I rolled out of bed a little later than usual, grabbed a shower while one of the two cats stood guard, and then made coffee while hoping to spy our new neighbors, a fox family, through the kitchen windows. (Small surprise, I suppose, but my leers didn’t lure the pups into view.) Then, here at my desk, the day in earnest began: scrolling through inane debates on social media, wading through ads for AI this and AI that, and perusing the day’s headlines on Apple News. We live in unsettled times, when many of us are mired—to pluck a phrase out of context from a Frank O’Hara poem—“the hopelessness of leisure.”
Light and night, darkness and day, these are among symbols relied on in songs and poems, in movies and books, in daily discourse. Depending on context, they can be artful metaphors or bumbling cliches, or—more often—fall somewhere in between. I say that to share this: “Sun Is Rising,” the debut single from the London collective known as Ships of the Pharaohs, is a burst of summer fun. It’s a jazzy dance-floor jam that boasts an intoxicating groove and vocals courtesy of Red Bird, a Lithuanian-born singer. It’s a tantalizing taste of their forthcoming EP.
(The group was put together by producer Last Nubian in 2023 for a Touching Bass showcase at the We Out Here Festival, but—to quote the press release—“evolved into something more substantial” due to the engaging interplay that developed between vocalist Achanté, keyboard player Goldbar, and bassist Dougan.)
The Old Grey Cat 