020! Mini Digest: J-Pop, Phonk & Baby Invasion

Link-o-rama

Mar 27, 2025

If anything felt very appropriate to 2025, it was spending an hour and a half watching Harmony Korine’s new film, Baby Invasion. And by appropriate to 2025, I mean totally bonkers, grotesque, and frankly unwatchable. As far as art goes, though, that’s not a criticism necessarily. We all know I like a joker, and I like art that makes me wonder if I might be being ridiculed. Most of all, I want to feel something. And that I did watching this movie.

I saw it at the Knockdown Center, at a special one-night event pitted as “an immersive screening, [where] Korine will deconstruct and mix the feature film like a DJ set, transforming Baby Invasion into a pulsating, hypnotic experience.”

Korine was at the back of the screening, in a ski mask, controlling four screens that were set apart from the main movie. The extra screens were acting like remixes, using what I presume was b-roll footage, AI and some live FX.

Baby Invasion is a first-person shooter game, where mercenaries disguised with AI baby faces invade the mansions of wealthy people. But when the game leaks on the dark web and starts to be live-streamed, the violence makes its way into real life.

Despite the pretty compelling premise, there is no real narrative thread here. Korine lets us know that this isn’t really a movie, nor a game, nor real life. It’s just “the endless now”. It did feel endless! One and a half hours of brainrotted sh*t-posting. That’s the point, I suppose.

The original Burial soundtrack was very good though, especially at such a loud volume that the screens were shaking. Apparently Burial and Korine never spoke in real life, only sharing music back and forth through a Playstation PS5. Is it real or is it lore? Another question we have to ask ourselves on a daily basis in 2025.

I did have to palate cleanse with Steven Soderbergh’s new spy movie Black Bag.

And now - time for some thoughts and some recommendations! (BTW, I should point out that not everything I mention is a co-sign! Somtimes it’s just a “hey, look at this”).

Sound

NTS have made a special on the music of Jean Michel Basquiat (things referenced in his paintings and music he listened to in his studio).
Bolivian-American experimental artist Chuquimamani-Condori and their brother, Joshua Chiquimia Crampton, have released a new album together.
A new techno banger courtesy of NY’s Ayesha.
10 years later, Fetty Wap’s “Trap Queen” is climbing back up the charts thanks to TikTok. Summer 2015 is alive and well!
Interesting to see Selena Gomez go full Charli XCX on her track “Bluest Flame”. Seems like they took the demo and did…precisely nothing, not even to the voice. Respect.
I’ve been hacking away at this excellent, 6-hour mix by Ben UFO recorded live at NYC club Nowadays.
I’ve wondered why there isn’t more of a series of livestream DJ events that are done in beautiful locations. Here’s one, though, a 2-hour mix by DJ Chinwax that takes you through some of the latest French Caribbean hits with a beautiful backdrop.
DJing is still cringe, unless you’re an old man who DJs on the top of your dustbins in your back garden.