Tag: Alejandro Rose-Garcia

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Sunday Songs: 9/24/23

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Sunday, bibliophiles! I hope this week has treated you well.

Guess who’s back! Here I am again, and I think I’m almost ready to get back on my somewhat-normal blogging schedule. While I was away, I still made the Sunday Songs graphics, but I just posted them on my personal Instagram; even though I never wrote about them, I think they’re all cool and that you should listen to them, so here are the songs for most of September:

9/3/23:

9/10/23

9/17/23

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 9/24/23

“On the Floor” – Perfume Genius

No, sorry, this isn’t the J-Lo “On the Floor.” I doubt that one’ll end up on one of these posts. Listen, I had a group project in my freshman year of high school where my friends and I had to make a version of it about reflexive verbs for Spanish II. You can understand why I’m not too keen on revisiting it.

Instead, have a wonderfully bubbly song that has no connotations about group projects for Spanish class! Huzzah! Back in June, I saw Perfume Genius open for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and while nothing can come close to the performance of the latter, I still came away with a few excellent Perfume Genius songs in my back pocket. The grinding indie chug of “Describe” overshadowed the few that I downloaded, but the other day, “On the Floor” came on shuffle right before I was about to pack things up for bed, and I couldn’t help but have an impromptu, one-woman dance party in my dorm room. Under the glow of my rainbow lights (I feel like Mike Hadreas would approve), I felt a rush of fizzy joy, like the pop of a freshly-opened can of soda, bubbling up in me as the notes filtered through my headphones. Ever since, it’s never failed to put a smile on my face. It has the same effect as a lot of Japanese Breakfast songs have on me; from the glistening guitars to the ethereal harmonies in the chorus, every part of “On the Floor” seems to glitter. It’s a song coated in colorful lights, twinkling like the panels of a disco ball as Hadreas sings of what he drescibed as “that maddening, solitary part of desire.” It’s a song laden with no shortage of obsession and longing, but coated in the most joyous façade of pop, impeccably polished. In stark contrast, the video feels…very Perfume Genius, from my limited scope of his work, but doesn’t mesh as much with how I perceived the song? “On the Floor” seems more suited to scenes of a club bathed in pink and purple lights, as opposed to a sweaty Mike Hadreas rolling around in the dirt with a lover that fades away like the breeze (like the crush he describes projecting onto). You do you, I guess.

“Kind Ghosts” – Sparklehorse

Ouchie.

I don’t have much experience with listening to posthumous albums, save for David Bowie’s Toy, and even in that case, it was more that Toy was fully recorded and then shelved while he was still alive, while Sparklehorse’s Bird Machine was never finished in his too-short lifetime. And even though my reputation for sad bastard music precedes me (be grateful that these posts never originated when I started listening to Radiohead), Bird Machine hurt to listen to. I can’t rightly say if my tolerance for sad music has faded since then, but if I had to sum it up, sometimes it helps to have the feeling of being consumed by sound. For a lot of artists in that vein, the spectrum of all that kind of all-consuming sound is somewhere that you can lose yourself in; on the one end, Radiohead felt like being transported into a haunting, alien landscape, a whole dimension where I could detach myself from the earthly world. (High school does that to a gal.) Right on the other end, Julien Baker’s first album, Sprained Ankle, was just the right amount of raw and vulnerable to feel as though the music was watching over me as I grieved. Even though I will always champion narratives of hope and the value of love, I’m not about to discount the times in which sad music is exactly what I needed. Healing should always be the goal, and I am better for having healed from what Baker was there for me with, but there’s something to be said for, in her words, “giving the sorrow some company.” And even though I only break out the specific “sad bastard music” playlist for that reason, sometimes it’s just simply feeling the sweeping swell of emotion surround you. I feel it with non-sad music as well (ever heard of Hunky Dory? Talk about sweeping), but the thread here is that I can’t not feel everything—good and bad—like a tidal wave some days. Thus, I gravitate to songs that make me feel that way. Big feels need company.

But here, it’s hard to lose myself. It’s not that it isn’t “sweeping” by my wobbly definition, but a song like this is almost impossible to separate from Mark Linkous’ circumstances. “Kind Ghosts” is a truly gorgeous song, with buzzing-insect effects on Linkous’ voice and a distorted, ethereal hum that permeates every note like moss growing over stones. And like an insect, it has the delicacy, the fragility of a dragonfly’s wing, a transparent wavering that catches the light. Like most of his other works, the lyrics balance woodsy, quaint nonsense with plain ol’ gut-wrenching devastation. “I came to drink more whiskey than water” and “I’ve swallowed a phantom/And I forget how to breathe” leave no room for misinterpretation, but even such sense-defying oddities as “I hung my wolves up high in the pine trees/Like cannonball sails they wouldn’t stay hung” sound just as plainly tragic. I doubt any listener could ever fully separate this lyricism from the absence that Mark Linkous left too soon in this world; some of Sparklehorse’s similarly atmospheric works of art are the aforementioned kind I can lose myself in, but Bird Machine will always be a hard record to swallow. Painfully beautiful, but necessary nonetheless.

Here. Come sit next to me. Grab a tissue. Send your thank yous to Mark.

“Déshominisation (I)” (from Fantastic Planet) – Alain Goraguer

Alright, who ordered the weirdest possible palate-cleanser?

I’ve had the honor of being the learning assistant for a science fiction class this semester, and that’s meant that I’m getting to read and watch a whole lot of wonderfully bizarre (and nostalgic—we love my man Ray Bradbury 😔✊) stuff. Early on, we watched this for homework; I had a vague feeling beforehand about remembering seeing something about giant, blue, French aliens with soulless red eyes somewhere (probably on one of my Pinterest deep dives), but nothing could have prepared me for this movie. The animation is nothing short of gorgeous—all hand-drawn, incredibly detailed, and full of vibrant color at every turn. But it’s…yeah, it’s more than a little bit of a trip. There’s random interludes with alien creatures eating each other (I’m certain that they all would have given me nightmares as a kid), an uncomfortable amount of alien boobs, and far too many lingering shots on said soulless red eyes with nothing behind them for comfort. It’s beautiful, but in the way that makes your head hurt—I’m still not entirely sure what I watched, but…I liked it? Yeah, I liked it.

Nothing added more to the surreal nature of Fantastic Planet more than Alain Goraguer’s score; most of it is a recurring motif of experimental jazz, which really does put you in the mind of “what did I just watch?” It all screamed Pink Floyd to me, which, since Dark Side of the Moon came out in the same year as this movie, makes sense. I can’t help but think of “Time” whenever I hear anything from this score. This movie seems like it would be on that kind of prog-rock wavelength. That’s what made it the perfect atmosphere for this film—the proggy, spacey theme that runs through the whole score marries perfectly with the oddball, alien landscapes that we traverse through. It’s a bizarre movie. I certainly don’t regret watching it.

