I hate to say it, but while Amie Kaufman has never let me down with her books, her book recommendations are less reliable. That’s how I found out about Field Guide for the Formerly Villainous, but to be fair, I’ve been reading and enjoying Autumn K. England/M.K. England’s books since I was in high school. They’ve never been a favorite or auto-buy author for me, but their books have been consistently solid and enjoyable in a pinch. Unfortunately, their cozy adult debut is their weakest novel to date.
Oaklin Nettlewood is turning over a new leaf. After narrowly escaping from a magical cult, Oaklin has fled to the small town of Mossley’s Rest. In a fit of desperation, they buy a farm, not knowing that its former occupant was a beloved staple in the town before her death. Her ghost lingers in the barn, and she’s bent on helping Oaklin revive the farm in earnest. But between painful flashbacks, suspicious townsfolk, and Oaklin’s self-imposed barriers, will they ever be able to start over?
TW/CW: panic attacks, mental illness themes, past descriptions of murder/violence, substance abuse
I wasn’t a massive fan of England’s books before, but they were consistently entertaining, which is why I’ve kept reading them. This might be where I break up with them. I should’ve seen the red flags when this was compared to Can’t Spell Treason Without Tea, which I rated too generously in retrospect. Field Guide for the Formerly Villainous was largely bland, and when it wasn’t bland, it was grating; there are so many ways to make cozy genre fiction compelling, and England used none of them.
Field Guide for the Formerly Villainous did have a prominently good aspect; it’s not just a matter of “the main character is disabled/mentally ill and that’s cool,” but England’s depiction of Oaklin’s PTSD was so empathetic. England did an excellent job of writing all of the facets of Oaklin’s trauma and mental illness. No punches were pulled with the depictions of their violent flashbacks, and their frequent panic attacks and harshly critical inner monologue were treated with the appropriate balance of sympathy and authenticity—unlike some other parts of the book, none of it felt sanitized, which I appreciated. It didn’t just feel like representation for representation’s sake—it felt like a genuine attempt to humanize a mental illness that’s quite stigmatized.
I’m not sure if I was just able to pass over the flaws in England’s novels in high school because I wasn’t super discerning or if Field Guide for the Formerly Villainous is just their worst novel. Whatever the case, one of the biggest weaknesses of this novel was just how downright bland it is. I hate to say this, but I genuinely can’t think of a single unique quality that England’s writing has. There were a few nicely flowery metaphors here and there, but it just felt devoid of any individuality. The bucolic setting was described at the barest minimum, as were the relationships between Oaklin and the others. I wasn’t expecting a worldbuilding marvel, or anything, but any sense of the world beyond the absolute bare minimum was missing. England’s writing style was just exceedingly nothing. This was certainly a book. With words in it.
I was hoping that England’s characters and dialogue would pick up the slack that the boring writing left off. Unfortunately, that was not the case. Apart from Oaklin, who was decently written, and Granny (whose main distinguishing factors were that she was a ghost and had the mannerisms of an old lady), the supporting characters were lazy copy and pastes of each other. Looking back, the only thing that distinguished Lior from the others was that she was [checks notes] an attractive woman who had a different job from the others. Ryn and Jules were the exact same character. (I think one of them plays guitar? That’s all that distinguishes them.) But what really exacerbated this issue was that all of their dialogue sounded the same. To make matters worse, they all had these very modern, gratingly “quirky” mannerisms that felt like some insufferable person’s DnD campaign. For all the effort that England put into making the people of Mossley’s Rest seem like the kind of small town folk that you’d be comfortable being neighbors with, I just wanted to leave as soon as possible.
An extension of this character issue came in the form of the romance. I liked the setup of Oaklin and Lior’s relationship, but none of it felt earned. From the start, I knew that they would end up together. That in and of itself wasn’t the problem; the problem was that their romantic progression felt so fast and unearned. So much of how their relationship developed fell into the many timeskips throughout the novel, leaving what we had on the page insufficient. It just lacked tension. In cozy genre fiction of any kind, romance is a great way to introduce an element of low-stakes tension without making the novel overly tense. Here, it was just insta-love, and wholly unearned. The only real barriers were Oaklin’s past identity and their conflicting professions, both of which got smoothed over pretty quickly. I do like that Lior was able to accept Oaklin in spite of their past, but it just felt like it robbed the book of some fluffier tension that it very much needed.
That being said, I will say that, in spite of not enjoying myself throughout most of Field Guide for the Formerly Villainous, I did love the ending. It’s messier than a lot of cozy fantasies like it are willing to get, and the biggest takeaway is that Oaklin is fundamentally deserving of love in spite of their past, which they had no control over. Yes, it was a little sappy, but I always appreciate narratives about the harsh criticism that characters have about themselves being proven wrong. England stuck the landing, but it wasn’t enough to save the whole novel.
All in all, a cozy fantasy that was forgettable in all senses of the word. 2.25 stars.
Field Guide for the Formerly Villainous is the first novel in the Everyday Magic series, but no sequels have been announced yet. Autumn K. England (also writing as M.K. England) is also the author of several other books for teens and adults, including The Disasters, Spellhacker, Roll for Love, All Fired Up, and many others.
Today’s song:
NEW CHELSEA WOLFE ALBUM IN AUGUST, THIS IS NOT A DRILL!!
That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!
Happy Sunday, bibliophiles! I hope this week has treated you well.
This week: four years of Sunday Songs (!!), and the vibes are nothing short of baffling. Buckle up. And if you happen to get unexpectedly bopped on the head by falling fish, don’t say I didn’t warn you.
I know the expression “[xyz] could kill a Victorian child” is overused, but my shuffle recently made the transition from this song to “L to the OG,” and I feel like that could reasonably put a Victorian child into a coma. It almost put me into one.
I think I was destined to stumble upon more Tom Waits eventually. I guess he’s been having a bit of a minor moment, what with the recent needle drop in Wake Up Dead Man and his emergence from hibernation on Massive Attack’s biting anti-war track “Boots on the Ground” (which samples this song!). I’d also been familiar with him from his feature on Sparklehorse’s “Dog Door”; the words “gremlin,” “goblin,” and “chaos” have lost all of their meaning thanks to Tumblr, but if there’s anybody who actually sounds like a gremlin on that song, it’s Mark Linkous. And then here comes Tom Waits bellowing like an ogre. The whole experience of “Dog Door” is like witnessing some bog goblins performing a sacrificial ritual in an abandoned shed with some rusty nails and a fish skeleton. Great stuff. It’s peak, just trust me.
Bone Machine in particular vaguely fascinated me from afar—it always seemed to pop up on my Apple Music recommended albums. Of course, my brother ended up being the impetus for me finding this song. Is the fact that I’ve had “The Earth Died Screaming” on repeat on and off for a few weeks a cause for concern? Probably. But it’s such a captivating herald of the apocalypse. Wait’s signature growl is probably the only voice that could properly convey the bleakness of this vision of the end of the world. We’re talking Biblical levels of apocalypse here—the Devil’s shoveling coal, for one, but the last line of the last verse invokes the plague of locusts, so we’re already off to a great start. Waits’ rasping delivery of “Bring me some water/Put it in this skull” might set the atmosphere more than any of the others. Some of the lyrics are truly spine chilling—I don’t know why, but the invocation of army ants picking off the bones of whoever’s left after the initial onslaught of ungodly abominations gives me the willies. And the way that Waits’s lips seem to form around the words “it rained mackerel, it rained trout” cement this song’s feeling of being passed down as an omen of doom between haggard street preachers. The percussion, which marches on like a dirge, sounds like it’s being played on the dusty ribcage of a horse. I can almost imagine a Cab Calloway-like parade of skeletons marching along to this song. All of the instruments are sparse here, and the Lisa Germano-esque organ outro only adds to the feeling of foreboding. It all feels very Cormac McCarthy to me, and if not for the fact that I hated The Road, it would’ve been my book pairing—it’s a bleak tale, a world populated by dust, bones, and dirt roads that haven’t seen human feet in years.
Wait’s storytelling is what keeps this from going fully into The Road territory, but more notably, I think it’s the romance. It’s not a ballad by any stretch. But the fact that the rotted connective tissue of the chorus, howled by Waits, is “The earth died screaming/While I lay dreaming/Dreaming of you” sets the tone for the song—every post-apocalyptic trope is happening to Earth in an unrelenting barrage, but he’s still dreaming of that you. Amidst the horror, there’s fleeting bright moments—”I walk between the raindrops” for one, one of my favorite lines from the whole song—and maybe that’s the real human instinct of perseverance during the apocalypse, even while you’re getting pelted by locusts and fish.
