622 if you want me to

Westerman, more*, and Y La Bamba

You didn’t miss anything—check out 617 who do you love, 618 the right time, 619 do you ever, 620 throwing shadows, and 621 think about you.

I’ve seen publications describe Westerman as “electronic folk,” which is an unconventional but apt description of the music that he makes. It’s dreamy and surreal, but informed by something grounded, something old. I first heard “Confirmation” on the recommendation of a friend, in a basement after hours of listening to wind noises to put on a track of mine (I wish I was kidding). After that kind of a manic close listening exercise, it felt like jumping into a pool on a hot day in the summer, the delicious feeling of being enveloped by the cool grasp of water. Since that first time that I heard it, I’ve been deeply fascinated by “Confirmation,” its clean guitar tones and cutting lyrics:

Don't you wonder why confirmation's easier
When you don't think so much about it?

The chord progression is unnervingly pretty, almost religious; Westerman grew up singing in choirs and is influenced by British choral composers John Tavener and Henry Purcell. The enticing melody is unpredictable and irregular, but feels natural, easy to follow in the body if not in the mind. Westerman sees making music like sculpting, cutting away the excess to reveal something that was inside the whole time. His writing process is the product of overthinking, kneading a situation over in his mind until it makes art. The result is a perfect example of pop music: the repeated phrase of a chorus, like an anxious thought playing again and again.

All of the pieces I’ve read about Westerman mention the arresting, bewitching nature of “Confirmation.” It puts hooks in you immediately, and begets repeating when it’s finished. When the song fades out, it gives you the sense that you’re exiting the room where it’s being played, but that the music goes on without you. It feels as if you could walk back towards the sound, you could stay forever, like the spooky calm of the bottom of the pool.

I saw more* open for HAIM at their Santa Barbara show in September, their first performance since the release of Women in Music Pt. III (2021). Perhaps it was the intoxication of the anticipation for HAIM doing “Gasoline,” which I’d driven seven hours to see, but the more* set sounded incredible to me, impossibly fresh. They’re a duo of almost comically Los Angeles-looking men, appropriately named Kane and Malcolm. They looked quite tiny, set far back on the amphitheater stage and surrounded by the covered instruments of the main act. It turns out that Kane Ritchotte, drummer and vocalist of more* and previously Portugal The Man, is Alana’s childhood friend and a part time musician in the HAIM band. The set demanded attention, a feat for a the first act on a three band bill; similarly to music Westerman, the songs kept subverting the expectations of the wandering mind, going left when I expected right.

My favorite song that they played that night was “God’s in the Details,” an homage to the artists that inspire Ritchotte’s writing. Although the influence of Cohen isn’t immediately legible, the hands of Crowded House and John Lennon are clear in the work, from the whimsical guitar riffs in the prechorus to the organs peppered throughout the song to their shared vocal performance style. The EP is produced by Tony Berg, who has most notably worked with Blake Mills, Taylor Swift, Andrew Bird, and Phoebe Bridgers, but whose 70s session player roots are evident in this project. In interviews, they’ve also mentioned Jeff Lyne, Tame Impala, and Kendrick Lamar; the diversity of their influences shines through in their writing. Ritchotte’s clear and precise voice preserves the delicate feeling of the song in a live setting so well, I almost prefer the lighter instrumentation so as to hear him better:

The end of this playlist follows the thread of the sweetly picked guitar and lilting melodies of “God’s in the Details” and settles into something softer. Y La Bamba is the musical project of Luz Elena Mendoza with a rotating cast of instrumentalists around her. I saw the work of this band described as jubilant meditation, and I cannot think of a better description for “Ojos Del Sol.” It’s feels almost woven together; Mendoza’s voice is utilized like an instrument itself, and produced as such. The effect is a radiating warmth, described to me once as an expression of the “deepest and truest infatuation.”

I don’t speak Spanish, and I appreciate the exercise of inference I’m forced to do in focusing on sensation, when I normally extrapolate nearly all the meaning I derive from a song from the lyrics. I’ve resisted throwing the whole thing into Google translate, even though I have a reductive urge to sterilize the uncertainty with language. I’m trying to sit in the way that it feels—like riding down my tree-lined street on my bike as the sunlight dapples the road through the canopy of broad leaves above, like the gentle touch of linen in the summer, like holding hands when you’re walking next to someone.