Tag: Arlo Parks

Posted in Sunday Songs

Sunday Songs (12/10/23) + something new!

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Sunday, bibliophiles!

Apologies for the lack of Sunday Songs last week; the only reason I was able to get the other two posts I made last week was because they were both at least 95% pre-written—otherwise, they would have been gone, reduced to atoms, by the absolute chaos hell week of pre-finals. (Why is the period right before finals always the worst? No, it’s…no, that’s just coming back from break and having to Do Things. Yeah.) Either way, that time has given me some space to think about a change that I’ve been kicking around for a bit—adding some more to my Sunday Songs. Although these posts were originally inspired by my brother, it’s really been a fruitful experience to write about music more—The Bookish Mutant is still a book blog, but I’d be remiss if I denied that part of me. And yet…the books always come back. It’s in my nature. So now, you get your songs with a book paired to each—similarities in plot, similarities in vibes, or just similarities that bounced around my head for no reason other than free association. Bon appetit!

I so wanted to talk about last week’s songs, but as I said, last week was chaos, so I never got the time to write anything about them. But because they’re still fantastic songs, have them + last week’s graphic:

12/3/23

Enjoy this week’s songs (and books!)

SUNDAY SONGS: 12/10/23

“Bruises” – Lisa Germano

I’ve only listened to two full Lisa Germano albums (Excerpts from a Love Circus, where this song is from, and its follow-up, Slide), and I’ve discovered a method to listening to them; if you don’t want to feel the milieu of misery seep into you like mold, give it only one or two listens all the way through. Let it sit, then the individual songs (and their genius) return to you in smaller bites. That’s what’s tugged me back to the parts of Excerpts for the past month and a half since I listened to the full album for the first time—said misery notwithstanding, there’s something undeniably intoxicating about almost every track.

While it’s just as rust-smelling and heavy as most other Lisa Germano song you can pull out of a hat, what makes “Bruises” stand out is the folksy, almost Celtic sway that surrounds it. After the interlude of plaintive mewling, courtesy of her cat Dorothy (originally meant to bookend “A Beautiful Schizophrenic (‘Where’s Miamo-Tutti?’ by Dorothy)”, arguably the album’s most “mom, come pick me up, I’m scared” track), the first thing that jumps out at you is the dipping lilt of the violins; they passionately bay and lurch like dancers against the steadiness of the acoustic guitars and humming, cavernous synths, the same that frame another favorite of mine from the album, “Baby On The Plane.” And Germano’s voice, mainly defined by its wispiness in many of her songs, rises to meet the violins, her high notes ringing out in strained, rasping harmony as she cries out the chorus of “bruises, bruises, bruises, bruises,” dragging out the last repetition as easily as guiding the strings of a marionette. Her harmonies twist together like ghosts rising out from the cracks of the underworld, weaving through the violin strings. “Bruises” has the creaking sway of a rocking chair, but not in the way of being curled into grandmother’s lap while she reads a story; like “Crash,” the looping, ouroboros rhythm seeps into Germano’s words of repetition and depression, mindlessly going through the motions; the exhausted delivery of “make it better, alright” hammers in her struggle to wake from the stupor, sleepwalking through life as she struggles to even get out of bed in the first place. It has the rhythm of a slow dance, but all of the dancers are stumbling over their own feet, heads hanging, hands slipping apart and missing cues and steps.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT: Summer Bird Blue – Akemi Dawn Bowman – even though this novel deals specifically with grief, the combination of Bowman’s very real, very heavy depiction of the lows of Rumi’s mental health and the way the melody seems to bob up and down like the waves of the ocean make this a solid fit in my eyes.

“Ptolemaea” – Ethel Cain

I’ve only come up with more recent songs as examples for this, but there’s something about adding animal sounds near the end of songs to add to the eeriness—sounds that wouldn’t normally be dread-inducing, but amp up the dread of the song. The most prominent example I can think of is the dogs barking at the end of Mitski’s “I’m Your Man”—the dog/hounds theme of the song notwithstanding, as soon as you start to hear them desperately baying in the background, interwoven with crickets and other nighttime sounds, you instantly get the feeling that something is very, very wrong. Fun way to end an album, huh?

