Random Music I Like

At any given time I have a couple dozen themed drafts started of these Music I Like posts. But I still regularly find things I like that don’t quite fit any of the themes. Sometimes I like the challenge of making up a new category. But sometimes I just want to tell people about something cool I found. This is one of those times.

Hua Li

Hua Li is Chinese-Canadian. Her music floats in the space between hip hop and R&B. On Dynasty, her lyrics range from typical rapper stuff “Sidebitch” to the realities of life as a Chinese person in a very white country “Paper Sons”, and she takes a strongly anti-capitalist stance. Bold, subversive Asian Quebuecoise rapper? That’s a category of one.

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Mark Lanegan

Mark Lanegan‘s 11th album, Somebody’s Knocking, references the Screaming Trees’ “Winter Song” in its title and the single “Stitch it Up” opens with a sample of “Rhapsody in Blue.” But it does deliver the promised retro electronica, which is a departure from Lanegan’s usual output. That said, it’s still very rocking electronica, and anyway, songwriting has never been the draw to a Mark Lanegan album. The truth is, with that baritone, Lanegan could sing the alphabet and he’d have fans like me lining up to hear it.

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Foals

When I first heard Foals, I was really into them. I saw them play a great set at the Deck the Hall Ball back in 2012 or 13, and then I … sort of forgot about them. Then a few weeks ago I stumbled on their newest release, Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost Pt. 2, and was like, “Oh yeah, I really like these guys.”

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Anna Meredith

Anna Meredith doesn’t always write electronic music. She’s mostly known as a contemporary classical composer. But sometimes she likes to do something different, and when she writes electronica, it is fun and interesting. I discovered FIBS on the Bandcamp Daily and its cheerful energy kind of made my day. Meredith describes FIBS as

lies — but nice friendly lies, little stories and constructions and daydreams and narratives that you make for yourself or you tell yourself

and that’s exactly what the songs on FIBS sound like.

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Timelost

The tags for Timelost‘s debut album Don’t Remember Me For This are about as random as you can get: alternative, dream pop, grunge, no wave, punk, shoegaze. And they’re not wrong. Apparently Don’t Remember Me For This is what you get when a bunch of metalheads with eclectic musical tastes put together an album of all the shit that doesn’t fit on a metal album. As a metalhead with eclectic tastes, I like it.

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A.M.I.G.A.

A.M.I.G.A. might be the first band I’ve ever heard from Uruguay. But there’s nothing particularly exotic or unfamiliar about their sound. Even though my Spanish isn’t up to the task of following the lyrics, I get the same feminist vibe from them that I get from Reykjavikurdaetur. And their electronic beats on Enemiga are as infectious and bouncy as something by Sofi Tukker.

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