18 great records you might have missed: Winter 2024

–Jeremy D. Larson

Listen/buy: Amazon | album/elvis-he-was-schlager/1726001652″ class=”external-link” data-event-click=”{"element":"ExternalLink","outgoingURL":"https://cna.st/affiliate-link/63B2uvSQBPtLWCnAKVBh3aKbjMKQQk7xejCd483FePL2oxofuSyumsXdw9eSEjGwyMDBGRkAkNjP2gJLxvJyDdNze3RPFNvhev8Liddq1FDCb5o4wogVWhbDygeMKXKCk5z5arhJD4XuKN6cHuf9hCAVnYiB4anjhvagQTTAXfhaaYZ"}” href=”https://cna.st/affiliate-link/63B2uvSQBPtLWCnAKVBh3aKbjMKQQk7xejCd483FePL2oxofuSyumsXdw9eSEjGwyMDBGRkAkNjP2gJLxvJyDdNze3RPFNvhev8Liddq1FDCb5o4wogVWhbDygeMKXKCk5z5arhJD4XuKN6cHuf9hCAVnYiB4anjhvagQTTAXfhaaYZ” rel=”sponsored” target=”_blank”>Apple Music | album/elvis-he-was-schlager” class=”external-link” data-event-click=”{"element":"ExternalLink","outgoingURL":"https://churchchords.bandcamp.com/album/elvis-he-was-schlager"}” href=”https://churchchords.bandcamp.com/album/elvis-he-was-schlager” rel=”noopener” target=”_blank”>Bandcamp | album/6BQFwsQsIUSpioYEfklmPt” class=”external-link” data-event-click=”{"element":"ExternalLink","outgoingURL":"https://open.spotify.com/album/6BQFwsQsIUSpioYEfklmPt"}” href=”https://open.spotify.com/album/6BQFwsQsIUSpioYEfklmPt” rel=”noopener” target=”_blank”>Spotify

DJ Nigga Fox: Chá Preto

Rogério Brandão has gone to great lengths over the last decade to avoid getting stuck in one sound. The Angolan-born, Lisbon-based producer's coiled, percussive workouts gradually morphed into more complex shapes and complex investigations into sonority. On Chá Preto, leaves rhythmic certainties behind, plunging into a wild, spongy pit of pitch-bending synths, mumbled vocals and drum patterns hanging together by a thread. At times, it resembles a kind of spiritual jazz. In others, late-night club music was down to killing an unknown, more hidden creature. In place of the certainty of style, Brandão offers the slipperiness of unrestrained creative vision.

–Philip Sherburne

Listen/buy: Amazon | album/ch%C3%A1-preto/1730808658″ class=”external-link” data-event-click=”{"element":"ExternalLink","outgoingURL":"https://cna.st/affiliate-link/X7niGYieCH8UQ8PGqdUBtg8M6SAMcPegELm2uaNkiXQqSRwp4HaQGxppbNbCMF44CZcGNECmFt4zQZRh1GRha7dMawYceaX8a37DfDUNaebXawGj5AVcaaairHR9MEMHGasHAAeNrCz6hHyEYtr6Vh8GDruewbF2pLVrZ"}” href=”https://cna.st/affiliate-link/X7niGYieCH8UQ8PGqdUBtg8M6SAMcPegELm2uaNkiXQqSRwp4HaQGxppbNbCMF44CZcGNECmFt4zQZRh1GRha7dMawYceaX8a37DfDUNaebXawGj5AVcaaairHR9MEMHGasHAAeNrCz6hHyEYtr6Vh8GDruewbF2pLVrZ” rel=”sponsored” target=”_blank”>Apple Music | album/ch-preto” class=”external-link” data-event-click=”{"element":"ExternalLink","outgoingURL":"https://principediscos.bandcamp.com/album/ch-preto"}” href=”https://principediscos.bandcamp.com/album/ch-preto” rel=”noopener” target=”_blank”>Bandcamp | album/6Ymj38gPr6gTTSTT6wWPuG” class=”external-link” data-event-click=”{"element":"ExternalLink","outgoingURL":"https://open.spotify.com/album/6Ymj38gPr6gTTSTT6wWPuG"}” href=”https://open.spotify.com/album/6Ymj38gPr6gTTSTT6wWPuG” rel=”noopener” target=”_blank”>Spotify | album/345334865″ class=”external-link” data-event-click=”{"element":"ExternalLink","outgoingURL":"https://tidal.com/browse/album/345334865"}” href=”https://tidal.com/browse/album/345334865″ rel=”noopener” target=”_blank”>Tidal