…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:
Anthem – Noah Hawley – “And the great day of wrath has come/And here’s mud in your big red eye/The poker’s in the fire/And the locusts take the sky…”
At long last…Role Model Hermit, everybody!! The album I’ve been anticipating for years has been out a little over a week now, and the shine hasn’t worn off. It’s such an excellent spread of the things I love best about mary in the junkyard. It’s a lovingly-sewn patchwork of remnants of their earlier sound and the more mature songwriters that they are now, full of off-kilter, Radiohead-esque chord progressions paired with whimsical lyricism evoking folklore and landscapes populated by weird little Jim Henson puppet creatures. Role Model Hermit is a world of vegetable gardens, reincarnated mice, hungry dogs, and men turning into trees. All of it showcases a kind of storytelling that’s more than comfortable veering into the fantastical while retaining the weepy, angry vulnerability that endeared them to me in the first place.
The one major drawback of Role Model Hermit is that the most memorable tracks were the singles. It’s kind of a rough move to release almost half of the album as singles before the release (six, if you count the fact that they frequently played “Thou Shalt Sprout” before the album came out), and although there wasn’t a bad song on the album, none of them live up to early standouts like “Crash Landing” or “New Muscles.” Even so, the album remained full of surprises—”Peter the Dog” was a standout on the first listen. This is the aforementioned hungry dog, a comfortable but hungry creature that eats all of the narrator’s fears and anxiety. It’s one of the more painfully vulnerable songs on the album—it candidly captures that feeling when you think you’re out of the woods when it comes to anxiety or any other kind of issue, and then the feelings start to resurface: “I don’t understand my tears/I’ve been doing so well/And the big black dog ate all of my fear/And I was starting to smoke.” I love the imagery of the dog (Peter, apparently), because to an extent, these feelings are like a domesticated animal: you’ve learned how to treat them and lived with them, but even the most rigorous training can make old habits resurface. But the comfort that comes with this dog is that you can always train it more, and you can calm it down just as easily: “And I’m made of strong stuff/But I’ve always got this pain in my head.” mary in the junkyard have never shied away from this kind of vulnerability, and it’s resulted in so much fantastic songwriting; but their earlier songs were more scattershot in the lyrics, embodying their old Instagram bio of “angry weepy chaos rock.” But “Peter the Dog”—and Role Model Hermit as a whole—feel like the result of them really honing in on their songwriting, and the end product has resulted in their most impactful songs to date.
…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:
Heaven’s Graveyard – Grace Curtis – “I don’t understand my tears/I’ve been doing so well/And the big black dog ate all of my fear/And I was starting to smoke…”
So there’s definitely an album on the way. There has to be, she’s already announced a tour! Chelsea Wolfe recently reemerged with two new singles, this track and “The Dark.” I liked “The Dark,” “Death is Not the End” was, without question, the stronger of the two; while the eerie, meandering goth-folk of “The Dark” is solid but listless, “Death is Not the End” feels like much more fortified vision of a song, coalescing into the best parts of what I like about Chelsea Wolfe. Her ethereal whispers and the pluckings of an acoustic guitar assemble themselves like a skeleton before the real skin and muscles—the ascending, doom-y guitar as foreboding and ragged as a stormy cliffside—shield it. Amidst the crushing instrumentals in the latter half, she muses in her true gloomily poetic fashion, about the nature of death and transience: “This life heaves a sigh/Relief amid night/To water I return, in sea-dress/Seal-skin locked away for a time.” I, for one, fully support Wolfe’s selkie arc—her visuals for this set of singles return to the well-trod ground of “Chelsea Wolfe looking like a modern-day goddess in various biomes,” but the video for “Death is Not the End” is perfectly suited to the lyrics, with Wolfe clad in frilly tulle amidst kelp and a stony beach with bony spires rising from the shore.
…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:
The Soul Keepers – Devon Taylor – “Let it wash over/Unspoken/Like the mouth that eats the tail/I keep hoping death is like the ocean…”
The last time I talked about Cameron Winter, he had a much sunnier outlook on life. Heavy Metal really seems to run the gamut of emotion, because we’ve gone from embracing the bumpy road of love to the battle between having to work an unsatisfying job and desperately wanting to create. Granted, enough of the lyrics have enough quirkiness to them to suggest that Winter at least has something of a humorous outlook on things: “Cancer of the ’80s/I was beat with ukuleles” sounds abjectly goofy out of context. For me, that’s what prevents “Cancer of the Skull” from being purely pessimistic for me—like the swaying rhythm of the acoustic guitar, Winter documents the boat-on-the-sea pendulum swing between devoting yourself to work and devoting yourself to creativity. There’s a bevy of interesting instruments that work themselves into the fabric of the songs, from the warbling organ to the grasshopper boings of the barely-audible jaw harp, and they all serve to make this push-and-pull feel like Winter’s “pirate’s crazy-eyed quest,” adding a degree of sarcastic grandeur to something that most creatives have to grapple with once in their lives. Winter’s rich vocals, layered one on top of the others, make the thesis of “Oh, songs are a hundred ugly babies/That I can’t feed” into the kind of chorus you’d drunkenly sing around the fire—and oof, yeah, that’s such a fantastic distillation of having millions of ideas but neither the time nor the patience to attend to them.
…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:
Embassytown – China Miéville – “I came here to sleep in your infamous kitchen/You’re holding out a baby’s shoes/I can’t take ’em/I pray to a pirate’s maniac religion…”
What is it about songs called “Voyager” that always end up gutting me one way or another? I think it’s just the inherent bittersweetness and cosmic smallness that comes with evoking Voyager I. Yowch. Granted, PJ Harvey’s version didn’t really destroy me until I looked closer at the lyrics, but boygenius? Yup. I’m still reeling from their “Voyager” three years later. Damn you, Phoebe.
But we’re not here to talk about that “Voyager.” PJ Harvey’s newest track, a companion to an upcoming stage show by musician and physicist Professor Brian Cox, is a synth-driven slow-burn meditating on the probe that was launched into space nearly half a century ago. Amidst methodical keyboards that evoke the inner workings of a rocket, Harvey details its ongoing journey through the heavens: “Dark nights, dark days/Frozen, silent/Bearing Earth-songs.” The lyrics are simple and quite sparse, but it fits the construction of the song, a glacial build from keyboards into a grand orchestral hum. But then…ow, there was no need to gut me with the reference to Carl Sagan. Or, at least, that’s how I interpreted this line: “Look back at us/As a speck of dust/Darkness our home/Bear it through love.” It’s awfully similar to this line from page 371 of Contact: “For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love.” …excuse me while I keel over into the fetal position for the next hour. FUCK.
…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:
Contact – Carl Sagan – “For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love.”
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!
Happy Sunday, bibliophiles! I hope this week has treated you well.
BEFORE I GET INTO IT: my longtime best friend has joined me in creating a book blog! It’s over on Wix, but it’s well worth migrating to another website to see her excellent book reviews. Go show Daisy’s Fables some love!!
This week: this one really feels like I’m a 12-year-old holding up my interests and talking at you about them, but that’s what blogs are for, right?
Sit down. I’m yapping about St. Vincent’s self-titled album again. You WILL listen. You subscribed to this blog, this is the price you pay…
I really haven’t changed since the age of 12, huh? It really makes pieces of my soul wither to see companies running with the joking “your inner child needs a little treat” expressions and turning the healing experience of becoming one with your inner child corporate. No, your inner child doesn’t need the new Starbucks drink, or whatever. That being said, preordering the 10th anniversary pressing of St. Vincent’s self-titled album was for me, but also my inner 12-year-old. As I sat there listening to it, I could feel her curled up inside of me like a chrysalis. I feel like I’m slowly becoming everything she wanted me to be.
