Listen
Radiohead - Creep (DJ Lukinhas Remix)
baile funk/sad
Tropicàlia practiced antropofagia, a cultural cannibalism that emphasized taking anything and everything pop culture for reincorporation into something uniquely Brazilian. Os Mutantes, Caetano, and Costa grabbed The Beatles, bossa nova and folk songs; disassembled and reassembled them as a kaleidoscopic molotov cocktail aimed squarely at the military dictatorship. A cultural powerhouse, it’s no wonder Portuguese is basically now the sole province of Brazil. And so it is with deep respect and admiration that I announce Radiohead’s Creep is now as Brazilian as pao de queijo, thanks to Zoomer Soundcloud producer DJ Lukinhas. Truly, more than we were using it for.
Erik Travis - Sometimes
house/pop
Musing over plucky boom bap he wonders about deodorant at the club. A bag of thoughts scattered across the mirrored table, refracted by gossamer keys. Strikes a thinking pose then a dancing pose, alternating.
Hakushi Hasegawa - Kyofunohoshi
pop/explosion
Think: “big band gone feral on uppers, trapped in the back of a karaoke bar and forced to double time by threat of vodka shots,” but make it pop. Hakushi Hasegawa was a delightful discovery for me last year—their warped take on pop songs a taffy-stretched contortion of clattering breakbeats, caterwauling horns and cavity-sweet melodies rupturing the ecstatic form.
PITA - Get Out 3
harsh noise/experimental
A true noise classic if there ever was one; the late Peter Rehberg’s Get Out hit like artillery when released in 1999. It was until that point the most definitive statement on “laptop” music—a confused, not-quite-genre of experimenters pushing Powerbooks into digital disintegration (including personal faves Fennesz and Jim O’Rourke). What makes the third eponymous track so potent is its mutated Ennio Morricone sample, first reversed and submerged, and then blisteringly deployed to crest a waterfall of harsh noise and feedback. Not for the faint of heart, partly for volume partly because it’s crushingly beautiful.
Yasuaki Shimizu - Crow
new-wave/jazz
Low-light, silk-suit bass-line lurks. Ask the crook: what’s the password? Alley-cat sax screeches through. The clock creeps faster. Steam rises from the grates while keyboards languish to the dull waiting room click of a drum machine. What’s next? The clock ticks three times. A vocal line sleuths. The hidden meaning comes by itself.
Watch
The great martial arts movies tell the same story: a once powerful clan is threatened by an upstart rival. Pride-weakened, one or some clan members go into hiding to regroup and train in exile before restoring the clan’s glory by defeating the new rival. At their most sweeping, they are tragic family melodramas; dynasties at war. At their most methodical, they are punch-by-punch chronicles of martial discipline, where the character’s training and self-actualization take center stage.
Despite superficially similar structure, Bastard Swordsman does none of this. Almost gleefully so. Our protagonist, Yun Fei Yang, begins in exile—an orphaned servant used literally for target practice by students at a martial arts school. Instead of big, sweeping melodrama, Yun Fei Yang mutely pines for the school’s only female recruit, who soundly rejects him. A rival clan (the formidably named “Invincible Clan”) challenges the school and begins a ticking clock—defeat the rival clan’s best fighter in 2 years or the school faces extermination. A third party to the conflict, spying opportunity, joins the school to ward off potential successors from leading the school. When the head of the school (who has been teaching Yun Fei Yang kung fu in secret) ends up dead, the interloper scapegoats Yun Fei Yang and chases him off, leaving him to retrain and find a way to clear his name.
As nimble as the plot moves, it’s not nearly as nimble as its characters, who spend half of their fights flying through the air, doling out increasingly high-level martial arts techniques to absurd sonic cues (if you thought Level Seven Annihilation Demon Technique was bad, wait ‘til Level Eight). Eyes glow red, extended palms shoot lasers, and it would be rude of me to spoil the literal transformation that Yun Fei Yang undergoes while in exile to restore the clan’s honor (just know it is preceded by a SFW girl-powered, near-Human-Centipedic Qi massage.)
Somehow walking a tightrope between saturated schmaltz; ludicrously over-the-top, mystical martial arts and good ol’ fashioned Hong Kong action, Bastard Swordsman sticks a tricky landing. All power to Silkworm Style.