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#SOTD: Unknown Mortal Orchestra - “Guilty Pleasures”
image credit: Juan Ortiz Arenas
There is always so enthralling about any Unknown Mortal Orchestra record and their latest, V, is no exception. I have yet to put my finger on it specifically that is responsible for it being so easy to make a happy home inside every second of their music, but every time I put on their records I never bail before completing a spin. I’ve been playing the fuuuuck out of this record. Definitely in my top 5 of 2023 so far, no brainer.“Guilty Pleasures” has been climbing the ranks of my favorite tracks on the record. It’s just so playfully cheeky. I can’t get enough of it.
Oh! oh! If you haven’t caught their set on Tiny Desk yet it is highly recommended!
Hope y’all had a lovely weekend. I know I sure did. 💖✨
#SOTD: The Kickdrums - “Everything’s Great”
Image courtesy of The Kickdrums
Happy Saturdayyyy. Hope it’s been a lovely day wherever you are. I guess you can say “Everything’s Great” over here. 🥰 No but really, it only feels right to include longtime SKOA fam The Kickdrums in this latest reboot. It’s been a pleasure getting to know Fitts over the years. I think one of the best parts of doing this work is the friendships you make along the way, and it’s been really cool to witness the way that we’ve both evolved creatively since we met at the beginning of this whole endeavor.
Just the other day while Fitts and I were catching up over text, I happened to randomly inquire about his reasoning for releasing an album with minimal singing or lyrics on his latest album, Zig Zags. It was such a unique creative choice for him given how intimately I’ve come to know and love his catalog (and frequently utilize his singing as a security blanket of sorts) that I couldn’t help but ask. Anyway come to find out he apparently didn’t feel terribly inspired to deliberately say anything but still wanted to offer up some vibes. And lemme emphasize here for one and all: they are immaculate!
anyway It’s a nice having a vibey little reminder out in the universe for the world to enjoy alongside me that sometimes you don’t have to have something groundbreaking to say and that sometimes you can just show up in your authenticity in the moment and still have such a gorgeous impact on people’s lives.
#SOTD Yung Bae - “Body Talk (feat. Mayer Hawthorne)”
Image courtesy of Instagram
Mmmmm it’s vibe o’clock on Friday, Finallyyyy. ✨💖🙏🏻
I knew the moment that I was aware that future funk producer Yung Bae was teaming up with longtime crooner cutie Mayer Hawthorne that it was gonna be a potent pairing, but i cannot emphasize enough just how much “Body Talk” is a bop that shouldn’t be allowed to stop.
word on the street is that Yung Bae should be dropping another track soon, too!
And!
AND!
new album coming soon apparently, too!? Hell yeah 🤩
I hope we can agree on the following:
Groove Continental: Side A was precisely what we all needed last summer and the thought of more Yung Bae to help me get through the hottest summer on record is giving me life.
Mayer Hawthorne deserves to have more upbeat moments like this in his life. Love him to death as his laid back usual self, but this track made me really curious about the impactfulness of a possible production switch up for his next album when he’s ready for it.
Independence Day should never be allowed to be on a Tuesday ever again because my brain is still not convinced it’s Friday even if I’m able to type that it is.
#SOTD: Sum Bloke - “Fly”
image courtesy of Instagram
SHE BACK 🤩
It’s so wild. I had already planned on the SOTD reboot for today and then with Threads dropping last night it seems that music fam is all in happy spirits and feeling like the old twitter days when this site attracted the web sheriff at least weekly.
But here we are!
Speaking of old Twitter days, I cannot stress just how much I’ve missed doing SOTD. As much as I overcomplicated it for awhile there for no one else other than myself, it was always the highlight of my day. With all my time away I realize just how much happier I am when I devoting time on a daily basis to staying curious about what I can learn from baby bands I’ve yet to encounter and sharing my findings with both friends and future friends alike.
Speaking of friends and future friends, the kickoff track for the triumphant return of SOtD comes from Lee Cunningham, known to the cool kids as Sum Bloke. the Dallas house producer teamed up to release this track on fellow former Floridian turned Brooklynite, Lefti’s somewhat newly founded House label, Quincy Boy Records. “Fly” was featured on the label’s debut artist compilation, Friends & Family vol. 1, which was released in February 2022.