But present me reveres St. Vincent as much as 12-year-old me did. Now that I’m older, it’s become one of those puzzle boxes of albums with new layers that reveal themselves every time you listen to it. (And that’s saying something, because I listened to it a concerning amount in middle school.) For me, this listen made me realize that this album is musically and thematically sound. There isn’t as much of a narrative to it as some of St. Vincent’s other albums, but throughout the many modern anxieties that she dishes out, there’s this through line of life being swallowed by the Internet; it’s meant to be more of a near-future thing, if her cult leader persona is anything to go by, but it rang true in 2014—and today. Clark wrote “Huey Newton” as a loose stream of consciousness song; the reference to the Black Panther Huey Newton is only relevant because of a vivid dream she’d had about him after taking a high dose of Ambien. For Clark, the lyrics are “tied to the next in a way that I don’t even understand…It has the feel of an extended Google search, and is set in the near future, after a long winter.” It is kind of a sonic doomscroll in the way that it pinballs from one disconnected image to the next. But you can see the intention of the artifice of the Internet that comes through in some of these images; “Fake knife, real catcher,” or “fuckless pawn sharks” evoke the ease of which people construct their identities even though there’s nothing behind the curtain. 12 years later, her image of a lawless internet populated by fakers and criminals has become even realer, with the blight of AI polluting what was already polluted in the first place. (For the record, I’m taking the line “Cowboys of Information” as the name for my purely hypothetical St. Vincent cover band.)
“Entombed in a shrine/Of zeroes and ones” remains one of the hardest lines on the album, if only in delivery alone. “Huey Newton” switches from a more restrained, dreamy piece of indie synth-pop before launching a salvo of guitar shrapnel in your face at the 2:37 mark. Every line is spit as her signature guitars dissolve into glitch-like fuzz. It all sounds distinctly pixelated, aggressive in its assault, as though the false veil of the digital world is being torn apart by a virus before your eyes. The beauty of St. Vincent to me is that the layers on “Huey Newton” are present on every song—everything has digitized tree rings hewn into it, every one revealing something about the vibrant tapestry of this album’s dystopian, digital world.
…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:
Machinehood – S.B. Divya – “Entombed in a shrine of zeros and ones, you know/You know/Oh, with fatherless features/You motherless creatures/You know…”
Genuinely baffling how one person can be this talented. Sure, there are weaker spots in her catalogue, but I don’t think there’s such a thing as a bad Cate Le Bon song. I’ve just listened to CYRK, her second album, and it’s just as inventive as some of her later work, though quite different in sound. Before she crafted atmospheres from saxophones and synths, she had a more traditionally indie rock sound, but not without the unique lyrical and vocal touches that she’s always carried. CYRK as a whole is playful (fitting for an album named for the Polish word for “circus”), an adventurous branching-out into whatever struck Le Bon’s fancy. In spirit, it reminds me a lot of Björk’s early work, where she was just putting out feelers wherever she wanted, with only the intention to make daring music.
“Playful” doesn’t exactly describe “Greta” though. It’s one of the slower, more contemplative songs on the album; aside from the vaguely trumpet detour at the end, most of it relies on muted guitar and bass. For that reason, it came out of nowhere for me. What also came out of nowhere was how emotionally moving this track is; Le Bon softly sings of a subject with “eyes the size of lagoons/Dreaming wild” and whose baby days are “coiled up inside her like ribbons all tied.” It feels like she took a telescope and looked down at me as a child, my eyes turned skyward. There’s something about it that feels like a comforting lullaby, from the references to a child born in the stars to the slow rhythm, fit for gently rocking a cradle back and forth. It feels like an ode to every weird child who refused to let the weirdness get beaten out of them, no matter how hard the world tried. If I’d heard this as a kid, I feel like I would’ve found infinite solace in it, but now that I’m hearing it as an adult, it feels like a potent reminder to keep the child alive, to not let the ribbons of baby days get tangled or forgotten, and to remember that all of us are made of star stuff.
…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:
Beautyland – Marie-Helene Bertino – “Observatories clocked you in the stars/They were holding you so dear/Greta, be good to yourself/You’ve always been here.”
The Whole Love does not get the love it deserves. Fully acknowledging that I have a fog of nostalgia surrounding my head whenever I talk about this album, this album is severely underrated. I think the problem with Wilco’s discography is that Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is such an obvious, career-defining best that it overshadows so much of the adventurous work that they’ve made in the decades since. And if we’re talking about adventurous, then we need to talk about The Whole Love, an unexpected buffet of Wilco’s classic alt-rock sound and explorations out into both the electronic and folk worlds. “Art of Almost” and “Sunloathe” really shouldn’t be on the same album in theory, but The Whole Love makes it happen.
This album was the first Wilco release I remember being…well, conscious for. I was in elementary school when it came out; I specifically remember my dad playing the album all the way through while driving to work and watching the Popeye crossover music video for “Dawned On Me” at the old studio where I took piano lessons. So even before I went through the whole album on my own, I’d already listened to the whole thing. “I Might” was one of the many songs on the album that remained in a nameless limbo in my memory as A Wilco Song That Certainly Exists, but I couldn’t put it to a concrete song. It sounds like your average Wilco song from the 2010’s, with its driving rock sound and cheery organs, but even though it’s not as full-throttle weird as “Art of Almost” (which comes right before it on the album…talk about whiiiiplaaaaash), it has the spirit of “let’s try everything, what’s the worst that could happen?” Jeff Tweedy’s lyrics are nonsensical and free-association (“Your sno-cone/And it’s piss and blood,” anyone?) and the chorus of “You won’t set the kids on fire/Oh, but I might” is…wild, obviously, but the more I listen to it, the more it feels like it’s a defiant statement of turning his past work—and people’s expectations of the band—upside down and destroying them. The Whole Love came out of its ashes, and to me, it’s still one of the most daring albums in their catalogue.
…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:
The Obake Code – Makana Yamamoto – “It’s in the cards, oh oh/’Get Well Soon – everybody’/Do all lies have a taste?/Let it go, I don’t know, oh…”
I’d forgotten about “Advice & Vices” since…at least high school, around the time I had my Chelsea Wolfe awakening proper and listened to The Grime and the Glow, her first album. Hearing a song like this brings up so many contradictions—I love it, but I simultaneously feel like it’s slightly distant from the music she’d become known for, and yet it feels so innately Chelsea Wolfe. It’s always been goth, but it’s not cloaked in quite the same foreboding atmosphere as much of her later work. The album is much more lo-fi, and yet you can already see the seeds of her signature style germinating; “Advice & Vices” feels like a more understated indie rock song, until you hear Wolfe’s muted ghostlike howls recorded at the very end of the song. Her voice is already strong here, and it’d only get stronger. But it’s like watching Wolfe fish in a frozen lake for what would become her sound; the ice is melting, and around it is what would become the iconic artist that I love today. She was always that good.
…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:
The King Must Die – Kemi Ashing-Giwa – “I never listen to my own best advice, no/Like one thing leads to another/Like one heart bleeds for another/And everybody wants what they can’t have…”
The cynical part of me is starting to think that mary in the junkyard (or their management) might’ve just been too good at picking singles. But the more optimistic part of me is starting to think that Role Model Hermit is going to be such a fun album. We’re at three singles now ahead of the album’s July release, and each one has been so different from the other—this is pretty much worlds apart from “Candelabra.” It’s also a very different song than I’ve expected from mary in the junkyard, and…I love it.
“New Muscles” is such an uplifting, confidence-boosting song. But from the more gloomy instrumentation, full of strings and percussion that sounds like somebody’s whacking a plastic bucket with a spoon, you wouldn’t think it. Yet it’s the perfect song for dusting yourself off and getting back on your feet. It’s all about emerging from a cocoon and embracing all of the possibilities of your new, stronger, and more healed self: “I’ve been getting up and getting out/Working out and working on myself/New muscles all over my back/New muscles all over my back.” It feels like the spiritual successor to Wilco’s “Kicking Television” in terms of empowering indie rock songs about self-improvement that totally avoid sounding corny. It has a playful element to it (“I will take you down with one finger”), but it balances the joking “they’ll never see the new me coming” attitude with a genuine, sparkling hope for the wonderful things that’ll happen once you start exercising these new muscles and putting that healing self to work. “New Muscles” came out at a very advantageous time in my life—I’ve been feeling some version of this song for a while, what with trying to claw my way out of a multitude of bad habits and becoming more independent in my life. It really does feel like emerging from a chrysalis, even though I know that I’ll probably be emerging from a number of chrysalises over the course of my life. For now, I’m taking this new self to better places. Here’s to flexing your new muscles.
