Author: dirty chai ☽

hi there, i'm dirty chai :3 i love all sorts of music, but some of my favorite genres are electronic (ambient, electronica, garage..), alt-r&b/hip-hop, nu-disco, and psych rock. all sounds are welcome <3

check out some of my shows on hd-1:
- mocha disco (mondays @ 5pm)
- liturgy (thursdays @ 6pm)

Categories
Playlists

DO IT, WITH HEART

Good day, beloved reader,

I’m chai, and I might be the luckiest girl in the world.

A beautifully wise friend of mine told me the other day that while he was traveling this past summer, he’d introduce himself to everybody he met by saying: “I’m ____, and I’m a lover. I love you and I love me; I love loving you and I love loving me.”

I love him, and I love that, so I’m going to follow that river: for the month of love and candy hearts, I’ve started working on a playlist called “DO IT, WITH HEART.”

Now, I’ve never been a fan of Valentine’s Day, but I think I’ve come around to it this year. There is a lot of love around me. There are small joys as far as the eye can see, so at what point do those small joys become the fabric of experience itself?

At this point, would be my guess.

I started making the playlist last Friday after a particularly beautiful dance / ceremony I got to be a part of. It took place in this big hall in a church, lit by dimmed lanterns hung at different heights from the ceiling.

There were hearts and stars and sparkles projected on the walls; there were baskets of flower petals that would end up thrown in the air like confetti, and on the floor arranged into shapes; there were cups of cacao thickened by coconut oil and almond butter held in the hands of each friend there; there was a kind woman telling me to listen to the heart—asking me why I was still stuck in my head.

It was something out of a dream.

Making this playlist has been a curious little process because the inspiration is so diffuse, but I tend to want to keep things cohesive. I’ve been trying only to add songs that really make me feel that warm dreamscape joy, either ones that have made me feel that way before, or new ones that share the same tenderness.

It’s a tiny personal anthology of songs for moments; for people; for sights and other sounds, so I’ve had to suspend my urge to add filler or obscurity to smooth the whole thing out.

The first song I added to the playlist is one I heard last Friday, a live mixing of “Temptation” (a New Order cover) and “Star Guitar” by The Chemical Brothers.

The next songs added were “Witches” by Alice Phoebe Lou and “This Night Has Opened My Eyes” by The Smiths. Both smell like heavy hickory smoke and dusk air to me. Both are back-pocket flowers and cuddle puddles in eclectically-decorated houses.

“Mother Nature’s Bitch” by Okay Kaya falls in that camp as well. Very honest and lightly addicting, the lyrics to this one are quite dear to me (“Here I am / Easy to please / Here I am / Okay with it”). I remember being 16 and loving how sage green it sounded—and I remember a few nights ago, noticing that the Spotify banner for “Watch This Liquid Pour Itself” is the same green as my big sister’s eyes.

Truthfully, most of the songs in this playlist are teenage keepsakes I still tote around. “Empire Ants” by Gorillaz and Little Dragon, “Lies in the Eyes of Love” by Part Time, and “Air Supply” by Sweet Trip are all tokens of a real-life first love: they are big blue eyes, bandaged fingers, carefully collected trinkets; clay-stained aprons, wilting wildflowers, plumes of incense smoke slowly spilling out into the six p.m. sun.

“Lil Thing” by Knox Fortune, “Headshots (4r da locals)” by Isaiah Rashad, and “Landline” by binki are caffeine shivers, curls lobbed too short, and the air rollerskating its way from winter into spring.

This morning’s addition is “Butterflies” by TV Girl, George Clanton, and Jordana. This one is for the little love in between little loves, the complete and utter gift it is to reminisce.

I’m not sure how long this playlist will get, given that we’re only a week into February, but I’m excited to see where it goes. I hope you like this patchwork playlist if you take a listen; for those less involved, it’s at the very least songs you’ll probably know… easy listening.

love & cacao & butterflies & gratitude & disco,

dirty chai <3

Categories
Blog New Album Review

Soundbites: “EUSEXUA” – FKA Twigs

FKA Twigs released her newest project “EUSEXUA” on January 24, 2025. It’s a dance pop-heavy album with classic Twigs elements like interludes of screechy dissonance and eerie whispers.

