Herb Sundays



“Herb Sundays is the brainchild of friend of WITI, Sam Valenti. Sam founded Ghostly and cares deeply about music of all kinds. The idea of Herb is simple: Sam asks “world-class music fans, some more famous than others, to make their perfect Sunday mix for ‘when no one is looking.’” While that surely sounds like a familiar idea, this kind of thing is all about execution. Who you ask and how seriously they take the assignment is the difference between something real and some little magazine feature where a famous DJ lists off five songs they listen to on the weekend. There’s a depth and consistency to the series that is worthy of praise. Even the artwork, created by Mike Cina every week, is original and amazing. -Why This Is Interesting
Season 5

More Praise.

I love Sam Valenti’s Herb Sundays newsletter, a tripartite offering. With each edition, there is:
  1. a playlist from some creative eminence;
  2. that eminence’s notes on their playlist; and
  3. Sam’s sparkling, perceptive celebration of that eminence.
I’m going to be honest with you: I don’t listen to the playlists. I do, however, read parts 2 and (especially) 3 with great interest. Sam’s raison dêtre is clear: It’s also a chance to give flowers, as it were, I try to write an obituary for the still living. Why wait? - Robin Sloanxxxxxx

Season

05

01.23

—

08.23



S.05 E.66
Michael ChabonThe Pulitzer Prize winning writer shares a "thematic playlist" for his current book-in-progress, a novel set in the American Southwest.

“This playlist grows out of the music I’ve been listening to while working on my current project, a novel set in the American Southwest. I tend to listen almost exclusively to instrumental music while I’m writing, because sung lyrics interfere with my own flow of words. While working I’ll mostly just let entire albums unspool, but I do also craft “thematic” playlists for particular projects, and one for this latest book, which might be called Highways of Cimmeria, was overdue.” - MC



Ex. 1


S.05 E.67
Michael MayerWhat’s fun about the Herb mixes for me is you can often find trace elements of the curator’s work in the songs they share. A few moments in these cuts share the atomic units of great KOMPAKT songs, even Steve Miller Band’s insanely camp “Abracadabra” has a bridge that feels like the fissure of some of the best Kompakt cuts. Mayer was built for this. - SV4
S.05 E.68Martine SymsSyms spins the ever-present now but seems to be having fun in the process. Why mope when there’s so much to learn, so much to express? Today is already past, the past is present. You think you've outrun yourself and there you are, still a result of your needs, your hopes, your epoch. Or, maybe locked in a heroic embrace. - SV4
S.05 E.69aWill Calcutt
S.05 E.69b
 Will Calcutt
“In millennium days, collegiate versions of Sam and I dreamt of a Sincerist Movement as an alternative to the flood of irony we felt we were drowning in culturally, politically, spiritually. The joke was supremely on us as irony only multiplied and metastasized, gained frightful sentience, and consumed all before it like a famished Saturn. We’re lucky that the midwestern saudade we sought to channel into our Greatest Hits remains strong, and while a true Sincerist Movement may not happen for a thousand years, or possibly never, in our imagination it has been a celestial body for us to navigate by through murky and obscured waters. I sincerely love the songs on this playlist and I sincerely hope you have a nearly perfect afternoon listening to the playlist.” -Calcutt

S.05 E.70Amy Dang
We think of social media, and media culture in general, as the ultimate manifestation of “me culture” but Dang actually gets the bull by the horns, that it is in fact the immolation of the self for most users, who serve as spectators or micro-producers in the grip and service of bigger personalities. The din of modern media, though we assume it is about vanity, due to the presumed reality and amateur bent, serves as a surrendering of one’s inner life to the aggregated shout, and the morass that follows the flood, drowning out one’s own identity. - SV4
S.05 E.71Justin Montag
Franchise is a reminder that it’s a great privilege to get to throw yourself into something completely. It’s not a forever stretch, and as they say, it’s a marathon, not a sprint. - SV4



S.05 E.72Cory Arcangel

The technology obsessed artist shares fragments of albums he enjoys + a deeper dive into Cory's work.


S.05 E.73Okay Kaya
You peer at the mixtape in their tiny scrawl and don’t recognize the artist names at first, but by the time you’re annihilated by (her former labelmate) Jenny Hval at track 5, you’re regretting ever making a mix for them, as yours is full of hackneyed stuff from the radio, and theirs is from some imaginary movie you’ve never seen. You’ve been cast into the deep end of a new blue world, forever knowing there’s another layer to this plane. - SV4



S.05 E.74Thomas Fehlmann
“i like the ‘when no one is looking’ approach [editor’s note: I ask for a perfect Sunday mix for ‘when no one is looking’]. picking up from the time 20 years ago when gudrun and I had our weekly oceanclub-radioshow in berlin where we had lots of spots for taboos. still my favorite kind, mixing up and down left and right. having the ocean as an allegory to blend all imaginable currents. you’re swimming and there are waves and drifts and undercurrents. all merging together to produce one big vital flow.” - TF
S.05 E.75Jacques Greene
Greene refers to his younger self as a “very emotional receptacle for culture” and I’m guessing these High School Feelings (HSF) are what still drive his aims. For myself, I recently realized it maybe isn’t the past that I’ve been seeking, but the emotional connection to things. Herb Sundays is a forced effort to “dig in” on artists I admire in some capacity, and by spending a week in their ambient presence, I find my passion for their work increases.

