Every day, Dave Segal sifts through the hundreds of tracks that bombard his inbox. On a biweekly basis, he tells you about the two artists whose music most impressed him. This time, enigmatic NYC crew Standing on the Corner put a weird spin on slow-motion pop and Seattle space-rockers somesurprises get cozily dreamy in their duo format.

Standing on the Corner, "Baby" (XL Recordings)
Damn, I've been sleeping on Standing on the Corner for nine years. Time to make amends. Led by Shamel Cee Mystery (aka Gio Escobar), the shapeshifting Brooklyn, New York crew have been haunting the deep underground with a shiver-inducing strain of slow-motion pop that sounds like a much less goofy, more meditative Ween. Or maybe they're like Sly & the Family Stone if they recorded for Ralph Records? Perhaps a US counterpart to the UK's Hype Williams? Whatever the case, SOTC have a splendid way with melodies, but they squeeze them out in a woozy/ooze-y manner that paradoxically allows the music to hit harder.

The press notes indicate that SOTC are "[i]nspired by and made for the resilience and upheaval of all people of the African diaspora" and that they aspire "to uncover the mysteries of hidden truths through composition, concert happenings, multimedia exhibitions, video installation, and focused interpretation." Those are bold ambitions, but the music comes off not as if they're trying to galvanize a revolution as much as they're conjuring dreamy netherworlds to which listeners can drift off in hazy tranquility. 

As it happens, most of SOTC's catalog is not on streaming services or YouTube. You can access their seriously zonked self-titled 2016 album, the wildly eclectic 2017 mixtape Red Burns, and cryptically loony 2020 single "G-E-T-O-U-T!! The Ghetto," but the rest is a mystery, unless you copped the physical artifacts during their evanescent runs. Now signed to large indie label XL Recordings, SOTC are poised for a significant profile boost. They deserve it, as the single "Baby" proves. 

Within the first minute of "Baby," I was ready to declare it single of the year. By the end of my first listen, I was blurting about it on social media. This phenomenon is as rare as tr*mp's failsons putting in an honest day of work. Right from the start, SOTC submerge us in a sun-dazed fug somewhere between Ween's "Springtheme" and Funkadelic's "I'll Stay." The drum machine's set to about 49 bpm while Escobar's narcotized voice is warped into a lascivious drawl; meanwhile, the guitar, bass, and keyboards swirl in a lovesexy miasma. A blissful time should be had by all who are open to it.

Honestly, we don't really need more songs titled "Baby." A moratorium should have been called after Donnie and Joe Emerson dropped their "Baby" in 1979. But SOTC have Trojan Horsed that overworked trope into something surprisingly seductive. Put it on repeat and escape this dystopia for a few hours. 

somesurprises, "Lush" (self-released)
Understated Seattle space-rockers somesurprises began as a solo project for gifted guitarist/vocalist Natasha El-Sergany, but the lineup's always been fluid. The group achieved new peaks in creativity and popularity with last year's Perseids, which they recorded as a fourpiece (with help from guests), so you'd think they'd want to continue on that path. But instead, somesurprises return as a duo on the three-track Year Without Spring EP, with core members El-Sergany and guitarist/keyboardist Josh Medina aided on two tracks by Evan Hashi on bass and Arp Odyssey.  

"Lush" is an unutterably beautiful ballad that hovers and shimmers like a classic Laraaji meditation, glazed to perfection by Hashi's synth emissions. El-Sergany—who also plays Mellotron—sings in her trademark beatifically melancholic manner, "nothing can weigh you down/you know the way now/floating on changes like clouds/here you are, alone as you always were." "Endless" reminds me of the British chanteuse A.C. Marias with its opiated diaphanousness, layered to create the illusion of infinite expanses.

If you caught somesurprises at Neumos in May opening for Grails, you will know about the celestial aural intimacy of Year Without Spring and want it for posterity on your playing device. All proceeds from Bandcamp sales go to Super Familia King County, "a mutual aid group organized to resist traditional social services that can endanger unaccompanied and undocumented youth."