This will be your go-to track to groove your way to greatness. Seriously. I still have yet to figure out where the sample is from on this track, but there’s a lot of magic in it. To warmly and accurately quote it,
“It’s the year, kid.
You gotta just got for it.
Don’t think about what comes after or what came before.
You just gotta bend your knees, take a deep breath, and
JUMP.
And you might think, ‘What if I fall!?’
Well, what if you don’t?
What if I fly?”
Reminder: the SOTD playlist is always available for your listening pleasure in full (and ease of track acquisition) on Spotify and Apple Music.
🚨Song Of The Day is Back 🚨
That’s right 🥰✨
hold on to your butts, it’s about to get fun over here again. 🍑
ICYMI - there are currently over 600 songs in the SOTD playlist on both Spotify *and* Apple Music for your listening pleasure with plenty of info on each track. You may follow on your respective platform of choice below 😎:
diSKOAver weekly: week of May 3, 2023
Heya cute lil disco babies ✨🪩
Given that we are in the middle of one hell of a Mercury Retrograde (😮💨) and also about to have a major lunar eclipse in Scorpio on Friday that’s all about releasing what doesn’t serve you, I thought it would be helpful to offer the collective some amulets of protection and strength to navigate any particularly prickly moments of reflection that you may experience over the next few days.
I won’t front, it’s been pretty prickly the last few months. As I mentioned previously, I’ve felt stuck in this transitional phase that I’ve been in for awhile and decided to do some digging to see if there was anything that I was missing that was preventing my progress. What I finally allowed myself to see had been in front of me the whole time. If I may be so vulnerable to the void, I will bravely admit that I was toting around some really heartbreaking self limiting beliefs. I was allowing myself believe that:
I am a disposable person 😔
Connection with me is something people can easily let go of 😞
My full authenticity is *too much* and pointless to offer anyone because people will abruptly leave you no matter what anyway 🫥
A relationship with me isn’t worth fighting for 🫠
I’ve been essentially wearing these self limiting beliefs as a pair of prescription lenses that are VERY MUCH NOT YOUR PRESCRIPTION ANYMORE. 👓 For people who have privileged eyesight and have never experienced what happens when the prescription is off on your corrective lenses, it fuckin SUCKS. 😩 You get headaches from the eye strain and all sorts of other micro annoyances until you can rectify the issue and go back to full clarity.
Happy to report that those metaphorical contact lenses have been chucked into the fuckin bin, y’all. 🚮
As a result, I’ve been carefully setting some new boundaries to reflect my restored vision. This morning after meditation I drew the Nine of Wands, of which Jessica Dore’s reflections on that particular card in her book, Tarot For Change: Using The Cards For Self-Care, Acceptance, and Growth just so happen to be about boundaries. 😎
She writes that,
“Ideally what we want is a boundary that’s firm, visible from a mile away but not unwelcoming. There’s a doorway through the wall, but the gatekeeper is discerning and has a zero-tolerance policy for nonsense.”
I liken this line of thinking to that of all things, a bubble. 🫧
Think about it. Visible from a good distance and completely transparent but something that you know if you were to penetrate it you would literally wreck the whole vibe. Furthermore, bubbles are adaptive in more ways than just floating around making Ozzy Osbourne feel less like the Prince of Fucking Darkness. Bubbles can freeze and be rigid and seemingly impenetrable, which while looking kinda cool aren’t as fun as regular bubbles because they’re too heavy to be all floaty and cute. They can also bump into other bubbles and subsequently stick together and float around together in fun new shapes as a result. 🫧
To me, this last lil bitty bit here is ✨the goal✨. Right? I’ve had to learn the hard way that having good boundaries with yourself means only sticking to people who wouldn’t want to burst your bubble, and a good indictor of that is whether or not you actually see a bubble when you encounter anyone outside of your own. 🧐
On communicating boundaries, Dore offers the following (my flair added),
“I often think of communicating a boundary as a bit like getting informed consent from someone. 🫧It’s right to let others know the terms of engagement before they get involved. This keeps you safe, and it also keeps the other person safe from the possibility of your exploding in a fit of rage because you said yes too many times when you should’ve said no. 🫧 It’s scary to be close with people who give indiscriminately without a sense of their own limits.”
