#rtj4

Let’s fucking go.

“Run the Dragon”

Run the Jewels x Bryan Danielson

20. Rough and Rowdy Ways, BOB DYLAN

On the expansive, wordy Rough and Rowdy Ways, every last line is packed with layers upon layers of meaning. Dylan’s thrillingly dense poetry has a startling directness to it, floating atop delicate, meandering blues and old school rock and roll, the simplicity of which emphasizes the simple power of Dylan’s songwriting. Listening to “I’ve Made Up My Mind To Give Myself To You,” I’m the gentleman hunched over the jukebox, getting up close to the speaker and swaying softly, lost in the music.

19. RTJ4, RUN THE JEWELS

It’s only fitting that Run the Jewels would reemerge in the summer of 2020, a season of demonstrations against police brutality and institutional racism unprecedented in their scope. Killer Mike and El-P’s righteousness and urgency are invigorating and remarkably focused here. It makes you want to put your mask on, make a sign, and take to the streets.

18. SAWAYAMA, RINA SAWAYAMA

The strange, singular intersection that Rina Sawayama’s sound sits at- the girl who’d never miss TRL but looked forward to Ozzfest all year- calls on the disparate influences of her youth to unpack generational trauma and her sometimes tumultuous relationship with her family. Despite the prickly themes, SAWAYAMA maintains a determinedly cheery exterior, juxtaposing pop tropes with probing, often self-critical observations with an admirable frankness. 

17. Send them to Coventry, PA SALIEU

Pa Salieu’s wonderfully immersive vision of Coventry hypnotizes with its deceptively simple, lush beats paired with Salieu’s rather complex cadences. His flow has remarkable shape to it, showcasing his accent and asking his listener to pay as close attention to what he’s saying as to how he’s saying it. His voice is an instrument and he’s in full command of it here.

16. WHAT WE DREW 우리가 그려왔던 , YAEJI

Yaeji’s first full length doesn’t sound like what you might have expected from her if you first became aware of her back in 2017 with the infectious “raingurl.” This is more languorous and strange, in turns elegant and silly. It’s clear she’s vastly expanded her songwriting tool kit and the results are ravishingly distinct. No one else is making anything remotely like this.

15. The Passion Of, SPECIAL INTEREST

Electropunk at its most deliriously frenzied, gorgeously dissonant, and visceral. There’s not only urgency but also purpose, both of which are foundational to effective punk, which too many people forget. It’s relentless, but The Passion Of also happens to be beautiful. The textures Special Interest are able to conjure from the marriage of their synths and guitars are unexpectedly divine without costing the album its edge. 

14. Shabrang, SEVDALIZA

The songs on Shabrang are often parables, flowery in language and elliptical in meaning. By every metric, this is music that should sound esoteric and inaccessible, but the effortless blending of Persian sounds with aughts pop sensibilities is breathtakingly effective, allowing the intricate textures of the (impeccably produced!) music to roll out slowly and methodically, perfectly in concert with Sevdaliza’s heady, uncompromising songwriting. 

13. Phoenix: Flames Are Dew Upon My Skin, EARTHEATER

Folk is allowed to sound like this? Symphonic textures that suddenly give way to industrial, skittering, bubbling synth that’s rendered so intricately you feel like you’re listening to ASMR? Vocals that bend and crack and wail and whisper, sometimes all in the span of seconds? How often do you hear something that sounds this distinctly new?

12. Man Alive! KING KRULE

Not exactly breaking new ground for King Krule, but why wouldn’t he return to the well that bore the sublimely guttural, jazzy landscapes of The OOZ? If anything, Man Alive! is more clear headed and focused than that album was, buffing out the more tedious, experimental edges in favor of even more intricately nuanced textures and fascinating introspection. 

11. Microphones in 2020, THE MICROPHONES

That Phil Elverum would revive his The Microphones moniker in 2020 is surprising, but also kind of isn’t. In a year that has brought upheaval and unwelcome change to all of us, for Elverum it comes on the heels of a tumultuous half decade that included the death of his wife and the quick dissolution of another high-profile marriage. By now, he’s as much of a pro at taking the punches life throws at us as anyone. I guess it only makes sense that he’d look back to beginning of his artistic journey and try to figure out how he got to where he is now. It’s thrilling to listen to him try to make sense of it over the course of one 45-minute long song that is perhaps his most personal outing in a repertoire that was already remarkably intimate and diaristic.

MORE READING:

Run the Jewels offer a joyful vision of the future filled with burning piles of cash and big group dance numbers in the new video for “Ooh La La.”

The festivities in the clip capture that glee as Run the Jewels’ El-P and Killer Mike take to the streets with hordes of others, popping champagne bottles and emptying their wallets of cash and credit cards into a giant bonfire.