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12 Things That Didn't Suck this Year, plus 12 Films I watched and Liked

For me, 2023 was a somewhat easier year than most in recent memory. In the wider scope, everything remains very demoralizing and bereft of even a shred of hope. With whatever motivation I can find, my aim in 2024 is to refine aspects of my personal life I'm currently unhappy about; outside of that, things feel pretty much unsalvageable. May the new year surprise us all and give us a few glimmers here and there, culturally or otherwise. In the meantime here are 12 points that brought me some sort of comfort or release in the past year -- and also a dozen movies as most would agree it's been a great year for those. Maybe just maybe I'll finally take a crack at writing a screenplay in the new year so long as the world doesn't careen completely off its axis:

Traveling: In late 2022 I got it into my head that it would be really cool and fun to plan a trip as if we were touring, going from location to location within a span of 2 weeks. I really wanted to go back to Spain, James has always wanted to go to Morocco, so I routed a trip from Madrid to Tangier and back, with stops in Granada and Seville along the way (and also we went to see Suede, because why not). This was an intense journey that involved multiple buses, trains, shuttles to ferries, and plenty of taxis, and I'm pretty shocked and impressed that we pulled it off without sleeping through any departure times or losing any belongings (apart from a pair of earrings of mine that fell out of my purse and got crushed in Granada). The whole trip was a highlight not only of the year but of our lives in general and I'll absolutely never forget getting lost in the Ancien Medina in Tangier, something which I still dream about on the reg.

I Think You Should Leave: This has been an intellectually rich year in terms of films and television shows. The third season of Tim Robinson's completely unhinged Netflix series isn't part of that particular conversation, yet nothing I've watched this year has brought me more joy. I've easily watched the "Jellybean" sketch alone about 15 times, and could easily watch it twice that many more with no threat of it ever getting old. Absolutely insane, ceaselessly hilarious, and sometimes even emotionally stirring. May Netflix renew this 100 times over.

PJ Harvey - I Inside the Old Year Dying: I'm maybe a minority PJ Harvey fan because I find her later output far more interesting than her early, more iconic records (excepting To Bring You My Love and Is This Desire? here). This maybe didn't stir me quite as much as The Hope Six Demolition Project, which I found to be truly radical, but it neither felt like a retread (although surface listens might lead some to write it off as a return to White Chalk-era atmospherics). Outside of the record itself, the video for the title song is outstanding, and all her collaborators (including the directors of the video, animators Cristóbal León and Joaquín Cociña) were expertly chosen. Personally, Ben Whishaw singing lines from "Love Me Tender" is something beyond even my wildest dreams (Fun fact: I met Ben Whishaw forever ago and gave him a PJ Harvey button I made, so this collaboration in particular is quite the full circle).

Books By Friends: This year I read several recent books: HellSans by Ever Dundas, Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez and The Ghost Theatre by Mat Osman, all very different novels but all incredible in their own right ( I believe I technically read Ever's book last year but including it here anyway because I loved it that much). HellSans is a dystopian cyber-horror that satisfied my love of experimental writing and body horror alike, Our Share of Night is a touching story about a complicated familial relationship with heavy occult overtones, and The Ghost Theatre is a lush historical fiction that at times reminded me of Patrick Suskind's Perfume in terms of sensory details. All three novels solidified all future output from these writers as must reads for me, regardless of genre designations.

Movies: A short sub-list of 12 movies I watched this year that I liked enough to rank:

12) The Passenger (director: Carter Smith): Kyle Gallner is the #1 scream king to me and I'll watch pretty much whatever he's in as he usual picks interesting roles - plus, he makes me happy to be from Pennsylvania, and I can't say that about many people. Anyway, I've watched like three movies he was in this year alone but The Passenger was the stand out for its Falling Down-esque intro and fucked up reveals.

11) Beau is Afraid (director: Ari Aster): Docking this a few points because I think Ari Aster is pretty overrated, but I can't deny that this was an absolute trip to see in a movie theater. A quietly brilliant performance by Joaquin Phoenix as well.

10) The Royal Hotel (director: Kitty Green): Anything set in Australia instantly piques my interest, even moreso when it's as indebted to Wake in Fright as this film is. It wasn't the strongest year for horror films, and The Royal Hotel would probably be largely categorized as horror-adjacent, but it made me feel absolutely dreadful all the same.

9) Infinity Pool (director: Brandon Cronenberg): The unease I got watching this didn't totally stick, but the weird as shit Mia Goth performance certainly did.

8) Dream Scenario (director: Kristoffer Borgli): Very on the nose but I still laughed like a fiend over the whole "dreamfluencer" bit. Tremendous Nicholas Cage performance to boot.

7) Saltburn (director: Emerald Fennell): Sorry, loved its audacity and the way everybody in it dressed and how everything looked. A bit shallow but sometimes if everything looks great, I can hardly give a shit about any deeper meaning. Also, Barry Keoghan is absolute superstar and I don't use that term lightly.

6) Talk To Me (director: Danny and Michael Philippou): Easily my favorite straight-up horror film (not horror-adjacent) since It Follows, to which it certainly owes a debt. Funny, fucked up, and an amazing debut by Sophie Wilde, who gave the most underrated horror performance of the year imo.

5) Oppenheimer (director: Christopher Nolan): I liked it enough but what I liked even more was an on the surface "men's film" being embraced and subverted by a diverse, sometimes irreverent, audience (just look up Oppenheimer on Know Your Meme or TV Tropes and you'll get what I mean). July 2023 was a glorious period of people celebrating films and for one brief moment everyone seemed to love small, beautiful men just as much as I do.

4) Asteroid City (director: Wes Anderson): I'm generally iffy on Wes Anderson but this was just gorgeous and a truly profound experience that I'm still revisiting regularly and piecing together in my mind. If Jarvis Cocker doesn't get an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song with "Dear Alien," I will punch through a wall and all the way into a different reality.

3) Killers of the Flower Moon (director: Martin Scorsese): No movie has angered me this much since Judas and the Black Messiah in terms of a despicable moment in human history, but of course it was extremely gripping and moving, too. Say it's boring all you want but nothing this year has packed as much poignancy as that ending.

2) Anatomy of a Fall (director: Justine Triet): Best ever child acting in a film, best ever dog acting in a film.

May December (director: Todd Haynes): Todd Haynes is so intelligent, I love hearing him discuss his films and he's without a doubt one of the all-time greats for me. Even with my high expectations for everything that he does, May December still blew my mind. The marriage of Lifetime aesthetics with arthouse cinema is insanely deft, the "final showdown" between Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman's characters is absolutely chilling, and Charles Melton crying behind that fence will stay with me long, long after this year has ended.

Protomartyr Live at Johnny Brenda's: I really liked Protomartyr's 2023 release Formal Growth in the Desert, but it didn't fully hit until I attended this gig. It's been hard to get excited for gigs in the post-Covid era, but when that happens I'm reminded again of the pleasures of live music and its overall importance. I've seen Protomartyr several times in the past but in my humble opinion they've never been better than right now. Wanted to experience the whole show again as soon as it ended. The projections were really cool, too.

Living with a Cat: My parents got a kitten this year and shortly thereafter a cat mysteriously appeared in our alley. She was very scared and hungry, so we fed her and she found her way inside our home shortly after that. Cats are a lot of work, but she also brings us a lot of happiness and comfort. Sometimes she'll for real wink at me and it's very cute. Her backstory is a total mystery but she was clearly a house cat and we're very delighted to give her a new, happy home.

Swarm: Atlanta is one of my favorite things ever, plus fandoms and horror are two major interests of mine, so it was pretty inevitable that I would love this. The show was brilliant in itself, but Dominique Fishback was particularly phenomenal and delivered the horror monologue to beat going forward. A wild, funny, wicked ride.

Our first gig in Boston: We only played three shows this year but the best by far was our set in Boston at the Dark Springs Boston festival this past May. We played a bunch of our new, as yet unreleased, songs for the first time, met some bands we'd been longtime fans of, and just generally had a great time. Sitting down at the bar afterward, we met some festgoers who were genuinely star-struck, which was both flattering and very, very funny. May that be the first of many such experiences.

The Bear Season 2: Fishes and Forks. Enough said.

Cillian Murphy's Radio Show on 6Music: I listened to previous series of Cillian Murphy's Limited Edition radio show and it was my favorite thing then, but 2023's iteration was somehow better than ever. Played lots of Aldous Harding, my favorite cover song ever (Sonic Youth's cover of "Superstar"), and I'm still shocked that he threw in something from Cindy Lee, whose music I had just discovered like two weeks prior (and from a Protomartyr interview! Everything is connected!).

The Curse: There's an episode of Succession in which Roman Roy utters the phrase, "I cringed so hard I turned into a fossil." That's me with every new episode of The Curse. This would be way higher but it won't actually end 'til 2024 so it could possibly show up on next year's list as well! Also, let's give it up for Benny Safdie, who rules in this and in every other role he's played this year (and also on late night tv appearances).

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CHARLES MELTON as Joe Yoo in MAY DECEMBER (2023) dir. Todd Haynes

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10 Songs I’ve Been Listening to Lately

Listening to music started to become a struggle for me at some point early into the pandemic. It was a combination of having limited internet due to decamping to my grandmother’s before things go super serious, the general uncertainty at the time, and music being so closely linked to New York for me -- this last one has likely been the greatest factor, as I’m still trying to get my impossibly jumbled feelings over leaving that city into some kind of working order. 

The last several months in particular have made listening to music very painful, but I’m slowly trying to reconnect. The past three years have led to one adjustment after another and I don’t really feel like the same person anymore a lot of the time. I really don’t know when I’ll feel on firm ground but am really striving to make something happen this year that will bring some semblance of my confidence and joy of listening back. 

