Nothin But Fuckin Love Songs vol. 4

OH HULLO! ✨👋🏻

How’s my Valentine!?!?! 💘

Yo remember when I had a lot of intense but well meaning things to say about love on Valentines Day when I dropped vol. 2 back in 2021? I just had such a moment looking back at that post now, it’s so beautiful to be able to witness myself at the beginning of this healing journey I’ve been on. I’ve really been committed to making space for everyone to feel loved since I got in the thick of this. (She’s always been such a sweet sweetie! 🥹)

So wild to think of how little space I was actually making for myself in that moment. 

It can be really hard to see the love around you, let alone be open to receive all of it. I didn’t realize just how bad I had gotten at receiving love until I was fortunate enough to enroll in yoga teacher training in the fall of last year. During the week when we were covering the heart chakra, we were told we would be doing an exercise where we were going to sit in a circle with our knees touching, hands on our knees, and then have someone sit in the center of the circle. That person was then supposed to make eye contact with you, say something they loved about you, and you were just supposed to take a breath and receive whatever they said while maintaining eye contact. 

You had to rotate and have this experience with every single person in the circle. 

Yeah. 

I remember thinking to myself, “OMG That sounds so uncomfortable. Watch, they’re going to make me go first or some shit.” 

THEY TOTALLY FUCKING DID. 😂 

Let’s just say thankfully(?) it was just about as overwhelming for everyone else as it was for me. 😮‍💨 I probably had the most snot on my hoodie tho 😪. It was so fucking sweet. We all got so much closer after that.

I’ll never forget that experience. It’s made me think a lot about how it seems like it’s become just as hard to receive love as it is to feel comfortable asking for it, and not just from other people, but also from ourselves. 

I’ve recently started to use love songs as a litmus test to see where I’m at with my relationship with myself on any given day. 🧪 If I catch myself hung up on a song and I’m feeling anxious as a result, I pay attention to how the lover is addressed in the song and show up for myself in that way. When the song goes back to feel good vibes that’s how I know I’ve done my job effectively. It’s a pretty cool concept to experiment with. I invite you to give it a try with your favorite love songs. Alternatively, as per usual, I’ve assembled another stack of songs from my stockpile for my annual offering, so if you’re open to receiving some love from me while you venture inward, amazing. You can also just listen to these and pretend like they’re all for you, too. You know how to love yourself best (or you should anyway), so take all the love you need from these pixels you’re interacting with right now. 

Sending you Lots of love, Valentine! 💖

[PLAY THE PLAYLIST] Nothin But Fuckin Love Songs Vol. 2

People get so fuckin weird about Valentine’s Day.

It is such a wild thing to observe.

Personally….I love Valentine’s Day. I’ve always liked that there’s a day where we go out of our way to share our love with each other and allegedly it’s not weird to be as extra as you wanna be.

I say allegedly because like… well what the fuck is this Galentines/Palentines day bullshit? Are we serious? You’re really that worried someone is gonna misinterpret your intentions? Or is this a solidarity thing for people who aren’t yet legally bound to someone? What is that?

Either way, you’re fuckin with the vibe when you throw around this unnecessary bullshit. Grow the fuck up. It’s Valentine’s Day and there is more than enough love to go around today, okay?

Also, I’ve been partner-less for most of them, too, so don’t start coming at me with some bullshit like, “Well over here it’s been Single’s Awareness Day basically forever, Kibbe”.

And trust me fam, I get it. It’s so easy to forget that we were taught out of loving each other freely and fearlessly. Remember when your age was still in single digits? That night before your school observed Valentines Day you got that box of corny ass mass produced ✨meaningful messages✨ and you went one by one through all of them assigning little love notes to everyone in class. Friends got the fun ones, crushes got the ones that seemed a bit more direct, and anyone else got whatever was left. Next day in class everyone distributed their Valentines and there would be this fun chatter about the messages or which cartoon franchise you went with for your Valentines. We never thought fuckin twice about giving everyone a Valentine back then. At least that’s how I remember that shit, along with handing out Care Bear ones at some point.