“Limbo” – Shakey Graves

Looks like somebody was enjoying himself in quarantine, huh? Enough to crank out at least thousands of possible combinations for this album? Seriously, go play around with the Movie of the Week section of the Shakey Graves website. My first go at it generated a cover of David Bowie’s “Five Years” as a part of the soundtrack… :,)

But even without all that insanity, Movie of the Week is nothing short of excellent. Even though the second half lags slightly, I wouldn’t call a single track off this album bad. But, sadly, it’s really the first half that carries it—aided by the album’s singles, the fantastic “Lowlife,” and this absolute stunner of a song. Clocking in at nearly 7 minutes long, none of that length ever feels real—if I had to make an estimate, it sounds more on the 4-minute side. But I’ll always be grateful that we get all 6:40 of “Limbo” in all of its utterly cinematic weirdness. The beginning is deceptively unassuming, clunking in with distorted piano chords and Alejandro Rose-Garcia singing each word with gentle restraint. But right around the 1:10 minute mark, “Limbo” erupts into a shock wave of humming synth that could only find a place elsewhere if elsewhere was the outer space exhibit in a museum. It’s a song that looms, casting its shadow over your in waves of colorful static, blinking in and out of focus. And even if this song didn’t explicitly reference limbo, it would still be fitting for the soundscape that Rose-Garcia has created; between the discordant marriage of every instrument and effect and the gremlin-ish, artificial harmony alongside his voice, it really does feel like slipping in and out of some wild hallucination, toeing the line between reality and delusion. Shakey Graves knows the unsteady cradle of limbo, and they play it well.

“Veronica” – Daddy Issues

I heard this song in the background of a video, and after I found out that the band was called Daddy Issues, I was prepared for the rest of the song to not be up to pat. We get it, you edgelords. And although I’m still rolling my eyes at the band name, the timeless catchiness of this song makes it slightly better. Guess that’s just the kind of thing you have to name your punk band. It was bound to happen eventually.

“Veronica” feels like a song lost in time. It has that bright, pop-rock flavor that could have made it a cult hit if it was included in an 80’s teen movie. But it lacks just enough polish to make it land somewhere between 90’s riot-grrrl, grunge, and alt-rock. It wouldn’t have even been out of place sometime in the 2000’s, spoken in the same breath as Giant Drag. And here we are in 2015, where Daddy Issues married all of those elements and came out the other side with this. In theory, it shouldn’t stand out from any other song of its breed. You know the drill: She’s Veronica. She’s gorgeous. She’s fierce. She’s a little crazy. She’s off to steal some hearts. She’s gonna take over the world. You wanna make her your girlfriend. You wanna make out with her. But there’s just something about Daddy Issues that makes you believe every word of it, even though you’ve heard it a thousand times. Maybe it’s the mercurial lilt of Jenny Moynihan, effortlessly shifting from delicate high notes to delivering the grungy punch this song needs. Or maybe it’s the way that it all feels so precise, like it was floating in the ether all along, waiting to be discovered. Either way, it’s an undeniable earworm. All of you directors trying to put together a soundtrack for a teen movie: get over here, what are you doing?

And there’s no way that this whole song isn’t a Heathers reference. “She’s teenage suicide”? Come on.

Since this post consists entirely of songs, consider all of them to be today’s song.

That’s it for this week’s Sunday Songs! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Sunday Songs

Sunday Songs: 8/20/23

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Sunday, bibliophiles!

Here we are near the end of August, and I’ve got a color scheme adjacent to the aesthetic of my 10th birthday party. It may not be my favorite color anymore, but I still hold that pink is an underrated color. And it’s fitting, since my actual birthday is coming in a few days from now! August is apparently the most common birthday month, so I guess I’m not that special, but I love August simply because of that. Now that I’ve gotten to the point in my life where my birthday doesn’t land a week into the school year anymore, it’s a lot nicer. And it’s not on my first day of college either, like it was last year, so it’s a nice change this year. So let’s all settle down, eat some cake, and come to grips with the fact that we are all Kenough.

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 8/20/23

“I’m Just Ken” (from Barbie) – Ryan Gosling

Here we are, a month removed from Barbenheimer, and this song remains stuck in my head. Everybody’s saying it, but it’s true: Barbie really is a masterpiece. It summed up modern womanhood more than any other film that I can think of. It’s whimsical, it’s clever, it’s incredibly funny, and for a movie populated by plastic dolls, it’s deeply human. My mom and I cried together so many times during the movie. Ah, womanhood. And anybody who says that this movie is “anti-man” is delusional—it’s just as empowering for men as it is for women. What’s “anti-man” about Ken realizing that his self-worth doesn’t have to hinge on romantic pursuit or material possessions?

If there’s anything that men—and anybody—can take away from this movie, it’s as the song says: “I’m just Ken, and I’m enough/And I’m great at doing stuff.” Look within. You are Kenough. What else is there to say about this song? Ryan Gosling stole the show. Feel the Kenergy.

“You Wouldn’t Like Me” – Tegan and Sara

And here’s today’s report on “why yes, I did blow through season 2 of Heartstopper last week, why do you ask?”

Tegan and Sara have been names that have been on the very edges of my radar for years; they’ve popped up alongside other artists that I listened to for years, and recently, the great Tillie Walden (!!!) illustrated a graphic memoir about their childhoods. But the snippets I heard of their music faded away—until last week, when this song was featured at the end of the second episode of season 2 of Heartstopper. (Both seasons always have a few gems on their soundtracks—Lucy Dacus and Wolf Alice in the same episode? We are truly blessed…) And as the backdrop to queer teen angst, “You Wouldn’t Like Me” meshes perfectly. It’s the perfect acoustic earworm, all at once gentle and soaring. The harmonies of twin sisters Tegan and Sara Quin intertwine as seamlessly as you would think twin sisters would, blending into each other and branching out once more with smooth, warm ease. As the two Quins sing of “…a war inside of me/Do I cause new heartbreak to write/A new broken song?” their voices command a gentle acoustic strumming—again, I can’t think of a more perfect fit for Heartstopper. Again, I’m very new to Tegan and Sara, but this version feels like a vast gulf from the original, which takes a far more pop-rock direction. (Still Jealous, where this version is from, is an acoustic reworking of their album So Jealous.) I like the guitars on the original, but…how are their voices so nasally and grating there? It just feels so forced compared to how gorgeous their voices—and their story—sounds on this version. Needless to say, I’m far more partial to this acoustic version.

“Taking What’s Not Yours” – TV Girl

I never expected that a TV Girl song would ever end up on one of these posts, but life is nothing if not full of surprises. I’ve felt fairly lukewarm about most of their music that I’ve been exposed to; songs like “Blue Hair” and “Lover’s Rock” seem to have been everywhere after experiencing TikTok fame in the past few years, but they never really caught my eye. They were catchy, but not something that I would find myself listening to regularly.

Enter this song. I forger where I heard it first, but either way, it hooked me like no other song of theirs ever has. It all feels so carefree in its composition, and all of the sampling and the way it’s cobbled together is clear proof that somebody’s been taking some pages out of the De La Soul/Beastie Boys book. “Taking What’s Not Yours” gives it a more indie pop spin. The samples are just delightfully goofy, but so clever at the same time. The main sample comes from, of all things, a rap included in the video “Don’t Copy That Floppy.” (“That’s thieving/stealing, taking what’s not yours!”) I doubt it can get a whole lot sillier than that. And as Brad Petering talks about all of the things that he’s taken and left at various girlfriends’ places (sorry, “various apartments and domiciles”) over the years, what should get sampled but Richard Nixon’s infamous declaration of “I am not a crook” as the chorus starts over? It all seems so random, but the way all of these wild samples are tied back to the narrative is undeniably clever. I’m still not the biggest fan of the blasé, nasally drone of Petering’s voice, but it almost works as he rambles on about leftovers, jewelry and records left in the wake of his relationships. Fitting that the album that “Taking What’s Not Yours” is on is called Who Really Cares—it certainly fits Petering’s laid-back affect.