In the meantime, here are 5 songs I’ve listened to recently that either engaged me in some way or that I felt moved by. My writing skills aren’t really where I would like them to be, either, and I’m really too drained to even try, so all I’ll say is I hope these will move and / or engage you in some way too if you give any one of them a listen (and yes, two of them are called “Thrasher”). Cheers and love always. 

* Lee Hazlewood - We All Make the Flowers Grow

*Kendrick Lamar feat. Sampha - Father Time

*NightNight - In Your Room (this is kinda a cheat ‘cos Yasmin is a good friend, but would firmly believe this Depeche Mode cover was pretty brill even if she were a stranger)

*Bernard Butler & Edwyn Collins - Can’t Do That (The Hoover) {sorry!}

*Neil Young - Thrasher

*Chapterhouse - Thrasher

*Flatwaves - Cygnus

*Tim Darcy - Still Waking Up

*Fast Car Slow Car - Bow

*Pilgrims of Yearning - La Mar (looking forward to playing with them at a fest in May!) 

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10 Things That Somehow Didn’t Suck This Year (with a horror films sub-list).

2022 has been an unbelievably surreal and disparate year for me. On one hand, I achieved three long-running goals, visiting Barcelona, becoming a home-owner, and going on a mini-tour with my band. On the other hand, I was plagued by some of the worst periods of depression of my life and endured at least two solid months of virtually nonstop distress in which things got better for a little bit before going really hard on the mental strife. 

Due to so much weirdness going on, I didn’t listen to much music this year and I feel pretty ashamed about that (if you’re a friend and you released music this year, I intend on listening to it very soon, I swear). I’m also a little put off by critical writing in general right now but I still wanted to do some sort of year-end ranking for tradition’s sake. So here’s 10...entertainments? I appreciated this year - whether TV shows, movies, or going to gigs, even though there were a lot of those I unfortunately missed as well. Also throwing in a sub-list of favorite horror films, as those are one of the few things I can focus on even when things are completely haywire elsewhere.

*Atlanta: I really don’t consider a lot of art truly *perfect* but the Atlanta series finale -- and the entire 41-episode show, really -- absolutely was. Out of anyone in my generation, Donald Glover is far and away the *~creative~* I’m most in awe of, most of all for this singular and very special show. I’ll forever be grateful for the intelligence behind Atlanta (I really can’t think of a show James and I have discussed more), it’s unpredictability and the insane level of talent that could be found in its ridiculously stellar cast and crew. I loved everything about every minute of it, but my secret favorite episode was the one where Van has an identity crisis in Paris and Alexander Skarsgard cameos as a cross between an exaggerated version of himself and Armie Hammer. Utterly surreal, totally hilarious, and unquestionably brilliant. 

*“Punk Rock Loser” by Viagra Boys: I didn’t totally love Viagra Boys’ 2022 release Cave World but it still somehow became the album I listened to most this year, and “Punk Rock Loser” had no contest in terms of being my most listened to song. The band excels at songs about decidedly unsavory dudes, so “Punk Rock Loser” isn’t entirely new territory but it is catchy and weirdly groovy in its own little way. Plus, the music video is an instant classic, right down to the Adidas western shirt and completely silly synchronized dance routine. 

*The Rehearsal: This one is a bit of a cheat because I just watched the whole series in like three days so it’s at the forefront of my mind. But something tells me even if I had watched it three months ago I’d still be fucking reeling from it. Like, my sense of perception has been irrevocably scrambled. I need to sit in a dark room and question every interaction I’ve ever had with another human up to this point. I related to this show more than I’d like to admit and also found myself weirdly moved by it at times. Also, massive respect to Fielder for getting HBO to pay for, well, the entire thing, but especially the replica of the Alligator Lounge (although we all know Nate’s Lizard Lounge is really where it’s at). 

*Playing a show with The Veldt: We started working on new music this year so we didn’t play many shows, but we still had a fair amount of success on that front and played our first-ever gigs in the midwest (including a sold out show in Chicago). But being asked to play with criminally underrated shoegazers The Veldt was truly a high water mark (on what was unfortunately a very watery evening in Brooklyn). Had gone to see The Veldt in Philly a month prior to sharing a bill with them, and was wowed by Daniel Chavis’ stage presence and vocal delivery both times around, a pretty powerful counter to the head down aloofness that genre designation typically suggests. Totally cool and lovely guys to boot.

*Warren Ellis - Nina Simone’s Gum: See my previous post, but in short, this book is mesmerizing. What I assumed would be a fairly straightforward rock memoir instead was a loving tribute to Ellis’ idols, providing a lot of insight into collecting and the power we imbue certain objects with and why. Absolutely solidified my opinion that Ellis is one of the most beautiful souls (I mean, he started a sanctuary for wildlife with special needs for god’s sake!) 

*Aldous Harding at Union Transfer: Pretty much the only new music I listened to this year was the aforementioned Viagra Boys, Fontaines DC and Aldous Harding, and I was fortunate enough to see two out of three of these artists live in 2022 (Viagra Boys, maybe next year). Aldous Harding had been at the top of my gig-going wishlist pre-pandemic, so I feel especially grateful that seeing her became a reality this year. It often feels a bit weak to say “OMG I went to see (x) and they sounded just like the album,” but in Aldous’ case, this is kind of an extraordinary compliment, seeing as she sings as about a dozen different characters on her new record, sometimes flipping back and forth over several different vocal styles in a single song. Add to this Harding’s obscure yet very purposeful stage presence and that equals me being enraptured for 90 minutes straight. Had an excellent time pre-gaming at the awesome go-go cocktail bar The Trestle Inn beforehand as well. 

*Intermission: My 10 (actually 11) Favorite Horror Films of 2022

Yeah yeah yeah. Everyone has said it, it’s been a great year for horror. It’s always been my favorite genre and I’ve embraced it even harder since the pandemic for whatever reason. So, just like everyone else is doing, here are my 10 favorites that I’ve seen this year. I didn’t see everything, but I’ve seen enough to have some authority on what was good, maybe...

1) Pearl - Mia Goth’s unblinking stare over the end credits = haven’t been as frightened by a face since Laura Dern running toward the camera in INLAND EMPIRE. Deserves all its accolades and then some. 

2) The Menu - The cast, the setting, the dialogue, Colin Stetson’s score: everything about this was a horrible delight from start to finish. Watching Ralph Fiennes and Anya Taylor-Joy act together was thoroughly electrifying and I will never get Fiennes lobbing the insult “you donkey” at some rich asshole out of my head. 

3) Smile - I saw the trailer for this a zillion times and thought it honestly looked hilariously stupid. Zero expectations and threw me for a complete loop. Still didn’t find it that scary but it was fun as hell and the sound design was excellent. Also, I’m sorry to say I had no idea who (PA native!) Kyle Gallner was until this year but loved him in both this and Dinner in America. 

4) Men / Resurrection - Resurrection walked so Men could run, I guess. Overall, I preferred the former just because I honestly couldn’t believe my eyes for the last 20 minutes and I appreciated its mash-up of folk horror / home invasion / psychological horror / cosmic horror / body horror to the max. Resurrection had Rebecca Hall giving the most insane monologue of the year and my forever crush Tim Roth being a gaslighting sleaze-hound, and those are two things I will never shrug at. 

5) What Josiah Saw - If you ever longed for a southern gothic version of Fire Walk With Me, then head over to Shudder and take this fucked up baby for a ride immediately. Had a scene, totally free of violence or gore, that made me want to squirm right out of my skin. Robert Patrick FTW and was nice(?) to see Nick Stahl again too.

6) Watcher - Great Hitchcockian throwback with great performances by Maika Monroe and Burn Gorman and some beautiful shots of Bucharest. Tense enough that I was nervous going into the bathroom by myself when it was over. 

7) We’re All Going to the World’s Fair - To be honest, I didn’t love this when I was watching it, but jeez did it stick with me. Months after and I still feel a great sense of discomfort whenever I think about it. Not for everyone, but will thoroughly creep you out and fill you with a sense of crushing loneliness, if you’re down for that kind of thing. 

8) Something in the Dirt - Pretty much will be open to anything Moorhead and Benson do just because I find their grassroots approach to cosmic horror and world-building really inspiring. Their latest threw about a million different interests of mine into a pot so I found Something in the Dirt especially delicious. Some really low-key funny moments and I’m still trying to piece it all together but I’m so so happy these guys are out there challenging us and doing it all in such a home-spun way. 

9) Barbarian - Almost didn’t add this because the hype really got to me, but, I know -- that first half was super tense and Justin Long gave his all as perhaps the douchiest character of the year. 

10) Nope - Really wasn’t a fan of US but this was quite a return to form. Loved the set pieces and the unique take on alien design. The spoken word “Purple People Eater” bit was pretty ridiculous but I laughed all the same. The blood house was marvelous, though.

***

*“Turn Off Your Brain and Yell” by Suede: I often get anxious whenever a long-running band or artist I love releases something new, even when it’s a band I love as much as Suede, and was honestly not expecting much from their 9th release Autofiction, as it was being touted as more stripped down and less high concept and dramatic. The record is just fine but live the songs are phenomenal, particularly the fittingly cathartic “Turn Off Your Brain and Yell.” The Autofiction closer served as the band’s opener at their headlining show at Philadelphia’s The Met and it was like an emotional wildfire had just ignited. I’m certain every single neck hair of every person in that venue was standing on end from this song onward. Simply put, it fucking slammed. Anyway, this Suede / Manics US tour seemed like the ultimate dream to me on paper but unfortunately turned out a little bittersweet, but at least I can say for probably the only time ever that Michelle Obama possibly had a hand in preventing me from going backstage like I was supposed to (long story!). 

*The Bear: Didn’t think this could possibly live up to its hype, but really what a touching, funny, intense and lovingly made show. Jeremy Allen White, he seems a little like a himbo, but was completely captivated and moved by his portrayal of the emotionally complex and overwhelmed Carmy. Loved when Richie did or said pretty much anything and the (I cringe at the term) *~needle drops~* were spectacular. Ready to drink down a second season like Xanax-laced ecto-cooler. 