Apparently I’ve been in the energy of this bubble metaphor for boundaries for awhile now, because I just remembered this little nugget of wisdom from my chat with Goo Goo Dolls bassist Robby Takac that I’ll leave you with (and obvi my flair again):
"It is what you make it," he said, "It's your bubble man. You're in a bubble when you're out here [on tour] but it's your bubble. Like we say 'life's good in the bubble, man'. You know, for a lot you get to choose what's there and what's not, you know? So we just kind of keep it sane back there, […].”
So much love to all of you. Now go blow some beautiful bubbles already!
🫧💖✨
Fischerspooner - “Amuse Bouche”
KAMAUU - “the vibe — A COLORS SHOW”
Chris-n-Teeb - “First”
Lily Allen “Trigger Bang (feat. Giggs)”
Yves Tumor - “Purified By Fire”
Joshwa - “Magalenha”
Pat Lok - “Set Me Free (feat. Kiinjo)”
Mont Duamel - “Young”
Moullinex - “Break Me In Pieces (feat. GPU Panic)”
Qveen Herby - “NAH”
Courtney Govan - “stay still”
Posie Pocket - “Peace>Pleasure”
Aaron Taylor - “Patience (feat. Madison Ryann Ward)”
NAMIRÉ - “Let Go”
Bayonne - “Solo”
Sego - “SURRENDER”
3️⃣9️⃣
I turn 39 today. ✨🪩
I HAD THIS MOMENT YESTERDAY WHEN I WAS WORKING ON THIS PLAYLIST (BOTH THE ARTWORK AND THE MIX ITSELF) WHERE I WAS THINKING ABOUT ALL OF THE VERSIONS OF ME THAT CAME BEFORE THIS CURRENT ONE, SPECIFICALLY THAT SWEET YOUNG THING THAT STARTED BARFING HER FEELINGS ONTO THE INTERNET ABOUT MUSIC AND COMMUNITY ON 😮💨GEOCITIES 😮💨 before shit like Napster even existed.
That version of me used to light up at the end of Spaceship Earth at EPCOT when we would go on class field trips, taking in all of the projections for what the future could look like with technological advancements. I distinctly remembering it feeling like a big deal that we were gonna be able to video chat from all over the world one day. Like that was gonna be a monumental moment in the history of humanity.
…Meanwhile these days I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had people accidentally video call me on Instagram. 😂
I thought about all the things I would tell that version of me if I were ever granted the opportunity. That girl would be so excited about all the cool ways we get to connect and share music with each other.
She would also be so proud of how we’ve overcome all of the obstacles that life’s thrown at us and, most importantly, our determination to keep our heart wide open no matter how hurtful experiencing life can be at times.
And that….feels really fucking good. 😎
You know, speaking of video chatting and birthdays, it wasn’t too long ago that we were all forced to have zoom birthday parties. In about 2 weeks it’ll have been officially a year since I had COVID after dodging it for as long as I could. knowing how many people we’ve lost since my first lockdown birthday, I am especially grateful for the ability to be sentimental on the internet with y’all today.
Oh! Ways you can celebrate my life with me today if you feel so inclined:
🙏🏻 take a moment or three to be grateful to be above ground
🪩 throw yourself a little dance party to my cutie bday playlist
🎂 do something nice for yourself
💰 donate to Alzheimer’s Association in honor of #mamakibbe since today was her birthday, too
🤩 all of the above simultaneously (it is possible, we have the technology, and you wouldn’t wanna let little kibbe down, now would you?)
And with that, to quote the incomparable Mike Skinner,
💿“Play the playlist! Play the playlist!” 💿
Love y’all so so so much!
diSKOAver weekly: week of March 15, 2023
omg I’m so tired of winter. 😩
I know spring is coming. I see hints of it everywhere. I’ve had days lately where I’ll be freezing at an evening out somewhere because I forget that the sun can make chilly sunshiny days bearable. Even though I lived in New York for long enough that I know that sometimes there is snow on the ground for my birthday in April, as soon as I see Easter candy at the store the day after Valentine’s Day my brain is anticipating when I can start ditching all the layers. It doesn’t help at all that Raleigh weather is nutty and there were a couple of days where it was close to 80º so I was convinced it was almost *hoodie and flip flop season*.
