Extra Happy Ghost - "Mercy, Mercy". Stewart is in love with a submarine captain. Her name is Ida and she has hair the colour of her periscope. Every day, an admiral marches into Stewart's little room, gives him a message to transmit: 120 degrees aft, bear 320.1 to Bluetown / Deploy undersea probes, Jettison 7 / Return to HQ, six knots, 0800 hours. Stewart keeps his finger on the lever; sends the message in Morse dit dit dot. Sometimes, on lucky days, the submarine is near the surface and he can send the message by voice, leaning into an old cold microphone. The admirals never call Ida Ida. They call her Captain Suffolk. Captain Suffolk, Stewart sends through the air, bear 320.1 to Bluetown. But what he wants to send is, Ida, come here. He wants to send, You have eyes the colour of riverbeds. He can send these things only in subtext. In the pause between Morse-code messages, in the break and emphasis of his voice. It is a subtle wooing. But no subtler than the medium itself, radio signal slipping among clouds, through water, between coral. The question is simply whether Ida hears Stewart's love. Whether she hears it, or thinks it's simply noise.

[this story does too little credit to Extra Happy Ghost's splendid Modern Horses, produced by Chad VanGaalen. It's out this week. Hear more at SoundCloud.]

Joakim - "Forever Young (extended afro mix)". Summer's not quite running out, but it's taking a deep breath. Quick, while the humidity's looking somewhere else, slip in another jam: "Forever Young" is one part woodblock, two parts LCD Soundsystem's "Someone Great". Its sophistications are each kludgey, slightly obvious. Arpeggiated backbrush, synths shimmering on pause, vocals for coaxing slo-mo dancestuff. But I love the duskiness in this track, the solemnity of its rising cloud. This is July, this is August, fields of strongly-coloured flowers and ten thousand shrilling bugs. [more on SoundCloud]

(photo source)