The year 2020 is becoming the golden age of bedroom bands. If there is an upside to the global pandemic, it may be that musicians, especially solo musicians of a certain ilk, have had more time to finish recorded new projects at home. XX/XO is out with just such a project in Overdue. Filled with catchy, repetitive keyboard melodies, 808 drum beats and self-reflective lyrics (except possibly the ones in French I didn’t quite catch), Overdue is so elegant and seductively simple that it should come as a reminder to any other bedroom musician that their own project is overdue. Get cracking before they find a vaccine!
Baltogucci Corpse Pose (Self Released)
Ladies and gentlemen, we are floating in Albuquerque. Baltogucci grooves on down the electronic slow dance highway with Corpse Pose. Taking its time, Corpse Pose is an instrumental, sample-filled meditation appropriate as the soundtrack of your socially distant late nights spent counting up your options and discounting them one by one until you return to the realization that you are still in the middle of a global pandemic and there is really very little you can do except heed the advice of Snoop Dogg and, “Just chill, ’til the next episode.” Corpse Pose is an album that can help with that. Of note is the track “Happy Quarantine.” With its slow roll and handclaps, it evokes the idea of paging through a magazine you’ve already read while being on hold to make a dentist appointment, but in a good way. Corpse Pose is a handsome addition to anyone’s COVID collection, best enjoyed wearing headphones while lying on your back on your living room floor in the dark in savasana.