“Unpeeled” – Naked Giants

Here’s a pandemic memory that, for once, isn’t painful to recall! Thanks, Naked Giants. Weird name, but I’ll take it.

Naked Giants’ great album The Shadow also came out right around my birthday—it turns three years old tomorrow, as it happens! I was originally introduced to them when they opened for and performed with Car Seat Headrest, but they’re just as fantastic performing with them as they are solo, even if their brands of indie rock are more than a little different. (some of it definitely rubbed off on “Hollywood,” but I digress.) The Shadow, with propulsive tracks like “(God Damn) What I Am” and “Take a Chance” soundtracked that late August heat and cloudless skies, endlessly hooky and head-noddable. I can’t think of a single bad track on that album, but a few inevitably got a bit lost in the dust, as is what generally tends to happen when I love an album, but love a handful of songs just that much more. But that just means that it feels that much more joyous when you rediscover something else from that album. That’s where “Unpeeled” comes in. Although it’s slower and more droning than the previous tracks that I mentioned, the power it holds is unmistakable; with its hints of punk, psychedelia, and pure, guitar-driven rock all rolled into one, there’s never a moment where “Unpeeled” loses its touch. Like a great machine, it puffs along in a smoky, delirious haze, a different brand of their usually jangly 60’s influences. Even the harmonies on the chorus (“it’s unpeeling again”) sound off-kilter enough to sound like it belongs on the trippier side of Yellow Submarine. But nothing brings me more joy than the grinding, 13-era Graham Coxon-esque guitar chords that chug in at the 2:21 mark, cutting through the veil of smoke. It’s a truly hypnotic song in every way I can think of.

“Big in the World” – Shakey Graves

Another exciting song coming out of Movie of the Week, and with a great music video to match! Made me think of…I think it was a National Geographic Kids article about what they actually do to food in commercials to make it look appetizing. You can see a lot of it in the video, but that article was where I learned that glue is used as a substitute for milk for cereal in commercials so that the bits of cereal stick to the surface. The more you know.

True to form, all of what we see in the music video perfectly reflects the ethos of the song. As we see a man painstakingly pinning blueberries to the top of a stack of pancakes and painting a bowl of strawberries with red nail polish, Alejandro Rose-Garcia laments on “why I’ve gotta be somebody’s enemy/to be big in the world?” Something so curated and manufactured, like those nail-polished strawberries, is what Shakey Graves—or, at any rate, the protagonist of his imaginary movie—is musing on: the nature of how the media rewards drama instead of sincerity, only boosting fame if there’s a sensational story to be churned from it. In short: you’re only appetizing if you’re covered in shiny, fake crap. And even though that message comes through loud and clear, the musical drama of this song is what really sells it. Rose-Garcia’s rasping howl comes in at full force in the chorus, ringing out through almost Beatles-esque pianos and an ever-shifting atmosphere that really does feel like the fuzzy light edges around the multitude of screens on the album cover. It’s a lot more smoothly produced than most other Shakey Graves songs that I can think of off the top of my head, but it fits the feel of the direction that Movie of the Week seems to be going; it was conceived as the soundtrack to an imaginary film, and “Big In The World” has that cinematic touch in spades.

Since today’s post consists entirely of songs, consider all of them to be today’s song.

That’s it for this week’s Sunday Songs! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Sunday Songs

Sunday Songs: 8/6/23

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Sunday, bibliophiles!

Here we are in the heat of August, and I bring you a batch of songs with a Halloween color scheme. I say, it’s my birthday month and I get to choose to color scheme, and I say that every day is Halloween over here at the Bookish Mutant. It’s only fitting that we have the band who probably originated that phrase on here. Plus some vampires. A whole empire of them, as a matter of fact.

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 8/6/23

“Vampire Empire” – Big Thief

With almost every Big Thief song that I hear, I’m convinced more and more to go deeper into their discography. Plus, the sisterhood of queer women growing out buzzcuts has to stick together. 🫡

As I clumsily tried to explain to my dad with some tired, T-Rex arm moves before dinner the night that this song came out, “Vampire Empire” is a song that really feels like it’s pressing down on you. After the curtain lifts on the deceptively silent opening, the steadfastness of this song never lets up. With each drumbeat, I feel like I’ve been sucked into a water wheel, bobbing along with its machinery. Each punch of the impeccably rhythmic chorus feels like a spoke passing over me: “You give me chills/I’ve had it with the drills/I’m nothing, you are nothing, we are nothing with the pills.” And if there’s anything I love in a song, it’s that quality where everything feels like it’s teetering on the edge of collapse, but is reconstructed just as quickly. From the pots-and-pans banging sound of the percussion to the way that Adrianne Lenker’s voice strains, soars, then screams in the final verse: “You say you wanna be alone, and you want children/You wanna be with me, you wanna be with him.” Even if the now beloved version that they performed earlier this year on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert excelled in its indie tightness, the barely-contained fury of this version matches matches the lyrics so much more, with its unpredictable, pressing highs and lows. And as much as I loved the original “I’m a fish and she’s my gills” lyric, the way it was squashed right at the end of the chorus did feel like it was interrupting the flow of an otherwise impeccably rhythmic song.

“Swim to Sweden” – Co-Pilot

Rotate has been getting great reviews ever since it came out about a week ago, and even before that—and I’m so happy. I don’t know as much of the context behind Leonore Wheatley, it makes me so happy to see Jim Noir FINALLY getting more of the recognition that he deserves! If there’s anybody who deserves to have their album called “the album of the summer,” it’s him and Leonore.

Co-Pilot (Leonore Wheatley and Jim Noir, a.k.a Alan Roberts) make the perfect music for getting things done; I normally put on an album when I clean out my bathroom, but there are some albums that are…shall we say, better than others for doing such things. (Cue an Arrested Development-style cutback to me crying into the sink to “Don’t Give Up”.) I don’t know much about Leonore Wheatley or her other projects, but Jim Noir always makes that perfect kind of music—it can tickle your brain in a pleasantly creative way, but it makes for the perfect soundtrack to washing down the bathroom mirror or shelving books at the library. So Rotate was bound to be just like that, and that’s exactly how it turned out to be. But as with anything by Jim Noir, it’s so much more than just quirky background music—it’s the sonic equivalent of a Russian doll, layered with oodles of hidden samples, sounds, and fun. “Swim to Sweden,” the Rotate’s second single and opening track, is the perfect display of that explosive, wondrous weirdness. It’s a whole sensory experience; all of the many, layered synths make sounds that crackle, writhe, and, as the title suggests, swim around in your head as the song plays. It’s like a stimulating massage for the brain: the music grows fingers that wiggle all around you, invoking images of bubbles and pulsating lights. I’d be remiss if I didn’t say anything about Wheatley’s contributions, even with my minimal context; I don’t know how much of the instrumentation was from her, but her voice was clearly the anchor that steadied the whole record, richly lilting and magically suited to everything surrounding it. Wheatley and Noir’s vocals weave effortlessly together, diving and darting through the current between the synth melodies like fish.