“EUSEXUA” is definitely a different direction than twigs’ previous work; the production is more minimal, and the project feels more accessible overall. With earlier works like “EP2” featuring songs like “How’s That,” and “Ultraviolet,” Twigs went for a heavy-handed kind of experimental, which can often require space for the music to grow on you.

Given that “EP2” is my favorite twigs release, “EUSEXUA” and her minimal production was a little disappointing at first (“Eusexua” took me a couple listens to get used to, if we’re being honest). It felt too easy to listen to, which is a luxury I prefer to reserve for kitschy 2010s electropop. Or toxic mainstream R&B.

But then I got to the second half of the album. Specifically, “Sticky,” “Childlike Things,” “Striptease,” and “24hr Dog.” The second stretch was jarring and alien, the way I like FKA Twigs songs to be.

“sticky”

Following the ultra-dancey “Room of Fools,” “Sticky” is the sixth track on the album, comparatively quiet and vulnerable. Twigs sings over soft piano, admitting devastatingly candid (relatable) things:

"My body aches to be known / 
To be expressive in itself / 
I want to forgive myself / 
I want to release myself from the pain I have inside / 
My body wants to be touched in the deepest darkest places / 
I want to be loved"

Don’t we all?

Halfway through, the song picks up in pace and takes on this Flume-like buildup (think “Palaces“), until it implodes and scatters into whispers of “sticky situations.”

“Childlike Things”

Maybe the most controversial track on “EUSEXUA,” “Childlike Things” features none other than 11-year old North West, sporting the same bravado as her father Kanye.

“Childlike Things” is admittedly really fun. It’s another dance track, but the cadence is catchy, the backing vocals are frothy, and the content is absolutely absurd: North spreads the love of Christ in Japanese, and I’m not really sure why. I assume that’s the point, however, because children do not dabble in the business of making sense.

“Striptease”

“Striptease” is the album’s ninth track, the production heavier, futuristic, and deeply resonant of Eartheater. Twigs’ vocals on this track phase between being classically soft and slurred and animalistic.

The entire song is a journey: at times bass-bound, at others weightless and ambient, the variation bleeding all the way down to the beat that feathers out midway to DnB, and then eventually settles on Jersey club. That sounds insane, but she makes it work so well.

I’d recommend watching the music video for it, because it gives the entire track new life. Twigs is an incredibly talented dancer who’s able to move in ways that aren’t exactly human; her movement accentuates all of the details of the music.

“24hr doG”

“24hr Dog,” my beloved. My favorite track on “EUSEXUA.”

It makes me want to cry. Although the album bears other deeply vulnerable songs like “Sticky,” something about “24hr Dog” kills me in a way the others do not.

The production itself is gentle and dreamy, its power coming from reverberation and deep, steady pads both building upon one another.

It sings a song of desperate submission: to who or what exactly is up to interpretation. To art, to fear, to pain? To me it sounds like being on a metaphorical leash for love, only to realize you are the one holding it. “24hr Dog” is the point at which you can no longer hide behind image or illusion. When whatever it is you live for, becomes what you’d die for.

“EUSEXUA” might be an excursion of FKA twigs’ into the world of minimalistic production and club pop, but she hasn’t surrendered the depth she brings to her art. It’s versatile. You can take it with you wherever you go.

love & disco,

dirty chai

Categories
Classic Album Review

Soundbites: “Radiosex” – JIL

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“Radiosex” is an electronic/alt-R&B song by JIL from their 2018 album “Emotional Heat 4A Cold Generation.”

It’s a song about love that has become mechanical and meaningless. The music itself in the first half of the song feels like an anxious limbo, either waiting for a decision to be made, or to muster the strength to make it yourself. The production reminds me a bit of James Blake, and the vocals of Moses Sumney.