*Kendrick Lamar performing “Savior” at Glastonbury : I feel a bit of a faker listing this as I haven’t watched Kendrick’s Glastonbury 2022 performance in full yet (doing that over the weekend, hopefully), and I’ve only listened to Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers once. I have, however, been returning to this video over and over for months now and I love everything about it -- the lighting, minimalist stage set up -- in such stark contrast to an event as overblown as the Glastonbury festival -- the dancers, and of course the fake blood and glittery crown of thorns. Most of all, I love that the message takes precedence, as it should be but so rarely is these days. So, thank you Kendrick and all the preceding makers on this list for saying or doing something meaningful in a year that frequently felt meaningless. 

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The Glamour of the Ordinary: Jane Savidge’s Here They Come With Their Make-Up On and Warren Ellis’ Nina Simone’s Gum

In the early days of the pandemic, a Facebook page appeared that consisted entirely of people around the world dressing in costumes and finery to take out their trash. The page was called Bin Isolation Outing and, at its close in December 2020, it had over 900,000 members. What began as a joke among a few Australian friends quickly spread into a worldwide phenomenon, a way of injecting some frivolity and flash into a very scary, often mundane period in time. 

During those early stages of the pandemic, I thought a lot about Suede’s 1996 full-length, Coming Up (this was partially because the band were intending on performing the album in full throughout the UK that fall and I kept trying to believe the pandemic would be over by then so I could fly to one, but let’s pretend I was really just tapped into this “glamour of the everyday” strand this whole time). One of the reasons I love the band so much is because of its ability to imbue the ordinary and everyday with a sense of glamour. More simply if paradoxically put, and to echo a 1993 Vox headline, “They’re ordinary, that makes them glam.” 

Sometimes concurrent with this glamour of the ordinary, is an equally compelling glamorization of escape from the drudgery of the everyday. As Jane Savidge states in Here They Come With Their Make-Up On, her 2022 book on the making of Coming Up, “...(Suede) are my best means of escape from the humdrum of the everyday, even if they do write songs about the humdrum and the everyday as if our lives depended on it.” In a time when one of the few ways of dealing with the fear and uncertainty of the pandemic was trying to approach the monotony of lockdown with a little frivolity or finding escape through other mediums, Suede provided the perfect soundtrack. 

Jane Savidge served as Suede’s PR Agent throughout the band’s ‘90s heyday, and is arguably the best person to write a 33 1/3-style book on a Suede album, which Here They Come... essentially is, save with a lot of insider perspective and a droller tone. In other words, it’s the perfect music book. 

I know I just stated a paragraph ago that I spent a lot of the early months of the pandemic thinking about Coming Up. Now I must confess that it’s not a favorite Suede record of mine. In spite of that, it includes the first Suede song I’d ever heard (”Beautiful Ones”), the Suede song that has empowered me the most, personally (”By the Sea”), one of the band’s most definitive songs (”Trash”) and two songs that are no brainers for my “Top 10 favorite Suede songs - these are the ones - no questions asked” list (”Picnic by the Motorway” and “The Chemistry Between Us”). But the rest of the record is either “great songs but not SUEDE GREAT” (”She”) or just OK (looking at you “Filmstar” and “Saturday Night” and begrudgingly “Lazy” although I do honestly love it. No comment on “Starcrazy”). It’s a general fan sentiment, but I genuinely prefer a lot of the b-sides and kind of view the whole thing as a great pop record but also something you can put on in the background and go about your business to. For someone who loves Suede for their high drama, there’s no falling to your knees and wailing “Have you ever tried it that way?” to the point of hoarseness -- i.e. I would never scrub the kitchen sink while listening to the debut album or Dog Man Star or Night Thoughts.

And so, like all great books about music, Savidge chronicles Coming Up in such a charming and insightful way that I couldn’t help but reevaluate the record and appreciate it anew. This is in no small part to the band and producer Ed Buller as well, who offer a lot in the way of songwriting and creativity. Several times, these insights touch on the classic pop sensibilities which buoy these songs. A quote from a Guardian interview with frontman Brett Anderson which opens the chapter on “Trash” asserts, “It’s about believing in the romance of the everyday. I really wanted to make a straight-up pop record. We were listening to a lot of ‘60s pop at the time and were very much inspired by the classic three and a half minute single.” 

Elsewhere, keyboardist Neil Codling mentions, in reference to “Lazy,” mentions listening to The Beatles’ “I Feel Fine” in an effort to achieve a Beatles guitar tone and says, “It had an indie sensibility and a classic ‘60s feel as well as sounding ‘90s.” He also talks about the Suede signature being “a bit of grit in the oyster, a twist in the chords or the melodies...” and it’s perhaps one of the most concise statements on one of the reasons these songs endure. 

Similarly enduring and endearing is Savidge, who -- despite the aforementioned input from all members of Suede -- comes across as the biggest star, presiding over everything with wit and insight. If you’ve read either of Anderson’s two memoirs, you might notice he can get a bit florid with his words, and Savidge lovingly diffuses any threats of overseriousness here. Whether observing the “bad, bored bony” protagonist of “She” doesn’t sound very happy or reminiscing about incidents involving Elton John and a champagne cork (not as dirty as that sounds), her prose are a consistent delight. She’s also unafraid of cunningly deriding these songs that fans sometimes are a bit too precious over. In discussing “Trash,” Savidge writes that it “very much knows what it is doing -- preaching to the converted, perhaps -- but doing it with such style and grace that you couldn’t help loving it all the more.” In a way this sums up Here They Come With Their Make-Up On and Coming Up perfectly, it knows what its doing and I already love everyone involved, but its style and grace have me adoring it anew. 

Perhaps nothing can be thought of as so instantly disposable as a wad of chewed gum. It’s an object that is hard to muster one thought about, but in Nina Simone’s Gum, Warren Ellis manages to rhapsodize on a piece of chewed gum for over 100 pages. Granted, this is not any old wad of gum, it once belonged to the great singer and songwriter Nina Simone, who stuck it to her piano when taking the stage at the Nick Cave-curated edition of the Meltdown Festival, which was held in London in 1999. 

Ellis has a rich musical history, most famously as frontman for the Dirty Three and the most prominent Bad Seed of the 21st century, but this is his first foray into writing and hopefully not the last because his prose is eloquent and enchanting. Although a short read, I really stretched out my time with the book because I was so entranced by Ellis’ writing and, by extension, the man himself. His fascinations, his reminiscences and the occasional glimpses of his friendship with Nick Cave all made me wish that everyone had a Warren Ellis of their own.

“It’s always been other people who have brought that potential out of me. I’m the inverse of the gum somehow. It’s about connection. People who have encouraged me to be the best I can, allow me to go unrestrained. Letting ideas take flight. Letting me take flight. The wonder of playing in a band. Making music with people. I was watching something unfold in a visual way, that I sensed often as an abstract or internalised concept.” 

The reverence Ellis has for those who inspired him is, well, inspiring in itself. When recounting seeing another hero, Alice Coltrane, several years after the Nina Simone gig, he writes, “Every recording I have gone into I have in my own way tried to honor her,” and “It was that moment again. Those times you think are never going to happen in your life,” and I’m sure every music lover seeing their heroes performing in the flesh can relate. I also love that, in recalling the Nina Simone Meltdown set, Ellis admits “I can’t recall much of what she played.” It’s a passing sentence but it really speaks to something about transcendence over memory, how some performances are so powerful, it’s not about what was played but rather something beyond the experience itself. In Ellis’ words, a communion. 

But mostly, Nina Simone’s Gum is about collecting and the perception of objects, how something easily disposable can be charged with spiritual significance. Ellis remarks several times that, as the gum makes the rounds from a jeweler to a museum exhibition, he “became aware that the gum was bringing out the best in people.” The gum eventually finds itself on a plinth in the Hallway of Gratitude portion of Nick Cave’s “Stranger Than Kindness” exhibit at the Royal Danish Library, presented as the religious artifact it is in Ellis’ eyes. The process of managing the gum from a curatorial perspective -- from temperature control to assessing the gum’s value for insurance purposes -- is fascinating, and provokes a lot of thoughts about how settings themselves can change an object’s significance (this, paired with the overall theme of the book, reminded me many times of the New Museum’s excellent “The Keeper” exhibition from 2016). 

In discussing the gum’s inclusion in the “Stranger Than Kindness” exhibition, Nick Cave writes in the book’s forward that exhibition goers will “marvel at the significance of this most ordinary and disposable of things...” Just as taking out the trash became an occasion for frivolity for some, so too can a song about the everyday become a pop anthem, and a piece of chewing gum a sacred object. The pandemic and lockdowns may have forced a lot of us to come to terms with the drudgery of the everyday, but with luck they also afforded us a few flashes of beauty amidst the mundane. 

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MWE 2022 preamble:

I’m a bit late in posting this, but all the same I wanted to share what I listened to for MWE on Twitter this past February. It’s a little pointless that I still participate in this, as I don’t really write about music regularly (or even semi-regularly anymore) and I didn’t have much insight in my time of tweeting, but I find it beneficial in a lot of ways -- it never fails to get me out of musical ruts and it allows me to think about music in ways I normally wouldn’t. Also -- and I’d rather not go into detail but it’s plaguing me so I need to get it out there -- but I’ve been having agonizingly bad mental health issues recently, and focusing on activities like MWE really helps me. Would be great to have monthly exercises such as this year ‘round. 

Here’s a very loose ranking of the albums I listened to. I got super lucky this year, in that I really liked almost everything I listened to, but even if I didn’t care for something, I still added a track to the playlist linked above (in some cases, if I really, really loved the record, I added more than one). Check out the playlist if you want, although, since it’s Spotify, it’s understandable if you don’t.