I…oh, shit. It took me until I published this post to realize that I’ve talked about this song twice now on this blog. Welp…
Music hot take of the week: this song needs to be, like, 8 minutes long. At least. I love an album that has songs that smoothly transition into one another (as is the transition from “The Paw Paw [Redacted] Blowtorch”* to this track), but oh my god, it needs more time!! The way that the song builds up is so monumental—it’s a whole fizzing, crackling Rube Goldberg machine of compounding suspense. The intro needs to be at least a minute long to stretch it out, just to give the first lyrics the punch they need. It’s a glam rock/art rock masterpiece, but it feels like a study in buildup and release more than anything. The percussion stays steady throughout the entire song, giving way for every other instrument—most of which were apparently woefully out of tune when they recorded it—to spiral outwards into a tidal wave that doesn’t crash until three minutes in—it just looms for so long. Most of me wants that to be extended, but Eno is a master of creating such a layered atmosphere.
What most people rightfully remember “Baby’s On Fire” for, however, is that truly insane Robert Fripp solo. The Genius annotation on the lyrics where it denotes the solo simply says “holy fucking shit,” which I think sums it up better than most music critics have. It’s the moment that the tidal wave that Eno has built up fully crashes, sending a kaleidoscope of chaotic spray down on the listener. As the story goes, Fripp had the flu while recording this marvel of a solo…I can only imagine the kind of tricks he was able to pull off when his health was stable, because GOD. It really is chaos personified—you can never predict which direction it’s striking next, and the stark contrast between it and the consistent, steady build of Eno’s background instrumentals make it feel like modern art. I get the same feeling of listening to “Baby’s On Fire” as I do looking at abstract, geometric paintings. It’s a masterclass in contrast.
Eno’s lyrics, especially in this era, are rarely serious, mostly just surreal word-play. Dehumanization is at the heart of the story, with a figure actively ablaze whose suffering is being exploited for photos. Here’s where I feel like Eno’s genius working with glam rock really comes in. He’s got this disaffected, theatrical tone, but what he’s saying is so deeply sarcastic that I can’t help but read it as critique of how the fictional subject is being exploited while she’s actively suffering; “Photographers snip-snap/Take your time, she’s only burning” reads to me as the photographers seeing her pain as tabloid fodder, a spectacle to make money off of. His nasally, sarcastic tone feels like a cue to laugh at the clowns who would ignore her plight just to make an extra buck. But whether in the fictional realm or in reality, I’ve always admired that Brian Eno has always been committing to condemning dehumanization of all kinds, from the 1970’s right up until today. It’s always comforting when the best musicians have consciences to match.
*It’s more an outdated term than anything, and I really don’t think Eno used it with any disrespectful intent—it was normal for the time. However, it feels uncomfortable for me personally to type it here, so see for yourself.
BREAKING: Wet Leg actually has another song? I’m doing my best to not sound like a broken record whenever I talk about them, but I swear this feels like the most growth I’ve seen them have as far as songwriting range. It’s not a wild left turn for them, but it feels fresh.
Snuggled in between the ’90s and the 2010’s, somewhere between The Cardigans and early Wolf Alice, “davina mccall” stands out partly because it’s probably their first love song—and maybe their most sincere song. However fun they make their music, a lot of it is mostly the more maddening sides of modern life, whether it’s being bounced between stupid men or being apathetic and numb about the world. It’s never come across as abjectly doomery or irony-poisoned, mostly because they have a sense of humor about it. Yet they have kind of run themselves dry with the subject matter. I know that love songs are pretty much the most common kind of song you’ll hear these days, but for Wet Leg, it feels like a more vulnerable step. When your entire body of work is about being relatable and vulnerable about how silly and artificial modern life is, it feels significant for them to embrace the idea that vulnerability is not all phone addictions and bad sex. I might be getting too deep with it, but strip it all away, and “davina mccall” is just a lovely, summery love song, content to linger in the ordinary, quiet moments of romance.
Also, I can’t not talk about how delightful this music video is! Directed by Chris Hopewell—who I forgot I knew from the glorious stop-motion music video for Radiohead’s “There There,”—it reminds me of Fantastic Mr. Fox in the best possible ways. Luckily, none of them go the way of Thom Yorke in this video—the song’s too happy for that kind of thing. The members of Wet Leg are all rendered in claymation, and they all look an awful lot like Petey and the rest of his gang (at least it’s not weak songwriting this time). Wet Leg’s task force for bird-related crimes is nothing short of hilarious—and surprisingly sweet at the end.
…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:
Love Letters for Joy – Melissa See – “You know that I would/Do anything for you/It’s like a dream come true/Every day is spent trying to say something to make you smile…”
I don’t talk about Chelsea Wolfe nearly as much as I should, even though, by my count, she’s featured on one of these posts/graphics…four times? Only four? Granted, she fell into that curse where every time I’d put one of her singles on a graphic, I’d be too busy to write about it. Shame, really, given that She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She was one of the best albums of 2024. Go listen to it—the album didn’t get nearly enough love as it deserved!!
As penance, let’s take a look back at one of her older tracks, 2011’s “Mer” from her album Apokalypsis, which has to have one of the most wondrously goth album covers ever (though her entire discography puts in a lot of great contenders). “Mer,” named for the French word for the sea, embodies its title, but not in the way you’d expect. The mer that Wolfe is channeling here isn’t the gentleness of waves lapping against the shore in July—it’s more the dread of looking out onto a roiling ocean as storm clouds gather over jagged, rocky cliffs. It’s a landscape that calls something along the lines of “Annabel Lee” for me. Even though I do play music, I’ve never been super keen about deciphering time signatures and the like, but I swear there’s something going on with “Mer”‘s timing—I swear there’s some syncopation going on with the percussion and the other instruments, but it all feels like each instrument is keeling ever so slightly to the side of the others, a sinking ship pulled in all directions. It all feels so off-kilter in Wolfe’s classic, sinister way. Even without the barely decipherable noises in the background, which for all the world sound like wailing Tim Burton-like spirits trapped in glass bottles, “Mer” would remain fundamentally eerie.
…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:
House of Hollow – Krystal Sutherland – though the sea doesn’t factor as much into this novel, the general eerie, misty atmosphere very much carries over.
I only found out that Avery Tucker was finally going solo when I was writing about girlpool back in June. Compared to the more pop direction that Harmony Tividad has embraced now, Tucker’s single reminds me more of mid-career, more guitar-driven girlpool—something close to Powerplant or the first half of What Chaos is Imaginary. As far as new directions go, the more electronic turn that girlpool took in their later years was hit or miss—when they hit it (see: “Like I’m Winning It”), they made fantastic, sultry, synthy indie-pop; when they missed (see: …uh, pretty much 75% of Forgiveness), it almost smothered their candid lyrics and how well they worked together as a duo. It felt plastic.
So I can’t help but be relieved that Tucker’s returned to the band’s roots. Even though he’s…well, he’s playing a tele during some of the acoustic parts of the song in the music video, which is admittedly a little silly, seeing Tucker back in his element makes the music feel more natural. Though some of his delivery and lyrics veer on being too earnest, “Big Drops” shines a light on some of the more candid, bare songwriting that made girlpool so memorable. Solely in his hands, he crafts a narrative from intimacy, late-night talking, and musing about unexpected events and the regrets that come from them. With the (mostly) acoustic guitar, it gives the song a tender, warm spaciousness that evokes the exact imagery he conjures—sitting on pool chairs, looking at the sky, and spouting off about your life.
In keeping with last year’s Sunday Songs anniversary, I am once again reviewing a song from a new movie that I haven’t even seen. (Update: I still haven’t seen I Saw the TV Glow. Someday…) Materialists doesn’t seem like my thing, but Japanese Breakfast certainly is. Ever since the trailer for the movie came out, I was enchanted by the way Michelle Zauner breathily sang “my baby.” I was fooled into thinking that this song was going to be on For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women), so you can imagine my disappointment, as fantastic as that album was.
Regardless of whether or not you’ve seen Materialists, the swoony, rom-com feel comes away in waves on “My Baby (Got Nothing At All).” The more delicate range of Zauner’s voice shines through in this environment, accompanied by the gentle strum of acoustic guitars and swelling strings. As Zauner (and the protagonist of the movie, presumably?) affectionately admits that her lover is broke (but he gives it all to her anyway), she sings with the relaxed, daydreaming posture of someone leaning over a fire escape, watching the glow of the city lights below and the cool wind tossing her hair. As her voice climbs on the bridge (“You’re in love/There’s no doubt about it/There’s no use in messing up”), it cements the song as one of the more perfect rom-com songs—it’s not cloying or earnest, but it sounds appropriately like a lovelorn hand draped over a sighing forehead.