The animals used in “Ptolemaea” are much more plainly sinister from the start—with the moaning, creeping dread that immediately swallows you only seconds into the song, the swarm of buzzing flies that trickle into your ears like a slow drip of poison shortly after is an immediate alarm bell. When I heard the flies, I heard them circling around something rotten. Something putrid is not too far away, and the flies have come to land on your skin feed on you next. Uncomfortably landing on your skin is something that “Ptolemaea” instantly does—it’s a truly astounding piece of art, but it’s astoundingly icky for all of its six plus minutes. And yet there’s something instantly, drowningly consuming about it—the instrumentation in the last half has a hard rock, almost goth tidal wave that wants to bring you down with it into the cold, unforgiving depths. And like a dog-eared, pocket Bible with a battered cover and flaking pages, the sonic layers seem infinite, from the chilling, low incantations of perverse, religious verses, to the blood-curdling cry of “STOP!” that marks the song’s halfway point. I can’t help but be in absolute shock at this song—I seem to remember being openmouthed with giddy surprise when That Part kicked in while driving with my brother. I can’t listen to this song too often, lest I get consumed by the creeping dread, and I also feel guilty having those giddy feelings about the second half of this song, when it’s so clearly alluding to some form of abuse and/or sexual assault. But from what I know about the whole Ethel Cain project, it was born out of a desire to explore a history of religious trauma, abuse, and queerness, and that is, at its best, is one of the best qualities of art—to weave all these things into something new to reach out to others; in Cain’s case, the results are unfathomably harrowing, but undoubtedly masterful.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT: Extasia – Claire Legrand – would you like your creeping dread and explorations of queer girlhood and religious trauma with a side of towering entities in the woods?

“Kill Them With Kindness” – IDLES

Don’t you love doing mundane, peaceful things and listening to albums that are the exact opposite of mundane and peaceful? Nothing like cleaning up the bathroom and quietly rearranging my bulletin board while Joe Talbot is screaming in my ears.

I finally, finally got around to listening to Ultra Mono over break, and for the most part, it was sheer fun all the way through. Apparently, it’s regarded a little lower in the ranks for some IDLES fans; in contrast to some of their other albums, this seems to be where they went full in on the aggressively positive theme, and for a lot of people, it seemed to come off as corny. And…yeah, I don’t buy it. I understand the gripes about “War,” the album’s first track—the onomatopoeia is fun, but it doesn’t make sense at all. And as much as I enjoy it, I see where a lot of the criticism comes for “Ne Touche Pas Moi“—Riot Grrl did aggressive songs about consent first, and IDLES seems to have respected that history, but there’s something to be said for a bunch of aggressive, sweaty British men who look like they could beat you to a pulp singing about “Your body is your body/And it belongs to nobody but you.” (Plus, at least they had a woman—Jehnny Beth—shout the rallying cry of “ne touche pas moi.”) I’d feel safe walking home at night with these dudes. But either way, this is how I see it: we have a sea of songs this aggressive, but that are all about how edgy you are and how much everything sucks, so as far as I’m concerned, IDLES are a breath of fresh air. The screamy edgelords and their corresponding emotions have their place (sometimes), but they’ve had their moment in the sun. KINDNESS!

As the title suggests, this song pretty much sums up the entire IDLES ethos—aggressive positivity. If you isolated the lyrics from the song, you’d probably get some accusations along the lines of “you dirty hippie(s),” but that’s what makes it so memorable—it’s earnest, it’s loud, and it’s relentlessly optimistic. But this killing with kindness isn’t the kind you associate with smiling, doing nothing, and letting yourself be stagnant or stepped on—as Talbot declares, “Ain’t no doormats here/It doesn’t mean you have to bow, or say “Your Highness”/Just kill ’em with kindness/If you wanna beat the machine, keep your teeth clean.” And what better to cement that than circles of dancing, anthropomorphic flowers and a grinning, rubberhose-style Joe Talbot spoon-feeding some kind of kindness serum to a scowling beefcake who was beating up a bunch of other guys just a few minutes earlier? It’s nothing short of delightful. IDLES are a blessing.