Albums listened to for MWE 2022: 

1) Prince - Lovesexy (1988)

2) Gil Scott-Heron - Pieces of a Man (1971)

3) Sun Ra - Space is the Place (1973)

4) Bruce Springsteen - The River (1980)

5) Viagra Boys - Street Worms (2018)

6) Tim Booth & Angelo Badalamenti - Booth and the Bad Angel (1996)

7) Solange - A Seat at the Table (2016)

8) Missing Persons - Spring Session M. (1982)

9) Thin Lizzy - Shades of a Blue Orphanage (1972)

10) Frank Sinatra - No One Cares (1959)

11) Slick Rick - The Art of Storytelling (1999)

12) The Church - Starfish (1988)

13) French Police - Haunted Castle (2020)

14) CHAI - PINK (2017)

15) Patti Smith - Gone Again (1996)

16) Rachel’s - The Sea and the Bells (1996)

17) John Prine - Sweet Revenge (1973)

18) Popul Vuh - Einsjäger und Siebenjäger (1974)

19) Divine - My First Album (1982)

20) Martika - Self-titled (1988)

21) Lady Gaga - ARTPOP (2013)

22) that dog. - Retreat from the Sun (1997)

23) Soda Stereo - Self-titled (1984)

24) Kid Cudi - Indicud (2013)

25) Manic Street Preachers - The Ultra Vivid Lament (2021)

26) Metric - Old World Underground, Where Are You Now? (2003)

27) Billy Preston - The Kids & Me (1974)

28) Sufjan Sevens - Illinois (2005) 

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A Memory Lane Playlist.

It was my birthday recently so I’ve been reflecting. In particular, I’ve been thinking about the music that has made me who I am today, and what songs have defined each decade of my life the most. So, inspired by those thoughts, as well as my favorite podcaster Mary Wild’s recent Patreon episode on her favorite songs decade by decade, here is a playlist of 30 songs that have made some sort of impact on me, from the decades of my life thus far. Some words on what I chose and why are after the cut. It’s good luck to gift someone on your day of birth, so please enjoy this belated birthday gift from me to you! 

Decade 1: 0-10

1) Pat Benatar - Shadows of the Night

2) Janet Jackson - Escapade

3) Little Eva - The Locomotion

4) Steely Dan - Peg

5) Talking Heads - Life During Wartime

If I’m being completely honest here, this would just be cuts from my Sesame Street cast recording vinyl, but trying to uphold some integrity here. I don’t really have that musical of a family, but my Dad used to play us a lot of Steely Dan and Talking Heads, including watching Stop Making Sense with us, so that’s why those are here. One family member who did play an instrument was my grandmother on my father’s side, who had an amazing Wurlitzer Funmaker organ, and she used to play “The Locomotion” on it (Later this song was of course used to brilliant effect in David Lynch’s INLAND EMPIRE). 

As two kids growing up in the middle of the woods, my brother and I didn’t have a lot of evening entertainment to go on, so we would often listen to the radio and have two person dance parties. The two songs that stand out for me from this time are Pat Benatar’s “Shadows of the Night” and Janet Jackson’s “Escapade.” I was obsessed with figuring skating at the time, so I thought Janet’s song was really called “Ice Capades.” Either way, it’s still a jam. My brother used to try to scare me by telling me “Shadows of the Night” was about ghosts, perhaps germinating my lifelong fixation with spirits? 

Decade 2: 10-20

6) The Beatles - Ticket to Ride

7) Bob Marley & The Wailers - Redemption Song

8) Beck - The New Pollution

9) Pulp - This is Hardcore

10) Radiohead - Paranoid Android

11) PJ Harvey - The Wind

12) Fiona Apple - Paper Bag

13) Elliott Smith - Baby Britian

14) Manic Street Preachers - Of Walking Abortion

15) Interpol - PDA

Like many, many people, The Beatles were the first band I became obsessed with. The Beatles Anthology aired on ABC across three episodes and totally sold me (it also helped that my Mom kept all her old Beatles vinyl and press clippings from the ‘60s). Early Beatles were my favorite, and I also loved A Hard Day’s Night and Help!, which likely led me to believe that all bands lived together (maybe even why I ended up in a band that lived together!). 

My brother was getting really into hip-hop, rap, and reggae at this time and would play Bob Marley’s Legend on repeat. “Redemption Song” is very likely the song I’ve listened to the most in my life, and also became the first song I learned how to play on the guitar (the first song I learned on the piano was, erm, “Silent Night”). 

I used to stay up late every Saturday to watch Saturday Night Live with my parents. I still wasn’t all that into music and sort of checked out during the musical guests, but one episode had this guy named Beck on it and I was stupefied (probably more by his cuteness than his music, if we’re being honest). That performance singlehandedly got me into modern music, and led me on a magical journey of tuning into the local alt stations at weird hours to hear off the radar music (I used to get up at 8am on Sundays solely for two hour new & obscure music show that aired at that time), and begging my parents for cable so I could watch MTV and dial up internet so I could go on Yahoo! chat /altmusic rooms. I also joined a Beck message board, where I met several people who I’m still dear friends with today! 

I was a really shy, lonely and sad tween / teenager and spent all my time after school watching MTV2. I remember having a fever one day and seeing Pulp’s video for “This is Hardcore” for the first time. I thought it was surely a fever dream, but then I saw it again and again and quickly became obsessed with it. I was way too young for the album of the same name, but thanks to Pulp and Radiohead, I soon found myself seeking out and thumbing through all the $10 British music magazines that were sold at the local Borders. This is where I learned about PJ Harvey, who I had a similarly feverish experience with while listening to Is This Desire? while sick in bed with the flu, and ultimately Manic Street Preachers. It always seems totally silly to me in retrospect, but The Holy Bible, and then Turn on the Bright Lights by Interpol, was my gateway to post-punk. Hearing “Of Walking Abortion” for the first time -- I had never heard guitar playing like that before, and it floored me. That opening guitar riff is perhaps the most foundational thing on this list. 

Oh yeah, and Fiona and Elliott are in here because I quoted those songs in my high school year book, senior year, like a true ‘90s kid.

Decade 3: 20-30

16) Scott Walker - Jackie

17) Orange Juice - Rip it Up

18) Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Y Control

19) TV on the Radio - I Was a Lover

20) Magazine - My Tulpa

21) Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - Your Funeral, My Trial

22) Richard Hawley - I’m Looking for Someone to Find Me

23) Atlas Sound - Sheila

24) Patrick Wolf - Tristan

25) The Auteurs - Unsolved Child Murder

These years started out with me being very lonely, very sad, and spending a lot of time looking for music via various music-sharing communities on LiveJournal. Another statement that probably sounds totally dated and silly now, but also what led me to finding some of my most favorite music ever, specifically Scott Walker, Orange Juice, and Magazine. This was also a time in which I was obsessed with the New York scene, and the aforementioned Interpol, as well as Yeah Yeah Yeahs and TV on the Radio, served as a serious catalyst for moving there. 

This was also the decade in which Nick Cave reigned supreme for me, and it was a love for all things Nick Cave, the tarot, and filmmaker Todd Haynes that led James and I to find one another. But before that, I spent a lot of time going to gigs and followed the Bad Seeds on several tour dates. I’ll never stop regretting leaving the 9:30 Club early to catch a bus back to NY and just missing a rare performance of “Your Funeral, My Trial.” 

I was going to lots of shows in this decade, and saw Patick Wolf a million times for some reason (and rather embarrassingly, ended up on stage with him at one show). I became a massive Deerhunter fan, but perhaps fell even harder for Atlas Sound. One of my favorite gigs from this time was an Atlas Sound show at The Bell House, just Bradford, a guitar and a looper pedal. 

If there’s one song that defines this era of wandering city streets alone, however, it’s Richard Hawley’s “I’m Looking for Someone to Find Me.” Not my favorite track or album by Hawley, but one that truly encapsulates many extremely difficult, brutally lonely years in NY. 

Then I started listening to The Auteurs and things got somewhat better. 

Decade 4: 30s

26) The Antlers - I Don’t Want Love

27) Suede - Tightrope

28) Protomartyr - My Children

29) Veda Rays - Coursing Through Veins / Days Bleed

30) The Chameleons - Nostalgia

Some of the bands James and I discussed on our first dates were Nick Cave, Pulp, The Auteurs, Suede and The Antlers. I had just started listening to Burst Apart, which I still maintain is the best Antlers album, so that was something we were both especially jazzed on. Suede didn’t become all that important to me until a few years later, but when they finally hit that nerve, they became absolutely everything. One of the best decisions I’ve ever made was going to Mexico City to see the final show of the Night Thoughts tour, as hearing the whole record and especially “Tightrope” live was as close to an out of body experience as I’ve ever had (I also grabbed / possibly crushed Brett Anderson’s hand at some point). 

I also went to many shows with James, and this was of course a time when I played shows myself for the first time ever. We shot some footage for this particular Veda Rays song in 2020, during a time of no shows, along my hometown’s back roads and in the local Walmart parking lot. In a time of serious reflection and reevaluation, James and I playing our music and traveling those eerie backroads that I spent so many years navigating with only a mix tape as company was a particularly full circle moment. 

After we moved to Philadelphia, the pandemic dissipated slightly and live shows started happening again. Seeing Protomartyr at Underground Arts in Philly was a truly revitalizing moment. This band somewhat reignited my passion for listening to music, a pastime which fell by the wayside amid the chaos of 2020. 

It’s sometimes said that music becomes less important to you as you age, but Protomartyr are just as crucial in my musical makeup as anything else in this list, which is to say it’s good to keep your ear to the ground and not get too caught up in the past. I guess the final song on this playlist, by perhaps my all-time favorite band, is a bit of a cheeky choice in that sense. 