Bottom line: if you’re looking for something refreshing and perpetually exciting to listen to, go listen to Co-Pilot. Rotate is out now on all streaming platforms! I almost put “Move To It” as this week’s pick, but I’ll direct you to this one too—it samples the same keyboard track that C418 sampled for Minecraft’s “Chirp.” And while you’re at it, I’d once again encourage you all to support Jim Noir’s solo work via his Patreon, if you can.

“Stigmata” – Ministry

With these Sunday Songs posts, I hope to give you all a glimpse into my shuffle. Some weeks, it’s fairly curated. On weeks like this, it really does feel like my shuffle. And by that, I mean four tangentially related songs that sort of fit together, and one of the two (2) Ministry songs in my library. Gotta keep you all on yours toes somehow.

I’ve never been the biggest fan of most metal or industrial music, but as I’ve gotten older and started to appreciate more of it, I’ve noticed a pattern. I doubt I’ll ever completely warm up to all of it (there’s only so much screaming in my ears that I can handle), but for a fair amount of those bands that I’ve been exposed to, there’s always 2 or 3 songs that I just inexplicably love. For Black Sabbath, it’s “N.I.B.” For Nine Inch Nails, it’s “Terrible Lie,” “Head Like a Hole” and “Reptile.” And for Ministry, who famously inspired the name of the latter, it’s “So What” and this song. (Don’t think I’ll quite warm up to Iron Maiden, though. I’ve tried. Apologies to my dad and brother. Bruce Dickinson is undeniably a king, though.)

I don’t really remember enough Ministry to see what separates this song from everything else I’ve heard and passed by. But “Stigmata” came back to me in one of those joyous moments where my shuffle decided to dredge something from the dusty depths of my iTunes library, to my surprise. And instantly, I remembered the rush it gave me in my sophomore year of high school, when I first remember hearing it and liking it. I know the word “feral” is tossed around more often than not these days, but…that’s exactly the way this song makes me feel. The instant the drums kick in, I just start grinning from the anticipation. Then comes one of Al Jourgensen’s many raspy shrieks (which he can keep up for a surprising amount of time), and then it all comes crashing into you. From there, it never lets up—it’s the very definition of abrasive, but the kind of theatrical abrasiveness that never holds back. You can just picture this guy maniacally grinning and wiggling his fingers as he draws out “I’m chewing on glass/And eating my fingers.” Again, who knows what line my mind drew between this and the rest of Ministry, but this song is just so fun. I’ve heard enough to know that metal probably won’t ever fully be my cup of tea, but my brain knows exactly what it likes, no matter the arbitrary, inexplicable distinctions it makes.

“Evergreen” – Shakey Graves

This song and “Vampire Empire” seem to be cousins in a lot of ways. Both of them were famed, unreleased songs that became live gems and staples for their respective bands, and, lo and behold, were released on the same day. Even though I’m far more familiar with Shakey Graves, Big Thief overshadowed my listening, out of the two—as you could probably tell, I couldn’t get enough of it. But “Evergreen” is just as uniquely wondrous, even if I’m admittedly overdue in appreciating it.

No matter how many times I listen to this song, I always fall into the trap of turning the volume up for the quiet acoustic plucking that makes up the beginning of the song. Then, of course, in true, modern Shakey Graves fashion, it’s all gone in a flash and a bang of static as the true beginning of the song kicks in. It’s exactly like the image on the album cover of the forthcoming new album Movie of the Week (!!!)—the silhouette of Alejandro Rose-Garcia, arms outstretched in ecstasy like the black and white monster movie version of Victor Frankenstein declaring “IT’S ALIVE!” The rest of the track continues in that unexpected trajectory. “Evergreen” is a sea of purple-hued fuzz and distortion, dreamy and explosive. Like the trees it’s named after, it’s a song that seems to lure you into the woods, tinged with dreams but hiding something faintly sinister: “Let me rest, yeah let me be/Overgrown and evergreen.” Guess we were all feeling that “I need to go off into the woods and let myself be covered in moss” feeling. It feels like the next natural progression from Can’t Wake Up, which saw Shakey Graves leaning more towards the alternative in alternative folk, with its array of spooky, adventurous tracks (see: “Aibohphobia,” “Dining Alone,” “Counting Sheep”). The folk part was never lost, and judging from Garcia’s penchant for cowboy hats, I doubt it ever will be, but either way, “Evergreen” is surely an exciting window into what’s to come.

Wilco, Shakey Graves, and Mitski this September? BUCKLE UP! And I’m seeing the first two live later this year, so that’s even more fun! (I doubt I could ever do a Mitski concert. I……yeah, I’ve seen so many articles linked to the fandom’s weirder-than-usual parasocial relationships with her and FAR too many “mommy” comments on posts about her. I couldn’t do it.)

(more on Wilco next week…)

“Can You Feel It?” – The Apples in Stereo

Chances are, if you thought of a creatively-inclined person having a sudden change in their career to pursue their passion, it would go something like this: person gets stuck in an office job crunching numbers, person writes songs in their spare time, person quits job in order to pursue music. Happens all the time. But it’s hard to think that the opposite might be true. And that’s the case for Robert Schneider, frontman of The Apples in Stereo, Thee American Revolution, and one of the founders of the Elephant 6 Collective. As his indie rock music gained traction, his hobby and eventual passion was math; while on tour, his bandmates often recollected him scribbling his way through equations in his spare time. And now, he teaches math for a living: in a 2018 interview with Atlanta Magazine, he described the relationship between math and music as such: “Music, art, poetry, and mathematics—these have the feeling of mysticism and religion to me…It’s more than just something you do or something you’re good at. These are things that to me are fundamentally as important as something could possibly be.”

Looking back at The Apples in Stereo, a delightfully weird staple of my hipster childhood, with this context makes their entire sound make more sense. “Delightful” is always the word I end up reaching towards with their music, with their bubbly, electronic sounds and penchants for adding in backing vocals made to sound like a choir of robots. But even if they haven’t been as active in a little over a decade, every time I rediscover one of their songs, it’s simultaneously like reuniting with an old friend and unearthing something wholly new. Like “Stigmata,” “Can You Feel It?” got dragged in by my shuffle, bringing with it a whole slew of pure, joyous childhood memories. Many a car ride was soundtracked by this song, electronic happiness and the impressively swift maneuver of my dad turning down the volume down and back up again just in time for my brother and I to miss the word “bullshit.” And to this day, no matter how many times I listen to it, “Can You Feel It?” remains supercharged with that pure joy. Even if his passion turned out to be math, there’s no denying that Robert Schneider could write an excellent pop song—instantly hooking, it bubbles with infectious joy, calling on you to “drown out the static on the FM radio.” As the call to “turn up your stereo” fades to near-a cappella, something about said choir of robots keeps the excitement of the whole song at a fever pitch, waiting for the instrumentals to crash down once again. Whatever the case, I’d say that Robert Schneider and company found the equation for indie rock joy, and it’s never once lost its shine.

Since this post consists entirely of songs, consider all of them to be today’s song.

That’s it for this week’s Sunday Songs! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Sunday Songs

Sunday Songs: 7/23/23

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Sunday, bibliophiles! I hope this week has treated you well.