Part of the first verse goes,

Held you in my arms /
Still I couldn't keep you close to me
Living in a world
Where sex is suicide (suicidal)
Making love to feel inside,
we watch each other die
Living by a limit, 
reaching past our means

As the song goes on, it reaches a point where it slows down, as if to stop and think; momentarily, there are no words. The space for revelation feels too still, so racing arpeggiated fears bleed their way back in. It’s beautiful and briefly grandiose, woven with melodic wails from the anonymous singer. And then it all dies down again.

“Radiosex” is good company for moments of solitude. It’s five minutes and 35 seconds that seem like one big question, or that aforementioned limbo. Like swimming in space.

The rest of “Emotional Heat 4A Cold Generation” also has some very lovely tracks worth checking out, some of which I’ve played in sets before (“Micromoog“). JIL does a good job of combining the electronic foundations of their songs with organic, soulful, psychedelic elements. I’ll let you know what I find in further exploration of their discography.

love & disco (be well),

dirty chai <3

Categories
Classic Album Review

Soundbites: “Cult Hymns” – JIIN

Cover for EP "Cult Hymns" by JIIN

JIIN is something of a digital wraith.

All I can find on this man is that he’s from Toronto. And that’s from a VICE interview from 2015.

He’s only got a few projects out, most of which are singles, but there is one that is very special: his 2015 EP, called “Cult Hymns.”

I originally found “Cult Hymns” in 2021, if memory serves, and it was sticky limerence at first listen. I remember I first became enamored with the concept of digital dystopia then (you know when you spend so much time being afraid of something, how it starts to become comforting?) as I was just about drowning in literature about class struggles and rotting social structures, transhumanist visual culture and desolate electronic ambience.

So, “Cult Hymns” was a perfect addition to that arsenal.

There are seven tracks, two of which feature R&B artist Daniel Caesar. The first track, “Brothers,” starts the EP off in unsettled whispers and a sustained synth that sounds a bit like a siren. They trickle off into flickers that, to me, seem to resemble city lights reflected in a polluted body of water.

In that VICE interview I mentioned, JIIN talks about being inspired by “The Sword of Doom,” a samurai movie from 1966 and “Akira,” the 1988 Japanese cyberpunk film, among other things. “Every time I watch something, I automatically soundtrack it in my mind, and vice versa. It can be a voice note or a weird thing I watched years ago. Probably why I can never sleep,” he says.

The next track on the EP is “Cult Logic,” a song that sounds like it would be played when the world ends; a thoughtful “Congratulations, it was all for nothing!” The song is disturbingly upbeat for its premise and speaks of feeling trapped in something, presumably a messy love whose time is up:

Eyes in paradise falls
One more rock for the mockingbird call
The sun rises up for me
Isn't what you showed to me
Let the water wash away your sin

The third song on the EP, “F***ed Up,” features Daniel Caesar. On it, Caesar lazily sings about being alone once more, getting caught up in women, work, and drugs to fill the void of a lost lover. JIIN’s production makes the intro to this one promising, but I’m honestly not the biggest fan of Caesar’s vocals against the music.

The fourth track, “Bury Me in Money,” is a fuzzy pool of chants and bass that throbs like a headache. After it is “Pole Dancer,” which bears samples of a koto and a synth so distorted it sounds like a scream. Both tracks are instrumental, contributing something a little trashy to this late-stage capitalist nightmare of a soundscape JIIN has created.

The last two tracks on “Cult Hymns” are my personal favorites: “God,” featuring Daniel Caesar and “Fell Thru,” another instrumental.

“God” is so eerie and suffocating at times; Caesar sings about succumbing to isolation as “Cult Hymns” comes to a climax. It sounds like a breaking point as he begs for affection. Bestrewed throughout the song is classic symptoms of madness: sounds of furious scribbles and pages being torn from a book. Makes you feel like you’re right there with him.

