painfully generic tropes of the genre. I heard a few singles that didn't get me particularly excited for the record as a whole, but now t...