The miseducation of Cameron Lew
A former introvert who once thought he’d be a film editor, Cameron Lew started his breakout indie project Ginger Root as a way to express himself creatively without too much pressure or an intense spotlight hanging over him. And yet, the more he dabbled and produced, the more of a name he developed for himself. As he was hitting his stride, he released what he thought would be his standout album, Rikki, just as COVID-19 hit. The album went into the ether. And, in retrospect, maybe that was for the best. Lew’s best work was still very much yet to come. “With Rikki, there was a little bit of pressure to follow the trends of bedroom pop,” he admits. “Everyone’s doing the hazy guitar, everyone’s doing the Tame Impala vocals. Like, ‘you gotta do it too, kid.’ And I wanted to too, I’m going to be completely honest.”
But in Rikki’s wake, Lew took the opportunity to stretch himself in a new direction. Thus began an intense creative streak and the creation of three innovative, exciting albums: City Slicker, Nisemono, and his newest release, Shingbangumi.
“During the entirety of COVID — I'm going on four years now — I self-studied Japanese,” says Lew. “I always wanted to learn the language. I was listening to city pop and Pizzicato Five and Shibuya-kei, all that stuff. In high school, ‘Plastic Love’ got really popular. And then for some reason, during COVID, city pop had a second wave.”
Stuck in lockdown with essentially nothing to do, Lew threw himself into Japanese media near constantly. “I was self-studying Japanese through immersion, which is a method where you don’t use a textbook. You just watch and listen to a bunch of stuff as close to 24/7. Some people think that kids learn languages really easily because their brains are like sponges, which is absolutely true. But what adults don’t have that kids do is time,” Lew points out. “The time to just sit and the time to make mistakes and the time to be sponges. With your obligations, your work or schooling or family, you have less time to be a sponge. You still are a sponge, though. With COVID, the film industry was dead and I couldn’t go on tour. I was just stuck at home. I decided to be a sponge with the Japanese language.
“With City Slicker, Nisemono, and Shinbangumi, I think what was at the core of being hyper-specific came from a want to make a love letter to ‘80s Japan for helping me get through COVID,” says Lew. “As an Asian American — even though I’m Chinese American — what I know is that in the entertainment industry, there tends to be a very superficial and shallow homage. If there is an homage to Asian culture, it tends to be not very deep. I didn’t want to be that band that just puts Chinese characters or Japanese characters on a tee shirt and be like, ‘Look how sick that looks.’
“I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t being rude. And I think for me, my way of doing that was making sure to be hyper-specific, but also being able to tell the audience like, it’s okay to make this stuff your own too and remix it. Through the ‘American adaptation to the Japanese 1981 world’ aesthetic, I’m not trying to prove anything that I’m not. I’m not trying to be someone I’m not. I’m an Asian American dude from Huntington Beach, California. Just wanting to say that out front, without any preconceived expectations of what this may or may not be, or what themes this may or may not touch upon.”
Denitia is on the rise
From a small town an hour outside of Houston to the main stage of the Grand Ole Opry, Denitia Odigie — known mononymously as Denitia — is quickly cementing herself as one of country’s rising stars.
Growing up in the south, the culture was country. “We would go to the rodeo, we were wearing the clothes… We were just really steeped in it,” she says. “It was very working class, solid values, going to church, strong community. And so, my first musical obsession was country music.”
In the mornings as her family got ready to shuttle off to work and to school, country stations played from a little A.M. radio her grandmother kept in the bathroom. Amongst her friends, everyone obsessed about the latest country hits. In her spare time, she picked up guitar so she could play along with the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s country rock songs that she held so dear. With an upbringing like this, that singing and songwriting became the centerpiece of Odigie’s life seems almost an inevitability.
But Odigie’s turn to country wasn’t instantaneous. Her first couple solo EPs remained in the funk-pop-R&B space she had dominated in her group. But the pull back to the genre of her youth and her legacy grew consistently stronger. By 2020, when the world stopped, it was unavoidable. The abundance of time on Odigie’s hands forced her to consider who she was as an artist really. “I found myself reaching for what felt like home to me,” she says, earnestly, explaining that her artistry was what kept her sane in a period when the world around her was anything but. Her quarantine passed with a series of late nights alone in her home writing and writing and writing. And the songs that came out of that prolific period were, undoubtedly, markedly, country. That collection, she tells me, went on to become her first, spectacular country record, Highways, released in 2022. Now, she’s back to build on that success with Sunset Drive, a record that both brings her deeper into the country fold and showcases the new life she’s breathing into the genre.