[quarantineroulette]

2021 wasn’t my favorite year, both in terms of music and in terms of things that happened during it (mostly the first half, things are better now). I guess I’m being a little unfair about music here, because I spent a lot of this year too stressed out and anxious to listen to much of anything beyond podcasts. Still, tradition is tradition, and there were some things I listened to in 2021 that I genuinely loved, so I thought I would cobble something together to commemorate another year gone by. Due to not really listening to or liking many 2021 releases, this playlist is by no means limited to very recent past, although it does somehow include more 2021 tunes than throwbacks. 

As with having less interest in new music this year, I also have had less and less time (read: tolerance) for music writing, but my attempt at explaining what these 21 songs meant to me in 2021 is after the cut. Cheers, and may 2021 be kinder to us all! 

1) The Leather Nun - Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (1986). Earlier this year, I watched Nicholas Winding Refn’s sort of frustrating, sort of incredible series Too Old to Die Young, which featured the (very rude) Leather Nun song, “F.F.A.” Following in that vein, “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!” is a suitably sleazy rendition of my favorite ABBA song. While a Swedish punk band covering ABBA may seem like a lazy move, The Leather Nun really excel at bringing out the song’s underlying desperation here.This is also a reminder to myself to listen to the new ABBA record that came out this year.

2) Iceage - Vendetta (2021). Also sleazy but in a more try hard kind of way.I’m a little dismissive of Iceage in general, but this song was stuck in my head for seven months straight so it’s obviously doing something right. Also, Sonic Boom.

3) Ought - Desire (2018). It may be three years old, but Ought’s Room Inside the World was easily the record I listened to the most this year -- probably because, like myself this year, it’s jittery and nervous and vaguely uncool but does it all so passionately and with great (ugh) relevance. “Desire” isn’t exactly indicative of the album as a whole, but it has the most incredibly evocative lyrics -- such as, “you’re like the moon in a basket of wheat / You rose out of the roses / Right under my mouth” -- that I could just fixate on forever. Sad I slept on this record for so long, but grateful it’s so special to me now. 

4) Lana Del Rey - Violets for Roses (2021). Just an elegant, perfectly rendered sigh of relief after a year of suffocation, but also:

5) Low - All Night (2021). Like somebody left a Magical Mystery Tour-era Beatles song out in the sun for too long and then finger painted with the remains. I mean this in absolutely the greatest way possible. 

6) Lingua Ignota - MAN IS LIKE A SPRING FLOWER (2021). I once had a co-worker who was actively involved in a sacred harp choir. Little did I know this form of sacred choral music would serve as the key ingredient in what is possibly the most staggering piece of music this year. Please also check out this excellent consideration of SINNER GET READY on Reddit. 

7) Jarboe - Not Logical (1995). Solidified my opinion that Jarboe-era Swans was the best era. If you’re watching a horror movie, and the soundtrack to someone discovering a body and / or evil entity isn’t as eerie as this, then turn that movie off because it’s doing it wrong.  

8) Bloodslide - Trap Door (2021). Nancy Sinatra’s daughter + guitarist from Protomartyr + drummer for Preoccupations = I can’t believe this is an actual band that released an EP this year and not something I dreamt up as a coping mechanism for the year. Lots more of this, please. 

9) Winkie - This Place is Death (2021). One of our favorite live acts we’ve had the pleasure of sharing the stage with in the before times. This tune is tough, noisy, and could easily beat up any other song on this list. Also, please don’t sleep on the awesome Prima Primo-directed video for it!  

10) Doja Cat feat. SZA - Kiss Me More (2021). A bit of a throwback pop song that doesn’t overstay its welcome and comes with a super lush video to boot. Also, when was the last time you heard a top 40 song with the word “rubbish” in it? 

11) Bunny X feat. Don Dellpiero - Perfect Paradise (2021). Like “Holiday”-era Madonna with a dreamwave twist. Wonderfully liminal in its bridge between eras but in a blissful, non-uncanny kind of way. Will turn every room in your home neon pink, purple, or blue. 

12) Earth, Wind, & Fire - Let’s Groove (1981). From LA to Philadelphia, we’ve heard this song so many times while out and about this year. Probably further proof that the algorithms are taking over, but if that means hearing “Let’s Groove” where ever I go, then I guess I surrender. 

13) St. Vincent - Down (2021). Not the biggest St. Vincent fan but Daddy’s Home worked more often than it didn’t. I could also go either way with producer Jack Antonoff, but his efforts here and particularly on “Down” are pretty stellar accomplishments of achieving the album’s intended sound. That may seem a bit of a dry description, but listen to that electric sitar and you’ll get what I mean (maybe?). 

14) Bodega - Doers (2021). Had the pleasure of hearing the upcoming Bodega record and I humbly believe it betters Endless Scroll in just about every way. “Doers” is a fine taster but by no means the record’s biggest treat. As is the band’s signature style, this is a great commentary on breakneck NY ambition and also most certainly a blazer live. 

15) Veda Rays - Strange Anniversary (2021). Of course I’m putting my own band on here. This is my favorite tune from the album we put out this year, and probably the one I listened to the most, as it took some time relearning it for a couple of really fun live gigs we played this year. If you like Echo and the Bunnymen, then you might like this too. But also please listen closely ‘cos it’s not just that. 

16) Flossing - Add to Cart (2021). Flossing’s debut EP Queen of the Mall is one of those releases that expertly distills its clear cut influences into something revitalizing and refreshing. A clever commentary on consumerism delivered with icy confidence, I’m sure many others will find themselves submitting to Flossing’s charms in the near future.

17) Scam Avenue - Jailbird (2021). Played a gig with Scam Avenue a few years ago and have been wowed by their unpredictable synthpop ever since (in their words, “If Brian Eno wrote the soundtrack for a John Hughes movie, it might sound like Scam Avenue.”). “Jailbird” lulls you in with Devery Doleman’s crystalline vocals, subtly raising the anxiety with perfectly placed synth pulses, before raising every hair on your body with a blistering sax line. This is the beginning of Lost Highway as a dark synthpop song and I am 100% here for it. 

18) Aldous Harding - Revival (2021). I could have just as easily put the equally brilliant “Old Peel” on here, but inventive covers are my weakness. Harding’s breezily creepy reimagining of this Deerhunter tune is nothing short of masterful. 

19) Skeeter Davis - The End of the World (1962). Became obsessed with this song because -- why else? -- Brett Anderson covered it. But really, it’s just a perfect 10 of a pop song in any iteration. Perennial despair at its finest.

20) Caleb Landry Jones - Yesterday Will Come (2021). CLJ is easily one of my favorite actors currently working, and it’s a relief that his music feels too genuinely weird to be written off as a vanity project. Gadzooks Vol 1 follows up his Sacred Bones debut The Mother Stone, and is quite a bit more focused, perhaps most notably in this slice of warped chamber pop.  

21) Alice Coltrane - Galaxy in Satchidananda (1972). Like a cluster of stars embracing you in a cloak of brilliant light In the middle of a cold, uncaring, and chaotic universe. This is really more about World Galaxy as a whole (and also Journey in Satchidananda), but I can’t think of a more transcendent piece of music to listen to as we cast off the old year and greet the new with trepidatious hope, restoration, and love.  

[quarantineroulette]

My band put out a song last Friday. Check it out here! 

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28 Albums in 28 Days

Last month, I participated in #MWE for the first time. In short, it’s a 28-day long music writer / music lover exercise in which you listen to an album you’ve never heard before and tweet a few thoughts on it. A longer explanation of its genesis can be found here. I really enjoyed it for the most part but, as with all things Twitter, there were some pros and cons. 

Pros: I’ve had a real lack of desire to listen to music since the pandemic began, so this exercise really got me out of that rut, at least for a month. It also pulled me out of my comfort zone of listening to the same 10 bands over and over, and I discovered some things I really loved! However...

Cons: I fear I chose poorly / just don’t like much music because most of what I listened to left me lukewarm. Somewhat surprisingly, a lot of the albums I listened to by indie artists I flat out did not like / found completely forgettable. Also, some shit went down in our home about halfway through the month, which made active listening incredibly difficult. 

But these are just my poor excuses, and all this said, I flat out loved the first 10 records listed below. The rest ranged from “pretty great” to “very meh,” but I’m glad I listened all the same. And, yes, it’s ridiculous to judge an album on one listen, so I look forward to revisiting a lot of these, just probably not the Foxygen record (sorry). 

28 Albums I listened to for #MWE, in very loose ranking: 

Alice Coltrane - World Galaxy

Jarboe - Sacrificial Cake

The Leather Nun - Force of Habit

Ought - Room Inside the World

Handsome Boy Modeling School - So...How’s Your Girl?

Gazelle Twin - Unflesh

Mos Def - The Ecstatic

Danger Mouse - The Grey Album 

Madonna - Confessions on a Dance Floor

The Time - Ice Cream Castles

Tyler, The Creator - IGOR 

Muddy Waters - Fathers and Sons

David Sylvian & Holger Czukay - Flux & Mutability

Wipers - Youth of America

Miley Cyrus - Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Pets

Billy Nomates - Self-titled

John Foxx - Metamatic

The Whispers - Self-titled

Ryuichi Sakamoto - Thousand Knives

Special Interest - The Passion Of

Mike Viola and the Candy Butchers - Falling Into Place

Kool Keith - Sex Style 

The Stockholm Monsters - Alma Mater

Sweet - Desolation Boulevard

The Apples in Stereo - New Magnetic Wonder 

Foxygen - We Are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace & Magic

Swamp Dogg - Rat On!

Ezra Furman - Perpetual Motion People 

[quarantineroulette]

On Mariana Enriquez’s Wicked and Wonderful “The Dangers of Smoking in Bed”

If anything has ever made me believe that reality is a projection, it was reading Mariana Enriquez’s Things We Lost in the Fire. The short story collection, with its tales of the horrific and macabre, Latin American culture, and Manic Street Preachers references, felt eerily like something that was dredged from the recesses of my brain and brought forth into the “real” world. In short, I really vibed with Mariana’s style and some of the stories -- particularly “Spiderweb” and “The Neighbor’s Courtyard” -- still unsettle me years later. 