What a momentous few days it’s been. Barbenheimer weekend (I HAVEN’T SEEN EITHER YET NO SPOILERS), two highly anticipated albums coming out within a week of each other, and entirely too much heat. So how do we celebrate? With resurrected memes and cryptids, of course!

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 7/23/23

“Barbaric” – Blur

And here we are…Blur’s reunion album is finally here! My mom and I listened to it all the way through twice on the day it came out, continuing our recent tradition of supercharging my car with the music of Damon Albarn and co. But after both of those listens (and some change), I’m divided on how to feel about it. Albarn called it Blur’s “first legit album since 13,” which…if that isn’t a surefire way to get hype, then I don’t know what is. But it makes sense—only 3/4 of Blur recorded and performed 2003’s Think Tank after their pseudo-split in 2000, and the recording of 2015’s The Magic Whip was completely by chance after the cancellation of a festival that left them in Hong Kong. And with the dubious connections between 13 and Ballad (the former is definitively about a breakup, while the latter is more of a rumor), it’s not impossible to try and connect the dots, even if the dots may or may not be even there.

But as with “The Narcissist,” The Ballad of Darren is largely a solid album, but it rarely feels like Blur. Save for the obvious best track (that would be “St. Charles Square”), it doesn’t feel like anything more than Damon Albarn’s solo work. For all of the buzz around their reunion, it lacks the equilibrium that they had down pat until around 2000—that’s when it felt like Blur was a four-man band, not just Damon Albarn with the occasional hint of Graham Coxon’s backing vocals. And given how Coxon’s guitar work, James’ iconic bass lines, and Rowntree’s precise drumming all contribute, it doesn’t feel like a “legit” Blur album at all. Even The Magic Whip, as fan service-y as it was, felt like Blur. I’m sure it’ll grow on me, but I can’t help but be a little disappointed.

However, that’s not to say that it isn’t a good album. It is good, but it rarely strays beyond just good and into great or fantastic. And it does have some moments—this song included. “Barbaric,” despite the fact that it could pass just as well for a more recent Gorillaz or solo Albarn effort, is still a catchy, deceptively bubbly song. With the marriage of its synths and guitars, the music brims with new summer radiance, Coxon’s few moments of guitar making the edges glitter. But it wouldn’t be Damon Albarn’s midlife crisis/breakup album without an upbeat, joyful sounding song that betrays lyrics positively dripping in melancholy. Nothing like bopping your head to this song in the car and then realizing that the chorus starts out with “I have lost the feeling that I thought I’d never lose/Now where am I going?” YIKES. You wouldn’t expect a song as musically upbeat as this to describe an “empty grove, winter darkness,” would you? I certainly didn’t. “And I’d like, if you’ve got the time/To talk to you about what this breakup has done to me” is no “No Distance Left to Run” in terms of Blur breakup songs, but in the midst of several solid songs whose slowness matches their lyrics, “Barbaric” is one of the few pleasant surprises on this album.

Probably for the best that we didn’t get “No Distance Left to Run” 2, though. Yeesh. Rough ride, that one. Wouldn’t wish that on Damon.

“Head Like Soup” – Palehound

I’ve already talked about this song and Eye on the Bat in general on my review of the album (gave it 5 points more than Pitchfork did bwahaha) but I still find myself coming back to this song again and again.

Eye on the Bat saw a return to El Kempner’s earlier form, weaving intricate, punchy riffs into meticulously-crafted indie rock songs. The meticulous approach to every lyric never stopped, but I did find myself missing some of Kempner’s more riotous guitar work, as in “Molly.” (I feel like I always go back to that song when I talk about Palehound. I swear it’s the blueprint.) But Eye on the Bat was a welcome return to shreddy form, and if “The Clutch” wasn’t convincing enough, then “Head Like Soup” should do the trick. The whole song brims with bits of creative experimentation; as Kempner sings of sacrificing herself for her partner’s sake (“I live to fill you up/And I burn unwatched”) and doing all of the work to support them as they seem to do nothing for her (“Holding your body like a paperweight/heavy glass resting in my hand/changing something in me”), the instrumentation is as vibrant as ever. From the pounding guitars that smash into the chorus to the synths that leave their marks like insect feet over the second verse. It’s a song that constantly keeps you guessing, and keeps you nodding your head all the way. And there’s nothing like letting your distorted guitar ring out for the final seconds of the song—nothing gets the serotonin a-flowin’ quite like that.

“Hindsight” – Built to Spill

Before I get into the actual song—can we take a moment to appreciate the looming cryptid on the album cover of There Is No Enemy? Faceless, barely has any form, the height of at least two and a half to three of the houses on the cover…does it get any better than that? There Is No Enemy was clearly the right name to assign to the album—of course that thing isn’t an enemy. He’s just a guy. Just stopping by to see if you he could use the phone or borrow a bag of chips for the block party next week. He’s just your friendly neighborhood eldritch horror.

Built to Spill is one of those bands that’s been ever-present in my life, but I’ve only started to appreciate them in the past few years. Even though I did like some weird stuff as a kid (I remember asking my parents to play “Circuit” by The Apples in Stereo on repeat when I was 5), I guess my ears hadn’t been fine-tuned to the hipster frequency just yet. But once I did, I found that there was so much to unravel: “When I was a kid, I saw a light/Floating high above the trees one night/Thought it was an alien/Turned out to be just God.” In such an already meticulously-crafted song (“Goin’ Against Your Mind”), atmospheric, multilayered lines like that are an experience in and of themselves. But “Hindsight” isn’t exactly like that; it’s a gentler, janglier tune, slow and meandering. And yet, it feels just as meticulous, even with its simplicity. I’ve come to realize that I’m a sucker for songs about dwelling on the past and the future (see also: “Darkness”)—maybe that was what drew me to “Hindsight,” with its old folks reunion music video and the smack in the face of the first verse: “Hindsight’s given me/Too much memory/There’s too much never seen/It’s always there.” And Doug Martsch comes to the same, grounding conclusion that I always have to tell myself when I get in that headspace: “Now I’ve come to find/That tricks are played/With human brains.” Sometimes, when you can’t smack yourself upside the head yourself, you’ve got to find a song. So thanks, Martsch and co.

…hold on, you’re telling me that Bob Odenkirk directed this music video? That Bob Odenkirk?

“The Recipe” – Shakey Graves

I’m glad to live in a world where, occasionally, quoting “We’re Not Gonna Take It” in a song actually feels clever. As is with everything: leave it to Shakey Graves to pull it off.

With the exception of July 9th, I’ve had a Shakey Graves song per week this month (nothing next week, though, whoops). It can definitely be owed to seeing him live this summer; I’ve been picking bits and pieces more from his catalog ever since, whether or not he actually played them live when I saw him. (And now we’ve got a new album due in mid-September! The harvest is bountiful this year!) “The Recipe,” taken from his 2020 EP Look Alive, was one that I’d been meaning to check out, but had never gotten around to downloading. The only percussion for half of the song is Rose-Garcia’s muted guitar strums, dragging out a scratchy, hazy beat as grainy as the filter and fog machine smoke on the album cover. It’s a really scratchy song, a song that creaks and groans like stepping on old wooden floorboards. Rose-Garcia’s voice never rises above a haunted whisper, humming above the percussive guitar in discordant harmony with himself. And “haunted” is the perfect word to describe this song, detailing an aimless journey through substance abuse, ruin, and unease as time passes. But as with any Shakey Graves song, it’s a cleverly-penned journey. There’s some kind of self-contained perfection to the fourth verse: “Finally a beggar down on King Street/Tryin’ hard to tune my E string/Singin’, “We’re Not Gonna Take It” for a dollar in a jar/I only know the chorus, but it’s gotten me this far.” Rarely does a simple set of rhymes get me that excited, but the eerie delivery of it makes the genius of it shine even more than it already did. And then the faint singing of said chorus of “We’re Not Gonna Take It” at the 4:25 mark?Pure spooky genius.

