Welcome to week #15 of the Steel Orca Songs of the Week.

The Christmas holidays have ended, and we’re deep into ski season before New Year’s festivities. What a week it’s been. I’m sure we’ve all eaten and drank enough to be in a stupor already, but this is the time we need to focus, dig deep, and keep stuffing ourselves to the point of gluttonous excess. I know you can do it.

Also, a follow-up to last week. It flipped wildly from -40 to 4 degrees Celsius here in Western Canada, causing rain to fall in places they would prefer snow and generally screwing up some people’s winter ski plans, but c’est la vie. Talk to Greta Thunberg if you have a problem with the wild swings in temperature.

Technically, at this point, I’m only halfway through my holiday break. That has meant more beer at around 8 pm, without consideration for the impact on my health, and more nights where I fall asleep at 8:30 pm without fear of falling behind on whatever productive thing I have to do. Both activities don’t necessarily occur on the same night. It’s not causal- I’m living that Dad life. This is the week when we get to live without consequence before the start of the new year, at which point, like the phoenix, we will rise from the ashes of our overindulgence to be born again as the disciplined versions of ourselves—cheers to that.

Playlist Breakdown

Here are the songs for the week of December 30, 2022 🎿.

▶️ Youtube Music: Songs of the Week #15

Similar to what I said last week, because this week is a “holiday” week, I didn’t devote as much time to this playlist as I might have in other weeks. The irony is that when I work, I have more time to put my head down and listen to music, and as a result, more time to reflect on the playlist and the music as a whole. I want to think that means more insightful posts.

That’s not to say that the music I selected this week doesn’t stand up to selections I’ve made for other weeks, but that I made this one a bit quicker than I might have in the past. In addition, when I’ve looked into the songs below, I’ve realized that many musicians are hard to get detailed information on. This is partially due to how underground and cutting-edge the music is and partially to how terrible my research skills are. Regardless, I think the music is worth the listen, and it’s a quick one to get through. So with all that said, grab a drink and let’s get into it.

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Notsyd - Mind Gone MIA

• Release Date: March 26, 2022

• Label: notsyd

• Genre: Electronic

• Spotify Plays: 261,632

• Origin: ?

Before you ask, I have no idea what song is sampled here. It’s a rap song; I can tell that much, but beyond feeding this through some program to strip out the vocals, I will not be able to figure out what this sample is. That’s too bad because that’s a piece of information I know people appreciate.

Beyond that, you can’t even really hear the vocals clearly on this song, which is one of the appealing parts of it. The vocals sort of sit in the music as just another instrument.

Notsyd self-released this song and only has one other song on Spotify. Their Spotify profile is actually the entirety of what I could find online about them. Drop a comment if you have more info.

walk. - intro.

• Release Date: June 27, 2017

• Label: walk

• Genre: Electronic

• Spotify Plays: 65,510

• Origin: ?

Another mystery song by another mystery artist. I’m on a roll this week. And the song is even titled intro. to keep the mystery going.

As noted above, you can barely find this song or artist on Youtube music (Clara Beth had to help me find this), which is surprising given how long ago this song and EP came out. Then, when you do find them, you can only listen to this song if you have a Youtube Premium account. I also made my best attempt at a Google search and, again, couldn’t find anything on them beyond their Spotify profile. Maybe this is me learning the limits of my research skills as a music journalist.

I’m surprised this song doesn’t have more plays, but the entire EP by walk. that this is from, fragments., is excellent and worth listening to. It’s also less than 12 minutes long, so it’s an easy follow-up to this playlist.

Again, like Notsyd above, if anyone has more information on this artist, enlighten me and drop some knowledge in the comments below.

GUNS - Sophia

• Release Date: March 18, 2022

• Label: alt:lab

• Genre: Dance/Electronic

• Spotify Plays: 148,137

• Origin: London, England 🇬🇧

I was sharing this playlist with Clara Beth earlier, and I mentioned that GUNS has the most aggressive name of anyone on this list. She responded that it is pretty funny because when you look up GUNS’ Instagram, she’s a new mom sharing cute pictures of her family. So don’t judge a book by its cover, I guess.

GUNS has a super interesting backstory that she details on her website (which is beautiful and well-done):

GUNS is a Turkish, Austrian, Londoner who started working with music just over two years ago, but who’s life has always revolved around it. A qualified architect and designer, she left her former career in March 2020 (nothing creates change quite like a global pandemic) and began pursuing her love of music on Twitch.

If you’re interested in more from GUNS, you can join her Discord server DysClub or follow her on Twitch.

Rommii - road runner

• Release Date: September 9, 2022

• Label: rommii

• Genre: Dance/Electronic

• Spotify Plays: 49,186

• Origin: San Diego, California 🇺🇸

This is another self-released song, which makes that three out of the five songs on the list. That has to be some record.

Rommii is a San Diego-based DJ who has been active since around April 2018, based on his Facebook page. You can find all his other social media links here.

This is the dance song of the playlist this week if you can’t tell. I’m shocked this song has this few plays. I predict big things for Rommii in 2023; five significant companies (Adult Swim, Crown Royal, Bose, NFL, and the NBA) used his song spaceship in their commercials in 2022.

I couldn’t find a definitive page listing all of Rommii’s potential dates or shows, but Instagram or Twitter would be your best bet to stay informed.

Song of the Week 🙌

B O K E H - I Know You Know (Delamare Remix)

• Release Date: April 21, 2017

• Label: Buttermilk

• Genre: Electro-pop

• Spotify Plays: 3,118,757

• Origin: New Zealand 🇳🇿

For context, Wikipedia defines “bokeh” as follows:

Bokeh is the aesthetic quality of the blur produced in out-of-focus parts of an image…

The term comes from the Japanese word boke (暈け/ボケ), which means "blur" or "haze", resulting in boke-aji (ボケ味), the "blur quality".

I know that B O K E H is the artist's name instead of the song, but this song definitely has a blurry or hazy feel.

Jeff Tattersall interviewed B O K E H in October 2019 for WomenInPop in an extensive interview that’s worth reading:

South African born, New Zealand raised and Berlin based B O K E H (real name Chloë Lewer) started her career as an actor. She fell into music at age 22 after moving to Berlin and started playing the ukulele and singing on the streets to make extra cash. After performing for several years with the band Charity Children, in 2017 she released her debut solo EP Don’t Leave The Fire… With a unique sound merging electronica, pop and 1980s vibes Lewer is developing a reputation as the next big thing in music.

It should be noted that this is the Delamare remix of this song. His media links are here, and this is his Instagram. Delamare (real name Scott Delamare) seems like a talented musician (particularly at remixes) that could probably make some noise if he buckled down and pulled himself up by his bootstraps.

That’s it for this week from all of us here at the Steel Orca.✔️👋

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