The common goal to dunk on all things is rooted in protectionism and a fear of being duped. High School Feelings give us an open-hearted ability to sniff out what’s good, which we can dissect later. HSFs also remind us to go deep and to enjoy being a fan of things. - SV4


S.05 E.76Harruka Hirata

There is no exact English word that translates this Japanese word “Sunao” -but it means honest, direct, innocent, and obedient.

So this mix is very sunao, following my heart, that I would play on Sundays just to uplift, impress and inspire myself. No one else. The order is sunao too; you can see my strange tendencies going back and forth between the major and weird. My dog hates experimental/noise, and I’m not a big fan of headphones, so I try not to listen to them at home. But with this mix, I only cared about myself. Haruka’s classics. Haruka’s essentials. No recent releases! - HH (Big Love Records)



S.05 E.77Jonah Weiner
If the Blackbird newsletter were a person, it would be the tour guide your friend matched you with when traveling to a new, distant city. They are a little overeager, and you’re hoping the exotic bazaar he’s driving you to is indeed there, but then you finally get there in the dusty jeep and you leave with an incredible item, some great local food, plus a story to tell. - SV4
S.05 E.78Avalon Emerson

Alt She’s always an exquisite ear for melody and quality mixdowns, and she’s not afraid to be uncool which is why her Herb entry is so vital and represents a true Herb Sundays powderkeg. My early summer drives to this Saint Etienne cut are a zenith sense memory, then there’s the blistering heat of Suede’s debut album, plus a Deep Forest album cut, a massive gated-snared-Wang Chung hit, and a Vangelis closer which hits Herb schmaltz heights the likes of which we haven’t seen since Michael Mayer’s Herb 67 missive earlier this year. - SV
S.05 E.79Michael Cina

Artist and designer Michael Cina takes us on a "101 journey into a quintessential era of jazz spanning from the ‘50s to the late ‘60s."

“For me, the greatest art form is music and Jazz is my favorite style of music, so hopefully this one connects. This is a 101 journey into a quintessential era of jazz spanning from the ‘50s to the late ‘60s. Anything I write will fall short of what is true about this art form full of emotional depth, creativity, and mastery of a skill few artists will ever touch. - MC

S.05 E.80Philip SherburneMusic criticism has been a topic of note in recent years, namely the decreasing space in major outlets for it, but also the anti-intellectualism afoot which dovetails with the rigid demands of stan/fan armies.With musicians biting back at journos for even positive reviews, there’s a sense that the critic’s pen is wobbling, what with Ed Sheeran saying stuff to Rolling Stone like “Why do you need to read a review? Listen to it. It’s freely available!…make up your own mind.” Not sure how Young Ed discovered music as a youth, but without people digging deep and sharing their (dis-)tastes, the musical landscape would be a lot less vital. A good critic is not just a contrarian, but a weathervane of how to accurately consume the popular and a footlight towards the future, and into history. - SV4
S.05 E.81Kool Keith

Rap's great psychic wanderer, in disco mode.

“People think I listen to rap or write weird rap all day everyday. I zone out to disco jams all the time and especially when I’m on a long plane ride” - Kool Keith


So while the red carpet rolls out for Hip-Hop 50 this year, you’re gonna see a lot of artists getting their flowers that are long overdue. Who you may not see onstage is Keith who was too low key for a Hollywood film career, too weird for the rap mainstream, and carries a CV too vast and inconsistent for your “best MCs of all time” list. But he’ll be there, maybe in the balcony like a crazy Muppet or under the stage Phantom style, talking shit, or maybe already en route to another session. Just outrapping your favorite rapper, like it should be. -SV4
S.05 E.82Malibu

Temporary wonder and the hyperreal music of French artist Barbara Braccini

Malibu’s Herb 82 playlist helps connect the various capitols of her musical map and delivers on the Malibu promise of a tangible patchwork of moods. She’s got a retro-fitted Power Glove on and is moving songs around Minority Report (2002) style from her modernist beachfront compound. We find brooders from Lorn and Oneohtrix and an almost unspeakably good remix of Spooky (the 90s electronic project of Duncan Forbes and Sasha co-producer Charlie May) by Detroit’s Echospace. Then we get the space rock of Loveliescrushing, a spoken-word interlude from Lana into a sky-ripper drone metal cut, eventually settling into a Herbaceous finale of Mazzy Star/Sheryl Crow/Vanessa Carlton, like a Street Fighter II combination finishing move. This strand of 2002 Sheryl Crow sounds like what they pump through the cabin on an imaginary Virgin flight as you board, mood lighting set and the visible A/C mist blasting at your ankles. When the final piano vamp of Carlton’s almost billion streamer rings out, you may get another chance at fresh eyes. - SV4
S.05 E.83The Dare

