Max's Music Mondays with Yazida & Mikayla McVey
Two Great Songs - ARE YOU SURPRISED!? Plus new Faye Webster and Fievel is Glauque
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, follow along on spotify and please be sure to absolute smash that dang subscribe button! tysm :)
There’s a lot to be said about hyper-fixations with food. For me, it looks like repeating a lunch as many times as I possibly can until one day it’s just no longer appetizing (as of this weekend, the new fixation is tuna salad, which no one saw coming but all hail the kewpie gods, it’s magic every time). There’s a part of me that thought this was a work from home thing, but then I remembered when I was a Black Bowl VIP at Just Salad in Chicago in 2018.
That was truly one of the best things that has ever happened to me. I got a sick reusable bowl, and could use it to cut the entire line whenever I wanted. A privilege I never felt comfortable using, but the recognition was enough for me. To be a VIP at a salad place… wow, that was a dream come true. I can still taste the salad I would get (same one basically every day) and the bread/dressing that’d come with. I don’t even know if it was good, now that I think about it, but at the time it was perfect.
It’s just easy for me to find something I like and lean into it until the wheels fall off. When I was thinking about this earlier, I took a look through the playlist of potential songs to write about and saw a similar pattern. Streaks of genres, a handful of artists from the same country, just finding and living in these musical worlds until my pallet asks for something new. But it’s in leaving the world that I suddenly get a deeper appreciation for the cream of the crop. Returning back to see what really sounds special and what was just scratching that itch in the moment.
This week we have two of those special songs. Both so different from each other. One short and urgent, one long and patient. One bedroom pop/lofi r&b, one with a full band threatening to jam for another ten minutes. But both so beautiful, and so good. Both able to withstand and outlast my fixations. Both songs I know you’ll love.
This Week’s Songs
Please please follow along here ^^ for this week’s and every week’s songs. They’re all really good I swear!!! <3 Please like and enjoy and send to someone you like and enjoy!!
Yazida - freak!
Yeah I know I know I just wrote about a very short song that packed a punch. But guess what, I’M DOING IT AGAIN!!! AND (sorry, caps lock) I’m not even sorry! Because this song is incredible and I know you’ll love it too.
We’re gonna have to bust out the microscope for this one - focus in on every last detail, because each is so worth seeing. To start, I’m caught by the synth(?)/guitar(?) sitting on the left, like a bunny bouncing from note to note that subtle slide from one to the next. The sparkling twinkle waiting patiently to fill in the gaps it leaves. The wood-pecking synth sitting center stage, climbing to and drilling down into its final note. The bass! Ugh, the bass. Warm and fuzzy, heavy yet supportive, not flashy but full of flair. And finally we get to talk about Yazida’s vocals. Instantly charming, that hi, hello irresistible. This soft phone filter makes the whole thing feel so personal and intimate. It also cuts the vocals before they can tail off, creating this feel that catches my ear more with each listen. But not cutting too much, still able to hear that warm vibrato. And the writing is great too - done something bad / something childish not in line with / what you thought I was - these lines and thoughts bending and stretching and stringing these moments together. Ok and for those keeping tally, we’ve now hit the thirteen second mark.
Here we pick up two big additions. The drums and the background vocals. Drums are clean and quick, making their presence known, moving the song forward well without taking up too much space. Yazida’s background vocals are so so good, sheesh. Sneaking in as adlibs and layers alike, brief moments of harmonies flood the mix, cut with just-as-crucial breaths and laughs. We hit thirty seconds, the drums cutting back substantially, the whole song falling into this smooth R&B feel, the bass shining even more here. And so is Yazida. Some great harmonies leading us to this falsetto layer that really brings it all together. Before long the ‘get me outta your system’ demand boils up and over, ending with the titular freak!
See what I’m saying?? 65 seconds of excellence! It’s perfect. It’s playful, it’s light, it’s short, it’s sweet, it’s tender, it’s really special, and it’s got me eager at the chance to hear anything and everything that Yazida does next.
Follow Yazida on IG / Spotify
Mikayla McVey - New Year
holy moly.
