This first review I’m picking tracks that have what I like to call a matruckin groovy backspine. The kind of beats you don’t just bop your head to, but you feel your heartbeat syncopated with the rhythm, you feel the cleanest dirty you’ve felt since that first second in the shower this morning, and no matter what you’re doing, you’re actually cruising down the highway windows down hair in the breeze shirt off and car hydraulics rocking you so hard you’re probably suffering repetitive minor concussions you’ll see a neurologist for years down the line.
The first track is MASSA off 2021’s Tyler the Creator album CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST. Just listen to it and come back because spoilers ahead in the next sentence. That transition at 0:21 though! Drops harder than I could drop this ass to the ground if I tried to drop this ass to the ground as hard as I could inspired by a chance to win a cash prize. The flow is so smooth you could only emulate it by shaving your face and letting a stream of snowmelt run over your cheeks with the sound of spring robins chirping in the background. On a serious note, the track complexly grapples with Tyler’s life as a successful black man living in a society still fraught with the same racism that resulted in slavery in the 18th-19th century; a theme paradoxically opposed to the aforementioned ridiculous bass beats and babysmooth flow.
Second track is Beep Box from Snarky Puppy’s 2016 release Culcha Vulcha. The song is essentially two in one. On the first half, we’re orbiting earth in our spacesuit like nothing’s wrong because we just ate some friendly space shrooms. Unexpectedly, a mysterious line from some ethereal woodwinds beckons us, before hurtling back to earth in a fiery mess of charred flesh, to shake what our mama gave us no matter what we got back there. On the second half of the track, the aforementioned booty shaking to those sick crescendoing beats changes our trajectory and we end up back safe and sound on the space station. The track’s a bit repetitive, but crank this thing up and enjoy.
Thirdly and finally, how could I not mention Maria Tambien off Khruangbin’s 2018 album Con Todo El Mundo. Don’t go to counseling, just take your lover under the stars and groove to this gem until you’re both laughing then holding each other then looking in each other’s eyes longingly then multitudinous shooting stars light up to the sky to the driving melodic bass beat of this song and you’ll know all will be okay, everything is alright, this person you’re with is magic and you’ll die together in each other’s arms 57 years from now after listening to this track one final time. I don’t know who Maria is but whisper her name in my ear any day.
