Weekly Music Roundup: Virgil Abloh and serpentwithfeet, The Weather Station, Rhye

Week of Jan. 11: This week, a climate song from The Weather Station, an eerie song of nature by Virgil Abloh and serpentwithfeet, and R&B from Rhye.

Virgil Abloh and serpentwithfeet Team Up On Eerie New Song and Video

Virgil Abloh is best known in the fashion world, though he’s done a lot of art direction for Kanye West and numerous other A-list music figures. But he’s also a DJ and musician, and has just collaborated with the Brooklyn-based experimental soul singer known as serpentwithfeet (aka Josiah Wise). Their song is called “Delicate Limbs,” and it is a strange and eerie affair, consisting of layers of voices, spread across the stereo field, accompanied by almost weightless electronic textures - until a slow beat finally appears in the last minute of the song. The video is even more enigmatic, playing on the idea that “limbs” can refer to people, or to trees… or possibly even to enormous tree-people. 

Rhye Prepares to Release New Album, Home, with a New Single

Rhye is the work of the Canadian-born, LA-based singer and cellist Michael Milosh. Rhye has become known for sultry, sometimes cinematic R&B, and for his androgynous vocals. All of that is in evidence in his new single, “Come In Closer.” It’s from the upcoming album Home, out on January 22, and it is a steadily building track that envelops Milosh’s vocals in layers of keyboards and strings. The song is pretty clearly romantic, but the video looks at a very different relationship, as we follow two young siblings in what looks like an utterly exhausting day of fun.  

The Weather Station Focuses On Climate In New Song “Atlantic”

Canadian actor, singer, and songwriter Tamara Lindeman records as The Weather Station, and on February 5 she’ll release her latest album, Ignorance. You will probably guess that the title is ironic, or at least not meant as a suggestion. Her new single “Atlantic” gets right to the heart of the matter: “I should really know better than to read the headlines,” she sings; “does it matter if I see it? Why can't I just cover my eyes?” She writes that “if you spend any time at all reading about the climate situation, positivity and lightness are not fully available to you.” Still, the song is neither angry screed or a doleful lament. With a gently insistent rhythm section pushing things along, “Atlantic” finds Lindeman on a cliff observing a sunset (over the Atlantic, somewhat improbably for a North American – maybe her character’s in Ireland?) while seabirds wheel overhead. And this image is beautifully echoed in the ways the flute and electric guitar seem to flutter around each other behind Lindeman’s implacable vocals. 

The video, which she directed, is the third to be released in this series – all feature Lindeman and her band in the same patch of woods. This time it’s dark, and she’s wearing the suit of mirrors that appears in the video from the first single, “The Robber.” She and the band will be doing a live streaming concert on February 11. 

The Weeknd Preps For Super Bowl With New “Save Your Tears” Video

Abel Tesfaye, the Canadian singer and songwriter who records as The Weeknd, had a big year in 2020 – releasing his album After Hours to critical acclaim (and generating a lot of muttering when the Grammy nominations snubbed him) and putting out a series of videos that see his appearance changing in dramatic ways. 2021 promises to be even bigger, with The Weeknd scheduled to do the halftime show at the Super Bowl on February 7. And he’s just released the next video in his After Hours series, for the song “Save Your Tears.” While he looks a lot better than last time (he was decapitated in the video for “Too Late”), the man who once sang “Can’t Feel My Face” probably can’t now, what with all the prosthetic cheeks he’s wearing. The song is an interesting mix of dark R&B and 80s style New Romanticism in the style of Pet Shop Boys or OMD. That darkness comes through as the video progresses. 

Barra Brown and Rapper ePP Collaborate on a Timely Single

Portland drummer and multi-instrumentalist Barra Brown has teamed up with Portland rapper ePP on a song called “Ride,” which is the leadoff track from Brown’s forthcoming album LFT:RT. (The album title seems to refer to Brown being ambidextrous, but is actually about how binary thinking is so destructive.) “Ride” has a multi-layered production that does not sound like a standard hip hop beat, but which fits neatly with ePP’s melodic rapping (he really does cross freely between singing and rapping). The lyrics are also multi-layered, and as Brown says, “really speak to the moment.”