Enriquez is back with her second short story collection to be translated into English, The Dangers of Smoking in Bed. Originally published in 2009, its stories precede those found in Things We Lost but follow similar beats. Structurally, I found the books pretty similar -- both have subtly supernatural teenage reminisces, a woman who becomes obsessed with something untoward, and lots of disappearances (Enriquez, after all, grew up at the time of Argentina’s Dirty War, in which 30,000 people disappeared). 

But Smoking’s stories disturbed and captivated me in many new ways. Reading the stories in this time of travel restrictions and bans brought forth an emphasis on being trapped, sometimes within a community (”The Cart”) and other times a whole city (”Rambla Triste”). Of course the stories are about much more than this, and perhaps more closely speak to traumas ranging in scale from personal to cultural, and I look forward to reading them again when we’re all able to move about more freely. 

Although each story is haunting in its own special way, there were two that discomfited me so much that I had to put Smoking down and step away for awhile. I don’t really know why, but few things unsettle me more than all-consuming, possibly debilitating obsessions and flayings, and this book had both - and back to back, no less! That said, “Where Are You, Dear Heart” is possibly my favorite story in the collection, a tale of a woman with a very specific fetish that is so intoxicating in its prose that you don’t realize how fucked up its gotten until the distressing final sentence. Rather than just being a shocking or weird tale, the protagonist is painted with great passion and sensitivity, and Enriquez gives much attention to the psychology of fetishes. The way she writes about the narrator’s fixation with a particular character in Jane Eyre, and the part it played in the development of the fetish is particularly moving:

That final night, Helen and Jane slept together. Today, when I remember that chapter...I understand everything: when Jane gets into the dying girl’s bed and Helen says to her, “Are you warm, darling?” Darling. Darling. It was a love scene...That chapter: every night, every one, I lay down and hugged my pillow and pretended it was Helen, but I didn’t fall asleep like that idiot Jane, oh no. I watched her die, held her hand, and she, who was expiring with her gray gaze fixed on my eyes as she fought for breath, allowed me to see something of that other place where she would spend eternity.

I hate to use such a dry word for such vibrant stories, but I always appreciate the economy of Enriquez’s writing. Just enough information is given on characters and situations, and the slight ambiguity allows these stories to live on beyond the page. Translator Megan McDowell has done a tremendous job; having written back and forth with Enriquez, I can easily detect her voice in all these tales. 

If I have any criticism for The Dangers of Smoking in Bed, it’s a niggle about order: I would have liked to have seen its longest story, “Kids Who Come Back” as its last. With its first story (”Angelita Unearthed”) being about a dead baby who haunts its narrator, and “Kids” being about missing children mysteriously reappearing, the collection would essentially begin and end with kids who come back. But again, this is a very minuscule criticism, and I, for one, will be coming back regardless. 

[quarantineroulette]

2020 Releases that I listened to more than once / stuck with me in some way.

Excuse my pessimism, but 2020 was a year in which finding solace in music was of little use to me. I also had less time than ever to listen to music. I spent the worst of the pandemic displaced and with limited internet access, then moved to another city and switched careers, two changes which I still haven’t fully comprehended. I also spent 98% of my free time feeling too anxious about the future as a whole to do any sort of listening, focused or passive. 

Things eventually got settled enough that I could at least check out what various music publications were fussing about in their year-end round ups. Not the most ideal avenue for discovery, but this has been a hard, tiring year and, despite some very promising releases and trends, I still feel a bit hopeless. I can’t even really be bothered to do any sort of ranking or make things even with a “20 for 2020,” so instead here’s a summary of some music that stood out to me. I can promise there are at least 15 releases mentioned - you can do a “choose your own adventure”  and rank them as you wish. 

Without a doubt, the only 2020 record that truly elevated me to a place where I stopped stressing out about things was Protomartyr’s Ultimate Success Today. These guys are by far my favorite band right now and their fifth album gave me so many new reasons to love them, from the propulsive “Michigan Hammers” and its stock footage masterpiece of a music video to elegant closer “Worm in Heaven.” Saxophonist Jemeel Moondoc, cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm and multi-instrumentalist Izaak Mills were deployed on most tracks and, rather than merely serving as a garnish for songs, their contributions added as much tension, heft, and brutal beauty as Protomartyr’s core members. Add in Half Waif’s Nandi Rose guesting on the Very Sad “June 21,” and you have one genuinely faultless release. In a similar vein, Algiers released their third and arguably strongest full-length, There is No Year, back in January and it served as a powerful, prescient (the title alone!) and just plain awesome reminder to keep fighting in even the darkest of times. 

This year I occasionally found myself praying for disco and I’m pretty sure Doja Cat’s sorta Chic-inspired “Say So” was the song I listened to the most in 2020 (yes, shame on me for a million different reasons). But little did I know 2020 was such an abundant year for mirrorball-indebted releases. Kylie Minogue’s Disco was a given, but what especially thrilled me were Roisin Murphy’s Roisin Machine and Jessie Ware’s What’s Your Pleasure? Murphy’s outstanding “Murphy’s Law” especially sounds like a lost classic from the ‘70s, while Ware’s titular “What’s Your Pleasure” is as fitting a Donna Summer tribute as any you could come across in the past 40 or so years. Ware’s record became slightly less cool when I realized she’s a podcasting mom who is friends with Adele, but What’s Your Pleasure?’s irresistible procession of Great Pop Moments solidifies it as one release I’ll keep coming back to. 

(Bonus: if you favor a no-wave / post-punk spin on disco, then look no further than Public Practice’s Gentle Grip). 

Ware and Murphy have been particularly prevalent on many of the major year-end lists, but I still carry a bit of skepticism about such things. Therefore, discussions such as this sub-Reddit (sorry) thread on regional picks has been useful in thinking outside the US and UK-favoring ranking systems (although there’s still a lot of anglo shit listed there as well). I’m hoping to listen to more releases from oft-overlooked countries thanks to some of these Redditors’ suggestions, although I’ve already spent a bit of time with Einsturzende Neubauten’s Alles in Allem and remain Team Blixa (if such a team exists). Despite my aforementioned trepidation, The Quietus’  list did compel me to check out the wonderfully somber offerings of Closed Circuits. This Portuguese artist describes himself as “Leonard Cohen being bothered by Coil,” and if that doesn’t entice you, I fear you may be a lost cause.  

This year we moved to Philadelphia, which means...A lot of things, but relevant to this summary, we found ourselves driving past some provocative graffiti stating “Make America Nothing Again” numerous times. Eventually I put two and two together and gave Nothing’s The Great Dismal a listen. Having not expected much beyond the clever marketing, I was pleasantly wowed by the quartet’s moody post-shoegaze offerings. I can barely discern any of the lyrics, but on vibe alone, The Great Dismal perfectly captures the heavy despair that permeated 2020. Add in Korine’s gloom-pop The Night We Raise and I can confidently say that Philly’s music scene is in good hands. 

I might have lied a bit at the start of this post - in saying I didn’t listen to music throughout 98% of the pandemic, I’m overlooking the many car rides spent revisiting Fontaines D.C.’s brilliant 2019 debut, Dogrel. While it didn’t impress me quite as much, this year’s A Hero’s Death was a mostly worthy successor, interspersing a few tranquil moments among the band’s more confrontational offerings. Not all of those moments worked for me, but these new directions were enticing enough for me to officially consider Fontaines a Band To Watch, if that’s still something people say. Oh yeah, and the video for the title tune slams. 

Speaking of music videos, I don’t usually rely on this medium for discovering bands, but that changed this year with Dehd. The trio’s videos are vibrant, conceptually clever, and relentlessly fun. Thank goodness that the music lives up to Dehd’s visual knack, with Flower of Devotion at times recalling The Jesus and Mary Chain and Roy Orbison in equal measure (especially on the stunning “Letter”). Emily Kempf’s versatile singing reminds me of everyone from Jana Hunter of Lower Dens to Carla Bozulich of The Geraldine Fibbers, yet it’s still bracing enough that every word she sings sounds utterly gripping. Who knows when gigs will happen again, but Flower of Devotion rocketed these folks to the top of my post-Covid gigging wishlist.  

Sparks is one act I can happily say I’ve seen numerous times. They are never ones to disappoint but, nearly 40 years into their career, the Mael brothers owe us nothing. Yet A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip is somehow an instant classic. It’s nothing short of astonishing that, at 75, Ron Mael can crank out a song that is equal parts insanely catchy, effortlessly humorous and deceptively sad, but he yet again nailed this trifecta with “Lawnmower,” to name but one. Russell Mael’s invincible vocals are in full effect throughout, particularly on the straight up lovely “Pacific Standard Time.” I would never even entertain the idea of using the term “pop / rock juggernaut,” but if it was regarding Sparks, I would at least not dispute it. 

(PS, special shout out to another singular duo of relatives, Prima Primo, who this year released my favorite song about Madonna since Sparks’ very own Madge tune, featured on 1988′s Interior Design.)

Finally, this list would absolutely be incomplete if I didn’t give mention to Bob Dylan’s fabulous Rough and Rowdy Ways. More than ever, 2020 felt like a year rife with stupid decisions, stupid actions and praise for mediocrity. A return to form from perhaps the greatest lyricist of all time is something many of us probably didn’t know we needed, but boy am I thankful for it (not as thankful as I would be for a second stimulus check, but still - next best thing). Dylan also gave us the fun bonus of having Fiona Apple guest on the outstanding “Murder Most Foul,” and of course Apple’s own Fetch the Bolt Cutters both featured her dogs as percussion and further solidified her place in the socio-political songwriting canon. Maybe there is something to be said for music after all!  

