Songs For Capriquarius
A soundtrack for January 2025
A Cosmopolitan writer recently argued that January deserves a rebrand as one of the best months of the year: it’s a great month to reflect on the past 12 months, embrace the year we’ve just embarked upon, and think about how we might reinvent ourselves.
I love a good January. Great music keeps finding me this month, on the car radio —it’s totally safe to Shazam while driving — in Spotify playlists, at coffee shops, and at record stores.
This edition of MUSIC NERD is a roundup of music I’ve been listening to this month. Also included are songs from a few early-January Capricorns like Dolly Parton and Mac Miller and some later-January Aquarians like Bob Marley and Anderson .Paak.
The full playlist is HERE.
Seattle band Balcony Bridge got their start playing city parks during Covid. They describe their sound as “hard-driving neo-classic rock.”
“Queen of the Organ” Shirley Scott was a jazz organist from Philadelphia who is synonymous with the “soul jazz” genre. She recorded with saxophonists Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis and Stanley Turrentine in the 1950s and 60s, led her own bands, and was a music educator.
Michael Greene is an electronic music producer from the UK who releases music under the moniker Fort Romeau. Derwin Schlecker aka Gold Panda is also an electronic music producer and songwriter from the UK. They got together in November and made “two of the most sensitive and sweet big room bangers to ever fill a floor.”
The Soulquarians, the neo-soul/hip-hop/jazz-fusion collective, got their name when founding members Questlove, D’Angelo, J Dilla, and James Poyser realized they were all Aquarians. Roy Hargrove, the group’s trumpet player, was discovered in high school by Wynton Marsalis.
The Bats are a New Zealand rock band formed in 1982 in Christchurch who actively toured and recorded until 1994, then regrouped in the early 2000s.
The Cocteau Twins were a Scottish trio active from 1979 to 1997, who many would argue helped invent the genres of dream pop and shoegaze by combining heavy amounts of electronic effects with moody vibes and Elizabeth Fraser’s ethereal vocals. Madonna loved them and Prince allegedly wanted to sign them. “It's music to bonk to," Fraser once told The Guardian. Artists like The Weeknd and Orbital have sampled them.
In 2014, Esquire magazine called the funk group Jungle the “Britain’s hottest band,” whose percussive grooves are carried by “badoinking bass.” The band’s original founders grew up listening to Joy Division, Krautrock, and Marvin Gaye.
I got hooked on Angélica Garcia’s “Gemini” last year, but it’s a banger that’s still on heavy rotation in the car. I’m a big Chicano Batman fan, and members of that band play on this song. “‘Gemini’ is about seeing the façade and dichotomy in all things,” Garcia says. “Sometimes I just want to be playful because so many things in the world feel simulated anyway. Choosing joy in the face of everything sometimes feels like rebellion.”
Thanks for reading and listening to MUSIC NERD, and Happy Capriquarius January!