Max's Music Mondays with villagerrr and feeo
folks we are DROWNING in good music over here.
Welcome to Max’s Music Mondays. My ~music discovery newsletter~ where I get too excited about songs I love. I hope you love them too. If you do, you can follow along on spotify and please be sure to absolute smash that dang subscribe button! tysm :) Your paid subscriptions go towards supporting the artists you read about here too!! That’s right(!!), the artists who made This Weeks Songs are getting paid!! <3
Another week another two songs another two incredible artists getting showcased!!! It’s all such a dream and for just $5/mo you can help keep this dream running and growing and also get artists paid directly. Everyone I feature for these MMM picks gets paid thanks to the paying subscribers. It’s so exciting and so fulfilling, we’re really putting money where our mouths are and I am so grateful to everyone who sees the vision!! Every time we get a new paid sub I freak out (good), thank you all so much for your trust and generosity!
As we cross into July, the best of ‘23 so far lists are popping up left and right. It’s an impossible mission to keep up with every release let alone properly assess the “best” music, but I’ve cherished the chance to fill my notes app with an ever-growing list of albums I’m excited to listen to. Trying to back to the list each time I’m not sure what to listen to. My own favs already up to like 15 albums and 20-something on the list I’ve collected from others’ suggestions. If there’s a record that’s really moved you this year, I wanna know about it, so please send it along and I will listen with an open heart. Music rocks, don’t it?
It’s exciting to discover music at every level, like this record which I’m clearly ages late on, but still surprised and blown away by its sound and its features…
Anyways - this listening project has felt like a grounding activity in a moment that feels intense and hard, day after day. Finding healing and joy for myself with each listen. The same could be said of these two songs, songs I’ve loved spending time with, exploring them on repeat over the past week. I hope you dig em too.
villagerrr - barn burnerrr
Credit where credit’s due - I’ve been rinsing this one entirely due to the outpour of praise from another one of my fav music writers Josh Terry and his newsletter, No Expectations. Here’s his best of ‘23 so far list, which includes calling barn burnerrr a song of the year contender. That’s high praise, and as a reader, I know he means it. This one continues to burrow its way deeper and deeper into my brain and I cannot get enough of it.
I am rolling up my sleeves, stretching my fingers, ready to write a damn dissertation about that first second alone. I’ll spare you because editing is important when writing something you want other people to enjoy, but man oh man, the life just oozing out of the room tone, that first kick seeming shake all the dust off the entire studio, full of noise and sounds and shape and boy oh boy I will stop while I’m ahead. The whole band comes in from the jump, and everyone sounds great. The drums messy and low, but driving the groove with ease. The bass feeling big and wide but not overpowering, the guitars finding their own niches. A band full of perfect tone, all meshing together beautifully. We don’t get enough intros like this these days. As seen here, I’ll always go nuts for a perfect first moment, but the generosity of introducing us to the song and letting us dip our toes in, get used to the temperature, it’s all so inviting. Get in, the water’s warm. Just before the thirty second mark, that new guitar joins, a tasteful little solo exploring the edges of this progression. It rolls seamlessly into the first verse.
There’s such a beautiful balance struck here, this whole song utterly hazy yet, magically, nothing is hard to hear. Somehow finding away to offer the texture without clouding just how special each performance is. And that’s DEFINITELY true of the vocals here - such a sick voice and just amazing writing. This first verse full of incredibly personal and charming imagery - Smokey was jumping on to the table / and the kitchen was a perfect mess. The song feels so lived in, so cozy!! The guitars coming back to dance underneath the end of that lyric, spilling into another repetition to savor it all. It kicks into gear for this chorus, the tambourine setting the tone. The band feels all the more dialed in and together here, focused and about their business. The chords feel bigger and heavier and the lyrics agree. I see it through your eyes / I say goodbye. As the song pours back into the verse, suddenly it all feels bright and expansive. In a way that I didn’t notice before the chorus, but coming out of its grasp, it’s undeniable. I’m grateful to be back out in the sprawling sun now, a little bit of chaos filling the track, but it’s a job well done to make that chorus feel like everything has collapsed on you without making you feel claustrophobic. It just feels heavy and intense like I’m sure that moment must have too.