[quarantineroulette]

The True Grit of Mark Lanegan’s Sing Backwards and Weep

Mark Lanegan’s 2020 memoir, Sing Backwards and Weep, is possibly the easiest hard read I’ve ever read. A warts and all - sometimes literally, like when he recounts freeze-burning warts off his privates in a Seattle health clinic - approach to the rock bio, it goes deep into the shadow world of drug addiction with few traces of light. Sing Backwards and Weep is also, and pardon the pun, an addictive read and I found it hard to resist Lanegan’s many misadventures, no matter how dire they became (and boy do things get harrowing!). 

This has as much to do with Lanegan’s knack for storytelling as it does the actual content of the book. My interest in grunge doesn’t extend much beyond my general fascination with trends of the ‘90s, but I still loved reading of Lanegan’s many encounters with some of the genres greatest personalities. In terms of his own history within the genre, Lanegan refrains from giving making of stories much of the spotlight, not surprising considering his outspoken dissatisfaction with pretty much everything surrounding his own grunge band, Screaming Trees. That said, I do wish Lanegan had imparted a few words on how he developed his velvet rasp singing style, especially given how well-loved a vocalist he is. 

Lanegan is masterful at humanizing the people in his life, and very few of the major bandmates, peers and enemies he writes about come across as two dimensional. I found myself feeling a great reverence for the same people he did and a disgust for those he didn’t (looking at you, Al Jourgensen). It’s quite a feat to pull this off when discussing someone who has been as deified as Kurt Cobain, but Lanegan brings the same realism to this friend as any other, especially in this passage about turning down appearing with Nirvana for the band’s legendary MTV Unplugged performance:     

“He was always looking for ways to shine light on my talents and lift me up, but his ideas often struck me as slightly embarrassing, inappropriate charity, if you will. It just felt weird to me as a relatively unknown singer to come out and do a song with the biggest band in the world during a taping of what was a very popular show.”

This trend of turning Big Things down leads to some of the most low-key depressing moments in the book, such as when Lanegan ghosts on an offer from David O. Russell to have his solo songs provide a crucial soundtrack to the mega-director’s debut, Spanking the Monkey. It was more convenient for Lanegan to stay in the 10 block radius of his Seattle apartment and shoot heroin, so why bother? 

This surrendering to narcotics only worsens as the book progresses and includes graphic withdrawals, desperate scores in hellish weather conditions, beating bait and switch dealers to a pulp, and ultimately homelessness. This is about as far from heroin chic as one can get, and it’s pretty miraculous that Lanegan is still with us today, although his portrayal of himself as a rough dude from a shitkicker town provides some elucidation as to why and how. 

Sing Backwards and Weep may be gritty, but Lanegan’s eloquence imbues even some of the most dismal situations with a kind of poetry. Following an incident that involves inadvertently having sex on fiberglass, Lanegan sums it up with the grimly elegant, “That was my life in a nutshell: a stolen moment of desperate pleasure, an assful of tiny daggers, then an eternity of agony.” Some rock memoirs revel in hedonism and dismal situations just as much as in moments of glory. In Sing Backwards and Weep, even flashes of pleasure are undercut with assfuls of fiberglass and genital warts. It’s not always pretty, but there’s something irresistible about it nonetheless. 

Rating: Would quarantine with again. 

*We watched Spanking the Monkey recently and it features lots of great Morphine songs instead of Lanegan solo and one scene features a nice shout-out by way of a Mark Lanegan poster on Jeremy Davies’ bedroom wall. So recommending this as well. 

[quarantineroulette]

Why Protomartyr’s “June 21″ is 2020′s Song of the Summer

 Protomartyr’s fifth full-length, Ultimate Success Today, is an extraordinary work. So extraordinary that I’ve aborted writing about it three times now, because I just can’t quite put how special Protomartyr’s music is into decent or illuminating words. I can, however, try to single out one song and write about how awesome it is, so here goes: 

Consolation, the EP that preceded Ultimate Success Today, showed some hints of where Protomartyr were headed. It serves as a perfect bridge between preceding full-length Relatives in Descent and Ultimate Success Today, with the more traditionally Protomartyrish opening songs giving way to new additions to the band’s musical lexicon on the final two tracks. Consolation’s closing track, “You Always Win,” features a cello, bass clarinet and backing vocals from Kelley Deal. As Joe Casey sings in Ultimate Success Today’s “Bridge & Crown,”“only the end can claim ultimate success,” something which “You Always Win” elaborates on.  

Ultimate Success Today is about failings both bodily and systemic (and so much more). Woodwinds, courtesy of saxophonist Jemeel Moondoc and multi-instrumentalist Izaak Mills, and cello (Fred Lonberg-Holm) play a key factor throughout. Nandi Rose, aka Half Waif, offers vocal accompaniment on four tracks, although her contribution is most prominent on “June 21,” which begins with Rose singing of a dead ballerina. A sad image, and the rest of the song gets sadder from there, but the specificity of the sadness is what elevates it from being your run of the mill gloomy tune. 

“June 21″ belongs to one of my favorite sub-genres of sad songs, that of the sad summer song (although as I type this, I can only name two other sad summer songs off the top of my head -“Die in the Summertime” by Manic Street Preachers and “Summertime Sadness” by Lana Del Rey). Summer has often made me feel strangely melancholic - if you’re prone to staying indoors, there’s a constant nag of feeling as though you’re missing out, even moreso when you’re stuck inside and suffering from any manner of infirmity or illness. “June 21″ excels at distilling a sort of stasis and despair specific to these hot, slowed down months, and in a more beautiful way than Protomartyr is generally known for. Protomartyr has certainly done “beautiful” before (perhaps the most apparent example here is “Night-Blooming Cereus” on Relatives in Descent) but Rose’s addition to “June 21″ adds a certain degree of sweetness - as Casey has said in a recent interview, “I sound like a dying dog sometimes. I think I like a sweet voice mixed with a dying dog.“ Casey is not exactly at dying dog level here, but when his and Rose’s voices join together on the refrain, the result is a bit like an ice cream headache (and I mean that as a 100% compliment). 

The song begins with a saxophone hum, presaging the field recording of crickets and other nighttime creatures that closes the track. It also reminds me of the buzz of an air conditioner that’s seen better days or the hum of electricity in the air on humid summer nights. Protomartyr excels at tension building, and here that sax buzz sets the tone perfectly, making way for a guitar that nags like a single gnat before exploding into a swarm of them around the minute and 30 mark (as always, guitarist Greg Ahee, bassist Scott Davidson and drummer Alex Leonard are insanely on the mark here). The song offers a number of deft sketches of summertime city scenes, and the tension of the music works quite nicely in conveying the disorientation of speeding cars and sirens cutting through balmy summertime stillness. 

 In the general scope of things, no summer has felt quite as maudlin for so many as summer 2020. With its references to cops on the prowl and “mass for the shut-ins,” “June 21″ seems particularly relevant in the wake of police brutality and a pandemic forcing so many indoors. It has also felt weirdly reflective to me personally, and a phrase from “June 21 - “across the fields of my memories” - feels almost painfully poignant to me at times. But, so much has changed for all of us in these last six months. In a lot of ways, our lives may never quite be the same way again. If this is the summer of staying in, reflecting, and feeling anxious, at least we have an exceptional soundtrack for it. 

[quarantineroulette]

20 Favorites from the 2010s

Happy New Year! I could only rescue 20 albums from the 2010s, there are the 20(ish - I doubled up on some) I would carry into the 2020s with me. May this act as your soundtrack on the lazy, hungover day that is January 1st. 

20) Rihanna: Anti-

19) The National: Sleep Well Beast. Still not the hugest The National fan, but I have huge respect for any band that can nearly bring drunken Irishmen to tears, which actually happened when we played “Dark Side of the Gym” in a bar last year. 

18) Leonard Cohen: You Want it Darker .

17) Ahnoni - Hopelessness .

16) Ariel Pink - Dedicated to Bobby Jameson . 13 weird pop gems that are all definitely #1 hits in some alternate, better reality. 

15) Omni - Deluxe . 

14) FFS - FFS . Funny, smart, and touching, this is the “feel good” album of the decade for me. It’s astonishing that Sparks are still doing new things this late into their career, and this is perhaps example #1 in an argument for why they should never stop. And has there ever been a better or more gleeful anthem for misanthropes than “Piss Off”?

13) Lana Del Rey - Norman Fucking Rockwell!! / Ultraviolence 

12) Danny Brown - Atrocity Exhibition . More stressful than a Safdie Brothers film.

11) Purple Mountains - Purple Mountains

10) David Bowie - Blackstar . I remember James telling me he almost woke me up in the middle of the night & said to me, “Maria, David Bowie died. What are we going to do?” I still don’t know what we’re doing. 

9) Kendrick Lamar - To Pimp a Butterfly / DAMN. We all know that pretty much everything Kendrick does is brilliant, but to choose just one, I’ll go with “HUMBLE.” and its video in particular. I C O N I C

8) Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Skeleton Tree . “Girl in Amber” = best Nick song of the 2010s. I won’t be discussing this further. 

7) Fiona Apple - The Idler Wheel… . Raw, beautifully sparse, and far greater a risk than it ever needed to be. I can’t think of an album from the past decade that was more singular. 

6) Moonface - Julia with Blue Jeans On . “November 2011” is a Nick Cave-caliber love ballad, and the whole album sounds like it was composed by a deranged, fur-clad poet sitting in a room filled with frayed paperbacks and nothing else. 

5) The Antlers - Burst Apart . My tastes are suspect at times, but I honestly cannot believe this was excluded from the major end-of-decade music lists. Perhaps the trio’s most unique, mature, and consistent release. A respite from the trauma of Hospice but not yet at the same level of peace as Familiars, but heck, all three are fucking tremendous. 

