#15 - DJ Re:Code - "adhd" ft. tobre and "keeper" ft. goji! & BIO (tie)

I remember around the time 645AR’s “Yoga” went viral early in the pandemic, I started to see TikTok commenters apply the language of ASMR (“brain-tingling,” “oddly pleasurable”) to it and similar tunes like Luci4’s “All Eyez on Me” and Yameii Online’s “Baby My Phone.” The angel-high squeals in these tracks contrasted nicely against harsh bass to create a weirdly soothing friction. Then there were aural ecosystems of ebullient beeps like galen tipton’s “tadpoles lullaby.” Some fans said the soundscapes had a kind of quasi-medicinal quality, scratching their scalps in all the right spots. 

I don’t know if I’ve ever heard a more satisfying song in this brain-massage vein than DJ Re:Code’s “adhd.” Headphone listening feels like your mind is playing a hyperspeed round of Whack-A-Mole: yanked left and right and up and down to process all the sonic squelches and fizzes and spritzes and shocks firing every quarter-second. Guest vocalist tobre’s lyrics are similarly twisty, pretzelling between claustrophobic confessions (“So scared of making up my mind”) and brief flashes of hope (“I know that I’m better off alive”), exhausted groans (“I keep trying and trying and trying”) and confused realizations. It’s like a thrillingly electric fidget spinner for the ears.

Then there’s the goji! and BIO-featuring “keeper,” which dials back the intensity only a little while retaining the infectious busyness. Simultaneously warmly tactile and coldly computerized, it could soundtrack some futuristic wildlife habitat. Bionic animals buzz and whirr, flapping their metallic wings and vibrating like cyborgian cicadas. The only constant is the vocals, which radiate across the lattices of noise like steady rays of sunshine.

The list:

#25 - Destroy Lonely - “NOSTYLIST”

#24 - elusin - “Elksling”

#23 - skaiwater - “#miles”

#22 - Wednesday - “Bull Believer”

#21 - islurwhenitalk - “pink neon lights”

#20 - Two Shell - “home” & “Memory” (tie)

#19 - Luci4 - “ON GANG”

#18 - Harto Falión - “{*______*}” (prod. evilgiane, whitearmor, Gud)

#17 - lecie - “ex post facto”

#16 - Yung Lean ft. FKA twigs - “Bliss”