R&B tinged glitchy electronica, post-R&B LA beat scene stuff

Like all of the good post-R&B glitchy bass music stuff of the past decade, this refracts your memories of 90s R&B/hip-hop textures and moods through the intervening couple decades of genre warping technology and mind warping substances. Hazy, pretty, sunny (in a smoggy LA way), narcotic, and melancholy. Lots of vocals as texture, but also some actual regular singing. Smooth and mellow even when it’s glitching and hiccuping.

RIYL: Mount Kimbie, “Los Angeles” Flying Lotus (esp on the drums), “CMYK” James Blake, XXYYXX, Brainfeeder in general

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1. opening swirl and pads, breath female vox. synths get thick but stay lazy, vocals have ragged trip-hop vibe w/ mount kimbie-esque pitch shifted echoes. loping percussion doesn’t kick in till midway. hazy bassy post-R&B (definitely post-something). 4:29
2. plaintive rich synth melody and light shuffling cymbals. indecipherable smeared buried vocal fragments, rattly flylo-ish drums, including the twinkling bent chime sounds. 1/3 in, gets filtered and buried and subdued only to build and then pare back again. drums come back around 2/3 mark. 3:14
3. melancholy rich synth streaks, decipherable (mostly female) vocals with pitch shifted echoes. beat slowly comes in around 1:00, loping w/ boomy but quick-to-decay kicks. main synth line slowly gets more bite and growl for a bit, then things pare back. other complimentary synth bits fade in during 2nd half, 80s/90s synth-R&B textures, bits of electric piano. 4:11
4. insistent steady but slow beat, thick slightly serrated/acid-y bassline, shimmery echoed key plinks. synth swirls gently coalesce with hazy buried pitched up female vox around midway. like something from the “drive” score’s hip but stoney cousin. 3:32
5. gently overlapping waves of synths, bells, smeared vocals as texture. halting slow percussion added in shortly. traces of the more wistful slow moments of daedelus or prefuse. beat gets more drive around midway, w/ slightly more intricate bass, but the vibe stays mellow 3:39
6. watery clipped bells, static. male vox and drums at :25. slight, melancholy, pleasant. a lonely dusk. 2:17
7. loopy reverby electric piano tones, claps. slowly adds more percussion and melody during its short run. backs out the room after peeking in for just a bit. appropriately ends on ejecting cassette tape sounds. 1:41
8. echoed submerged clockwork drums, bendy bright synths. gets a shade darker, pares back, female vocals enter just before 1:00. then bells and thick bass, a bit of sax a little later. halting but not lurching, tentative and indecisive about how full it wants to be, but not in a bad way. fades away on the bells. 4:14
9. slow rising atmosphere, quiet hearbeat drums. bits of electric piano and sax. galloping beat slowly fades up but stays quiet, with pitch bent synths. then beat comes up and bass gets thicker and has more bite/distortion/echo, acid-y 303 texture. percussion fades, last minute is synth streaks and low static. 3:43
10. warm synths, slow but insistent 4/4 kick. slippery off kilter cymbals join after a bit. echoed female vocal fragments, intelligible if you try hard, weaving pitch bend melodic lines. bright but fuzzed mid-range synth kicks in around midway. later, shards of twangy guitar. gentle but propulsive, wistful and dusky w/o being too depressive. gets pleasantly loopy for a while, then drums fade out in the last minute, fades out to rain sounds. 5:49
11. growly bass and thin synth cymbal sliver, warped pitch bent melody streaks, remeniscent of old BoC for just a bit. loping break, that synth cymbal is gently insistent for a bit. drums dissolve and it’s smeared vox and synth and pads for a bit, drums slowly re-enter. the whole thing gets a bit pushier in the middle, but never overwhelming, with glitched rolls of syllables and descending synth streaks. gentle slow unraveling to nothing, very quiet last 10 seconds. 4:51
12. distant stuttery quiet chopped synth streaks give way to bigger fuller chopped synth streaks, with bouncy 808s. briefly gets all twisted up and metallic at points, but keeps a steady pace. 1:51
13. watery echoed midrange tones, gentle clicky drums. hazy male vocal fragments enter just before 1:00. a touch of higher synth whine and a tuner unable to find a channel come in around midway, then old videogame blips. gets a bit noisier and more chaotic as it goes, doesn’t change much otherwise, but never wears out its welcome. 4:03


recommended: 10, 1, 5, 11, 9, 8, 13, any