- "L.E.S. Artistes", Santigold
The late 00s had a wealth of excellent female producer/songwriter/singers (Janelle Monae, Robyn etc) and among that group Santigold never quite got the attention she deserved, I thought. She's still releasing albums but her first album still stands out to me for its unusual synth accents and the first track, "L.E.S. Artistes", a basically perfect pop song that delivers unforgettably catchy funk from moment one.
- "Les Artisans", Theoreme
This album's from 2021 but what it makes me think of more than anything else is like old Einstürzende Neubauten or Swans songs with industrial-sounding (in the sense of "like a factory") bass sounds and clanging beats and prose being intoned in a low voice, except that in this one the woman intoning the prose is speaking French instead of German. Anyway, I liked it. Linked song is the first track, which I thought was the best.
- "Les Artistes", Rachid Taha
So if you have Spotify or Tidal or one of those other big unethical streaming sites, a weird thing you can do is search for a song by name and click "play" from the track search results page, and it will play all the search results alphabetically, which really sounds like it should not work well but occasionally produces a shockingly effective playlist. Perhaps you have already guessed why I'm telling you this.
Anyway here's some jamming French rockabilly by an Algerian singer / social activist.
- "THE LIZ", Armani Caesar
Armani Caesar is a new rapper from Buffalo NY with a distinct and really satisfying musical aesthetic. Her rap style evokes 90s rappers like Lil Kim and Foxy Brown, her production evokes Dan the Automator and Kool Keith. I'm making comparisons to old stuff but this isn't retro, it feels like she picked up where those artists left off. She has two good albums in the last two years, both of them named "THE LIZ".
Click the cohost-embed "play" button for a surprise.