Future : Inside The Mattress
Releasing his fifth full-length in the space of a year (including album Dirty Sprite 2 and joint Drake mixtape What A Time To Be Alive), Future gifted Purple Reign to the world over the weekend. Inside The Mattress possesses an introspection and levity, similar to March Madness, with bursts of anxious triumph through glitchy production. To call Purple Reign a victory lap would be ignoring Future’s non-stop victory laps since Beast Mode.
Courtney Barnett : Three Packs A Day
Court delivers the plot twist punchline one line in, and it’s a fuckin’ ripper. It’s hard to write funny, but Three Packs A Day nails it with deadpan brilliance – the joke never overplayed, sprinkled with a sachet of social commentary without spoiling the broth. It’s offhand – taken from a brief Milk! Records compilation – and the tone suits, but doesn’t compromise in any sense of craft.
Justin Bieber : Love Yourself
This is the best song ever written.
Flume feat. Kai : Never Be Like You
There was incredible excitement in my household this weekend as I gathered my good Christian sons (who love this new genre called “EDM”) around the home stereo and pressed play on my “iPad” to stream Flume’s new song. What happened next was absolutely disgusting. Within the first 20 seconds of the song, Flume (who I used to regard as one of the best singers in the country) sings a line containing a swear word. Not just any swear word, mind you – one of the big ones. In my haste to shut off this absolute filth, I snapped my “iPad” in half, then proceeded to assist my two sons in deleting every Flume song off the Zune I got them for Christmas. This track is an absolute disgrace. Flume needs to issue an apology to his young fanbase for using the “devil’s dictionary”, most notably to my sons (aged 36 and 34 respectively).
Wolfmother : Gypsy Caravan
In a twisted experiment of fucked up proportions, Andrew Stockdale is hooked up foie gras style to consume his most fetid riff and lyrical clichés, his liver harvested after years of refinement to extract Gypsy Caravan. It reeks, but there’s something to admire within its perfect mediocrity. It’s below self-parody, something beyond shame and death of ego. It’s nihilism, a soundtrack to the abyss. What’s the point of releasing new Wolfmother? What’s the point of listening? What’s the point of anything at all?
Single Of The Week
No Zu : Spirit Beat
Melbourne collective No Zu project a loosely constructed, tightly wound groove on Spirit Beat, its movement unpredictable by standards of conventional arrangement, yet easy for the body to follow. The all-in approach means there’s a lot to take in, but it’s easy when you intellectualise with your hips. Not to be missed at Golden Plains.