…and I’m seeing them in May!! WOO!!

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT: Chameleon Moon – RoAnna Sylver – it’s not in the title, but it’s in the subgenre. What better word to describe both this and IDLES but hopepunk?

“It Had To Be You” (Isham Jones Orchestra cover) – Harry Connick, Jr.

I’m 100% admitting to my status as a poser with regards to this song, because I haven’t even seen When Harry Met Sally, the movie where this version of “It Had to Be You” originally comes from. That being said, “baby fish mouth” has been permanently ingrained into my psyche thanks to my parents.

A fact that I always forget whenever I listen to this song: not only has Harry Connick, Jr. had a flourishing jazz career that starts as far back as recording in the studio for the first time at age 10, he’s also…

…yeah, oh my god. Dean has insane pipes.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT: The Spare Man – Mary Robinette Kowal – I was 100% grasping at straws for this one, but The Iron Giant would have objectively been cheating (and for once, the movie is objectively better than the book in every conceivable way). To be fair, I don’t read a whole lot of historical fiction, particularly the kind that would lend itself to this kind of big band drama, but with the lighthearted, noir feel (in space!) of this book makes me convinced that this song could’ve been in playing in the background of the bar on the opulent space liner where The Spare Man is set.

“Lose” – Jay Som

In terms of Jay Som’s catalogue, it seems that this song is one teeter away from disappearing into the ether—it was part of the Polyvinyl 4-Track Singles series (which has included artists such as Kishi Bashi, The Dodos, and of Montreal over the years) back in 2017, but as of now, the official audio on YouTube has only 10 likes (including mine, teehee) and nothing comes up when you google the lyrics. Well, nothing relevant. The top result is for the lyrics of “The Bus Song” (always fantastic), but by the time you start scrolling through several other Jay Som songs that aren’t “Lose”, it turns into…Jay Z and Coldplay, for some reason? Oof. Kinda rough. And although I’m all for being a petty hater and being bitter about songs I like getting popular and/or songs I like starting to be liked by popular people, there is no need for this song to keep going under the radar. It’s too delicately wonderful for such under-appreciation, dammit!

In my mind, the ascending notes that make up “Lose” fall somewhere between Wilco and the Beatles. It’s got that meticulous, stair-step climb in both the rhythm and the main riff that could have made up the framework for something off of Star Wars or Revolver just as easily. It’s a progression that immediately crawls into your brain, and I’d be lying if I didn’t enjoy every minute that it took up the space inside of mine. Jay Som’s signature dreamy haze of grainy lo-fi makes it sound like you can hear the gentle pitter-patter of rain trickling against the windows of wherever the song was recorded—regardless of whether or not it actually was raining, the flickering warmth that permeates through all of her songs shows its face here. Somehow, it’s the perfect soundtrack for being under a blanket forth while it rains outside. You’ve got a flashlight propped up in the corner, and it makes everything look gently orange and yellow as you uncomfortably squeeze yourself against the side of the couch you propped your blankets up against. There’s a bag of snacks somewhere, and now, your pillow feels just right.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT: A City Inside – Tillie Walden – more in vibes than anything, but Walden’s art style, with its muted, flat hues and beautiful simplicity, lends itself to this drifting air of most of Jay Som’s music, even if this single didn’t have the album art that it has.

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 Monthly Wrap-Ups

November 2023 Wrap-Up 🍲

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Thursday, bibliophiles!

Here we are, and once again, the year is nearly over…at least we have season 5 of Fargo to distract us from the inevitable passage of time.

Let’s begin, shall we?