…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:
Water Moon – Samantha Soto Yambao – the best parts of this novel have the same dreamy, swoony feel of watching the lights of a glittering city and falling in love.
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!
Happy Sunday, bibliophiles, Happy Trans Day of Visibility, and Happy Easter for those celebrating!
Mentally, I’m still at the beginning of the semester, but somehow midterms are over and I’ve just gotten back from break…ignoring that…
Let’s begin, shall we?
GENERAL THOUGHTS:
I’ve continued to be busy in most of my academic aspects of life, but I’ve managed to stay on top of it—midterms season wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be, and it certainly helped that we got an accidental four-day weekend thanks to a snowstorm so drastic that my college called two snow days in a row. I’ve lived in Colorado my whole life, and I’ve never experienced a double snow day…good times, gotta say. I didn’t leave my dorm for all of that Thursday and spent my time playing Minecraft and drinking hot chocolate. A win is a win. But now, the weather’s warming up, and I’m looking forward to soaking it all in.
I honestly thought that this month was going to be my worst reading month, but I read a lot more than I expected; spring break definitely gave me a boost, and March has ended up being my best reading month of 2024 so far! Rating-wise, it’s a different story (certainly more stinkers in this batch), but there were plenty of excellent reads before and after my brief reading slump. Blogging has been about the same—again, school has made it so that I’m mostly sticking to my usual book reviews and Sunday Songs, but I’ve had fun writing them all the same.
Other than that, I’ve just been drawing, playing Minecraft (WE’RE FINALLY GETTING THE DOG UPDATE), studying, watching The Bear, The Completely Made-Up Adventures of Dick Turpin (STAND AND DELIVAH), Abbott Elementary, and Constellation (I haven’t been this stressed out and baffled by a show since Dark, and that’s really saying something), series 17 of Taskmaster, Dune: Part 2 (may thy knife chip and shatter), seeing Chelsea Wolfe live (!!!!! THE QUEEN), and reverting from human to hibernating grizzly bear the minute snow started falling.
READING AND BLOGGING:
I read 19 books this month! I thought it would end up being a lot less than that, but spring break gave me much more time to read. As far as ratings, this has probably been my worst reading month (first DNF and 1-star rating of the year…), but that doesn’t mean that I didn’t read a ton of fantastic books!
Happy Sunday, bibliophiles! I hope this week has treated you well.
This week: sit down, kiddo. Soon you’ll be a mature adult, so your father and I have decided that you’re ready to learn about the (acid, lady) birds and the bee(tle)s.
Like Odelay, I’ve very much screwed myself over when it comes to this album; as my brother was showing this song to me in the car (thank you, by the way), I talked to him about the album, and after we talked about all of the songs I’ve heard off of Mezzanine, we concluded that I’ve…basically listened to the whole thing, save for some of the apparently duller songs and some instrumental breaks. Oops. My brother’s advice was to go through the album in its entirety anyway, so I’ll still take that advice. Eventually. The Sisyphean album bucket list persists.
I have a special soft spot for songs that sound like their album art. Most of the tracks on Mezzanine have a similarly creeping feel, but “Dissolved Girl,” to me, feels the most like Nick Knight’s photograph of a shiny, almost glistening stag beetle; the initial photo was taken by Knight at London’s Natural History Museum. Minus the pincers, it almost looks like the exoskeleton of a xenomorph—also a fitting image for the creeping feel of some of Mezzanine’s tracks. Much of the album retains that prickly feel of looking at the fine hairs adorning the beetle’s legs, but this song, especially the intro, captures it best. I can almost imagine that same beetle in captivity, scuttling around across a blank canvas in erratic patterns, like a shot from an old nature documentary. Its antennae twitch, it pauses in thought, then scuttles off into a corner again, only to emerge a few seconds later. Looking back, I’m ashamed that I completely missed that fact that this track was also featured in The Matrix. Granted, I was also so caught up in the glorious cheese of that movie that there wasn’t much else to focus on except for a) that one absolute monster of an H.R. Giger fever dream scene, and b) the fact that Keanu Reeves can barely act (sorry, dude, I’m sure you’re a nice guy). But like the stag beetle’s shell, that sleekness blends in with the landscape that the Wachowski Sisters crafted all those years before. I’ve tricked myself into thinking that there were raindrops or dewdrops on said beetle’s shell, but no—it was a trick of the light, and a trick of the music. “Dissolved Girl” runs over your skin like frigid water and catches all the colors of light like an oil spill, darkly alluring in the dapples patterned across it. Sarah Jay Hawley’s voice isn’t just sultry—it’s a puff of rasping steam from a rusty teakettle, blossoming into strange clouds as it’s swallowed by synths and guitars that were made for dramatic entrances and nothing more. It really is dissolving, but it seems to reform itself every passing second, an ouroboros of electronic deja vu.
…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:
The Fifth Season – N.K. Jemisin – the lyrics don’t reflect the connection so much as the feeling of it does—uncertainty, circularity, and deja-vu abound.
Note to any aspiring songwriters who may come across this post: I accidentally typed “acid birthday” into YouTube while looking this song up, so there’s a good song title right there. It already sounds ten times ickier in subject matter already, but…it sure is a song title.
Robyn Hitchcock seems to have been planted in the rich, fertile soil of ’60s musical inspiration from the start. Listen to any of his songs from his solo works or from one of his many groups over the years, and that bright, whimsical jangle always pops out of the woodwork. But before I saw him back in January, I found out that he’d played several short shows where he only played sets of Syd Barrett covers, and the comparison clicked instantly. Personally, I’m glad that Hitchcock took the good parts from Barrett’s legacy and never went off the deep end, but if there was ever a perfect fit, the two’s musical and lyrical styles were practically made for each other. There’s no doubt that plenty of artists have found drugs to be an outlet for imagination, but it’s always temporary; I never mean to make light of addiction and the very real consequences it can have on a person and their loved ones, but every time I hear about any of these instances, it’s a short-lived outlet. We know where it tragically led Barrett (rest easy) and many other artists of his time, but often, these things have been discovered have always been dormant—maybe it was the drugs that exposed them, but that kind of creativity lingers in all of us. We all have different ways of finding it, and all we can do is learn to live with it carefully—the very things that we perceive as opening it can destroy it just as quickly. At least we can look to Hitchcock as an example—it seemed he knew early on that his wild creativity was at the wheel, and he’s managed to preserve it for decades.
That kind of easygoing, ’60s feel is etched all throughout his decades-long, insanely prolific career, but some of the earliest notes of it, to me, can be found in his first solo album, Black Snake Diamond Role, and in particular, “Acid Bird.” Aside from the unmistakably sixties jangle of it all, from the lazily swaying chords to the way that the guitar is almost made to sound like the limbo between a guitar and a sitar. And like the entirety of Hitchcock’s career, this song is full of oddball wordplay, entirely nonsensical, but somehow sensible, in the sense that, having seen him live, he had every intention of putting these words together in this exact order. It’s unmistakably late ’60s psychedelia—I can hear the lyricism of Pink Floyd’s “See Emily Play” and the instrumentation of…well, probably any late ’60s Beatles song you can think of, and yet, it couldn’t be anybody else but Robyn Hitchcock. Going even later, I’ve always thought of his wordplay as so much like Marc Bolan, like he has access to some bizarre fantasy world that can only be described to us mortals in words that don’t fully make sense when strung together in the order that they are. I’m just glad that Hitchcock has dedicated his career to mapping it in all of its hills, valleys, and acid birds.
If you laid out all of the elements of “Barley” bare, it would fit a pretty common definition for really pretentious music. You’ve got your discordant synths, you’ve got your avant-garde, nonsensical lyrics, you’ve got some off-kilter guitar riffs for good taste, and you’ve got disaffected vocals courtesy of Rachel Brown, who sounds for all the world like they did not want to be there. But this song feels more in the vein of play than construction—the minimalism and freeform feel of it all feel like just that: freeform. It feels like this song was conceived in 5 minutes tops, and I’ve grown to enjoy that quality about it. I keep bringing up Beck in this post for reasons unknown to me, but the technique of Water From Your Eyes (or, alternatively, what sigma male gymbros call tears) seems to be similar: stick a bunch of parts together with a bit of synths and Elmer’s glue, then create the most earwormy eyesore you’ve ever heard. I say “eyesore” only because it’s the best word that comes to mind—it doesn’t sound pleasant, and yet, it sounds good. Between Brown’s vocals, the hectic instrumentations, and the urgency of it all, “Barley” feels like the squirming child of Guerilla Toss and Wilco’s “Spiders (Kidsmoke)“—drolly sung, but full of lyrics that could be prophetic, and as jagged and crawling as all get-out. I’d never thought I’d compare those two, but that’s the beauty of this song—it’s a strange, stiff chimera of a song, and I love it and all of its jerky, weak-kneed beauty.