ANYWAY

We know I’m a song hoarder and that I like being able to identify a song for every occasion if possible, especially because a lot of times songs articulate a feeling or thought I’ve been sitting with better than I had been able to land on. With love songs though, it’s so interesting. Like I said, not a ton of relationships over my way, yet when prompted I can always send at least 20 in your direction at all times. I wouldn’t necessarily say love songs feel as carelessly mass produced as my Care Bear Valentines from 1st grade, but there are definitely more love songs than there are people at this point.

Either way I can tell that I’ve grown a lot as person since the last time that I compiled love songs for Valentine’s Day because as I was putting together this round of songs that I thought about how silly it is that I am able do this so easily. I started asking myself questions like: Am I really just cataloging vibes so I can provide more thoughtful recommendations than The Algorithm™ ever could? Am I trying to study love so I ✨do it right✨ if it ever shows up? Even scarier, am I studying these to see if I’ve been doing something wrong? Do I want someone to send these songs to me? Do I think all of these songs encompass just one person?

I think that last question is really fascinating given how weird people are about Valentine’s Day. We often think that one single person is going to arrive in our lives and that will mean that everything is better or easier because we have found someone we enjoy being with so much that we’d draw up some paperwork so we can collectively own assets or make important medical decisions for each other. But in the real world that’s not how it works. Most people don’t get married and evaporate from their former lives, never speaking to their friends or family ever again. If anything the result is two communities, not just two people, become one. And when shit hits the fan, I mean yeah you have someone RIGHT THERE at your side immediately to look out for you, but the way that person shows up for you is the result of the way their community shaped them, for better or for worse (see what I did there?).

To be clear, finding ✨your person✨ is WONDERFUL. I’m not tryna discount that at all. But it’s not some cure all that a lot of people seem to think it is. I don’t think you’re “fixed” or something because you find your person, mostly because I don’t think anyone is “broken” to begin with. If anything this person is just someone you agree to get really fucking vulnerable with, which ideally you’re already practicing varying levels of vulnerability with select members of your community prior to identifying this person. A person who is so special that you throw a very fancy party to celebrate. Even that, weddings would be fuckin trash without your friends and family there, so why do we choose to spend this particular day treating love like it’s something incredibly exclusive? I will spare you a wall of text about the capitalism bit here and just say IT’S SO LAME THAT THIS EXISTS AND I HATE IT VERY MUCH.

This all to say…. Happy Valentine’s Day.

Not Single’s Awareness Day. Not Palentine’s Day. Not Galentine’s Day.

Fuckin Valentine’s Day.

I love you. 💖

[PLAY THE PLAYLIST] BEST FUCKING MORNING ☕️

Recently I’ve trying to be more thoughtful with how I start my day. With all of this time in quarantine I’ve taken the opportunity to observe how impactful tiny thoughtful adaptations can be. Not just on a daily basis either, as I’ve found that sometimes the change can be so swift it’s often within an hour or even a matter of minutes, depending on the situation.

We all know music is a major mood shifter. Unfortunately, sometimes it feels like because we’ve gotten so accustomed to the habit of recklessly consuming things to make us feel better that we do this with music a lot more than any of us would like to admit. I know I’ve certainly been guilty of that myself. Additionally, when you’re already not giving too much thought of what you’re consuming, it’s hard for me to believe that it means that all that unused thoughtful energy is shifting to what you’re putting out into the world and any subsequent side effects, either positive or negative.

I intend to take more ownership of how this space factors into this consumption habit equation for everyone, so of course I felt the need to make a fucking playlist about it. 🤪

I took some time thinking about not just what makes me feel good, but exactly what makes me feel my ⚡️fucking best⚡️. IMO, there’s truly nothing better in this life than the opportunity to identify how your talents/strengths can help people, throwing all of your energy into that thing, and then witnessing the magic that comes from those efforts. To be clear, I’m not just talking about ways that earn you money from doing this either. It can also be little things like knowing you’re a good personal cheerleader and being able to notice when someone could need some pom-poms waved in their direction and seeing their reaction. It’s ✨ literally the fucking best✨ ESPECIALLY when all parties involved decide that shit is going both wayyysss.

Community.

Connection.

Intention.