GENERAL THOUGHTS:

Break aside, November has been on the busier side, but it’s been a productive one for me. It’s been chaos as far as my workload has gone, but part of that chaos was the editing that led me to send off two of my short stories for consideration to be published in some school literary journals! I won’t hear back for several months, but I’m so excited!! The initial impostor syndrome has faded (it’ll probably come back in a few months, mark my words…I’ve got my NyQuil ready), but either way, I’m really proud for taking this first step. Now, the workload chaos is in the form of looming final projects, which is not nearly as fun, but at least I don’t have to take a stats final at the crack of dawn like last year.

My reading has been a bit slower this month (see above), but as far as enjoyment goes, I’ve had a much more successful month! I had another 5-star read in the form of Ceremony (me when mixed-race experience and themes of storytelling), and I only had one book in the 2-star range for this whole month! I ended up reading a ton of literary and literary-leaning fiction for no particular reason, but the ones I read this month were almost all hits. I’ve had some more time to blog, what with break and whatnot, so it’s been fun to write more frequently before finals hits me like a train.

Other than that, I’ve just been trying to draw and play guitar (when I can), watching Taskmaster and The Great British Bakeoff (hEY NOW NO SPOILERS US AMERICANS HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL FRIDAY FOR THE FINAL), trying to ignore how cold the weather is, and rejoicing the return of Fargo! FARGO! I FEEL ALIVE AGAIN!

…say, are we gonna talk about how utterly insane episode 3 was? Just me?

Also, for your casual amusement, here’s the mess that is my Apple Music Replay for this year:

READING AND BLOGGING:

I read 15 books this month! Again, slower than normal, but it’s impressive to me, given how much editing and pre-finals chaos has consumed me this month.

2 – 2.75 stars:

Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone

3 – 3.75 stars:

Hunger Makes the Wolf

4 – 4.75 stars:

Our Wives Under the Sea

5 stars:

Ceremony

POSTS I’M PROUD OF:

POSTS FROM OTHER WONDERFUL PEOPLE THAT I’VE ENJOYED:

SONGS/ALBUMS THAT I’VE BEEN ENJOYING:

NEW IDLES IN FEBRUARY LET’S GO
finally got through the rest of Peter Gabriel’s non-soundtrack albums WOO
my first Arlo Parks album!! wonderful, summery stuff
DOI-OI-OI-OI-OING
so whimsically creepy
NEW SMILE IN JANUARY I’M GONNA PASS OUT

Today’s song:

hnnnnnngh 70’s guitars

That’s it for this month in blogging! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Book Tags

Wasted Potential Book Tag

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Thursday, bibliophiles!

It’s been a while since I’ve been able to do a book tag, and now that I’m in a sort of lull post-midterms (for now), I figured I would use that time to have some book tag fun. I found this tag over at Laura @ The Corner of Laura (who always finds the best book tags), and I can’t seem to find the original creator of the tag—if it’s you or if you know them, let me know and I’ll credit them! I try not to be negative *all* the time, but sometimes, you’ve gotta get the book rants off your chest.

Let’s begin, shall we?

🫤THE WASTED POTENTIAL BOOK TAG🫤

  1. A BOOK THAT TRIED BUT FAILED TO TACKLE AN ISSUE

It’s My Life was a complicated book for me—Stacie Ramey almost did a good job of portraying her disabled protagonist, but ultimately, her handling of disabled identity itself rubbed me the wrong way. (It’s one thing for a disabled person to use the label “differently-abled,” but having the word “disabled” almost never mentioned for the whole novel and then instead referred to as “differently-abled” by the abled author was…weird, to say the least). Also, for once, I’d like a book about disability that isn’t centered around the main character getting slurs yelled at her. Not that those stories don’t have a place, but again: it feels more uncomfortable knowing that this was written by an abled author.

2. AN INTRIGUING SERIES THAT DIDN’T PAY OFF

I only got three books into the Invisible Library series before I quit. It’s such a shame—they started out so strong, and for a concept that seems so rich with potential ideas (traveling through alternate realities to find books?? I mean, come on), it felt that Genevieve Cogman was rapidly running out of ideas by book 3. And knowing that there’s eight books in this series doesn’t give me faith in what I’ve missed out on.

