#9 - Ken Carson - "Lose It" / "Me N My Kup" (tie)

A Great Chaos really electrified me for the first time when I played it on a run. The five-miler took more than 35 minutes but it seemed like so much less—my blood spiked to a volcanic boil, my shoes sparked the ground with every step, my breath synced up with Ken’s giddy giggles. I initially passed the tape off as another Opium damp squib, but it’s one of the most amped fireworks of the year. True to the implied command in its title, the obscenely bass-broken “Lose It” sends me into a bruising cyclone of head-mashing. Yet there’s something so delicious and almost ASMR about its oceanic low-end—as with Carti’s best music, it shatters my cognitive function: Time for himbo mode, I want my brain to be ping-ponged by two giant pillars of steel. 

“Me N My Kup” has a similar effect but it’s like being gripped by two mega pincers that are sliding back and forth in a demented forced waltz a la dismemberment by horses. Instead of brutal pain, it feels glorious, as though the mad beat is pulling the chains off my mortal body.

The list:

#10 - bar italia - "Missus Morality" / "maddington" (tie)