Then lastly, but definitely not least, is “Fell Thru.”

This song is a wasteland. It’s barren and beautiful, and I save it for the quietest hours of the night. I find something about it so tender, in the midst of its empty space and crumbling architecture. It’s unclear what’s being sung, but it sounds both like a “thank you” and a “goodbye.” It’s been a soundtrack to many a late night over the years, and I’m so glad to have unearthed it again.

Perhaps knowing so little about JIIN and his intentions for his work is what makes “Cult Hymns” such a treat. It allows you to make sense of the bleakness for yourself, deciding what each of the songs could be about, if at all; it’s equally nice to sit with it for what it is, too, letting the abyss do the talking.

love & disco & desolation,

dirty chai <3

Categories
New Album Review

Soundbites: “No Other Mind” – Hildegard

Album cover for "Jour 1596" by Hildegard

“No Other Mind” is a soft-strummed single by Hildegard, the creative collaboration between artists Ouri and Helena Deland. It was released on December 2, 2024.

Both have such sweet voices that could cradle a tired brain to sleep. Interspersed in the background is the twinkle of a harp and flushes of powdery white noise. It’s tender like a wind-whipped face, or a kitten kiss (lots of those this season). In the midst of this frigid finals week, my nervous system has been gratefully sipping on it.

The lyrics are sincere in their warmth:

“No other mind can ever be found instead of mine /

Something our young life cannot deny us / 

Every morning brings us back and we trust it every time.”

Rather than a lover, this song quite reminds me of my dearest friends. I hear them upstairs right now, exasperated and laughing, as girls often are.

There is this ebb and flow humans have picked up on (that even the instrumental of the song seems to follow) of those lives that are intertwined with our own. Even in a state of disconnect, it seems more and more like connection can never be severed, as long as memory persists.

The song is a part of Hildegard’s most recent album, “Jour 1596.”

It was named for the 1596 days it took for the project to be completed. Like much of Deland and Ouri’s work, it’s gentle and free-flowing. I’d recommend it for this frazzled period of time, especially if you’re pulling your hair out over this last battle before break.

love & disco (stay warm),

dirty chai <3

Categories
New Album Review

Soundbites: “Londra” – Qendresa

Album cover for Qendresa's "Londra."

Qendresa is an R&B and neo-soul artist from London bringing back the 90’s sound like it’s her job.

She released her second album “Londra,” co-produced by Jordan Lee, on November 28. It’s made up of nine gooey tracks that set the clock back about 30 years.

The first track on “Londra” is one of my favorites from Qendresa, called “2 Much.” Her voice is ribbons of butterscotch as she sings about complicated exchanges with a lover. Even though the lyrics detail an emotional spot to be in, something about her voice sounds like she’s been there for too long: “No I don’t wanna sabotage myself / You know them demons wanna get inside / And every toke is just an ask for help / Every tear is just a blessing in disguise.” I think I like it so much because it’s a sweet coming-to-terms wrapped up in funky treacle riffs. Perfect for overthinking in the after-hours.

“Sweet Lies” is another song about longing, but it makes you want to move. It immediately takes you in again with the sticky syrupy riffs, just at a faster tempo than “2 Much.” Qendresa and Lee are good at adding modern electronic embellishments throughout their trips back in time, striking this gorgeous balance between decades.

The fourth song on “Londra” is a hip-hop/soul throwback called “The Bounce.” Qendresa doesn’t seem to use many samples, so it’s really fun to see how she recreates integral elements of 90’s hip-hop songs with her own voice. I will admit, I don’t like this one as much as I do the others, but I can still appreciate how she retains her sound while doing something different.

The last track on the album is “Whenever You’re Ready,” a sedate winding-down. It’s smooth in a more atmospheric way, relying on slow strums, layered vocals, and lots and lots of reverb (and that blessed shaker). This one specifically sounds like it belongs in a scene from “Girlfriends.”

