She's A Queen

A while ago I felt myself craving music that would made me slither and wiggle my arms, but couldn’t quite put my finger on what I wanted to hear. That put this playlist in motion. 

As I went about my recent daily listening, I was thinking of some SUNY Purchase Conservatory alumni. Going to Purchase led to me discovering so many talented artists who’d gone there. Mitski’s Last Words Of A Shooting Star was still in the back of my mind when I remembered Evan Shornstein, a music theory classmate, and his project Photay. No Sass’s serpentine groove provoked just the dance move I’d been waiting for. 

Vampire Weekend is a band I hadn’t listened to in a few years. I was thinking about the Spanish word “contra”, against, because some Spanish speaking friends were in town and it had come up and instantly Vampire Weekend’s second album came to mind. Horchata is the first song on the album and just takes me back to an older time, sepia tinged and softly faded in my memory. 
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When you love someone deeply, something about them permeates your being. Once I felt that and wrote Your Skin On My Sheets.

Oh, Sampa the Great. This song. She’s such a badass woman and the more of those I get in my vicinity, the better things are. The groove on Born To Be Blue is so beautiful and dizzying, like falling down a rabbit hole. As I started falling in love with hip hop, she was my girl.

I don’t remember how I stumbled upon Degrees of Light by Taylor McFerrin, but it’s also dizzying and delightful.

Them Changes is just brilliant. The production is so lush and stratified and every baseline and melody is gorgeous in my opinion.

Yes, I’ve become obsessed with Frank Ocean. This is the song that first drew me to him. 

On New Years Eve, we listened to Flying Lotus all night. This music is how going into this year for me feel in a good way. And Kendrick is one of my idols. Him being on this song is the icing on the cake.

And James Blake is just stunning. In feel such a deep groove in this song while the washed out tone in the beginning feels so hypnotizing and beautiful to me.

Anyway, that’s what I think of these songs. I hope you dig them!

-Alice