The Plug’n Play: October (‘22)

October 31, 2022

You can listen to the full playlist on Apple Music, Spotify, or Tidal

Below are a few thoughts on music from the month, and a bit about some of the songs we selected. Songs 1 - 12 were selected by me, Stanley, while songs 13 - 29 were selected by Kevin. As always, we hope you find a song you like and check out the larger body of work!

Nick Hakim — Only One

In a world where music can sound, and feel, over processed, Nick Hakim’s acceptance of imperfection provides comfort. Hakim’s new album, COMETA, his fourth studio album, is brilliant in its approach, leaving behind notions of “how it’s supposed to be” for something more. (And especially interesting following his 2020 album, whose title asked the question, will this make me good?). If you listen to Ani, the first song on COMETA, you can hear the guitar isn’t quite in tune; you can hear his fingers wrestling and sliding on the guitar strings on Slid Under; the sound of tape hiss on Vertigo; his voice never sounds pristine at any point in the album. These sorts of imperfections allow the album to be felt in material ways. COMETA’s another excellent installment in Hakim’s discography.

Smino — Defribrillator

Lately, I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about the relationship between place and sound. Asking questions like: what conditions — historically, politically, socially, etc. — help produce sound(s) that we come to know as “West Coast Hip-Hop,” "Southern Rap,” or any other genre. When I listen to Smino, an artist from St. Louis, I hear someone that’s truly at the midpoint for so much sonically. He’s got this Dungeon Family/OutKast/Organized Noize thing going on; at times he feels like Sleepy Brown, other times he feels like Andre 3000. But when I listen Defibrillator, it feels incredibly “West Coast,” with a strong gospel influence. What’s most exciting is that, three albums in, it’s clear that Smino has no commitment to genre or a notion of what “should” be. He’s rapping, singing, and hopping whatever line that may have existed. It’s transgressive and daring, and that’s what keeps me coming back.

NxWorries — Where I Go (Featuring HER)

I love reading liner notes, it’s probably one of main reasons I collect vinyl. I particularly enjoy reading about the story of an album, how it came to be, reading about the people helped make an album: the engineers, writers, session musicians, and so on.

Over the years, the music industry has changed a great deal, especially with regard to licensing and sampling. The short of it: while that James Brown drum break might be great, or that Bob James chord progression is just what a producer may have needed for a track, those artists wisened up and started coming for their cut of records (as they should!).

But this also meant that sampling artists got really difficult, nearly impossible in some cases. So, what’s the fix? Over the last 5 or so years, there’s been a bunch of online services and sample-based companies, that make high quality loops to be sampled (it’s the sort of thing that sounds like a Bob James tune, but not quite a Bob James tune. And I don’t mean this in a cheesy or corny way - this stuff is actually good). These companies have helped music makers clear some of the red tape, allowing them to get their loops without needing to go through lawyers and arduous clearance processes.

On the other side, what comes with this eased clearance process is no notation of who actually is playing the instruments on a record. There are plenty of benefits to this new approach to music makers (Wes Pendleton, one of the co-founders of Soul Surplus, has been talking about this in a much more eloquent and nuanced manner on his YouTube channel lately), but for me, someone interested in the genealogy of sound, I’m worried there won’t be a record of who did what. Admittedly, it’s a spectators concern.

This is a really long-winded way of saying, the new NxWorries tune, Where I Go, prominently features one of John Smythe’s loops or “samples” if you will. I might actually be short-changing Smythe’s contributions. With the exception of a tempo change, Smyth’s loop is the song. Without question, Smythe is one of the best artists working today, infusing creativity and skill into a land otherwise barren of such qualities.