I think this winter also feels especially irritating because in a way I feel like I’ve been in an emotional/spiritual winter of sorts for the last few years that feels like it’s coming to a close, too. For a second there I had a moment where I guess some 🌸metaphorical blossoms prematurely bloomed🌸 or something. Felt just like the fluke of a heatwave IRL. It was so nice when it seemed like it was all finally over, but apparently I’ve still got a little ways to go.😮💨 But the growth was there. I saw it. Which means the seeds I’ve been planting are about to make a move.
It’s so fucking hard being patient even if I know better. I’m tired of feeling like I’m dragging my way through my days with little to show for externally, even if this season in particular feels especially prescribed. I know I’ve needed this downtime, but I genuinely can’t tell what the appropriate pace for my life is anymore. Like I’m not sure if I’ve ever know what a balanced life actually feels like in my body. I know that the pace I was going at in New York was unsustainable, especially with no proper chance to rest from any of the metric shit ton of trauma I endured while I was there, but since I’ve been in Raleigh it feels like every time I’ve attempted to barely tap the accelerator it’s almost as if I’m being asked to slow down even more. Compared to what my life was pre-pandem I feel like from the outside my life looks about as exciting as watching paint dry. 😑 The thing is, there’s so much reprocessing and integration going on internally that I guess I shouldn’t be surprised about how much I’ve kept to myself. I feel like when my phone’s at 3% 🪫 and I switched it into low power mode so then it doesn’t take forever to get it back up to a full charge. I stripped my life down to the barest of essentials so I could focus on rapid restoration for as long as it felt right to. ⚡️
Surrendering to this whole process has been an ordeal of its own, but it would have been even worse if I hadn’t stayed dedicated to my meditation practice. Good lorde. you want something that costs zero fucking dollars and will dramatically transform you? Fucking meditate, yo. Take minimum 5 minutes out of your day and very tenderly, lovingly, and compassionately tell your 🧠 to STFU. Just hold the fuck still. Wipe the slate clean of all the mixed messages in your brain that are coming from every direction so you’re able to see where they come from and direct them accordingly when they inevitably come back. And they *will* come back. Meditation is a practice. It is never something you truly master.
Also - my Aries sun feels compelled to challenge you that if 5 minutes seems like too much time to be alone with your thoughts….. then make it fucking 10. Or 15. 🤪 Seriously. If it feels that impossible give yourself the space to actually practice. From when I picked it back up at the beginning of yoga teacher training through January I was averaging between 15-20 minutes every morning before I journaled. Then a thing happened in my life where I found myself in a predicament where I was really triggered and trying to do right by all parties involved. I noticed that I was having a hard time getting present. I kept trying to rehearse all sorts of scenarios so I felt prepared because I was scared that I would be rejected or abandoned for a mistake I made. It even hijacked my meditation practice. So I decided that until I could meditate without rehearsing overtaking my allotted time that I needed to practice for even longer. As a result, I’m averaging closer to 30 minutes every morning now. 🤯 It’s crazy how your body starts to crave that ritual of conscious stillness. My abandonment issues have long made stillness/silence an indicator that something bad is about to happen and I need to be on high alert, so that makes my practice nothing short of a fucking miracle. 😮💨 It’s been incredible how meditation has helped me see that stillness can be an invitation for you to experience the richness of life as it slowly unfolds in front of you, and as a result the dissemination occurs in such a way that no matter what you always feel prepared even if you’re going in completely blind because the commitment you’ve made to your peace is unwavering. It is an entirely different way of living when your emotions are simply helpful indicators on your HUD as you navigate this open world MMORPG we call life, but you remember that you’re the one holding the controller. 🎮
Spring will be here any minute now. Literally. The Equinox is on Monday. 🔜
Maybe these last few weeks have been like the last few minutes of a guided meditation where the guide cues for the meditator to invite gentle movement back into the body. Just like it’s generally not good for a car to go from zero to 150 in 30 seconds, one does not typically leap up wide eyed within seconds of true stillness. You wiggle your fingers and toes, roll your wrists and ankles, and maybe treat yourself to a full body stretch before you open your eyes to the world and all its stimuli. I’m hoping this is the literal final stretch before spring officially kicks off. Either way, I’m grateful to say that I’m genuinely looking forward to savoring every last second of this next phase now that I’m equipped to protect my peace every step of the way.
Until next time
💖