“Pegasus” (feat. Phoebe Bridgers) – Arlo Parks

This one was due to appear in a Sunday Songs post for at least a few weeks; my dad has sent me several songs with Phoebe Bridgers featuring in them over the years since I got into her (one of the infinite reasons why I love him & sharing music with him), and this was one of them, right before we went on vacation in Washington. Since then, it’s become a staple of my library playlist, the perfect combination of soft and sweet that fits right into the atmosphere.

I’m slowly starting to dig into more of Arlo Parks’ music, but this was my first real exposure, save for seeing her play piano with Phoebe Bridgers on their cover of Radiohead’s “Fake Plastic Trees.” Park’s distinctive voice is only a whisper on the chorus there, and three years later, it seems as though the two have come full circle. Now, on Parks’ new album My Soft Machine (which is an excellent album title, if I’ve ever seen one), their roles have reversed: Parks takes center stage, where Bridgers’ haunting whisper provides drifting backing vocals that seem to peer behind the curtain of the music. It’s not often that I feel like a musician’s voice is truly unique, no matter how powerful it may be, but Arlo Parks has struck me as having a strange combination of sounding simultaneously high-pitched and thick, almost nasally, but delightfully unique enough to sound like some sort of woodland fairy. And those vocals, paired with Parks’ arrangement of humming, synth-heavy instrumentation, make for a dreamy slice of indie pop. As Parks adds spliced moments with her partner into her collage (“holding your puppy in your Prussian blue sheets” or “blue jewels round your neck”), it all swirls in a song that feels like it holds the soft glow of sunlight—not enough to blind you, but just the right amount to make you feel all warm and sappy on the inside.

Since this post consists entirely of songs, consider all of them to be today’s song.

That’s it for this week’s Sunday Songs! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Sunday Songs

Sunday Songs: 7/16/23

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Sunday, bibliophiles! I hope this week has treated you well.

Sparklehorse also posthumously released “The Scull of Lucia” this week, and it would’ve fit the color scheme, but I just know that it’s gonna make me too sad to write about. Love you, Mark, but I’m trying to preserve my sanity.

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 7/16/23

“Divorce Song” – Liz Phair

I guess this week’s batch is starting out on a sour note, but I just have not stopped listening to bits and pieces of this album for weeks, so get Liz Phair’d. My advice, though: as we are in the peak of road trip season, this is the absolute worst song to put on a road trip playlist, as good as it is. Regardless of whether or not you’re in a romantic relationship on said road trip, I feel like it’s just a horrible omen either way.

Speaking to Rolling Stone, Liz Phair said that she wasn’t surprised that this song became a fan favorite from Exile in Guyville: “…[‘Divorce Song’] has that deadpan delivery. It’s an ordinary person doing ordinary things…the song is really just about relating to another person. It feels like an action-packed song. You’ve done a lot…but really it’s just two personalities trying to be intimate and bumping up against each other on a road trip and that’s all that happens.” The concept of lyrical storytelling is, for some reason, always equated to having some grand, lofty narrative, as if stories about ordinary things somehow don’t make the cut. But that’s exactly what makes “Divorce Song” such a powerful song—it’s a linear narrative about a road trip gone south, and yet it packs the same punch of a narrative spanning multiple songs. You can tangibly feel the trapped heat of the inside of a car, the humid desolation of a cramped hotel room, and the sinking realization that “it’s harder to be friends than lovers/and you shouldn’t try to mix the two/’cause if you do it and you’re still unhappy/then you know that the problem is you.” Against the backdrop of Phair’s turmoil, small details create a painfully fleshed-out picture (“and it’s true that I stole your lighter/and it’s also true that I lost the map”), the images of this song feel as real as if I were watching them unfold on a movie screen; that really should be the bare minimum, but honestly, in the age of mass-produced, filtered music dominating the airwaves, this song feels like a breath of fresh air, even 30 years later. (Not too sound like a boomer there. I’ve just been inundated for the past few days because Taylor Swift was in town this weekend.) Contrary to Pitchfork contributor Scott Plagenhoef’s assertion that Exile would come off as dated to this generation because we’re so used to explicit sexual content in mainstream music…it’s not dated in that sense? At all?? Sure, we are exposed to more of it, but that doesn’t diminish the value of one of the first female artists to bring these kind of raw, unapologetic, and honest lyrics to the indie rock scene and owning it. It’s not like it’s impossible to see that empowerment shining through, whether it’s in the context of 1993 or 2023.

Seriously, Pitchfork…whose grand idea was it to have a man write a review of the 15th Anniversary Edition of Exile in Guyville? Not that men can’t write reviews of music by women and vice versa, but this one? The album that specifically came about to critique the boy’s club of indie rock? That’s just a war crime, if I’ve ever seen it. The review is from 2008, but…no, they had definitely had women on board at Pitchfork by then. There’s no excuse. Jesus Christ…

“Naked Cousin” (demo) – P.J. Harvey

uhhhhhhh tommy shelby sigma male octillionaire grindset cillian murphy moment

No, I haven’t watched Peaky Blinders yet, but my parents recently going through the whole show (and getting close to finishing it) has me almost convinced to watch it?? If anything will convince me, though, it’s the absolutely loaded soundtrack: Radiohead? The White Stripes? The Kills? I mean, come on. Perfection. And this too!

And, it’s reminded me that I need to get into P.J. Harvey. Somehow, I always forget about her, but every time I hear a song of hers, it’s instantly gripping, whether it’s the grinding jumpscare of “Rid Of Me” or what is hands down the best cover of The Rolling Stones’ “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” ever performed, along with our queen Björk:

If that doesn’t make you want to worship the ground that they both walk on, just for a moment, I’m not sure what possibly will. The sheer power they both wield.

Again, there’s no excuse for me not to get into more P.J. Harvey right this minute, except for my pileup of albums waiting to be listened to. But for now, I at least have this song—and it’s a demo? How is this a demo?? Lucy Dacus, on her episode of Amoeba Records’ YouTube series What’s In My Bag? picked an album of Harvey’s 4-track demos, and remarked about how she wished that her demos were “remotely shareable” in comparison. Either way, I’m so glad that this demo is out in the world. Even with my limited P.J. Harvey knowledge, raw power is what characterizes what I’ve heard of her music—raw-throat screaming, instrumentals that bear down on you like an onslaught. “Naked Cousin” is just that; the slightly grungier (not necessarily grungy in the Nirvana way, but in both the musical and non-musical sense of the word), grimier sound quality coming from the demo enhances its atmosphere. It’s an eerily sinister song, the dirtiness of the instrumentation matching the lyrical image of discomfort that Harvey weaves: “I hate his smell and/I hate his company, but/But most of all, I hate that he/He looks just, just like me.” It’s a deeply uncomfortable song—Harvey really enhances the tangible feel of someone lingering over you, the feeling of their hot, sour breath pressing against your skin. She can certainly create an atmosphere, even if it’s the last one you’d want to be surrounded by.

