100-song playlist: Big Thief, Jane Remover, dexter in the newsagent, more

Behold: another "Shit I Like" playlist. I've been making 100-song playlists of new-to-me songs I enjoy since 2016, and this is my 34th installment in that series, bearing the title "Shit I Like 34.0." It contains 100 songs spanning a multitude of genres and eras that are bound together based on a very simple criteria: I like them, and before they were added to this playlist, I either hadn't heard them or hadn't realized I liked them. "Shit I like 34.0" is not sequenced in any rational order. It's intended to be shuffled through and blindly explored like a messy crate of records in the back of a thrift store. Mixtapes are cool, but I also think there's value in thumbing through a big mess of bangers and stumbling into something you never thought you'd hear.

To get you started, I plucked out 10 songs from "Shit I Like 34.0" and wrote about them below. I did the same type of write-up for my previous three "Shit I Like" playlists, which you can read here, here, and here. And like the most recent 100-song playlist post, my paid subscribers are the ones who'll reap the full benefits. The first five blurbs are free for all to read, but the second five are behind the paywall along with the actual playlist on Spotify and Apple Music. If you subscribe to Chasing Sundays for $5/month, you get to read weekly artist Q&A's, the full versions of all my (increasingly common) longform interviews, all of these 100-song playlist posts, and any other paywalled writing on my site. Don't miss out.

Jane Remover - "So What?"

I truly believe that Jane Remover is one of the most impressive artists of our generation. Consider this track record: co-pioneered digicore, devised her own Jersey Club sub-genre, mastered "fifth-wave emo" in one shot, sprawled out into post-rocky shoegaze, came back to conquer electro-rap, and is now writing songs like "So What?" that translate the slick, sexy R&B of mid-2000s pop radio into her own tweaked verbiage. For someone who came up surgically altering her nasally monotone with glitchy stutters and alien pitch correction, Jane's un-effected vocal runs on "So What?" are astonishing. Her breathy falsettos and bare-voiced rapping leave her lyrics about lustful obsession fully exposed, amounting to a newfound adult confidence that shakes off her indoor kid origins. And like all her best songs, the beat bangs, too.

Big Thief - "Happy With You"

Am I the only music writer who loved the new Big Thief record? The consensus in my circles was that Double Infinity, their debut as a three-piece, was their first major whiff, but some of that dismissiveness felt colored by a decline in critical good-will from the Israel controversy they fumbled into a few years back. The long-revered band were due for some backlash, but I don't actually hear any marked dip in quality among these songs, especially with highs as towering as "Happy With You." The album's penultimate cut is teeming with the joyful sincerity Big Thief have always excelled at, and it vibrates with the psychedelic playfulness that they've grown into as a band who've loosened with age. Adrianne Lenker's lovestruck chirps sound authentically goo-goo eyed, the typically lax band are locked into an unusually urgent groove, and Laraaji's zither spangles send it into the sky. Personally, I'd take this over any track on U.F.O.F.

Olivia O. - "Exoskeleton" (Feat. Otto Benson)

Although I never got into Lowertown or any of Olivia O.'s earlier solo material, her new album Telescope has gotten a lot of airplay in my bedroom over the last month -and-change. Her dim, creaky lo-fi pop reminds me of early Girlpool and Race-era Alex G, but also feels of a piece with the contemporary bedroom-rock scene that she celebrates with the album's stacked feature list: Computerwife, sweet93, Melaina Kol, hold (aka Sign Crushes Motorist), and best of all, Otto Benson, who co-wrote the loping acoustic duet "Exoskeleton." I like this track because it takes two artists who are provenly capable of writing bustling, animated music, and strips them down to their chassis: a pair of singers with indoor voices harmonizing over wooden acoustic guitar chords and a meek analog synth that dances in the background like a flickering candle. If I call it "twee" will you promise not to roll your eyes?

Todos Mis Amigos Están Tristes - "Morderé mis labios hasta sangrar de la rabia"

Todos Mis Amigos Están Tristes are a Chilean band who are huge on Rate Your Music right now, where they're often improperly identified as a shoegaze band. Many such cases these days, but I see where people are coming from in the sense that last year's Carne LP is littered with huge swells of distorted guitar and lots of grainy, Parannoul-indebted texture. That being said, I think Carne is moreso an emo record with hints of shoegaze and grunge, as demonstrated by its explosive centerpiece "Morderé mis labios hasta sangrar de la rabia." When I sent this to my friend he said it sounded like Prince Daddy & the Hyena, and while I can't disagree with that comparison entirely, I think it undersells just how tastefully bombastic this track is. If you've been yearning for melodic guitar music that aims to electrocute on contact, then play this sucker loud.

Tony Martin - "ULISSES"

The only thing I know about Tony Martin is that he's not that Tony Martin. This is a different Tony Martin, and his November album AOTO applies the deconstructionist humor of first-wave post-punk to present-day left-field internet music. Another song of his I love, "ANTICLEA," might be the most beautiful song in this playlist. "ULISSES" is the doofiest. The chorus sounds like it was mined from a dirty old English pub song, but it's so damn catchy that I found myself wandering around my apartment muttering, "The dog ate cigarette butts/burning ash through his guts/he ate cigarette butts," under my breath for a week straight. The first time I heard it I audibly moaned, "what the fuck am I listening to?", but by the end, I had fully adjusted to the strange comforts of this dinged-up and demented synth-punk jalopy.