{"id":13631,"date":"2017-06-30T21:06:11","date_gmt":"2017-06-30T20:06:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/culturedarm.com\/?p=13631"},"modified":"2017-07-29T23:55:25","modified_gmt":"2017-07-29T22:55:25","slug":"culturedarms-songs-of-the-month-june-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/culturedarm.com\/staging\/5793\/culturedarms-songs-of-the-month-june-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"Culturedarm’s Songs of the Month (June 2017)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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All new music for June\u2019s iteration of \u2018Songs of the Month\u2019, featuring standout tracks from SZA, Kedr Livanskiy, DJDS, Zola Jesus, Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, Bomba Est\u00e9reo, Jolie Holland and Samantha Parton, plus many more.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

SZA \u2013 \u2018The Weekend\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

SZA\u2019s debut album has been a long time in the coming. She made headlines back in August 2013 as the first female signee to Top Dawg Entertainment, and her debut EP Z<\/em> \u2013 arriving the following April on the back of a couple of early mixtapes \u2013 contained prominent appearances from Chance the Rapper, fellow new signing Isaiah Rashad, and label linchpin Kendrick Lamar.<\/p>\n

A second EP, provisionally titled A<\/em>, was announced in May 2014, but the project has taken just over three years to come to fruition. Upgraded to album status \u2013 with SZA highlighting its trap influences alongside more upfront and aggressive lyrics \u2013 it was placed on Top Dawg\u2019s release schedule early last year. But while SZA kept busy, lending her considerable songwriting talents to Rihanna\u2019s \u2018Consideration\u2019, and featuring on the track as the singer performed it at the 2016 Brit Awards<\/a>, for whatever reason the process stalled.<\/p>\n

Last October, via a couple of tweets SZA expressed her frustration over the delay, but in January her first appearance on Jimmy Kimmel<\/em><\/a> brought the announcement of Ctrl<\/em>, her impending album\u2019s new title, and a performance of its lead single, \u2018Drew Barrymore\u2019<\/a>. At last released at the beginning of this month, Ctrl<\/em>\u00a0finds SZA more open and experimental than on previous records, the husky drawl which sets the atmosphere of her music alternating with a snapping high pitch as she dwells on infidelities and the conflux of deep need and independence which come together in passionate romance but more often than not wind up leaving her despondent and aloof.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s\u00a0fuzzy and scuzzy and tough yet urbane and on a track like \u2018Love Galore\u2019, the record\u2019s second single featuring Travis Scott, tropical and wet and loose. Ctrl<\/em>\u00a0eschews genre, falling under the hazy catchalls of of alternative and PBR&B, but containing elements of soul, jazz, trap, trip hop, chillwave, indie, and more. The emphasis on squelching and scuttering and boldly-drawn beats allies SZA with Bj\u00f6rk, one of her key influences, while her penchant for lingering on the outer edge of the pocket calls to mind Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday.<\/p>\n

On \u2018The Weekend\u2019, SZA traces a soon familiar scene, lingering and loitering and lonely as she finds her lover off someplace with somebody else. \u2018My man is my man is your man \/ Heard it\u2019s her man too\u2019 she sings, at once colluding with and accusing but mostly drawing in the listener in this most open and clear-eyed of songs, wearily reconciliatory, because through the loneliness and upset she remains amorous too. \u2018The Weekend\u2019 plays like Ciara\u2019s \u2018Speechless\u2019<\/a> slowed down and subdued, love and comfort written as an elegy in the knowledge that all of it must be compressed into a couple of days, leaving only wide spaces in between.<\/p>\n