Erika de Casier - Essentials

this album is incredible

https://www.thefader.com/2020/05/21/erika-de-casier-interview-essentials-album

https://youtu.be/MWofrpSCekY?t=1678

gorgeous unreleased song here

whole set is lovely

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XK8RilMVd9U

good new track & she's signed to 4AD

This is just lovely.

yes, extremely nice. good for her!

cosign

Early highlight of 2021:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6mgqSP4pKU

Hi Mount - U N Me

Features Erika on vocals. She also sings on the A-side (SPCE - lightness).

this is incredible

that gasp at 1.25 > all other sounds ever

"no butterflies no nothing" was robbed in the tracks poll

The EP also features another track with vocals from Erika. SPCE - Lightness

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saRbqHE44iQ

Doh, just re-read your post above where you say the same thing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxX1fVBkOns

godDAMN

so good

Love it

that’s really good

new album Sensational out may 21!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHnqo1t0zV0

What a great track too.

very excited for this! her appeal somewhat alluded me for a while and then over the past couple of weeks I've fallen super hard

wasn't expecting a fabolous/nate dogg interpolation lol but this is indeed very very good

I found her initial stuff to be good, but I somehow find this to now be offensive for whatever reason

wasn't expecting a fabolous/nate dogg interpolation lol but this is indeed very very good

― voodoo chili, Tuesday, April 13, 2021 4:33 PM (forty-seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

haha i definitely had the thought on her last album that she actually sounds more like a g-funk artist than anything

my problem is prob based off the embrace of 90s R&B sound coming off as cynically empty, not helping that the vid has heavy tim and eric vibes idk

i really don't think she's doing any sort of ironic or cynical thing

i get what you mean with the video but that's not really how it comes across to me

agree with her not being ironic/cynical at all -- if anything, the "Polite" MV in context with the other two singles is helping me make sense of what this record's gonna be all about, and I'm really looking forward to it

trying to think about why her videos work with the music for me & i think it's how a sense of intimacy is created through the deliberate kinda clumsy low-budget vibe

I haven’t watched the video, I don’t think I even know how she looks like but this song is great and I don’t hear how it’s an ironic take on 90 rnb.

I never said it was ironic, just empty, just going through signifiers of a genre without adding anything new to it and coasting off nostalgia I guess? I don't know what it's coasting off of, but it feels like it's coasting. Overwhelmingly people like it though!

I like her stuff but it’s very low stakes (aside from the dnb remix that ended her last project) worried ppl are gonna overhype this to oblivion

I agree with that - I mean, I wish her every success in the world but her work feels best-suited to being discovered without the pressure of excess hype, and then becoming an unexpected low-key year-end favourite.

idk i think she's very very good at the thing she does and she's carved out a distinctive little space that's drawing on a lot of different styles in an interesting & cohesive way. not revolutionary but certainly much more than an empty pastiche or something.

it would be great if she pushes her sound further out there with more stuff like "intimate (club mix)" but i don't need her to or anything.

I don't really get how the amount of hype really informs if the music is good or not

music is lovely.

her videos don't work for me at all though - they remind me of bad karaoke visuals lol

I don’t think I’ve seen anyone hype her out of ILM.

And judging by these two songs I don’t hear how it would break her to a wider niche.

music critics are absolutely picking up on this outside of ilm and saying things like, "erika de casier had pop aoty 2019 and she’s gonna have pop aoty 2021"

you can search twitter yourself if you're curious lol im not trying to send shots, a friend was complaining to me that her new song didn't get reviewed by pitchfork and i was like yea sure but they also didn't review "Good Days" by SZA and thats like, legitimately one of the best songs of the year ... thats the kind of contrast where suddenly the hype seems "ok lets relax a bit"

but then not everyone is as keyed into "the discourse" so of course its going to have varying effects on your mileage, varying

The new album will be on 4AD, right? That seems more or less guaranteed to get her some more attention

i'm glad for her that she's getting more attention now that she's on a decent-sized label but it's not like she's been getting some huge critical push or anything yet

being annoyed p4k didn't review her latest track is silly though yeah because they don't really do many track reviews in general these days

i am in the 'she had pop aoty 2019' club though

I don’t know how to measure “hype”, but using her streaming numbers as a measure to compare: SZA’s most popular song from CTRL (2017) is “Love Galore” with 470M and her last single from 2020, “Good Days”, has 246M.

Erika de Casier has 3M “Little Bit” (2019) and “Drama” has 500k streams.

I don’t think being featured on pitchfork or even get awarded best new track is that much of a game changer nowadays. Per example “Hard Drive” by Cassandra Jenkins had the best new track earlier this year and it also has 500k views. So assuming there’s no overlap and those 500k listens were fueled by pitchfork’s “hype” exclusively, “Drama” would have 1M listens at most.

Which is a decent number but “hype” imho means a large number of people are talking about her music and 178k monthly listeners worlwide doesn’t seem like that big of a number to me.

Sorry 260k I was looking at Cassandra Jenkins.

For me a “hyped” artist this year would be someone like Arlo Parks.

by 'hype' i think deej is just meaning there's a bit of buzz around her from some critics on twitter at the moment but it's hardly at the point where i'd say she's anywhere close to 'overhyped'

idk that the new one will be as much of a favourite of mine as her debut since so far it's seeming like it's going to be just more of the same without outright repeating herself but i'm still excited enough for it based on the three songs so far

I don’t know how to measure “hype”

Could have stopped right here

I’m excited to hear this but my point is in the grand scheme I don’t think she’s “underrated.” It’s sort of an alternate-universe r&b/pop/g funk record and its “failings” at the game it’s playing are part of its appeal.

Underexposed and underrated are different things that are often conflated

Yeah this is pretty low states stuff as has been stated, but part of my reaction to it is probably an uncanny valley rxn of seeing US/EU-based hype for some EU person doing a half-baked warmed over Ashanti shtick, and the failings making it charming.

Wouldn't mind a copy of just the rhythm track on this thing. Real good fun.

Like this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rN5o70QddoE

That's nice, but was thinking literally just beats (maybe bass). The skittering action and 16th notes make me real happy.

the sample is 100% "can't let go", the writers are credited and everything

i think this is the best r & breakbeats song i have ever heard

love this, so gorgeous and deceptively effortless

being an outlier here but I think this is a bit underwhelming

Yeah she sounds a little buried in the fog of the sample to me and this style is not new. Thinking of Cuando Fue that I have relistened to a lot lately.

i think this is a great record, i also wish it was mixed differently to give her vocals the effect of levitating above the beat instead of being engulfed by it. the one main difference i would draw between this & something like "empty"

Ok I just heard 'Lucky' on a playlist having not heard or registered her name before, and I had to look and see if it was newjeans. So I'm glad to learn there's a connection.

new album sounds very good on first listen but "lucky" is the clear standout

after a few more listens i feel a bit underwhelmed, "lucky" is incredible but totally overshadows the rest of the album which is low key even by her standards and the songs are a little weaker and less interesting than usual too

i enjoyed "ice", but mostly because it's well-executed pastiche of a rap/r&b duet from 20 years ago

hmm it's growing on me!