[SONG OF THE DAY] Pat Lok x Party Pupils - "From The Back (feat. Dances With White Girls)"

IT’S VIBE O’CLOCK ON FRIDAY, DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DANCING TO THIS WEEKEND YET?!

Actually don’t stress, as always I gotchu fam.

We got a Twitter fam party up in today y’all! Vancouver’s finest, Pat Lok, has teamed up with LA future-funk duo Party Pupils for the soon-to-be floor filler, “From The Back” featuring the vocal stylings of one of my favorite all-time follows, Dances With White Girls. Seriously, no one rants like Dances.

I’m not exaggerating about it being a Twitter party, btw. That’s actually how Pat and Party Pupils first linked up. As Pat shared, “I had been following PP on Twitter and saw they were talking about an A-Ha remix, so I reached out and sent them some piano ideas for it and that was how we connected. A few months ago we finally met backstage at Electric Forest in Michigan where were both performing and hit it off.” After playing out the demos from a session in LA they did together to audiences in the US and Asia, they collectively decided to enlist Dances to finish off the track with his vocals as “the cherry on top” to the song.

I love when Twitter can be the result of wonderful things like this instead of serving as a place where white supremacists roam free. It’s stories like this that keep me from taking a cheese grater to my hashtag tattoo tbh.

Anyway off you go! Dance the night away!

Oh! And if you happen to be hashtag blessed enough to be in San Diego, Los Angeles, or Brooklyn in the coming weeks you can catch both Pat and Party Pupils live (and livetweet the entire experience if your heart so desires)!

PAT LOK LIVE DATES

January 20th : San Diego (secret location)

January 25th : Los Angeles (The Morroccan) / Sold out

February 2nd : Brooklyn (Elsewhere)

[SONG OF THE DAY] Jakuzi - "Şüphe"

Photo credit: Aylin Gungor

OH MY GOTH Y’ALL WE’VE GOT ANOTHER SKOA FIRST!

Layer on more eyeliner and put on your darkest lipstick if that is your thing (I know you’re already wearing all black), we’re about to join Istanbul creatures of the night Jakuzi for an all night dark wave dance party with "Şüphe", the lead single from their forthcoming sophomore album, Hata Payı, which will be out on April 5th courtesy of City Slang. Like every smart band does for an album launch, the band has also unveiled an accompanying video for the song, which follows the somewhat tumultuous relationship of a pair of dancers over the course of the song.

Y’all I am deadass SMITTEN with this band and I have no fucking clue what they’re saying. This is like when I fell in love with Sigur Ros only this time I want to dance like Molly Ringwald late into the night.

In true Kibbe fashion, I’ve spent a lot of time looking more into this band that stumbled into my inbox and learning about the Turkish underground music scene is SO FASCINATING and makes me love this band even harder. Apparently Turkish music, specifically male-fronted bands aren’t exactly known for being introspective. With that in mind, singer Kutay Soyocak made it a point to not just write more vulnerable songs, but to further express himself as a Turkish musician by choosing to sing in Turkish as well. While this choice poses a handful of limitations for the band (there’s not a huge punk/dark wave scene in Turkey, there are no Turkish dark wave-type playlists on Spotify for the band to be discovered on, etc.), they’ve managed to garner a fair amount of praise for their debut album, Fantezi Müzik and have even had the opportunity to play sold-out shows with their hero John Maus.

Their new album, Hati Payı' (which literally translates to “a part of the mistake”), is a deeper dive into the the intimate themes that were briefly explored in Fantezi Müzik. Speaking about his personal journey creating this record, Kutay said, “I think my own melancholy is coming from where I live. This can be seen in the lyrics. I feel dark, lost and lonely. The country that I’m living in just puts me in these feelings. The economy and politics here feels like life without hope.” He went on, “The future is dark for us in here. Trying to keep our hopes high and continuing what we do. The audience is getting bigger every day and they support us and it is just pure love in our gigs.”

Produced by Taner Yücel and recorded in Istanbul, Hati Payı is all about acceptance of every community, gender, race, sexuality. It’s also about the acceptance of yourself and dealing with the demons that come with being alive in the modern day.

*SWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON*

[SONG OF THE DAY] Jerry Williams - "David At The Bar"

Ready for a nice swift kick in the feels today, fam?

No?

Too damn bad.

Portsmouth singer-songwriter Jerry Williams released a track late last week about an experience she had striking up a conversation with a stranger at a bar. “It’s one of the most honest songs I’ve ever written,” Williams reveals, “I just felt this weird, bizarre connection to this man.” In one of the more eye watering simple yet painfully intimate stories I’ve heard in song form, she went on to share the gist of their conversation. “He said, ‘If you write a song about me I promise I’ll give up drink’”, she explains, “and I said, ‘You should give up drink anyway, but I will’. The next day this song was written, I haven’t found him to tell him but I would love to find him.” She also revealed that didn’t even bother to change his name for the song, so wherever David is, here’s hoping he’s doing a lot better than he was that day. 💖

For those heading to SXSW you’ll be able to catch Williams at the conference. More updates on all of that coming soon.