3. A GREAT BEGINNING WITH A MEDIOCRE ENDING

The Spear Cuts Through Water started off with so many bold choices that I thought it was going to be fantastic. And then…it just dragged. It just dragged on for so long, and everything that was bold at first just became tired and full of itself. This one was a real disappointment.

4. A LAST-MINUTE TWIST THAT RUINED IT ALL

Without spoiling anything, the twist ending of Katzenjammer really felt like it was in poor taste. This novel was so unique up until that point, and the ending could have been not only more creative, but more sensitively handled as well. Real shame.

5. A GREAT PLOT WITH SOME BORING CHARACTERS

It’s not so much boring characters but frustrating characters in this case; The Surviving Sky had the potential to be incredibly imaginative, but having the focus be on two insufferable characters in a failing marriage was not the right move for this book. The infodumped worldbuilding didn’t help either.

6. A CHARACTER DEATH THAT RUINED A BOOK (Spoilers)

I’m having a ton of trouble coming up with anything for this prompt. I know I’ve read books where this has happened, but I just can’t think of any right now? So I’ll have to leave this one blank…

7. A ROMANCE THAT RUINED A BOOK (Spoilers)

I already despise love triangles, but you know what’s worse than a love triangle? A love triangle where there’s no reason to like either of the romantic interests. Warner and Adam from the Shatter Me series were both so gross to me, and I would’ve been mad at Juliette for ending up with either of them, but I hated Warner even more, so that soured the whole end of Ignite Me for me. Eh.

8. A ROMANCE THAT YOU WANTED TO HAPPEN (Spoilers)

Normally, I love when authors leave a couple that’s set up to be love interests as platonic, but the romance between Ning and Kang in A Venom Dark and Sweet was hinted so much in book 1, and then…nothing ever came of it? It just felt like a very messy way to resolve it, almost like Judy I. Lin just forgot that it was supposed to happen.

9. A SCENE YOU HAVE PETTY BEEF WITH

Every scene in the Hunger Games trilogy with Gale. I will not elaborate.

I TAG ANYONE WHO WANTS TO PARTICIPATE!

Today’s song:

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

Posted in Book Review Tuesday

Book Review Tuesday (11/7/23) – The Deep Sky

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!

The Deepy Sky came out this July, and I’ve been seeing a ton of buzz about it around the blogosphere since. I’m always in for a sci-fi thriller, and this one delivered in that aspect, as well as the wonderful mixed-race rep!

Enjoy this week’s review!

The Deep Sky – Yume Kitasei

Asuka has been chosen as a representative on a mission to deep space, where she will help give birth the next generation of Earth’s children. But she has been chosen to represent Japan—a country she barely knows, as a half-Japanese, half-Latina girl raised in the United States. Feeling like an imposter to an unfamiliar country, she accepts her duty and joins the crew of the Phoenix. But a deadly explosion onboard the ship leaves her the only surviving witness. With all eyes on her once more, Asuka must get to the bottom of the explosion before the perpetrator strikes again.

TW/CW: racism, terrorism, miscarriage/fertility themes, death of a child

“Literary” sci-fi rarely does it for me; most of what I’ve read barely scrapes past the 3.5 star rating for me, at best. Often, what happens is that the sci-fi element gets significantly watered down for the sake of marketability, drama, and a place in a celebrity’s book club (see: Sea of Tranquility, In the Quick). But The Deep Sky had the chops to make itself unique—and incredibly poignant.

The sci-fi plot of The Deep Sky is pretty standard as far as story elements go, but Kitasei’s approach to it made it feel fresh. It’s the setup for a myriad of sci-fi thrillers: you’ve got a large crew voyaging through the depths of space, only for a tragic accident to leave everyone onboard in suspicion, with no way to get back to Earth. It’s not necessarily a new approach plot-wise that keeps it going—it’s the emotional core that Kitasei brings to it. You’re really able to see deeply into Asuka’s head, deeper than a lot of authors dare to go with these kinds of stories; it’s a great way to increase the stakes without having to complicate the mystery of the story.