Up next this week….
Fall is in full swing, and with the season, a slew of new releases. At Best Fit, we’ve been particularly excited about Cascade, the innovative new electronica record from Floating Points and the cheeky, punchy Get Me the Good Stuff from Jade Hairpins. Also out this week, we have: Ginger Root’s slick Shinbangumi; Zinadelphia’s retrofitted The Magazine; Lightsides, the latest EP from the ever-moving Angie McMahon; the long-awaited debut from Dora Jar, Smoke Out the Window; and Suki Waterhouse’s psychedelic Memoir of a Sparklemuffin.
From the archive
As Dads across the world celebrate the return of the perennial 90s rock band, we’re taking a look back to to August 12 1994, exactly 30 years ago as of Thursday, when Oasis had one of their first big interviews with The Guardian. Profiled by Caroline Sullivan, the period was a rowdy one for the band, full of drunken nights in London hotels, shoes flung across public spaces, and open sibling spats that played out before the eyes of the press. As Sullivan wrote of the group at the time: “Groups don't come much more politically incorrect than Oasis, but they're on their way to stardom. Last week they were simultaneously on the covers of Melody Maker, the NME and The Face. This week their new single, 'Live Forever', was selling faster than any record except Wet Wet Wet's.”
Indeed, they were a band on a mission, though just what mission that was for each of them was very much up for debate. As Noel said at the time: "As the writer, and as it's 'my' band, I tend to be pretty stubborn," says Noel. "When people interview [Liam], as he's not a writer and can't talk about music, he can only talk about himself, how many birds he's shagged and how many tables he's thrown across the bar. But after we fight, we're the two most sorriest people you've ever seen."
Find these morsels and more kept safely in The Guardian’s archive.
Something Old, Something New
Every week, we share recommendations from the Best Fit community on two iconic records - one from the past, one from the present. This week, Turkish electro-pop artist INJI offers her thoughts on Hiatus Kaiyote’s Choose Your Weapon (2015) and RAYE’s 21st Century Blues (2023).
I’m a music binger — if something tickles my brain, I’ll listen to it on repeat until I’m bored to death. But Hiatus Kaiyote’s 2015 album Choose Your Weapon has resisted that fate, even after hundreds of listens.
The album is often labeled as neo-soul, it leans heavily into fusion and contemporary jazz vibes. It’s an album for true music lovers, the connoisseurs, the nerds. For someone like me who grew up on jazz and had become a bit jaded by it, Choose Your Weapon was an incredible refresher.
Nai Palm’s vocals left me in awe multiple times, especially on tracks like “Building a Ladder” and “Molasses.” The album has this rare duality — it doesn’t try too hard, yet it’s also incredibly intricate and musically complex. The seamless flow of time signature changes, key shifts, and groove transformations is nothing short of magical. If you’re looking for a gateway into “music nerd music,” this is the perfect album to start with.
Choose Your Weapon is a masterpiece. I have no doubt I’ll be returning to it for decades to come.
This album is my canon event. First of all, thank you, RAYE, for saving the music industry and reminding us what it means to be a true artist.
What makes My 21st Century Blues a masterpiece is how raw and fearless it feels. This album pushes the boundaries of what a “mainstream pop album” can be — and in the best possible way. RAYE gives us electrifying EDM tracks like “Black Mascara,” with heart-wrenching lyrics, sitting right next to soulful R&B ballads like “Mary Jane.” She fearlessly navigates multiple genres, offering a buffet of styles, all while calling out those who have wronged her with striking vulnerability in her lyrics.
For me, RAYE is the next Amy Winehouse — and Amy is my all-time favorite artist. The album title sums it up perfectly: My 21st Century Blues packages traditional blues, wraps it in modern pop sensibility, and delivers it flawlessly to the mainstream.
My favorite track is “Oscar Winning Tears” — a heartbreaking tale told from a breathtaking perspective, with hypnotic instrumentals that sound like a full symphony orchestra. And RAYE hits one of the most beautiful high notes I’ve heard in years.
Overall, M21CB is a timeless, multi-genre album that feels like both a personal diary and a display of generational vocal talent.
INJI’s latest EP, We Good, is out today.
Listen to the week in new music by following our Discovery playlist
Dropping at midnight every Thursday, follow our playlist for a taste of the best new music from the most exciting breaking artists – 20 new tracks, top-loaded from the last five days in music and on repeat in the Best Fit office right now.
Leading the selection this week are new tracks from Devenny, Sophie Thatcher, Leo Bhanji, Lutalo, and coverstar Dua Saleh.