This is one of those songs that feels so full and so lush and so masterfully made, it shocks me that it isn’t an absolutely massive hit. But it is to me, and hopefully, after you hear it, it will be to you too. The drums chugging from the jump, the bass hopping on board, riding the pace while that organ sirens out to the horizon. The synth builds and builds releasing a dreamy guitar. The whole thing coming together like the chilly morning that first lyric suggests, the purple hue of the early hours giving way to the rising sun, the day beginning. Those first few moments so visceral and sweet. The kind of writing that feels real and transportive. McVey’s voice is incredible. It has a gentle twang, and I just love the shapes it makes - the way it floats up on cigarette and breath, the slow richness it finds as it watches the dogs. Seeming to form entirely new textures as it hits these different moments. The verse continues on, perfectly painting the people and their movements, that wavering I’ve been quickly mimicked by the wobbling guitar offers an irresistible path to the chorus.
What would it be like / to be a beautiful young man?
In the music video (which is so damn good and charming and sweet, please watch it), the first dip into the chorus offers us two reads of the questions. The initial read is from McVey’s friend, and as he asks with a cheeky grin and a shoulder shrug, the two laughing together at the idea. But as the next question comes, we cut to McVey again, a stern, thousand-yard stare, the question prompting a deep curiosity, before the two hit some striking choreo. I know the feeling. These questions that float around us all. The kinds of thoughts we can joke about with friends, but return when we’re alone, now a bit more serious as we imagine it alone. McVey, aware of the time we need to soak this all in, offers a great instrumental break, some gentle exploration of a guitar as the drums and bass keep cooking. As the second verse rolls on, we get some incredible background vocals, these layers and harmonies that seemingly uproot the melody, an entirely new feel as we head down the mountain road. Another chorus arrives, with an added layer of passion and emotion flowing. That filtered vocal layer reaching higher and higher. In moments, feeling more like a guitar solo than a voice, but endearing throughout. Another instrumental break, the guitar now venturing out stronger, a relentless solo. When McVey returns, now breaking through five minutes, you can feel the sun setting, the night settling in. McVey’s voice picking up space and an airiness, starting to drift off. The band rattles on, all the way home, a beautiful end to a beautiful song.
Follow Mikayla McVey on IG / Spotify
Here’s what else I’ve been listening to.
(click this ^^ for a second full playlist lol it really rocks!)
Fievel Is Glauque - The River
After stumbling upon FIG last winter, and their initial MMM entry, I’ve been keeping an eye and an ear on them. Their music is so vibrant and alive, each song a trip, each song a treat. They just dropped Aérodynes EP and The River is a quick favorite. The rushing rhythm, the horns pushing on, bright and beautiful, the whole moment, the whole song feeling bright and raw. Some big roomy keys pumping away in the back right too. Fantastic musicians across the board. Intoxicating vocals too, moving swiftly and delivered softly yet getting their point across well. 1:18 hits and things start to swell, insane sax runs barely holding onto reality. It all opens for a bold guitar solo, moments of western infused into this beautiful mess. Another quick verse and the give and take between the vocals and bass riff returns, the vocals replaced by the horns, exploring similar melodies.
Faye Webster - Car Therapy
As I walk through this world, this life, I try not to ask for too much. I try to appreciate what I have as much as I possibly can. But even if I took a moment to myself and said, ‘Max, you can concoct any jaw-dropping musical idea and be able to listen to it immediately’, not even in my BOLDEST desires would I have come up with this incredibly exciting Faye Webster x An Orchestra project, made up of new and re-imagined songs from ‘Atlanta Millionaires Club’ and ‘I Know I'm Funny haha’, performed live with a full orchestra. I’m losing my mind. Car Therapy is a gentle, devastating song. The fragility of Webster’s voice feeling even more emotional than usual with this orchestra. It’s a stunning combination and just makes me feel.
Yes, you guessed it
Flowers made of plastic
'Cause I can barely take care of myself
Faye!!! Quit it!!! Too fucking good!!! And to find ourselves on the other side of verse two, getting lost in a piano solo, in a beautiful flute, in cascading strings, it’s awe-inspiring. It’s magic. It’s a movie. It’s a moving moment. I can’t wait to hear the rest of this project, old and new.
Big Thief - Simulation Swarm
I’m back obsessed with this album again (still?). It’s so mesmerizing and emotional and simple and complex and I love it so much. This song holds a death grip on me and I am savoring every second of it.
I wanna drop my arms and take your arms
I lose my mind every damn time. AHHHHHHHHH.
That’ll do it for this week, so chop chop mix mix (I don’t know what the salad things I could call back to here should be…),
- Max
Wow really enjoyed the Mikayla McVey tune, and the video is so good too!