ALERT, ALERT. ALL HANDS ON DECK. THE ZOOMERS HAVE DISCOVERED ELLIOTT SMITH. I REPEAT, THE ZOOMERS HAVE DISCOVERED ELLIOTT SMITH. Or maybe they haven’t, I have no idea. But to my geriatric Millennial ears, the LA singer-songwriter kiddo Ari Rivera sure as shit’s been bumpin’ Roman Candle, if the demo collection he recently dropped on Nina is any indication. 

Anyways, speaking of Los Angeles… halfway through writing this Staff Pick I saw a random thing on Twitter that LeBron James has demanded a trade and the source is apparently the guy who also reported that LeBron would go to the Lakers in the first place or something? But oh my god what if LeBron went to the Sixers???? It would make so much sense! To me! A Sixers fan! Every other basketball fan who also saw that tweet has also convinced themselves that LeBron coming to their team would also make sense, and they also probably decided, just as I did, to completely disregard LeBron’s agent being all like “what the hell are you idiots talking about, lebron isn’t getting traded,” because, like, why would you not deny that even and especially if it were true? He’s definitely gonna be a Sixer by the time you read this. (He is absolutely not going to be a Sixer by the time you read this.)

But back to Ari Rivera. Some have called him the LeBron James of people with demo tapes on Nina. Those people being me, specifically. My favorite song on this thing is “house of pies,” which is less Elliott Smith-y than some of the other ones on here. It’s more like a post-hyperpop version of something you’d find on Cody ChesnuTT’s The Headphone Masterpiece, full of lovingly homemade lurches and blown-out stomps, Rivera’s vocals gliding airily over it all.