…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:
Aug 9 – Fog – Kathryn Scanlan – a similar connection of loose bits and bobs, this time in the form of poetry made from what remained of a stranger’s diary that Scanlan found at an estate sale.
Before the switch from monthly EPs to releasing the excellent record Rotate as half of Co-Pilot, a lot of the EPs he was putting out were starting to feel thinned out; even at the beginning of the project, many of the tracks were throwaways that he later polished up, but as time went on, some of the whimsical, lighthearted creativity that he’s known for seemed to have bled out somewhere down the line. The last few EPs felt a little hollow—the last thing I’d expect of Jim Noir, the same mind that could make a song about putting off going to the store to get tea (if there was ever a more British concern) into a sunny, ’60s-flavored synthfest. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was saving his musical time and energy for Co-Pilot during the weaker run of EPs (justifiably so, I mean, God, what a record), but I did miss the more creative tidbits. It seems that some time away has given him time to shake things up, and now we have Ladybird – EP, which I can happily say is a delight! I found myself particularly drawn to the title track; there’s still a hesitant restraint about it, but it has every hallmark of a catchy Jim Noir tune—cymbal heavy drumming, humming vocals, and of course, bleep-bloop aplenty. Gotta have that good bleep-bloop. The background is decorated with sounds that almost ring like a submarine’s radar, and the rest of it hums with buzzy energy, nervously scuttling about like the insect it’s named for. It’s hesitantly bouncy, with eyes that seem to dart about every few minutes before ducking behind the nearest door. I wouldn’t call it his masterpiece, but it gives me hope that this could be the start of the album that he’s been teasing for…almost two and a half years now, I think? If Rotate is all we get, then I’d certainly be happy, but I find myself wanting another win for Jim Noir. It’s what he deserves.
…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:
Binti – Nnedi Okorafor – “I’m surrounded by things I’ve never needed so much/I’d rather give it away instead of finding it’s not enough…” right there, huh?
As I’m writing this, it’s been about a day since I saw Chelsea Wolfe a second time for the She Reaches Out To She Reaches Out To She tour. Insufferable crowd and headache-inducing opening band notwithstanding (2/3 times that I’ve seen shows at this venue, the crowd has been gross and disrespectful, so…hopefully not a curse), she and her band put on an incredible show; obviously, nothing’s going to compare to my first experience seeing her at the Stanley Hotel, which is about as goth as one can get even if Wolfe isn’t present, but what this show had going was the fact that one of her songs was performed whilst some kind of trick of the light made her look like she’s standing astride some kind of fiery, inter-dimensional portal. What I’m trying to say is that she absolutely brought down the house. As usual.
Somehow, I thought that “Spun” would be on the setlist, and I listened to it a handful of times before the show, but…I guess I remembered wrong? It wasn’t one of the songs I was sorely looking forward to seeing, but I do feel a little silly now that the song I’ve picked for this week is the one she didn’t play. Well, any excuse to talk about Chelsea Wolfe is a good excuse, so here we are. Seems I need to add Spun to the album bucket list, since almost everything off of it has been nothing short of arresting. “16 Psyche” was the first song from Spun I heard, back when my tender, 14-year-old brain was as impressionable and soaked up melodramatic lyrics like a sponge (listen, there’s nobody else who can deliver “my heart is a tomb/my heart is an empty room” but her); now that I’ve seen it live, it’s one of her most captivating tracks. But “Spun” is captivating in an entirely different way; where “16 Psyche” takes a nosedive into cloak-billowing wails and drama almost immediately, “Spun” has the pace and feel of mold crawling up the walls. Staunchly on the more metal side of Wolfe’s brand of goth-metal (I promise I’m not stringing buzzwords together, that’s just her brand), the industrial drums and guitars march like a legion of robots summoned from hell, armor cracked as they trudge through the flames. Fleeting moments of said drums speeding up provide a cliff for the instruments to dive off, then leap straight down into the lake of fire, a tenuous equilibrium shattered when you least expect it. “Spun” prowls with its hackles raised, poised to bolt from a history best left in the flames: “I lift my eyes, I slow my gait/And I never wanna see you again.” But the final breaths of “Spun” are exhales released from a clenched chest, fittingly whispered by Wolfe as though she’s speaking in tongues: “And all and everything or nothing.”
…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:
The Genesis of Misery – Neon Yang – the title already sounds like something that Chelsea Wolfe would name an album, but even if that weren’t true, this novel is chock-full of fiery forges, prophetic madness, and the voices of angels (or are they?)
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!
Happy Thursday, bibliophiles! Happy Leap Day too, I suppose.
Already the end of February, huh? Good riddance honestly. Not that I had a bad month, but I’m just ready for all this gross, slushy weather to be over with.
Let’s begin, shall we?
GENERAL THOUGHTS:
February’s definitely still been busy, but now that I’m more used to my schedule and able to keep myself on track, it’s all good. Things are getting into gear with my classes, I’ve been able to make time to write and make art and hang out with friends, and the weather is starting to warm up. Key word is starting. We’ve had snow almost every Friday or weekend without fail for…probably a month or two? Colorado. The meteorological indecision never ends. But luckily, other than that first week, I’ve been able to blog somewhat steadily.
Reading has been similarly good—sadly, most of the books I’ve read for school so far haven’t been my favorites (apologies in advance to all the Jane Austen fans here), but other than that, there have been very few misses! I also shifted my focus to books by Black authors this month for Black History Month, and I’ve read both familiar and new-to-me authors and had tons of fun. I also ended up having two five-star reads in a month, so I’d call it good! I’m glad that I’ve been able to keep up my reading schedule, because there’s so many books I’m excited to read soon! A whole bunch of holds from Libby have been pouring in, all of which I’ve been eagerly anticipating…
Other than that, I’ve just been cranking out tons of writing, drawing here and there, watching Abbott Elementary, BEEF (absolutely SHAKESPEAREAN lemme tell you), The Bear (ngl I’m mostly just in it for the needle drops), and Constellation (WHAT IS GOING ON 😀), and being in a near-constant state of being on my toes since I never know when we’re gonna get dumped with snow.
Oh, and I think we have the best possible end to a month that I’ve had in several months…BABE. WAKE UP. NEW ST. VINCENT JUST DROPPED. WE’RE GETTING THE ALBUM, TODAY’S THE DAAAAAAAAAAAY
APRIL 29TH CANNOT COME SOON ENOUGH.
READING AND BLOGGING:
I read 17 books this month! Definitely more than I expected to read, but I’m about at the point in the year where I’m familiar enough with my schedule that I can squeeze in more time for reading. There were definitely a few stinkers in the mix, but I had not one but two five star reads this month, which was pretty incredible! My eternal thanks to Audre Lorde and R.F. Kuang.
Happy Sunday, bibliophiles! I hope this week has treated you well.
Took me this long to get to a blue period…it didn’t happened until almost three months in the year, but of course it’s the one that ends up having Faith No More and Kermit the Frog in the same breath. Duality of Madeline.
In an outcome that should be surprising to no one, Chelsea Wolfe’s new record, She Reaches Out To She Reaches Out To She, absolutely rocks. Dare I say it might be one of her best albums in years? Birth of Violence was a solid album, but I remember it having some lulls, but then again, I haven’t listen to it since its release in 2019. I haven’t listened to her entire discography, but I’ve never met a Chelsea Wolfe album I didn’t like, but there are some that nudge their way past the others to the tidal wave of goth revelry that she’s come to be known for. I’ve meant to review at least a handful of the excellent singles that came out of this album, but I remember specifically that “Whispers In The Echo Chamber” came out at a time when I got unexpectedly swamped…when there were a bunch of fantastic blue songs I wanted to talk about. Oopsie. No time like the present, amirite?