These are the things that BEST FUCKING MORNING☕️ is made of to the best of my ability. Sometimes you’ll get ✨a feeling✨ from the music, but as often as I could, I wanted the words ringing through your ears to make you feel fucking great, too. Additionally, I wholeheartedly believe that it’s equally important that the people making the good vibes you ingest should absolutely coming from good fucking people and I can say with a great level of confidence that these are all really good fucking people. I took a lot of care to make sure that even if one were to treat this playlist like a LoFi Chill Beats To Study To kinda deal where it’s mostly going to be background noise, that the few times that your brain decides to focus in on what’s actually happening that hopefully in that moment you feel empowered to remember that you always have the opportunity to choose happiness in spite of whatever bullshit gets thrown at you.

Let me be very clear that this is not me tryna shove some toxic positivity on your ass. That shit is annoying as fuck and not welcomed in this house. You always are entitled to however you feel, absolutely.

BUT

When you wake up feeling meh and decide you deserve to feel at minimum a little bit better.

Or you wake up feeling fucking great and want to hold onto that feeling as much as you can, possibly even going next level with that shit.

I promise you this shit will take you there, wherever that may be.

Although this collection of vibes was arranged in a way to be uplifting incrementally, feel free to let The Algorithm™ move you and shuffle this shit if you are so inclined. That said, I def invite you to see if you can notice a different if you listen both ways. Additionally, I intend to honor the inspiration behind this playlist and occasionally implement tweaks every now and then, hopefully to further enhance this vibe. Mostly likely additions only, no removals or substitutions.

As long as this playlist is in your life may you never forget that you deserve the fucking best. 💖

#diSKOAverweekly: Week of February 5, 2020

yes bish 2020 we fancy up in hur!

YES I AM ALIVE!

Yes, it’s been awhile. I’m getting better at figuring out how to keep all these plates spinning, swear to fucking god.

Been sitting on these jams way too long to not share! Next update will actually happen on a Wednesday so please be kind and grab what you like before they vanish!

1. The Brilliance - “How Do We Know”

   Local lads The Brilliance just dropped their latest album ‘Suite No. 2: World Keeps Spinning’, companion album to 2018’s ‘Suite No. 1 Oh Dreamer’. Both are worth a spin!

2. Rafael Casal - “Oxygen”

   Missed this track when it dropped. This guy can really do anything. Jelly.

3. Connor Duermit - “Everything”

   This boy’s voice is smooooooooooooove. God damn. What are they putting in the water in LA right now?!

4. Hydromag - “P.J.R.”

   When that cozy bedroom pop just hits right… *chefs kiss*.

5. Imbibe - “Reflections”

   Fun fact: these guys are brothers! Australian ones no less (lol of course they are). If you’re in Europe and have seen Parcels somewhat recently chances are you caught these guys opening for them.

6. Amtrac - “Radical (feat. Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs)”

   Amtrac is gaining momentum, best hop on! Also very happy to see TEED popping his head up again for some air. When’s that homey gonna give us more than a few random tunes and remixes?!

7. Yuksek - “G.F.Y. (feat. Queen Rose)”

   ICYMI Yuksek is always perfect and here is more proof. Can’t wait to see him with JD Samson at The Dance on April 2nd! Gonna be 🔥🔥🔥!!!!

8. Crush Club - “My Man (feat. Nicki B The Vagabond)”

   As president of the Crush Club - Crush Club, I feel it is my responsibility to make sure that everyone knows about their latest. If My Man had a fragrance, what would it smell like? 🤔🤔

9. LA Priest - “What Moves”

   LA Priest is back and dropping an album GENE on April 24th!! I’m so fucking hype! I have missed him so so sooooo.

10. Tamara Kumbula - “1 to 8”

    It’s wild the things I find while roaming around on Stationhead. Have you downloaded that app yet? I’m going to start doing more shit on there. Anyway, I’m really digging on Tamara’s whole vibe.

11. Cannibal Kids - “I Keep My Eyes Closed”

    Nice to see some fresh meat coming out of my home state (Florida). Gonna keep an eye on these guys.