“Londra” is a unique sophomore project from Qendresa, who is very steadily building a concrete body of work. Her style is a warm tribute that I don’t really hear in other places—barring samples and re-works of pre-existing tracks, because there is no shortage of those—so it’s exciting to see how she fleshes out her inspiration throughout her new releases.

love & disco (happy holidays!),

dirty chai <3

Categories
Classic Album Review

Soundbites: “Drums of Death” – FKA twigs + Koreless

Cover for "Drums of Death" by FKA Twigs

“Drums of Death” is FKA twigs’ newest release, the third single from her album “EUSEXUA,” featuring producer Koreless and an array of sensuous textures.

It’s carnal and angry, the coarse motor thrum and the drum beat, but it retains some semblance of ethereality from twigs’ fae-like voice. Later in the song though, the softness of her voice almost adds to the sense of violence as she hisses “Hard metal / Silver stiletto / Devour the entire world / F*** it, make it yours / Do it just for fun.”

The word “eusexua” is one twigs made up herself, roughly meaning a sense of euphoria so deep it becomes meditative: a rapture that transmutes from heat in the core to a flush of the face, and every nerve becomes a live wire.

Different tracks on the album seem to embody different flavors of it, sometimes coming in airy and weightless, but “Drums of Death” is a meditation on booming bass and body movement. I have synesthesia (can you tell I love texture?) so “Drums of Death” is a fun excursion with all its superficial clicks and flits and its pounding basal heartbeat.

The video for the track was released as well, and it reminds me a lot of Aphex Twin’s “Windowlicker” with its strange choreography and dynamic camera movement. In it, twigs sports a pixie cut and a suit, dancing on an office chair in sync with her colleagues.

They all quickly lose the officewear not long after, prowling about in undergarments instead. Around 2 minutes and thirty-seven seconds is when twigs looks like herself again, and the entire video has fully devolved into strobing lights and unfiltered motion of limbs and muscle. The lighting complements the song well too, harsh enough to highlight the dancers’ anatomies in ways that are more graphic than they are sensual.

“Drums of Death” is infectious and peculiar, and I’m excited to see what other alien fruits “EUSEXUA” will come bearing.

love & disco (be well),

dirty chai

Categories
Classic Album Review

Soundbites: “The Loa of Music (The Complete Sessions” – Roberto Musci

Cover for "The Loa of Music" by Roberto Musci

I’ve recently made a return to ceremonial sound after a month-long venture into what I’d describe as “comfort genres” (for example, 90s eurotrash). One of my favorite Western artists that falls under that category is Roberto Musci, an Italian musician who makes incredible use of field recordings from the Eastern world.

The first song I ever heard of his, and perhaps my favorite song of all time, was “Claudia, Wilhelm R and Me” from his 2016 album “Tower of Silence.”

I’m not sure exactly how I came across it; I just remember being 13 and feeling like what I had just discovered was something profound. “Tower of Silence” has been tucked into my pocket since, and I tote it around like a lucky charm.

I’ve started to explore his older work more as of late, namely his first release called “The Loa of Music (The Complete Sessions).”

Released in 1983, it was a product of his travels about Africa, Asia, and the Middle East: “The Loa of Music” has field recordings of chants in different languages, instruments unfamiliar to mainstream Western music, and storytelling from across the globe.

Some of my favorite tracks from the album are the ones with Indian elements (sue me), including “Improbably Music,” “Katak Dance for H. Partch” and “Lazy Raga.”

They are delightful in their incorporation of the Hindustani sound, while still taking a contemporary, experimental stance on the endeavor.

“The Loa of Music” is a beautiful collection of songs to meditate to — move about to, breathe in rhythm with, sit outside to — and what better time for that than now.

love & disco (be well),

dirty chai <3

Categories
Classic Album Review

Soundbites: “Hide In Plain Sight” – Jim James

Album cover for "Eternally Even" by Jim James.

“Hide In Plain Sight,” off of Jim James’ 2016 album “Eternally Even,” is a spiritual pondering.