In terms of themes, Wolfe always has something poetic up her sleeve, whether she’s making the skeleton of her album out of Jungian analysis or Tarot. They’re all deeply personal, but She Reaches feels more intimately so; here, she grapples with separation of all kinds: from past relationships, from present systems, and from future pathways that her life could lead her down. But as she’s draining the gore of all the past messiness out of her system, she’s burning bridges and building her new phoenix of a self out of the charred remains. Back to “Whispers In The Echo Chamber,” where she declares “this world was not designed for us,” (GO OFF QUEEN), whispering like a mysterious necromancer into the ear of the magic-oblivious king. The album finishes on “Dusk” and its promises of “Watch[ing] this empire as it burns and dissipates/Haunted, on fire, on the wings that we create” (GO OFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF), with Wolfe finally detaching herself from this lowly, undeserving mortal plane, and giving a final, cold look to us mortals before disintegrating into a cloud of vampire bats. God, I love her. With such stacked competition, I was grasping for a real favorite on the album, but I cannot stop coming back to “House of Self-Undoing.” After the triumphant declaration of independence in “Whispers,” the second track finds Wolfe extricating herself from the turmoil that she sought to free herself from (“In the house of self-undoing/I saw your face”). Most of the heavier tracks on She Reaches are heavy in the way of Wolfe’s goth dark theatricality and billowing cloaks, but “House of Self-Undoing” is pure rock, grinding with percussion like speeding footsteps and guitars smoother than hotel bedsheets. There’s a nervous, frantic energy that claws its way out of every note, just as Wolfe’s lyrics point to, as the boldness of separation gives way to the physicality of fleeing the old and bursting into the new. It’s the journey of clawing up through the earth and spitting out the dirt in your mouth, before your caked fingernails break the surface to find the sunlight.
…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:
Gideon the Ninth (The Locked Tomb, #1) – Tamsyn Muir – as much of a disappointment Harrow the Ninth turned out to be, I can’t deny how fun this book was. The general underworld/undead imagery is already fitting enough, but the themes of separation from a past life are the icing on the cake.
The only proper way to describe “Midlife Crisis” is something along the lines of a feat of acrobatics. There’s so many twists, turns, and midair flips that this song executes one after the other that just makes you wonder about the mad scientist’s lab that it was surely cooked up in, because surely something bizarre and outside of human comprehension went into polishing this track to a shine. God, it just goes sohard.
Like Post, “Midlife Crisis,” over 30 years after its release, sounds like everything and nothing, but in this case, what a decent portion of the world of hard rock took from Mike Patton’s vocal acrobatics and spit out was…nu metal. Jesus. Urgh. I’ll dispense from my rant about why nu metal gets on my nerves since it’s more of a personal vendetta than one that has any kind of logical basis (listen, you try and do 50 push-ups at Tae Kwon Do while Linkin Park is blasting through the speakers), but they would’ve had nothing if not for this song. You can hear exactly where Korn got their Cookie Monster gibberish-vocals from on a single go-around on this song. What sets Mike Patton apart from them, however, is the range that he crams into these astounding four minutes; you’ve got said grimy Cookie Monster vocals, but just as quickly, he turns a corner into a soaring smoothness that makes you wonder if somebody slipped him the world’s most powerful cough drop in the time it took him to switch over. Going from those kinds of extremes so quickly and seemingly without breaking a sweat…if that’s not talent, I don’t know what is. And the scorn that this song radiates—”You’re perfect, yes, it’s true/But without me, you’re only you.” DAMN. Also, for the longest time, I thought that the line afterwards was “you’re menstruating hard” and not “your menstruating heart,” which…yeah, the actual line makes much more sense, but somehow, I feel like Patton seems like the type of guy to just say a line like “YOU’RE MENSTRUATING HARD 🗣🗣🗣🗣” with that delivery out of the blue. It was ’90s hard rock. Somehow, it works. Faith No More struck gold with this gift of a song, for sure.
…and I haven’t even gotten to the synth breakdown at 2:22. Good lord. Speaks for itself, really.
…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:
Invisible Things – Mat Johnson – scorn, grime and polish in equal measure, and a bunch of alien abductees recreating Trump-era American in a bubble city on Europa. Time to party, right?
I meant to talk more about Plastic Beach back in December when I first listened to it, but I can’t not come back to it, like most Gorillaz albums that I’ve listened to in full. (Maybe not Song Machine. Like…half of Song Machine. And not Cracker Island. Okay, the first three Gorillaz albums.) Besides being a sweeping showcase of both Albarn’s overflowing musical talent and the storytelling about a tech-invaded future and rampant consumerism, Plastic Beach, I think, is the first album that cemented their reputation for having a continuously stacked list of guest artists. I sincerely doubt that there will ever be another band to have Snoop Dogg, the surviving members of The Clash, and Lou Reed on the same album, and that’s not even because Lou Reed is no longer with us. The minute that I found out that there was a song that had both De La Soul and Gruff Rhys from Super Furry Animals on it, my soul just about left my body. There’s just no band quite like Gorillaz in the way they can unite and fuse genres and appeal to so many without selling their souls. I fully believe that Gorillaz are the people’s band. The arty people like them. The pretentious music nerds like them. The jocks like them. The alt people like them. I have a distinct memory of these two bros in my senior year chem class going through their Spotify, and then one of them declared “BRO, THIS IS OUR SONG,” and I fully expected something absolutely rancid, but no. It was “Dare.”DARE. Gorillaz is one of the few bands that have something for everybody, and not in the way that people say that they like “every genre” of music. Albarn’s many strengths in this part of his life hasn’t just been the varied influences that he brings to his music, but the way that he gives them a chance to have their say—Gorillaz is an amalgam of so many gems from so many places, and yet, save for some of their newer albums, hardly any of it doesn’t feel like them.
Onto “Sweepstakes.” This is one of the two Mos Def features on Plastic Beach (the other being “Stylo,” which was incredible live, by the way), and I’m frankly baffled that this one doesn’t get the attention that some of the other tracks on the album do. I’d risk it all to see this one live, especially if they actually bring out Mos Def and the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble onstage. In the video above, Mos Def comes out in…basically an Abraham Lincoln getup, if we count the beard, announcing prizes like a slick auctioneer, before launching into the truly charged, energy-pumped vibrations of this song. Energized is the only word you can ascribe to this song, really. From the beginning, the drum machine thrums a beat that hiccups so deliberately that you can’t help but start jumping. Bringing these three creative forces together on the song was the perfect recipe for a classic—Albarn’s penchant for engineering iconic dance beats, Mos Def’s commanding gravitas that he brings to each lyric, and the creeping, tidal force of the Brass Ensemble as the joyous, urgent burst of horns emerge from the curtain of synths like the chestburster clawing its way out of Kane’s body. It’s a song that begs to be heard, meant to be blasted down the streets in waves of confetti and marching feet—and that’s not just because of the brass that commands the latter half of the song. And for a song about mindless consumerism, exploitation and the duping of the working class by the rich (“‘Who’s the winner?’ Said the dealer/Every player, ‘Yeah, me'”), the infectious triumph is the most intentional thing about this track. Only fitting that The Hypnotic Brass Ensemble’s track “War” would be used for the Hunger Games movies only a few years after this. You’re a winner!
…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:
Prime Meridian – Silvia Moreno-Garcia – telling the working class that they can do anything they set their heart to while the ruling class ignores them completely and colonizes Mars, anyone? Sound familiar?
Guess I just can’t stop listening to XTC, huh? In case you were wondering (because you totally were, I’m sure), “The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead” continues to have me in an unbreakable chokehold, but this one is good competition.
’60s inspiration can be found in almost any XTC song you can pull out of a jar, even if you ignore The Dukes of Stratosphear, which were just them under another name marketed as a “lost find” of the ’60s (and then ended up outselling any of their XTC records…ouch). For me, “1000 Umbrellas” immediately screams The Beatles, specifically in 1967—somewhere between Sgt. Pepper and Magical Mystery Tour. It’s pure theatre; even if the album, Skylarking, wasn’t a vague concept album, it practically begs for some kind of dramatic performance. Can’t you just imagine a scene of an aerial view of a bunch of pedestrians holding umbrellas in the rain, and Andy Partridge right smack in the middle of them, lamenting the loss of love as the rain pours down on him? Maybe the umbrellas morph into those pastel, spinning teacup rides as Patridge sings “And one million teacups/I bet couldn’t hold all the wet/That fell out of my eyes/When you fell out with me?” I particularly love how the orchestral arrangements seem to rise and fall, tilting just barely out of neatness and into delirium as Partridge wails, stumbling right along with the beleaguered strings section. On the heels of “Ballet for a Rainy Day,” the rain turns from the kiss of spring to cold, damp misery (a word that he frequently drags out like a ridiculed prisoner in medieval times) and like the swells of the orchestra, Partridge moans and wails like an actor trudging across the stage, the spotlight following him as he holds his broken umbrella against the downpour. I swear that this song needs a broadway-style, “It’s Oh So Quiet” music video—the imagery is jus too vivid for it to go without it.