4) Protomartyr - Relatives in Descent . I really don’t know what I can say about Protomartyr, because all my praise of them is so effusive that you won’t believe that any band could be so perfect. But guess, what, they are and Relatives in Descent is a flawless record. I don’t understand how Greg Ahee isn’t being praised to the heavens for his staggering guitar playing, and Joe Casey is of course an all-around great, a poet and genius frontman -- a brilliant concoction of Nick Cave, Mark E Smith, and woke, Midwestern Dad. 

3) Suede - Night Thoughts / The Blue Hour . I can tell you in absolute seriousness that Night Thoughts changed my life. It made me overcome fears, introduced me to new friends, and distracted me from the drudgery of everyday life. Sometimes I sing “I Don’t Know How to Reach You” to myself as I search for missing books at work, and nine times out of 10 this method somehow works. The Blue Hour wasn’t as pivotal to me, but albumwise it was even bolder and more ridiculous, so it’s still earned my eternal respect. It also partially led to me befriending one of my favorite authors, so flying many miles to see this band and be in the presence of my other fave woke Dad seems pretty well justified to me. There may have been more relevant records in the 2010s, but none were as personally significant to me as these, and that’s worth all the relevance in the world.  2) Deerhunter - Halcyon Digest . Any album with a song inspired by a Dennis Cooper short story is going to rate very highly on a list by me. That the song, “Helicopter,” also happens to be my favorite single of the 2010s is just a bonus. Holding a well-justified classic status means there’s little I can say about Halcyon that hasn’t already been said. These songs will live on long after we’re all dead, and future alien races will still be worshipping “Coronado” in all its sax-laden glory. Dark, dreamy brilliance. 

1) PJ Harvey - Let England Shake / The Hope Six Demolition Project . We all (hopefully) know that Let England Shake is a work of art, but where is the love for Hope Six? I honestly don’t think I’ve ever heard anything quite like it, yet it sounds like a pure PJ record all the same: the bluesy-ness (here melded with saxes and martial drumming), the Flood co-production, PJ’s peerless vocals. Sometimes the songs take on the qualities of battle hymns yet carry a fierce and critical political undertones. Two records of bold, wholly unique protest music done with the focus and care that so much politlcal music - and politics in general - overlooks. And they somehow sound even better with each listen. If I have one wish for this new decade, it’s that everything will be more like this in every sense. And if we can’t have that, there will at least hopefully be another equally brilliant PJ record instead. 

[quarantineroulette]

Minor Disappointments’ 10 Least Disappointing Releases of 2019

I wasn’t going to compile a 2019 year-end list for a number of reasons (lack of time to listen to new music, general malaise, little time to write), but I’ve read so much bad end of year music writing that I feel like I must either stoke the embers or assist in extinguishing it. I don’t think I’m doing either here, but everyone likes list so here’s another.

I haven’t had time to really think about 2019 in songs but my favorite this year was, no kidding, a Tindersticks song featuring Robert Pattinson. Speaking of...

10) FKA twigs - Magdalene

  I really wish I hadn’t remembered that Pattinson and twigs dated because it put a slight damper on my enjoyment of this album. Instead of appreciating it in all its genre-destroying glory, as I did on my first listen, subsequent spins led to me becoming sidetracked by tabloid speculation over what RPattz must have done to have wronged this very singular artist. So, whether this is your first listen or 50th, forget all that I just wrote and instead let twigs fill your empty mind with her sometimes delicate, sometimes Kate Bush-evoking, wholly epic songs.

Favorite moment: It’s pretty commendable and bold to place the lead single as the closing track, especially if its something as monumentally gut-wrenching as “Cellophane.” Also, that video is the visual treasure everyone says it is, no fooling. 

9) Weyes Blood - Titanic Rising

If you’ve ever heard Karen Carpenter’s Beatles covers you might have some idea as to what this record is like. But beyond Natalie Mering’s cozy vocals and timeless compositions is an undercurrent of ambient mystery that sets everything ever so slightly askew. At times, Laurel Canyon vibes are completely dispelled for more crepuscular textures, as in the album’s centerpiece, the Julee Cruise-esque “Movies.” Who knows where Mering will go next, but her path, whether from the California sun or glow of the silver screen, is certainly bright. 

Favorite moment:  “A Lot’s Gonna Change”, “Andromeda”, “Everyday” - as strong of a three song run as on any release this year. 

8) Angel Olsen - All Mirrors

The cynic in me wanted to resist this album, but as soon as the cinematic strings kicked in on “Lark” I decided the enormous amount of critical hyperbole that was being thrown at it was mostly warranted. Stately, dramatic, occasionally synthy and largely devastating, All Mirrors taught me that sometimes you may find many of your favorite things in the unlikeliest of places. Please insure your heartstrings. 

Favorite moment: “Spring” which, like a lot of great songs, sounds a little like a fairground ride breaking down. 

7) Danny Brown - uknowhatimsayin¿

This might be the funnest album I’ve listened to all year. It can be hard to do positive but “Best Life” is as heartening as Nardwuar’s interview with Brown and fewer things are happier than that. With his fifth album, Brown has proven he can ably do every mood with aplomb. And if using cleaning references as euphemisms is your poison, then, hell, he can do that too. 

Favorite moment: “Hoes on my dick ‘cos I look like Roy Orbison.” Need I say more?

6) Omni - Networker

One of the strongest post-to-the-nth-degree-punk bands from the latter 2010s, I still have Omni’s 2016 debut, Deluxe, on heavy rotation. Networker, the trio’s third record and first on Sub Pop, has no shortage of twists, turns, technical dexterity, quirk and compositional audacity. Looks like I’ll be overplaying this one too. 

Favorite moment: I could listen to “Courtesy Call” over a hundred times and I still wouldn’t be able to guess what direction it’s going to go in. 

5) Aldous Harding - Designer

 Of all the artists on this list, I find Harding the most inspiring in both her songwriting and her performing style, which is arresting to say the least. The songs on Designer are paradoxically accessible and impenetrable, with seemingly breezy songs like “Weight of the Planets” leaving you with a feeling that’s a cross between a “wow!” and a “huh?”(perhaps a bit like this). Most impressive of all, Harding draws to mind such greats as Nick Drake, Syd Barrett and Nico while always sounding completely like herself. I honestly don’t know what layer of reality Harding is from, but we should all be thankful she’s residing in ours for the time being. 

Favorite moment: “The Barrel” had been in my YouTube queue for ages; after finally watched it I was left confused, mildly disturbed, amused and completely beguiled. This kookily hatted lady is just semi-dancing in a heavily-draped room for nearly five minutes and it’s the most fascinating video in years. If the video wasn’t entertaining enough, it also happens to have one of the funniest and sweetest comment threads on YouTube. Oh yeah, and the song is brilliant. 

4) Deerhunter - Why Hasn’t Everything Already Disappeared?

Deerhunter have really only misstepped once for me and that was with 2015′s Fading Frontier. Seeing as this is the band’s first full length since then, I had quite a bit of trepidation going in. Of course, a lot can happen in four years and Why Hasn’t Everything... is a thankfully thrilling addition to the band’s canon. Whether it be Cate Le Bon’s production, Bradford’s growing ease as a performer and eccentric, Lockett’s unexpectedly Low-esque "Tarnung,” or all of the above, this may well be Deerhunter’s most consistent release since Halcyon Digest. I’m even slightly tempted to say it’s better than it, but the sacrilege is too great.

Favorite moment: “What Happens to People” -- totally unique to the Deerhunter canon and already a classic. 

3) Lana Del Rey - Norman Fucking Rockwell!!

I never thought I could ever love an album with a Sublime cover on it, but here we are. In all fairness, the inclusion of “Doin’ Time” matters little when the originals on this treatise on Americana is so glorious.  Between the torchiness and the LA-specific witchiness of songs like “Bartender”, there’s not much on here that I’m able to resist. There may still be haters but “The Greatest” drowns them out a little more with each play.  Favorite Moment: “And we were so obsessed with writing the next best American record” - yeah, thank you for doing that.  2) Karen O & Danger Mouse - Lux Prima Truth be told, the first time I listened to this record I cried when it ended because I didn’t want to leave its world. There may have been more radical records by newer artists in 2019, but hearing Karen O doing what she does best, as well as trying many new things, was such a joy to me. I’m probably among only a handful of people who wanted to hear Karen do a straight up disco song in 2019, but we got it and it’s something to be treasured for years to come. To paraphrase Sparks + Franz Ferdinand, collaborations don’t (often) work, but thanks to O’s flawless vocals and Brian Burton’s sometimes Dave Fridmann-esque production, this one is an exception.  Favorite Moment:  I’m tempted to say the whole thing, but “Turn the Light” and “Redeemer” are maybe two of the biggest surprises on an album of many. 

1) Purple Mountains - Purple Mountains 

Purple Mountains is quite possibly a new touchstone in gallows humor. Given David Berman’s suicide less than a month after the record’s release, what should now be a grim and discomfiting listen is so mordant and wry that it somehow overpowers its bleakness. More striking than perhaps even the moments of humor is the album’s tenderness, so beautifully represented in songs like “Snow is Falling in Manhattan” and “I Loved Being My Mother’s Son.” Although it’s undeniably tragic that there will be no more words from Berman, the ones he’s left us with will fascinate and move us for decades to come. 

Favorite Moment: Unsurprisingly, Berman’s lyrical dexterity on this album is beyond measure. From the internal and slant rhymes in a line like “see the plod of the flawed individual looking for a nod from God” to the layers of meaning in “the light of my life is going out tonight”, the wordsmithery here is mesmerizing. If I had the time, I would gladly write an essay on how Berman used color to further emphasize a point. Thanks for the music, David, but thanks especially for the words. 

[quarantineroulette]

Wrote this for my day job. Check it if you like ghosts, art, or especially ghosts in art.