Erika de Casier: Yet

Erika de Casier is a true Y2K scholar whose third album embodies the soft cool and playfulness of the era's most elegant and influential R&B. Her vocals are low, breathy and Cassie-lite, swelling smooth, teasing tracks that hug the corner of the proverbial club. Jumpy Timbaland-inspired synth flourishes throughout the dance, while songs like the shimmering “Home Alone” and “Test It” glide with a glossy digipop sheen. Sharp and sultry collaborations with Shygirl (“Ex-Girlfriend”) and Blood Orange (“Twice”) have a similar downtempo ease. De Casier is the chick in the middle of a cavernous room, grumbling about a cold partner or the quiet happiness of doing laundry on a day off, dancing with the sweet paranoia in her head.

– Clover Hope

Ghost 53206: FreeBandz Menace

With a name that sounds like it was spat out of a broken calculator, Ghost 53206 has quickly become one of Milwaukee's premier slapstick life lesson givers. In 14 full throttle tracks FreeBandz Menace, hands out enough drug tips to fill an instruction manual. Lines like “When you're dealing with paper you can't even trust your friend” and “I've got to keep my grass low in case I see a snake,” would land on the front page. He is the wise, experienced hunter on the block, hovering above the chaos of the neighborhood.

– Alphonse Pierre

Listen/buy: Amazon | album/freebandz-menace/1738972822″ class=”external-link” data-event-click=”{"element":"ExternalLink","outgoingURL":"https://cna.st/affiliate-link/B7jB7s3t6nATUHhGS3LABK1jRyUqXu5qUiD3X7BcXCzdH57FA1micAPWpwPFjkbPZ83VowWmGRrwDA37nhRX9jMpqYqMBMkD3qNm6Xdhm9cLxi7bML4dxtR6kWzPGKvweWuMRp4SCnkQmWjAmvdU1mXF4yWGEQZ2a9PzHMPP"}” href=”https://cna.st/affiliate-link/B7jB7s3t6nATUHhGS3LABK1jRyUqXu5qUiD3X7BcXCzdH57FA1micAPWpwPFjkbPZ83VowWmGRrwDA37nhRX9jMpqYqMBMkD3qNm6Xdhm9cLxi7bML4dxtR6kWzPGKvweWuMRp4SCnkQmWjAmvdU1mXF4yWGEQZ2a9PzHMPP” rel=”sponsored” target=”_blank”>Apple Music | album/44sQZjLg99YdsNsPAkBNXj” class=”external-link” data-event-click=”{"element":"ExternalLink","outgoingURL":"https://open.spotify.com/album/44sQZjLg99YdsNsPAkBNXj"}” href=”https://open.spotify.com/album/44sQZjLg99YdsNsPAkBNXj” rel=”noopener” target=”_blank”>Spotify

Guerra / de Paiva / Hornsby / Konradsen: Contrahouse

When leftfield house producers Guerra and de Paiva of São Paulo's 40% Foda/Maneiríssimo label felt the sudden urge to infuse Balearic reggae with a tinge of easy-listening jazz, they had a brainstorm big enough to rattle radars. of the National Weather Service: Why doesn't he call Bruce Hornsby? And so it turned out that the bluegrass musician, onetime member of the Grateful Dead and Grammy-winning performer of the 2Pac-sampled mega-hit “The Way It Is” ended up providing the wet-jazz keyboard riffing for Guerra and de Paiva . to the year's most seamless soundtrack to moonwalking, spell casting, beer garden barbecues and other activities where the ground gets spongy under your feet. The laid-back voice of Jenny Marie Sabel of Norwegian indie-pop duo Konradsen applies a fantastic Arthur Russell echo to their crazy funk and late night boogie, further melting the boundaries between international borders and musical genres.