“Cause the mustard’s on the rise / f*** those ketchup guys / I eat it on my burgers and I put it on my fries with mayo / Mayo, mayo mayo”
-Drake,
Welcome back to , your weekly triple of the mustard-loving world’s best new music.
While you’re here, check out some local talent on Steal This Track. This week, we’re featuring
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Nicolas Jaar, “Three Sides of Nazareth”
It’s hard to pick à la carte off of Nicolas Jaar’s just-released sophomore solo effort, “Sirens.” The album is a formidable whole, one where the experimental Chilean producer expands on the darkly rich headspace he carved out with guitarist Dave Harrington as .
“Sirens” is part sound collage, part dance (cumbia, house, techno and much more) and part auditory hallucination, all of which slink together on “Three Sides of Nazareth.” It’s as if Jaar imagined what might result from locking Nick Cave and Trent Reznor in an apartment for a week and while slowly turning up the thermostat. It’s a menacing, wriggling movement, somehow both steely and very much alive. H.R. Giger would’ve dug it.
Nicolas Jaar plays
–Dylan Owens, editor
Of Montreal, “Gratuitous Abysses”
There are a handful of things we can expect with each new album, chief among them: cleverly surrealist lyrics; a sound that pilfers lovingly and shamelessly from the costume dumpster behind glam-rock’s house; and a lengthy jam session with singer-songwriter-producer Kevin Barnes’ liquid neuroses.
But on 14th full-length “Innocence Reaches,” the prevailing French-electro sound of the rest of the album is interrupted by “Gratuitous Abysses,” the type of twisty fuzz-rock banger that Barnes never seems to tire of recording. The hurried strut, funny lyrics and glam-punk vocals jump in and out like a TV home-renovation crew, punching through a wall or two, slapping on a few coats of paint and rearranging the furniture in less time it takes most of us to decide what to watch on Netflix.
Of Montreal plays .
–John Wenzel, contributor and Reverb elder statesman
Tycho, “Glider”
Ambient music is brain music. Oftentimes, the food of choice for your brain gets lost in the background and becomes secondary in nature. San Francisco maestro of ambiance Tycho has successfully made an entire career off of mood setting music that on paper would be categorized close to Yanni or John Tesh.
Instrumentally, Tycho, AKA Scott Hansen, composes next level arrangements. On the Ghostly International artistap latest surprise release, “Epoch,” Hansen deviates from the soundtrack of choice by many massage therapists across the land towards a more progressive direction that paves the way for a dance-y avenue. Specifically on the choice single, “Glider,” that sets the tempo for the album as a whole, wherein swirling landscapes are converted into a sonic wonderland.
–Julio Enriquez, contributor
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