Also, LET’S HEAR IT FOR MIXED-RACE REPRESENTATION!! I’ve been on a roll with books with amazing mixed-race characters and stories lately (see also: Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony—a very different book, but no less poignant), and as a mixed-race person, I’m so glad that narratives like these exist. Kitasei’s depiction of the imposter syndrome that Asuka faces about her identity is twofold—not only is there the level of it that comes with her being of Japanese and Mexican descent in the U.S., but also in the fact that she has to represent Japan—a country that she’s barely been to—in this mission. It really did make me feel so, so seen. Kitasei’s portrayal of having these intersecting identities and them coming at odds with how others want to box you in was deeply moving and authentic, and I cannot thank her enough for that.

Back to the subject of literary sci-fi. A lot of these types of novels that I’ve read deal with intersecting, nonlinear timelines, which may or may not have to do with actual time travel (case dependent). For the most part, it worked incredibly in Kitasei’s favor—even outside what we can consider the “main” plot, the pieces that we get of Asuka’s life before the deep space mission were almost more intriguing than the actual murder mystery in space. Kitasei’s character work is incredibly detailed and nuanced, and having most of this novel be driven by character and family was a choice that made me enjoy it that much more. These types of sci-fi thrillers normally lend themselves to very distant characters, and minimal character work by proxy (outside of “trust no one”), so this was a breath of fresh air in that sense.

That being said, the nonlinear timeline was also what brought part of the novel down for me. There’s much more emphasis placed on the time before the mission than the actual mission, making the murder mystery plot feel like an afterthought. The way that these timelines were spaced out meant that we went long stretches without checking in on what’s supposed to be the novel’s inciting incident, which made the stakes feel much lower than they were meant to be. The tension got appropriately amped towards the end, but other than that, there really wasn’t as much thriller as I was expecting going in. Maybe this is just a matter of how The Deep Sky was marketed, but I did wish we got a little more of the “main” plot.

All in all, a rare gem of a literary sci-fi novel where every page brimmed with emotion and suspicion. 4 stars!

The Deep Sky is a standalone; it is also Yume Kitasei’s debut novel.

Today’s song:

listened to my first Arlo Parks album, and I’m a fan!! this was my favorite, for sure

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

Posted in Sunday Songs

Sunday Songs: 7/30/23

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Sunday, bibliophiles!

I only just found out that today is Kate Bush’s birthday, and sadly, I don’t have any of her music on this week’s batch for the occasion. But it’s just been announced that Mitski is getting ready to play with our emotions again this September, so I guess we’d better buckle up…

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 7/30/23

“I Just Threw Out The Love Of My Dreams” – Weezer

Listen. LISTEN. I didn’t intend to weeze you all without warning, I promise. Blame Snail Mail for this one. Get weez’d.

Weezer (The Blue Album) was one of those random albums that I happened to listen to on a whim sometime during the summer of 2020. And, yes, despite the abundant memes and the general smelly incel vibe of most of the male portion of the fandom, Weezer can write a good song. Key word there is a good song. The Blue Album is basically the same song 10 times over, but it’s a good song. I’m not gonna sit here and act like “Buddy Holly” isn’t one of the catchiest tunes that the 90’s ever conceived of. But it wasn’t enough for me to go deeper into their discography, and everything that Pitchfork/Stereogum posts about Rivers “I won’t rest ’till I drop and the crowd goes YEET” Cuomo and co. hasn’t exactly encouraged me. And yet…Weezer with a woman singing? Such a simple change made me feel like I’d ascended into some whole new dimension. Look. I don’t have a CLUE how this song has had the chokehold that it’s had on me for the past two weeks. Never in my life would I have anticipated enjoying a Weezer song nearly as much as I have with this track. But I’m enjoying it wholeheartedly.

