Erika de Casier - Essentials

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.

new video for the track "Busy" is just a slideshow of Erika as her Bianka alter-ego at work and I'm loving it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lqmfv4PtKk

read that as "blanka" lol

harpsichord garage!

I got a wishlist notification on Soulseek that this somebody had this, but they went offline before I was able to download - so it‘s out there somewhere! (Don’t worry, I have the record on pre-order)

album's out there and i'm enjoying it but it's extremely chill even by the standards of the first album

love "better than that"

on my first listen -- "Someone to Chill With" is an initial standout to me

oh this is soooooooo good.

i don't think it's quite as brilliant as the debut but it's still excellent. i'm glad she managed to make a follow-up that built upon what was great about the debut without outright repeating herself

This record is very good but man she could deliver the album of the year if she tried out some more experimental production and upped the tempo on a few tracks

I definitely like this better than the debut though... that record just went in one ear and out the other, but the songwriting and production feel a lot more confident on this one.

I too like this one better than the debut. The songwriting seems better somehow.

What a fucking vibe this album is.

I have no complaints - exactly what I was after.

i feel like this is better than the debut yea

ahhhh, physical edition arrived at just the right time (i.e. week ~37 of heat wave). "Someone to Chill With"! (etc.)

Friendly is my jam atm

wow she's playing here in december, never expected that would happen

okay wow I need to go to that

she's great live! just wish she'd played a longer set but she did "intimate (club mix)" as an encore though at least

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAM5lyb1UQo

incredible

Love this. Will it get an official release?

very enjoyable

I believe that is an official link? it's also on Spotify
https://open.spotify.com/track/4v7SAKFEqPyuYTy9gQRnHP?si=1a312715fdaf4219

On first listen I was a bit underwhelmed, but now I’ve had a chance to listen more it‘s really revealed itself, what a great version.

she has a new writing credit here also
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArmDp-zijuc