For those who are unfamiliar, Jim James is one of the members of the rock band My Morning Jacket, and “Eternally Even” was his second solo release. The entire album is a work of art (I also really love “Same Old Lie,” which sounds wide-eyed like a revelation), so I recommend listening to it in full. My heart has however been taken captive by one track in particular.

Synths brazen and verses bearing profound truths in relatively uncomplicated language. The output is abstract, but the feeling is whole. It’s a floccose sound, like a semi-bitter mug of green tea; it is warm and leaves a certain crackle in the throat.

“Hide in Plain Sight” starts off as noise. We hear a bassline and it’s as definite as a heartbeat; the guitar kicks in and it’s blown out, wailing, alluring. And then Jim’s voice, smokey bourbon perfection, singing to us notes on absolutes (”Life’s eternal struggle / It’s just a dream / I hate to burst your bubble / Times change, entire lives reduced to rubble.”) and the contradiction of hoping like a human does (”But then what if the world became sweet again? / Hand in hand, everybody all the best of friends / Golden ends, could we handle it?”)

It’s a song for the end of the day, when change has become blasé; you’re tired, and you’re tired of being tired. Perhaps my favorite line in the whole song reflects that sentiment: “Life goes on with or without you.” It’s polysemous, which is what I love about it so much. It could be defeat, but it could also be sourcing solace in the surrender.

The best way to describe it might be as a soundtrack to an hour of recuperation, perfect for picking up the pieces.

love & disco,

dirty chai

Categories
New Album Review

Soundbites: “Electric Honey (Encore)” – Tanerélle

Cover for "Electric Honey" by Tanerelle
Cover for "Electric Honey" by Tanerelle

I’m not entirely convinced that Tanerélle isn’t a celestial being from a far-away Afrofuturist utopia. She brings to Earth her intergalactic take on R&B and neo soul in her newest album, “Electric Honey (Encore).”

The album features some beautiful artists like Machinedrum, who specializes in elegant breakbeat and IDM, and Sabrina Claudio, who has got the sense for sensuality on lock. Drawing from both worlds is something Tanerélle does often, so they seem like perfect collaborators for her vision.

I actually first heard Tanerélle on a Machinedrum track two years ago, called “Star,” and was transfixed. Spellbound. Bewitched. Her voice is like a thick silk velvet against the track’s delicate ambience, and there’s no shortage of that feel in “Electric Honey.”

The first track on the album is “For Her (Chemtrails),” featuring Machinedrum and IMANU. The very first synths sound Ark Patrol-adjacent (an IMANU staple), setting the stage for a lighter dance track that burns out like a blown-out birthday candle: we’re left with the kiss of smoke from its wick.

One of my favorite tracks on this album is “Let Me In – Cosmic Orchestra Ver.,” where Tanerélle takes a standard R&B melody and makes a spectacle of it. The strings are utter drama as she begs a lover to let her in: “Under your skin / Yearning for softness / No need for caution / I’ll be your saint.”

The grandiosity continues with the album’s title track, “Electric Honey.” It’s more of an interlude, bridging the gap between the longing of the orchestral version of “Let Me In” and the neo-soul-voltage of “Blink.”

A final favorite of mine from this album is “Overflow.” It starts off more somber than the others and is at points, more IDM than R&B. At others, it’s sacral like a call through a cavern, accompanied by sober clarity in the lyrics:

I close my eyes as I spy for relief

I sneak away in the night while you sleep

I beg the sky for some love and some peace

And a forever, one for you and one for me

But there’s never getting what you want

It’s an all-too-familiar surrender to truth, after trying to deny that something once complete has since succumbed to decay. I think the track does well the weird back-and-forth between the lightness from relief, and the weight of memory in those moments of realization.

Overall, I think “Electric Honey (Encore)” is a sweet little release with some versatility; I could both dance and cry to some of the songs, depending on the day. It’s slightly experimental, but it remains in the realm of easy listening.

I may play something from it on a set soon..

love & disco,

dirty chai