[SONG OF THE DAY] Monarchy - "Back To The Start"

We’re just a few days out from the third studio album from my beloved Monarchy. After gifting us, “Deep Cut”, just before Christmas, the dapper dancetastic duo are back with a new track (and if we’re being honest possibly my personal anthem of 2019), “Back To The Start” and accompanying video, which you can find below. The video features an “alien” who descends in the duo’s lush world and proceeds to learn and adapt to the ways of Earth.

A lot has happened to the duo since releasing their 2015 studio album, Abnocto, namely there was a brief period where the band nearly called it quits a mere months after the album’s release. I may be reading in between the lines here a bit, but considering this batch of material for Mid:Night follows that ordeal with a fair amount of time in between, “Back To The Start” feels like it speaks to some of that experience.

Now that I’m caught up on emails and settled from the holidays I guess it would be a good time to hit these fellas up and get them on record about my hunches, huh?

(ps Friday hurrrrrrrrryyyyyy plz!)

[SONG OF THE DAY] Example - "All Night"

Longtime SKOA favorite Example has been cranking out some top tunes over the past year on his newly fashioned imprint, Staneric Recordings. I’m especially loving his latest, “All Night”, which in addition to painting a picture of how I envision going out in London must be like, is living proof that the man his living his best life. In addition to the new single, Elliot and his totally adorable wife, model Erin McNaught made a DIY music video after putting their kids to bed in what appears to be their living room. There’s no well thought out choreography or anything over the top about it. While other people are enjoying the video for, um, reasons, I just love the idea of these two drunk trying to quietly do somewhere around 12 takes to make this video hoping to god that their kids didn’t wake up. I wouldn’t be surprised if the song took off because people decided to recreate the video because of its simplicity and playfulness. Considering he did everything on his own for this single, I hope this becomes the norm for him. The multitasking looks really good on him.

[SONG OF THE DAY] Curtis Lowe - "Automatic"

Photo Credit: Catie Laffoon / Artwork: Leif Podhasky

It’s VIBE O’CLOCK ON FRIDAY, do you know where your next favorite bop is?

Don’t worry, I gotchu fam.

NY fam knows the wonders that is electro-rock outfit locals VHS Collection, but you may have missed that guitarist Connor Cook has started an electronic side project, which he operates under the name Curtis Lowe. Late November of last year he rolled out his debut single, “Breaking Me”, an elegant house track featuring vocals from Naomi Wild. This new track, “Automatic” is a hypnotic floor filler with 90s era-esque house vibes and features vocals from Ben Duffy of the band longtime loved by SKOA, Fenech-Soler.

Both tracks come from the somewhat-aptly titled, Sad Bangers Vol. 1, which out on January 25th. The EP was produced entirely by Cook and (no shocker here) played all the guitar featured on it as well. Speaking on the EP, Cook says, “ I drew a lot of the inspiration for the sonics of the project from 90’s/Chicago house music, married with modern production elements, and darker songwriting themes. Organic instrumental performances are an important part of these songs as well. “ He went on to add, “The EP features tons of guitar, sax, and analog synths (Juno 106, SH101, Prophet, and Moog Sub 37 etc), alongside plenty of 909 samples. I’m really excited about the collaborations on this EP and look forward to releasing a lot more music in the coming months.”

[SONG OF THE DAY] Ariana and the Rose - "Night Owl"

Still from “Night Owl” music video.

Ooo I love a loophole for my self-imposed restrictions for songs I didn’t find the second they dropped. Yesterday, Brooklyn-based boss bitch Ariana and the Rose unveiled the music video to accompany her latest single, “Night Owl”, which dropped unbeknownst to me right under my nose back in November of last year. We know how much I love some good ol’ fashioned glittery synthpop and my girl Ariana definitely is that vibe all the way down to the aesthetic of the music video. Basically if you told me that she lives in House of Yes I wouldn’t be surprised and I mean that in the most sincere way possible. Oooh if she really does maybe we could be roommates?

I’ve played this song enough times now that I feel like I don’t have enough glitter on today. Ugh. ✨

[SONG OF THE DAY] Dan D'Lion - "~treading water~"

Alt-pop sensation in the making Dan D’Lion has resurfaced after dropping his debut single, “Give What You Take” back in November. If “Give What You Take” was Dan putting his best foot forward, this new tune, “~treading water~”, is him firmly putting both feet on the ground to let us know he’s not going anywhere any time soon.

Y’all, I’m so here for this in the biggest fucking way.

As much as it’s really easy to be taken with his voice, Dan is one hell of a producer. The way that he manages to carefully layer together these ear-perking textures before we even get to the vocals and vulnerable lyrics is just such a delight for your eardrums. Definitely treat yourself to this song with the best pair of headphones that you’ve got. I love how specific he was placing certain sounds. It really helps to maintain your well-deserved undivided attention.

Very much looking forward to hearing what else he’s got in his arsenal. Hopefully that will be sooner rather than later.