12. of Montreal - “You’ve Had Me Everywhere”

    If you haven’t heard ‘Ur Fun’ yet you absolutely must. It’s quickly climbing the ranks into my top 5 of Montreal records.

13. The 1975 - “Me & You Together Song”

    Y’all know I’m a sucker for a good love song and this one is def hitting me in all of those warm and fuzzy feels. Also the new music video that dropped today is a nice little Throwback Thursday moment.

14. Gourmet - “Stone Cold Steve Austin”

15. WAAX - “Labrador”

    Sometimes I get bored and look up the bands on a festival lineup that I’ve never heard of. I did this for a fest that I Know Leopard was playing and somehow landed on this delightful bunch of noisy friends. Stay curious! There’s great songs everywhere! You just gotta look!

16. Grieves - “Let The Devil In”

    Been a minute since I caught up with Grieves. Really enjoying his latest, ‘The Collections of Mr. Nice Guy’. This song was how I found my way back to him.

Reminder! You can get email updates about this playlist!

[SONG OF THE DAY] Yuksek - "I Don't Have A Drum Machine"

On Friday my most favorite Frenchie, disco-house producer Yuksek released his latest track, “I Don’t Have A Drum Machine”, which is his first release on Classic Music Company. In true Yuksek fashion, he’s carefully crafted a timeless disco delicacy that is effortlessly cool. Apparently I am the only person on the internet that cares to know the nitty gritty on this track’s most prominent feature, which is the voiceover that Yuksek utilizes to gradually layer on more dancetastic elements. The voice of the OG drum machine is none other than Philly disco soul drummer Earl Young (of The Trammps fame) explaining his four on the floor drum beat that created the recognizable disco drum beat we all know and love. Apparently this track was originally previously available on the internet as part of a Recover Re-Edits compilation via Yuksek’s label Partyfine that features the likes of Jean Tonique, CLAAP, and Santana. You can check out all of that over on the Partyfine Bandcamp.

YUKSEK LIVE

02 mar: Washington / Flash
03 mar: San Diego / CRSSD fest.
08 mar: Queretaro / Basis sound lab
09 mar: Mexico city / De Frente fest.
10 mar: Tulum / Gitano
16 mar: Lille / Nuits de la filature

[SONG OF THE DAY] Breakbot (feat. Irfane) - "Devotion (Yuksek Remix)"

Photo by Marco Dos Santo

IT

IS

FRIDAY

and I need it to be happy hour after this fuckin week.

If you’re like me and you plan to dance your cares away this weekend, might I offer up this slice of pure heaven off of Breakbot’s brand new Another You EP, out today!

Breakbot is always good for sexy dance jams, but then he made the best decision ever and had My Most Favorite Frenchie, Yuksek, step up to remix, “Devotion” and dude fucking #nailedit. On its own, “Devotion” is straightforward electro boogie goodness, but Yuksek opted to transform it into a huge retro-ish disco number that is sure to fill out any dance floor.

If you happen to be in NYC, Breakbot will be doing a DJ set during this year’s Brooklyn Electronic Music Festival on October 4th, along with other dates in the US which you can find more info about over on Facebook.

TGI-motherfuckin-F

[SONG OF THE DAY] Yuksek x JD Samson - "Don't Even Try"

The pairing of genderqueer icon, JD Samson (formerly of Le Tigre & MEN), with my most favorite Frenchie, Yuksek, was one that I hadn't really considered but the second I saw that the two had collaborated I knew immediately it was going to be a banger, "Don't Even Try" to say otherwise. I would honestly enjoy an entire album of this if they want to keep at it, which given how much Samson told Culture Collide that the two connected, maybe we'll get lucky and it'll happen!

If you haven't checked out the mini docu where Samson teams up with Broadly to  explore the Last Lesbian Bars in America it's super informative and highly recommended. Meanwhile, Yuksek is jetsetting about, so catch him if you can. 

