Staff Pix 4/18: Chiller Vibez

Oh yeah man? Staff Pix? Woahhhh……. Here’s what the Milk Crate crew has been listening to this bright shiny long weekend.

“Dramamine” by Modest Mouse

For a song about a medication that treats motion sickness, “Dramamine” is a dizzying spellbound. It’s a mindless wandering, the spaced-out state of the in-between: just like motion sickness, the song swings back and forth to create a toss-up between sedation and a never-ending freefall. The guitar is hypnotizing every time, the drums stay steady to take us nowhere, and the bassline alone is enough to mesmerize. “Dramamine” teeters on perfection in its entrancing, looping repetition that creates a feeling I didn’t even know existed and a sound I didn’t know could be made. My average listening experience is indescribable and a testament to the song’s power to send you carsick down a road to somewhere you’ve never been before. “I think I know my geography pretty damn well.” —Heather Thorn

“On the level” by Mac Demarco

Picture this: it’s the end of an excessively hot festival day in Seattle. The sun is setting within perfect timing of Mac Demarco’s Saturday night set for Day In Day Out. The sky is painted in pink and blue hues and the Space Needle glows in its light. Despite the sticky summer heat clinging to your bodies, everyone is in great spirits. When the intro to “On the Level” starts playing, the crowd erupts in cheers and laughter. People lift their joints to the sky, they seemingly thank God. With strangers twirling you around and a slight breeze dancing around the smoke in the air, it’s a perfect night. —Sophie Parrish

“green arrow” by Yo La Tengo

If peace was a song. Summer stillness and utter contentment. Yo La Tengo takes atmosphere to a whole new level: ambient slide guitar crooning, a shaker, some light bass notes, an echoey drum, all over a bed of chirping crickets. The effect is a minimalism that feels so unbelievably full and real. They manage to evoke obscure memories of Midwestern fields…your childhood summer camp…the first time you stayed out late with friends. Close your eyes for this one… —Christian Jones

“Meshuggah” by unknown mortal orchestra

“Meshuggah”...“Me sugar.” Baboom! It’s practically the psych-head equivalent of  “If You Seek Amy.” UMO opened my ears and heart many moons ago, pushing me into the deep end and into the delicious world of lo-fi. Continuously consistent and evermore blissful, “Meshuggah” is a masterclass in groove. It’s effortless, toeing being both punchy and diminished. “Energy is peace and power,” Ruban Nielson groans over the twangy chorus. I mean, yeah, it is. Got me there. Mellowing out and on, “You gave me sugar,” he repeatedly sings, and I begin to question: Did I? Where did my sugar go? Who’s flying this plane?...Shit. —Sofia Giarrusso

“jane” by Ben Folds Five

Hammering out of North Carolina with a piano and a dream, Ben Folds Five lit up the college rock scene in 1997 with “Brick,” a sensitive ode to teenage abortion that earned them heavy airplay on alt stations and armies of wet-eyed, mushy-hearted converts. Yet, like Extreme—a band whose biggest hit “More Than Words” is perhaps the least representative tune in their entire catalogue—the normally-prickish Ben Folds Five found themselves facing an identity crisis. Because their hardcore fanbase really hated “Brick,” the Five made the bold (insane) choice to venture into introspection on psychedelic (and highly uncommercial) follow-up project The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner. Against a wall of slyly funny, highly cryptic narratives about narcolepsy, adolescence, and failure, “Jane” sits like a jazzy rock at the album’s tail-end, striking the soul softly with sensual keys and drooling percussion. It’s an Ambien set to music, rendering you slack-jawed and drooly-mouthed, staring at a wall, waiting and waiting and waiting and… your eyes start to droop. Your mind is clear. “Jane” is the spaciest of stunners—a remarkable sigh of relief from a band caught in their own limbo. —Charlie Desjardins

“Spiritual Eternal” by Alice Coltrane

The first track from Alice Coltrane’s late ‘70s release Eternity, “Spiritual Eternal” rips right off into a brassy big band sound born from the bluesy wonder of Coltrane’s wurlitzer. Darting over and through and around the central melody for the track's three-minute run time, Coltrane’s playing is at once winding and clear as a bell, erratic and contained, electric and pondering. A Coltrane song is a thing of distinct pondering; the perfect music to close your eyes and see much much more than you ever would with them open. —Nathan Hilyard