“I Just Threw Out The Love Of My Dreams” (if that isn’t the weeziest Weezer song title to ever weeze) has apparently been making a comeback; I must’ve missed it trending on TikTok last year for whatever reason, but either way, Weezer have been bringing it back for their most recent tour, calling on the likes of Snail Mail and Momma to fill in for the female vocals, originally sung by Rachel Haden. It’s a b-side, originally from a scrapped rock opera (again, exactly the kind of thing you’d expect Rivers Cuomo to do) titled Songs from the Black Hole, that only saw the light of day once they came out with the deluxe edition of Pinkteron, which was partially cobbled together from Black Hole; Haden, shamefully, wasn’t paid for her phenomenal vocals on this song, but given its recent spike in popularity, I would hope that she’s getting the last laugh now. There’s really a special magic to this song: it’s got just the right amount of glimmering, space-tinged power pop to make me smile with every listen. The texture of it really does recall some kind of shiny, retro space opera world, with bright red starships and glittering cities on faraway planets. Rachel Haden has a voice that truly soars—it’s already a feat to keep her range so high for most of the song, but once she reaches the second chorus, her voice really seems to burst like a rocket hitting light speed, all at once sweet and rich—perfect for the tone of this contagiously catchy lament. And of course, it’s that perfect earworm length, just over two and a half minutes long, making it impossible to not listen to it on repeat. (Needless to say, my Apple Music Replay is gonna be a wreck this year…)

“the way things go” – beabadoobee

beabadoobee has always been someone on the edges of my periphery; she seems somewhat adjacent to a good amount of the music I listen to (Soccer Mommy, boygenius, Beach Bunny, etc.), but I’ve only ever heard snippets of her music. They were all good snippets, but none of them fully convinced me to listen to her music. That is, until I came upon this video of her first time performing “the way things go” in its infancy last year, a clip taken from her Instagram live:

You know me. This video was perfect sadgirl bait. But something about the combination of the original key and the hypnotic melody made for a song that latched itself to me in the times that I thought I’d forgotten about it. Plus…okay, her expressions are just adorable. I love her already.

Part of me is still partial to the original key, but seeing the shift to the more mature, healed version that finally saw the light of day about a week and a half ago has been such a treat, even from me, pretty much a beabadoobee virgin. Setting aside the fact that the first beabadoobee song to catch my eye seems to be one of her only breakup songs (ouch), “the way things go” is such an immaculately curated song; even if we hadn’t seen several iterations of it shift over the months, it would still be the delicate slice of melancholy-but-hopeful meticulous craft that it is. Everything about it sounds lush and richly-layered, with Bea Kristi’s original guitar twisting through all manner of other instruments (strings, flutes…maybe even a bit of mandolin?) like vines up an old stone wall. Kristi’s voice is as feather-light as the tutus on the music video’s ballerinas, even more endearing than the candid video; even though the change from “the love you said you had, it never showed” to “sometimes showed” is, on the surface less powerful than the original (the inverse of Will Toledo changing “filling out forms from a working printer” to “busted printer” on “Something Soon”?), it’s more evident of personal healing, and that should always be prioritized over emotional “depth” just because it’s sadder. As Kristi says, “I’m happy now, I ought to let you know.”

(sidenote: does anyone have a good place to start w listening to beabadoobee? I think I’m convinced now…)

“Caroline” – Arlo Parks

I talked a bit about Arlo Parks’ more recent music last week, and that was about when I started dipping my toes into her music. I’m still not sure about albums at this point, given my ridiculously Sisyphean album bucket list, but I had a vague recollection of hearing about this song and “Eugene,” both some of her more popular songs, and both of them names, as you could probably tell. And like “Pegasus (feat. Phoebe Bridgers),” both of them went STRAIGHT to the library playlist. I’ve already made many a memory of straightening shelves to the tune of Parks singing “Caroline, I swear to god I tried/I swear to god I tried.”