YUKSEK TOUR DATES

6/15 – Bourg (Vie Sauvage fest.)
7/6 – Paris (Wanderlust)
7/7 – Tours (Terres de son)
7/8 – Calvi (COTR)
7/12 – St Aubin (Pete the monkey)
7/13 – Reims (Le Clos)
7/16 – La Baule (Villa La grange)
7/20 – London ( Camden Assembly)
7/21 – Carhaix (Vielles charrues)

[Interview] Yuksek Just Wants To Make You Groove

The day that Yuksek's debut album, Away From The Sea, graced my ears back in April of 2009 was the day my standards for what an electronic album should sound like were raised to such an insanely high level that only a handful of artists/records have managed to meet since. 8 years, 12 EPs, 3 LPs, and a plethora of remixes and various other projects later, the French producer and DJ has firmly cemented himself as a staple in the dance scene by meticulously making music that will have you dancing until daylight. Literally. I was literally out until 3am last month at his DJ set at Le Bain a few hours after he graciously chatted with me at his listening party in SoHo for his latest album, Nous Horizon, which was released in February. 

"It's more the music drives me than me who drives the music,"

He explained that his approach for making albums is less intentional and more of the byproduct of constantly creating. "I'm not thinking, 'I'm gonna do this kind of record,'" he said, "I just sit in the studio every day. Sometimes doing production for others. I [also] started to make movie scores and stuff. In between I do some stuff for me, just like tripping on a synthesizer or playing bass or something." He went on to detail how this sort of creative process turns into an album, "I record and record and record a lot of stuff and then something comes together like a puzzle in a way." This may sound daunting for some artists, but for him it's an integral part of the process. "It's more the music drives me than me who drives the music," he said. 

While Away From The Sea and Living On The Edge Of Time were both more on the indie/pop spectrum of dance records, his latest endeavor, Nous Horizon, is definitely more disco-esque than anything he's released to date. Even so, there is one core element to all things Yuksek related: groove. "I'm good for that: making people groove," he noted. As he put it, at the end of the day his music is all about, "feeling good, enjoying yourself, and having a good time." 

Unlike his previous albums, you'll notice that this time around that some quality artists appear alongside Yuksek on Nous Horizon: HER, Monika, Juveniles, KIM, and Roman Rappak, vocalist of SKOA favorite Breton. These were more than just your standard features on dance tracks, mind you. "It's called featuring [on the track listing] but I think the word is not exactly accurate," he said, "[...] featuring is sometimes you make an instrumental, you send it to someone, and then like [they] do your shit. On this we did it really old fashioned. They came to the studio. We worked together on the songs as well."

The only criteria for working with Yuksek in any capacity is fairly straightforward: he has to like the artist both personally and professionally. It's something I've continued to admire about him. It's amazing that for such sophisticated music there's zero pretense to how he operates. This is especially the case for both his album and his label, Partyfine, which he started in 2013 as a way to elevate talent that oftentimes might slip between the cracks otherwise. "I thought about [starting the label] for quite some time. I like to produce music for other people and to make records," he explained, "Sometimes it's a bit frustrating to do it and then the project disappears after I finish mixing it or producing it. [With Partyfine] it's more having relationships with artists and to help them to reach the goal they have with their music."

Considering he's both an artist and a label owner, of course I had to pick his brain about streaming. While most people assume that a record will either be a hit or a dud immediately, he sees releases now from a different perspective, "[...] what you release now, I don't know about in 50 years, but in 3 years people can hear it still and you get money from that. Even if it's a small amount of money but it's here." Moreover, he thinks that streaming gives albums a longer shelf life than what existed prior to streaming. "In the past, when you just released an album on vinyl or CD in a shop, when it's not in the shop anymore it's finished. No one can buy it and so it's long term. That's what's interesting with streaming," he noted, "You create a catalog like you do with a publishing company. You know that [like a publishing deal that streaming is] long term because you [have] tracks that are maybe going to be in a movie or in something in 5 years. Streaming has to be seen in that way I think." 

Funnily enough, as I was writing up this interview I decided to refresh my memory of his earlier EPs, which resulted in me wandering to eBay to pick them up on vinyl. Thinking he might be on to something there.

As you can see, Yuksek is some kind of awesome. Be sure to pick up his latest album, Nous Horizon and follow him on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Soundcloud. Oh! And check out his label Partyfine, which is currently prepping some upcoming releases as we speak!