“Femme Fatale” – The Velvet Underground & Nico

Since I’ve started working at the library, I’ve made a playlist for myself to listen to while I’m shelving books. It’s all soft, slow songs, both so I don’t get distracted and so it matches the atmosphere of the library. So there’s a lot of Phoebe Bridgers, Radiohead, Wilco, some older St. Vincent, et cetera. “Femme Fatale” went on there almost immediately, but not just because it fit those criteria: nothing makes you feel more like a character in an indie movie than listening to The Velvet Underground in a library.

Nico’s vocals take the lead on “Femme Fatale,” leaving Lou Reed to the backing vocals on the chorus. I already talked a little about the power of her voice back when I first listened to The Velvet Underground & Nico back in April with “All Tomorrow’s Parties,” but those two songs together are emblematic of her vocal range. Next to the looming, encroaching presence on the former (although it comes later in the album), “Femme Fatale” sees Nico dipping into a gentle whisper, her voice fading to an almost imperceptible hiss at the very end of each chorus as she says “hear the way she talks.” As massive of a presence as her famously low, resonant voice is, she slips into the quiet so easily (see also: “I’ll Be Your Mirror”), and yet retains the same cavernous quality—even as her voice drifts through the enchantingly gentle intro of guitar and tambourine, you can instantly feel it in your chest, making your bones vibrate. Or maybe the latter is just the mixing of this song—famously headphone-vibrating, if the YouTube comments are any indication. It’s the perfect fit for a film—the only movie I can seem to find with it is Bandslam, which I’ve never heard of, but Wes Anderson really needs to get on it. Past time that he used it for something, although maybe he filled his personal Nico quotient in The Royal Tenenbaums?

One Nico song seems like a small quotient, but who am I to judge Wes Anderson? He’s Wes Anderson, after all.

“St. Charles Square” – Blur

Gather ’round, my fellow Americans, let us all cry and watch videos of Blur performing in Wembley Stadium, and hope for the best that they’ll just get over themselves and announce a North American tour. Grab your tissues. Cry with me.

But this. THIS. This is the Blur that I’d been missing! “The Narcissist” was a solid song, but “St. Charles Square” is a much better showcase of their talents—and brimming with so much more creativity. Unlike the former single, which sounded as though it could be a solo Damon Albarn track, “St. Charles Square” finally feels like Albarn, Coxon, James, and Rowntree have reformed as a truly cohesive unit, their unique talents blending as seamlessly as they did in the 90’s. Whether or not Damon Albarn’s “OI!” at the beginning is a callback to “Parklife” (aaaaaaaaaall the people) or just him being British is up for debate, but even if it is nostalgia bait, you bet I’m biting it. You guys have no idea how many times my mom and I have car-danced to that song. I’ll gladly be a nostalgic shill for a bunch of white, middle-aged British guys. And finally, finally, Graham Coxon’s signature guitar playing has returned to the spotlight! His riffs are as power-laden and punchy as ever, and he’s adopted an echoing tone that calls back to David Bowie at the very beginning of the 80’s, right as he released Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps). And this song is full of scary monsters and super creeps of its own—the delightfully eerie lyrics are rife with “ghosts come back to haunt me” and “something down here/And it’s living under the floorboards/Its grabbed me round the neck with its long and slender claws.” With all that to work with, it’s no wonder that Albarn’s flair for showmanship shines in this track: I’d be lying if I told you that his piercing, werewolf howl at 1:40 didn’t make me giddy on every single listen. It’s a spooky delight all the way through.

“Unknown Legend” (Neil Young cover) – Shakey Graves, Shovels & Rope

I didn’t know until I started looking into this song that it was a cover—Shakey Graves was the main draw, I only knew of Shovels & Rope because they always come up as similar artists when I search for Shakey Graves on Apple Music, and I can only remember one (1) Neil Young song off the top of my head. And normally, I wouldn’t be one for folk-country songs describing a blonde woman riding through the desert on a Harley-Davidson that rhymes “diner” with “finer” (in reference to said woman), but, again: Shakey Graves.

iTunes has this song labeled as Shakey Graves & Shovels & Rope (and my English major brain wants to separate them with a comma or “and,” not a second ampersand, for the love of god 😭), but I was surprised to see that YouTube lists it as Shovels & Rope feat. Shakey Graves; if anything, there’s far more Shakey than Shovels—Alejandro Rose-Garcia is clearly taking the lead on vocals here. (I guess that this song was also included on Shovels & Rope’s covers album, Busted Jukebox, vol. 1, so that’s probably why.) Either way, the harmonies on this rendition of Neil Young are my main draw. Rose-Garcia’s voice has this distinct, irreplaceable rasp to it, rough and raw-throated at the edges, but never losing its power. Combined with the husband and wife duo of Michael Trent and Cary Ann Hearst (is it bad to ask who’s the shovel and who’s the rope in this relationship?), their voices form a resonant group of harmonies, with Hearst’s high notes elevating the thrill of the music and Trent providing a steady wall for it to anchor itself against. Whether they’re hitting the highest of high notes or gently drifting away from the chorus with their whispered repetition of “the air she breathes.” Again: I’m not usually one for the folky covers with the obligatory harmonica solo at the end, but Shakey Graves will convince me.

Since this post consists entirely of songs, consider all of them to be today’s song.

That’s it for this week’s Sunday Songs! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Sunday Songs

Sunday Songs: 7/2/23

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Sunday, bibliophiles!

Happy July, and happy disability pride month! Here’s a nice, warm, tomato soup and grilled cheese color palette to prepare yourself for the upcoming, inevitable heat that’ll make us all feel like human puddles. I like summer, but…to a point, y’know? Anything above 80 degrees is pushing it for me. I’d like the warmth without the sunburn, thanks.

Now I want some tomato soup and grilled cheese…

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 7/2/23

“Chinatown” – Shakey Graves

I had the incredible privilege of seeing Shakey Graves last week, and I’m not just saying that because it got us out of some apparently nasty hail back home. My brother and his girlfriend had seen him twice before, and they hyped it up perfectly—his solo guitar and suitcase kick drum endeavors were exactly as mind-blowing as promised. Dude’s got some undeniable talent.

One of the songs I’d been meaning to get around to was “Chinatown”—Roll the Bones X is on my Sisyphean album bucket list, I promise, but I’ve been cherry-picking songs in the meantime. The version that Alejandro Rose-Garcia played live was a much smoother, slicker, and faster version, and as good as the performance was, it didn’t seem quite right for such a tender soul-barer of a song. The defining quality of “Chinatown” is just how raw it is—even if it weren’t stripped down, as everything on Roll the Bonex X seems to be, how could these lyrics not gut you? “There will come a day/when the earth will cease to spin/You’ll hold me close and say/’My god where have you been?'” Sweet Jesus. I seriously get a hitch in my throat every time I come around to that part. I can’t listen to this song without getting chills. It seems like the other side of “Built to Roam”—despite being built for a life on the road and never being able to settle in one place, there’s an unwavering, almost apologetic devotion to whoever it is he loves and a regret for leaving them behind—”I still have sense enough to fear/that I’m not much without you near.” Lord. I’m getting choked up just writing this. You gotta stop, Shakey…

And even though this was one of the first songs on disc 2 of Roll the Bones X, I feel like it would’ve been the perfect closer, that wistful final line of “I’ll see you soon” that fades into nothing. Sentimental, self-conscious (hypothetical) album closers, anyone?

