Michael's Cut

Just a Postgrad Looking for Good Music

Author: michaelpuni

  • Year-End List 2022: Songs 10-1

    At one point, I thought this list couldn’t get done, let alone an article about it. Though I started the re-listening period last January, I was also an undergraduate preparing for spring commencement. A dilemma approached me, one that had beaten me multiple times. I tried to balance my academics,…

  • Year-End List 2022: Songs 30-11

    At one point, I thought this list couldn’t get done, let alone an article about it. Though I started the re-listening period last January, I was also an undergraduate preparing for spring commencement. A dilemma approached me, one that had beaten me multiple times. I tried to balance my academics,…

  • Year-End List 2022: Songs 50-31

    At one point, I thought this list couldn’t get done, let alone an article about it. Though I started the re-listening period last January, I was also an undergraduate preparing for spring commencement. A dilemma approached me, one that had beaten me multiple times. I tried to balance my academics,…

  • Year-End List 2022: EP’s 10-1

    At one point, I thought this list couldn’t get done, let alone an article about it. Though I started the re-listening period last January, I was also an undergraduate preparing for spring commencement. A dilemma approached me, one that had beaten me multiple times. I tried to balance my academics,…

  • “Erotic Probiotic 2” augments the shelf life of ‘90s dance and R&B with ease as it searches for answers to everyday survival

    You’re told that nothing lasts forever, that this life subsides to the sediments masking the earth. But on Erotic Probiotic 2, the premise’s mystified and transforms to vapor. What’s life without notes from the past, at least not from a recent one? You flipped through your parents’ old record stacks…

  • The Music Treatise: January 2024

    It felt like a return to college: endless benders leftover from December, reposado dissolving my liver system. One of my best friends from university stayed over, and my cousins had yet to fly home. We did the only thing we mastered, and we made our last weekend together a party…

  • On “Quaranta,” Danny Brown accepts his position as a veteran with potential galore amidst a losing battle against time and the ever-changing rap scene

    On “Bass Jam,” a spacey medium of clouds and angel wings ascend to picturesque memories. A white staircase awaits, but the supercut elongates this specific moment. Anita Baker, Mary J. Blige, and Sade all play on the cassette. Financial burdens gloom over the bass guitar, but it’s music as an…

  • “VROOM VROOM” sightsees city grounds for another chance of a dopamine rush

    4 a.m. clicked, and the city sent its citizens to sleep, all but a few: the drivers seeking nightclub addicts, and the ones on an after-hours expedition. On a lonely intersection, BEBE YANA surged past the red lights. No consideration for the law, no thought about the consequences. She claimed…

  • On “Soft Spot,” JMSN scratches his fix for progression with sandpaper, sex, and smog

    On his seventh album, “Soft Spot,” Christian Berishaj, known as JMSN, explores the philosophy of ‘letting the groove speak for you.’ Retaining a focus on feeling, the Detroit musician’s latest record indulges in sensuality and roughness. Tracks vary from the dirty shrugs on ‘Cherry Pop’ to the reflective ‘Outsider’, suggesting…

  • About Me Anecdote

    For the first time in my life, I couldn’t think of anything I particularly wanted to study or to do. I still had the old idea of being a writer, but that was being, not doing. It didn’t say what you were supposed to do. The Idiot, by Elif Batuman…