The second verse matches the first in beauty, contrasting the small town and the big city, feeling that familiar loneliness and meaninglessness that so many do. Missed calls and construction jobs / it’s hard as hell is 100% in the running for this year’s lyric of the year. Both so charming and so sad. The elusive Faye Webster Make Me Laugh and Cry type lyric. This whole verse is another chance to fall further into this beautiful groove. It’s got my head rocking all over the place, shoulders bouncing, the whole nine yards. I can’t sit still while I write this. The guitars come back again to dance some more, strutting their stuff on the way to another chorus. The structure is the same, but evolving lyrics add so much excitement and give more heft to the emotional power of the song. As it continues, villagerrr pops off a little - letting that melody run more and more free.
A new chord takes this song further, pushing on and on, the tension and energy building. It reaches its peak, those soft ooohs coming through to keep everything together and sounding full. And as they run out, the band plays off into the sunset, a nice fade out hits alongside a paring back of instruments, a calming ease out of the song. It’s a banger and I love it a lot. Can’t wait to hear more from this Columbus band.
Follow villagerrr on IG / Spotify
feeo - Red Meat
feeo is BACK on MMM!!! I’ve said it a bunch of times before, but I try incredibly hard to write about a new artist every single week. There’s endless music out there, and sometimes returning to an artist feels like a cop out. But on the other hand (i am a libra there is no denying it) it sucks to have a self-imposed rule that stops me from sharing SPECIAL songs. So we’re breaking the rule - going rebel mode - and sharing a song from feeo. I wrote about End Song back in April of ‘21, an undeniable voice floating over gorgeous production. And now, she’s back with an awesome and exciting new EP, Ah, hunger! And I need EVERYONE to get on board. I had a hard time picking which song to feature because they’re all gems.
Red Meat is unforgettable, grabbing your attention instantly and never letting go. That first lyric which feels like "(red) Red Meat” is haunting on its own. Bold beginnings over a solid guitar pattern. This whole first verse reads like a gorgeous poem, served up with feeo’s soft and rich voice, atop this strolling guitar. The shape of this verse is a thrill, opening with ranging melodies and calm delivery, the back end trading melody for pace, moving quicker and narrower, almost like a bouncy ball coming to rest?? Exploding back out with that yearning red, it’s gorgeous. Met with drums, some effects, a click or two, strumming on the guitar. The world of this song coming alive and filling the arrangement. It’s all so dark and sexy and evil and enticing. A verse full of haunting lyrics, he licks his lips feeling equally hot and terrifying. The consistent red imagery making me feel like the whole song is surrounded by a quiet fire, just biding its time before swallowing it all.
This time the bellowing red quiets the band, gives feeo the spotlight. Her voice so stunning, moving through these scenes and stories with such poise and control. The harmonies rising out of the mist, holding us safe as that wave of crushed bits crescendos and pushes us into the next moment. That you are what you eat line hits SO hard every time. Afraid of god and afraid of hell, come on! feeo continuing to dazzle just as much in writing as she does vocally. This section ends, as she riffs off that final word, showing how warm and golden her voice could feel if the moment allowed for it. Shuffling forward, she questions this man directly, his ‘smile’ reading as a big ol smirk as he says sometimes what I want is not the right thing, but I’d rather live wrong and be free. Fuck!! Dangerous and devious but also hot and confident, be careful…
We reach this instrumental break, almost ethereal, the foundation for a perfect ambient song. Swirling vocals over simple instrumentation, all mixing so well. It seems to dissipate into thin air before the guitar pokes around into this new progression. Over just the guitar, feeo gets going again continuing this story. The tension and suspense builds and builds the way ‘his’ voice overlays above feeo’s as he says I know what you need is so scary I can’t help but see a demon. The moment gets my heart racing before it evolves once more, the added vocal hitting on the third beat of each measure is exhilarating and terrifying. It’s buried so low that it feels supportive, but the closer and closer you get to it, it feels like a chorus of screams. Like haunted house window flashing from black to bright red, someone trapped in the room screaming to get out. It’s haunting and powerful (but not overwhelming), an expert move. We break from the intensity over a few guitar chords, and a final riff from feeo free from all of this. It’s a wild ride and I hope you enjoyed as much as I did.
Everything on this EP is exciting, wild sounds, production, vocals, writing, it’s all something to behold and can’t encourage you enough to give it a spin.
Follow feeo on IG / Spotify
Back again next week with more <3 Appreciate all the support and hope you find music you love right here every week!!! Send it on to a friend who might enjoy it too, I beg of ya!
xoxo,
Max