“All Stations – Stop Spiderman” (from Across the Spiderverse) – Daniel Pemberton

Listen. LISTEN. Across the Spiderverse is already the best movie of 2023. I’m all for the BarbenHeimer double feature in a few weeks, but nothing is gonna touch this. Nothing. I can’t think of another movie that’s given me this much faith in…well, media in general. The innovative art that made Into the Spiderverse so memorable has been cranked up to eleven, and nothing beats seeing a mixed-race character in a storyline about breaking away from people’s expectations of what he should be and writing his own story. (WE LOVE YOU MILES) Plus, the emphasis on a narrative about how good storytelling and heroism isn’t automatically synonymous with suffering? MAGNIFIQUE. Add that to a) everything about Gwen and her dimension, b) Jason Schwartzman’s innate ability to play characters with short man syndrome finally translated into a full-blown villain, and c) Spider-Punk (need I say more?), it’s rocketed up to one my favorite movies of all time. Tears were shed.

And part of what made both Spiderverse movies feel so fully realized in their richly detailed atmospheres was Daniel Pemberton’s scores for each of them. Blending all sorts of genres and cooking them all in the most seamless, synthy, movie score soup in, dare I say it, cinema history, there’s no sense of trying to get a feel for the mood—it’s as though the scenes were made with the music in mind. Everything from Spiderman 2099’s memed-to-death-but-still-iconic theme to the opening titles in Gwen Stacy’s dimension feels like it was part of the movie from the start—the innovative artistry of the animation clearly bled over into the score for every track. It was almost impossible to pick just one, but “All Stations – Stop Spiderman” came back to me again and again. Set against the chaotic but beautifully meticulous chase scene in the Spider Society headquarters, the music sounds as eclectic as the many Spider-Variants and as exciting and tense as seeing them all converge onto Miles Morales. There’s no excitement quite like the quietly encroaching bass paired with frenetic drumbeats that sound of the onslaught of Spidermen. And normally, hearing heavy breathing is a major sensory trigger for me, but the brief bite of breathing into the microphone at the 0:30 makes the high-octane excitement all the more palpable. The subtle weaving of Miguel O’Hara’s theme? The perfectly-timed switch from spider-fight to spider-betrayal? Good god, there’s nothing bad to be said about this score. Or this movie.

…What are you still doing here, anyway? DROP EVERYTHING!!! GO WATCH IT!!

“Bending Heretic” – The Smile

New Smile material is the best kind of present, no matter the song, but…does this mean we’re closer to getting “Read the Room” soon? Please? Please?

Don’t let that dissuade you, though—I’m still reeling from the former after hearing it live six months ago, but I’m just as excited that “Bending Heretic” has finally gotten to see the light of day. Rarely do I think of songs as truly hypnotic, but this one puts me under its hazy spell almost immediately with its gentle, murmuring guitars. Thom Yorke’s voice weaves through each gently plucked note like a lazy river with a cloak of mist. You really do feel the musical twisting and turning as Yorke sings about “coming to a bend now/skidding ’round the hairpin/a sheer drop down/an Italian mountainside/time is kind of frozen.” Time really does seem to freeze—the smooth limitlessness of this first quarter (or so) makes you forget that it’s 8 minutes long—the longest song that Thom Yorke has contributed to, not counting his remix of “Creep.” Every transition is liquid smooth—Tom Skinner’s drums kick in imperceptibly, as though they were always there, accompanied by strings. But just as you’re lulled back into a false sense of security, the strings coalesce into a shrill crescendo, morphing into sheer power as the guitars kick back in. The last quarter of “Bending Heretic” has the feel of being hit square in the face by a tidal wave—you can feel the raw power deep in your bones. It transported me back to how awe-inspiring their live presence was back when I saw them in December. Listening to them then was unforgettable, and hearing this song come to life for the first time on streaming was just as much so.

“Cinco De Mayo” – Liz Phair

Now that it’s July, I’ve realized that we’re neck-deep in Liz Phair summer over here. Buckle up.

Ever since last week’s Liz Phair (re)awakening and my recent listen-through of Exile in Guyville, the jolly deep sea fisherman in my brain has been dredging up spare fragments of hers from some part of my mind that’s been somewhat dormant since 2017. All I could remember of this one until I looked it up was “Cinco de Mayo/uhhh something something denial,” and…for once, I was right? Sort of? Listening to this one again makes me see exactly why it wormed its way back into my brain. Phair’s dry witticisms are dialed up to their full capacity, paired with jangly guitars that bring to mind sitting on benches in the midst of dry, summer heat. Dry, summer heat is what this song really is—sitting by yourself, remembering how it felt to wince, pull off the bandaid, and quit thinking about your ex. (I didn’t realize until now that there’s two breakup songs in a row? Whoops…) And as much as I now adore Exile, it seems like that album has overshadowed everything else that Liz Phair has put out (as…divisive as some of her more recent work seems to be). I’m just as motivated now to dig my teeth into Whip-Smart as I was to listen to her debut—I already adore this, the title track, and “Supernova,” so why not? Anybody who can rhyme “denial” with “Ohio” automatically has my respect. They’re already synonyms, so it was only a matter of time.

“Independence Day” – Palehound

Every time I see a new Supreme Court decision, it cements it in my mind that this song is the only Independence Day I’ll be celebrating on Tuesday. I’m just celebrating that I’m getting a day off work, at this point.

Even if the real Independence Day doesn’t have much of the same meaning anymore, at least Palehound can fill the void with a fantastic new track, self-described as a “gay breakup song for pride month.” Eye on the Bat’s first single, “The Clutch,” was hard to beat, but “Independence Day” easily slid to my second favorite single off the record so far. From the minute that El Kempner’s snappy finger-picking kicks in, every not3 is propulsive, with winding guitar melodies that crawl up the walls like ladybugs. It’s reached the level of Palehound Perfection™️ of some of their best songs—a catchy, three-and-a-half-minute long alt-rock hit that never loses its momentum. For a breakup song, it’s deceptively upbeat—it’s pure indie catharsis. It isn’t just heartbreak, plain and simple, but a series of pictures painted on tiny canvases. Each verse feels like a neatly-cut movie scene, from the “flashes of color on your face/the bass thumping, the chanting names/our cat running under the bed with his tail between his legs” as Kempner breaks it off with her partner on July 4th, to a near-death experience on the road that could have “dug us both a single grave,” but drove them apart rather than bringing them closer together. All of it is strung together by one of Kempner’s most memorable choruses: “I’m living life like writing a first draft/’cuz there is nothing to it if I can’t edit the past/and even if I could it, would kill me to look back/no I don’t wanna see the other path.” And for someone who constantly imagines alternate timelines, universes where I made different decisions, I can see how freeing it could be to know that the path that you’re on is the one you’re meant to be on—the ones still tied to their ex, for Kempner, aren’t worth dwelling on. Cheers to that.

Since this post consists entirely of songs, consider all of them to be today’s song.

That’s it for this week’s songs! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!