The NYC Sleaze bellwether shares the morning after goods

S.05 E.84Craig Jenkins

The New York Magazine music writer with a dynamic megamix for both the lost and emerging heroes

The playlist is a 69 song, 4 hour and 20 minute affair (!) and lest you think this is a camera roll dump of tunes from his faves list, I watched Jenkins tweak this more than a few times. The mix has some major themes: The lost ones (Belafonte, Melvin Van Peebles, Mac Miller, Linkin Park, Alice Coltrane, Sakamoto, Tina Turner, De La Soul, Doom as Geedorah), some fin de siècle fizzy electronics (Goldie, Ultramarine, the punchy “Tesko Suicide” from Sneaker Pimps, Stereolab, Mu-ziq x Aphex), and the contemporary up and comers (Liv.e, billy woods, Yachty, Nilüfer Yanya, UMO, Steve Lacy, Arca). - SV4“on Sundays a lot of time i would be spending hours at airports or on an airplane, which is the beginning of a two-day weekend DJing recovery process. these are some of the songs i would keep going back to mellow myself down, switch my mind back to music making. this music is good for just staring into the distance as well. make sure to listen with some sort of noise canceling headphones.” - YS
S.05 E.85Yu Su

The Vancouver-based musician and DJ in reset mode, somewhere in the world.



S.05 E.86 Dante Ross

The legendary A&R and producer shares an extended New York-centric Sunday afternoon playlist



S.05 E.87Derrick Gee

When I first dipped a toe into frigid TikTok, Derrick was one of the first people I saw and followed. He’s sort of like the affable record store person you can’t tell is flirting with you, but actually just loves music.  -SV4

“Sunday is a sacred listening time for me. I've had my first solid day of rest following the week that was (Friday night sleeps never quite do it for me) - so Sunday I'm feeling fresh and alert. When I'm in that state, I'm looking for music that is familiar. I'm looking for music that welcomes the day in rather than forcing it down my throat. Typically, that means 70's soul, romantic things, things that push a lot of atmosphere through my speakers. Oftentimes that means songs that have more space between the notes” -DG

Like a herb
“I went to high school in NYC circa 1990, so being a herb was a serious offense. So like a herb, I took this part of the assignment way too seriously. What’s the herbiest mix possible? In the end, my final conclusion was half Beatles - half Drake, but I don’t quite have the skills to pull that one off. The operative phrase of this whole series is “like a herb” so a true herb mix by definition can not be good but the herb knows where the action is, they just don’t know how to get down, a mix that gets close to the herb gets you dangerously close to something good.” 
-AB

S.05 E.88Abe Baumeister

A deep exploration of Herb by the Outlier clothing brand founder.
S.05 E.89Josh Kline

The prophetic artist working "Sunday night, channeling that clandestine, turbulent story from another time."


When you take in Kline’s work in person, which reveals the now and future truths we are heading toward in terms of climate change and labor, you are simultaneously drawn in amidst it all. Kline’s work is righteous and moral, but it is also incredibly seductive. Lest you forget he was a film student, not an art school grad, he uses the language of marketing and of Hollywood, to get his message across but does so on fair terms. It is both sublimely sincere and also widely accessible, which would be dangerous for lesser talents. -SV4
S.05 E.90Ari Marcopoulos
“When I grew up, in the early evening we would watch the highlights of the football games played that day. My favorite team was Ajax Amsterdam. It was also a day to go to church for some families. Next door to us lived a strict Protestant family. The kids weren’t allowed outside on Sunday. We’d see them behind their home’s windows watching us heathens play outside. This is dedicated to them.” - AM
S.05 E.91Geoff Rickly
Any city you’ve been in long enough offers a series of other lives, previous and potential, that roar and lap at your heels. It's not so much that it hurts to face these, it's that it shocks you how near all of these are, both geographically and emotionally. My former home of Greenpoint, like Rickly’s, is a grid of meaningful places and feelings and the long walks taken on the industrial borders were probably where Rickly often scored. The city changes and you change, not always in that order. - SV4 
S.05 E.92Margeaux Labat Margeaux has a real knack for the textural side of soft tunes, which is on display here and she worked up an incredible mix from her past and personal life. Her range of tastes, which carries a strong international component, means she can give very powerful recommendations that won’t scare away newcomers either. I loved some of the lesser-known cuts/versions from major names (Marley, Simon, Pumpkins), and some herbal delights from all-timers like Sam Prekop made into a complete whole. I couldn’t ask for a better way to close this season, which started from a snowy Colorado pizza shop parking lot back in January. Herb 92 also has that great happysad thing going for it which pairs well with um, August and such. - SV4
Herb Sundays 
Contact





Instagram X Substack
Cina AssociatesGhostly