Max's Music Mondays with Aye Mitch and cookii
Something for the bbq and the house party.
Welcome to Max’s Music Mondays - a ~music discovery newsletter~ where I get too excited about songs I love. I hope you love them too. If you do, follow along on spotify and please respectfully smash that subscribe button. Let me know if you do, I’ll send you my favorite BBQ recipes or send you a thank you playlist or something.
We love fireworks don’t we! They’re beautiful and loud and surprising and also too scary for me to fire off myself due to my cowardice re: noise and fire. Megan Koester wrote a beautiful essay about fireworks this week so I can’t even mess around in good faith, knowing she’s already nailed the topic.
Instead, I went to type “well, it’s the dog days of summer now” but then realized I didn’t really know what that meant. So I googled it and lucky for me, the dog days officially(??) start on July 3rd, so my statement would’ve been true. To me, TDDOS has always read as like, the long slog of summer heat, melting our way towards the fall. But turns out it’s also related to the stars? And that’s why there’s an actual ‘start’ to TDDOS. Did I have anything to say beyond recognizing that we’re in it? Nope!! But thanks for joining for another episode of “Max learning stuff while he writes”! Maybe we’ll do it again next week. But what we for sure do next week is pick/write about two amazing songs. Which I also did today, and you can find just below. PLEASE ENJOY.
This Week’s Songs
Please please follow along here ^^ for this week’s and every week’s songs. Each song is perfect and that is an objective fact and in no way my biased opinion i promise.
Gravy - Aye Mitch
“this song gonna set the vibe” says the intro and folks… they are not lying. Plain and simple, this one is undeniable!!!! The groove is almost offensively efficient, creating so much movement with simple production. Getting the most out of each piece of the puzzle. It keeps the song clean and neat, but gets the job done and done well. The job here is of course, making a really good song that makes me smile and want to dance. Employee of the month, I’d say! A little echo on that bass line feels perfectly bouncy. the hi hat clicking off as it rolls around the track. That kick drum also feels made for this moment, striking the right balance, not too much but a force. And we’ve still got a couple things left to note before we get into the verse. The double vocals rock. Two voices sitting alongside each other so well. One light and soft, another heavier with a little grittiness. Last but not least, the ad-libs screaming left side and right side, the ‘look atcha’ sample. It’s just all so good!! Filling out the moment with just what it needed. And now one big sniff and we’re into the first verse. Aye Mitch showing off, just as natural rapping as the singing in the chorus felt. The flow is great, easy like whole the song, but you can feel the energy bubbling up in Mitch, the tone slowly rising too. A few switch-ups in the beat but it won’t slow us down. The verse keeps evolving through the finish line, and we’re back to the chorus, a smile on my face! On the other side of the chorus Aye Mitch finds even more new wrinkles to explore. A gentler approach, feeling lighter, and a touch of reverb to add to the floating factor. “I turn up the dBs when you turn up degrees / you never knew i had what you need” ok it’s getting hot in here!! The featured vocalist Rae gets their solo response, and makes it seem like they’re both on the same page here. When they’re reunited in the chorus, it just feels right. The melody is stunning too - “I’ll have you calling me baby” taking an unexpected route that I adore. Mmm, it’s a treat. It ends with the truth, you can’t resist it. This one is a gem :)
Follow Aye Mitch on IG / Spotify
our love - cookii
ok now this is sweet and I’m not just saying that because it’s from cookii. I am utterly ashamed I wrote that and yet here we are, one sentence further on and no sign of turning back. I fell in love with cookii’s ‘like like’ the intro track off their album from last year. Existing in some orbit of the hyperpop world, it delivered a perfect combo of harsh and chaotic sounds but packaged in a really catchy and unforgettable way. Plus the songwriting rocked. And when I heard this one, it was a done deal, too good to not write about. That in-your-face bass flying over top the break beat. And when they break through the filter, get joined by an innocent and unassuming synth lead. They all dive back beneath the filter, offering an incredibly intimate space for the verse. Our narrator falling for a new love as they scroll their feed all day/night. It releases back to the chorus, big and fast and unrelenting. cookii’s vocals giving just the right punctuation to each line. The bass disappears for the first time, leaving a guitar and some snaps. It’s a new texture, and the verse feels much more direct for it - externalizing the feelings from the first verse. And doing them with some gnarly new drums. The cowbell a subtle superstar. It’s a fun new section that brings a lot of attitude to the song. The narrator seeming to confront this crush after a little more light social media stalking. It’s a sad a realization that this person doesn’t know us at all, but the little flute is so dang sweet, it’s healing the broken heart immediately. cookii drops this plain and honest ‘whatever’ and besides the charming accent, the rawness/simplicity - free from the song’s autotune - helps it pack a punch in the moment, casual as it might’ve been. Another great chorus flies by, before a drop of water convinces cookii to double down on the kick drum, just obliterating me. When the drum is firing off like this… it’s like a wave of calm over me, I can’t keep up and so my body finds peace in the intensity. Hard to explain but I love it every time. This song seems to float between fairy tale and nostalgia and pop smash, each moment is perfect and adds up to a catchy and lovable song. Plus the music vid featuring cookii’s dad dancing… the perfect visual encapsulation.
Follow cookii on IG / Spotify
See you Friday with the best releases of the week :) And yes I did think about doing a Katy Perry Firework intro/artwork but, we’ll save that for next year.
Business time: Please follow the playlist and please please pass it along to anyone you know who might be in need of new music!! The more people here, the more people hearing these amazing songs. We got a bunch of new faces this week, I hope you enjoyed it half as much as I enjoyed seeing you all here, this shit really does make my day!!!
Until next time, xoxo,
Max