“Caroline” has an undeniable rhythm. It’s the perfect kind of mid-tempo song: fast enough to nod your head to, but slow enough that it draws you in like honey. Filming parts of the music video in a swimming pool was the perfect choice; the bright blue of the chlorinated water and its gentle, cool flow match this song perfectly. It steadily ripples along, anchored by its hypnotic, immediately hooking drums and the flitting guitar notes that fade into it. I still hold that Arlo Parks has one of the more unique singing voices that I can think of—it has a strange, mercurial quality of being both high and rich, light and thick. And without a doubt, it’s a voice that has no trouble telling a story. In this case, that story is of watching a couple fighting in public. Parks’ fly-on-the-wall approach to framing “Caroline” makes for no shortage of fleshed-out imagery, from the man’s spilled coffee to the necklace that the woman throws into his face. It’s got all the instrumentation of a catchy, indie pop tune, with just the amount of storytelling I like.

“Amen” – Gruff Rhys

In my on-and-off, two year Super Furry Animals kick, I hadn’t even thought to look into Gruff Rhys’ solo career. That’ll come later for me, of course, but again, as always, my dad came through with two of his newest songs, and even though I don’t know a single thing about the soundtrack that they’re from, I’m 100% hooked.

Taken from the soundtrack of the 2022 movie The Almond and The Seahorse (fun name, for sure), “Amen” would be begging for some kind of movie scene if it wasn’t already on this album. Without the context of hearing the rest of Rhys’ solo career, it’s hard to say exactly where the sonic shift from Super Furry Animals to just him happened; whether or not it’s just more suited to the tone of the movie (which would make sense, given that the inciting incident appears to be the main character having a traumatic brain injury) is up in the air, but either way, there’s a more stripped-down quality to “Amen.” Super Furry Animals, for me, were defined by making wacky, experimental, and purely fun (Welsh) Britpop records, sometimes delving into EDM-adjacent insanity (“No Sympathy”) and longer, emotional tracks (“Run! Christian, Run!”), often on the same album (Rings Around the World, #9 on my top 10 favorite albums). They could do grandeur, they could do silliness, they could do political statements. And even though the weirdness is what usually what endears me to Gruff Rhys, “Amen” presents that grandeur without as much of the weirdness, but with no emotional weight lost along the way. Accompanied by strings and Rhys’ gently rasping voice, the piano is the real star of this song; when the instrumentals almost fade to silence at 0:43, only to give way to Rhys’ plea of “I can give you more” and his steady, descending piano chords, I can’t help but feel as though something monumental is shifting around me. I feel like somebody’s pulling at the folds of a dress I’m wearing, and those piano chords turn it from a simple thing into a flowing, layered wedding gown. It’s a song that takes you by the hand and spins you around, and to get that feeling with every listen is such a joy. We really need to appreciate the genius of Gruff Rhys more.

“Bug Like an Angel” – Mitski

As if this year wasn’t already rife with exciting new music, we’ve got new music due from Mitski in September, only a year and a half after her last album! Granted, I feel like her last album (Laurel Hell) was hit or miss, but I’ve gotten to the point where I can expect for most of her music to be compelling, at the very least. And with a title like The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We, at least something’s bound to be compelling about this new record.

“Bug Like an Angel” certainly is, in its own, quietly captivating way. This title, like the album title (there’s a fair amount of interesting titles on this record…”Buffalo Replaced” is certainly memorable), immediately grabbed me, and from there, Mitski sucked me into another hypnotically haunting song. Most of the song is just her accompanied by an acoustic guitar and the same audio effects that she seems to have been using for most of her careers, but it’s a tricksy. Just as you turn the volume up to hear it better, she hits you with the thrumming, cavernous hum of her voice against a 17-member gospel choir. And as many have noted, “Bug Like an Angel” really does have a hymnal feel, with or without of Mitski’s choral garb in the music video, as well as the track’s final refrain: “I try to remember/The wrath of the devil/Was also given him by God.” There’s no real chorus, but after each verse ends, the choir takes up a chant of the verse’s final (or close to final) words in repetition, voices abruptly rising in volume as Mitski commands them. She has always been commanding—with her combination of lyricism and the power in her voice, it’s hard not to take up the chant of one of her songs or another. So here I am, knowing that I only really liked half of Laurel Hell, returning to the gut feeling of knowing that Mitski has at least a few more gorgeous tracks up her sleeve. I’m certainly saving this one for safekeeping.

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!