And then we’re right back to having a jolly old time with “Season Cycle.” Duality of Skylarking.
Yeah. Well. If you need me to pay for your insurance following this whiplash, I’ll fork it over. But this is more of a palate-cleanser, right? Guess I ought to keep you on your toes. Or maybe you just need a bit of a break from Mike Patton growling about your menstruating heart. Take a breather. Find the rainbow connection.
Honestly, this song came on here solely since I’ve been thinking about The Muppets lately, and how glad I am that I had such an absurd and clever slice of positivity in my childhood. There seriously will never be another creator quite like Jim Henson, but it’s worth it to take his felt-covered gospel to heart: to keep imagination and joy close to your heart, always, whether or not you have an equally whimsical puppet on your hand.
…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:
Any comforting book from your childhood – whatever made you feel good when you were younger should do the trick.
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!
From all accounts, it seems like Franz Ferdinand peaked at this album, You Could Have It So Much Better. But I feel like it’s understandable, on some level. You try to replicate something as iconic as “Take Me Out” or this, and you risk flying too close to the sun. Lightning can’t strike twice. Well, I guess it can, if you count this and “Take Me Out,” but…okay, three times?
This song. It’s so stuffed with infectious hooks that it’s practically a thanksgiving turkey. It’s pumping with allure and adrenaline, and not a single bit feels wasted. You hear the first 20 seconds and think “oh, that’s a great start to the song,” but lo and behold, every single band member pulls of their top hats to reveal a second, even more spectacular hook to propel it to unforeseen heights. And from that meteoric rise, “Do You Want To” feels like the most delightfully slick, guitar-driven gold mine of 2000’s indie rock. It’s a song that wrenches you by the hand into a nighttime world of leather jackets, impeccable hair, and shiny guitars. Lyric-wise, it’s nothing that the band hasn’t covered, but lyrics were never their legacy—the absolute sheen of it all overpowers the rest of it, and it’s the kind that you can keep on repeat for hours and never get tired of. For a few years, Franz Ferdinand seemed to have perfected that kick of leather-jacket, smooth indie rock, and even though it seemed to have burned out a decade or so down the line, for a moment, their talent was clear—and explosive. The only sin that “Do You Want To” ever committed was not having a third hook hidden beneath their other top hats—the last thirty seconds (“Lucky, lucky/You’re so lucky”) are just begging for at least one more burst of smooth guitar that sounds like it’s been fired out of a cannon. It’s such a frustrating ending. With that kind of buildup, how could they not be extending the song for a finale as glorious as the entrance? Either way, the three and a half minutes that we do have is joyous enough. Almost enough to make me forgive Alex Kapranos for permanently freezing his face in this expression for no good reason:
…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:
Vicious – V.E. Schwab – come to think of it, a lot of V.E. Schwab’s male protagonists fit a similarly charismatic and boundary-pushing (mostly in terms of magic and science, anyway), but this novel absolutely fits the slick, Franz Ferdinand vibe.
Frustrated that “Do You Want To” ends right before it should theoretically go on for at least two more minutes? Fear not! At least David Bowie wasn’t afraid to make his timeless grooves almost six minutes long.
Welp. I don’t know how Young Americans wasn’t on my album bucket list already, but it sure is on it now. The iconic title track and “Fame” should’ve convinced me, but somehow it was “Fascination” that pushed me over the edge. It reminds me just what I love about the ’70s; the production is nothing but slick and slinky, full of vibrance and a groove that never even comes close to sputtering out for all five minutes and 48 seconds. God, the saxophone. I don’t usually find myself saying that about saxophones, but oh my god. It’s not a song that just makes you feel like dancing—you’re all but transported to a dance floor somewhere, amidst loose ties and sunglasses and warm lights bathing everyone’s faces. Strangely, the only thing that doesn’t scream vibrant or groovy is Bowie’s voice. The more you focus on it, the eerier it feels. Even though his voice was a decade or so from becoming as rich and resonant as he was later known for, it had thinned out even more so that he was in his youth. Young Americans was recorded during the height of his crippling cocaine addiction, and you can hear it in this song more than any other on the album. I could just be projecting, given how he was able to belt out the classic “ain’t there one damn song that can make me…break down and cry?” on the same album, but whether or not it was purposeful to add to the slick, sultry air of the album and his persona, it’s not a stretch to make. His voice often takes a back seat to the sheer power of the backup singers, and despite the seduction written all over “Fascination,” I can’t help but think of the exhaustion that eventually led him to pack his bags for Berlin in a few years’ time. No judgement, but it’s kind of the reason why I’m always a little suspicious of people who say that The Thin White Duke is their favorite Bowie persona. Iconic as all the others in both looks and musical output, but…I don’t know, it feels like a red flag that the Bowie you remember most fondly is the Bowie that was characterized by exhaustion, excessive substance abuse, and behaviors that he later condemned as a byproduct of the worst period of his life. I just feel like if that’s your favorite Bowie…again, no judgment, but calm down, you edgelord. You’re not impressing anybody. Music isn’t automatically deep just because the artist was at rock bottom when they made it.
Nonetheless, it isa truly fantastic, masterful song. David Bowie was just almost incapable of having an album without at least one good song, even if it was the more commercial ’80s albums.
TANGK is a bizarre album in the best possible way. IDLES seem to have partially (but never fully, this is still IDLES we’re talking about) shed the punk sensibilities that they’re known for, and in its wake, Joe Talbot and company have gone on to explore uncharted territory for the band. Tracks like “Gratitude” and “Hall & Oates” prove that they’ll never stop being their aggressively positive selves, but TANGK has given them room to grow. How much of it we can credit to Nigel Godrich is up in the air, but either way, it’s a fascinating evolution.
Emotional vulnerability and healthy masculinity have always been cornerstones of the IDLES image, but never have they been so soft and bare on “A Gospel.” Looking back, the Ultra Mono track “A Hymn” feels like its spiritual predecessor, both in title and nature, but even then, this is the first time that IDLES have ever felt quiet. No screaming, no bass, no rasp roughening Talbot’s voice. “A Gospel” presumably finds Talbot after his recent divorce, solemnly wallowing in the aftermath: “Delete my number/I’m no more/Ignore my eyes, babe/They’re just sore.” (“I’m not crying, it’s just been raining…on my face…”) But true to IDLES’ commitment to love and mutual understanding, he harbors no ill will towards his own partner, gently offering solace and closure instead of the biting words that are all too common in these kinds of songs: “I know you better/I’m your half/Just tell me darling/And I’ll be your past.” It’s sad that it’s so rare that you find songs about relationships that aren’t malicious towards the partner in some way; in some cases, the other party is in the wrong, but we’ve had so many songs about conniving women (from men who are likely the problem) and whatnot that finding a song like this feels like a needle in a haystack. “A Gospel” seems to come, refreshingly, from a place of genuine remorse; you can feel the embarrassment in Talbot’s confessional lyrics, but they’re never overly self-deprecating or, on the other hand, aggressive. It’s a melancholy song, but it feels like the most amicable breakup song I’ve heard. Talbot has repeatedly said that the thesis of TANGK revolves around love, and although “A Gospel” takes it from a more distraught angle, it’s still love—being able to step away from a situation where you know you’re in the wrong, and encouraging a peaceful resolution.
No matter what Chelsea Wolfe album I listen to (you’ll definitely be hearing about her latest next week), it almost always makes me come back to some of the material off of Unknown Rooms. I adore Chelsea Wolfe’s shreddier, overtly goth style, but unfortunately, I drank the sad girl Kool-Aid long ago and I can never come back, so here I am, back at the acoustic album. There’s no doubt that Wolfe can wring out emotion whether or not she’s playing electric or acoustic. She’s at her best when she’s conjuring a swarm of bats from oblivion with a full assault of instrumentals, but the power always lingers. Like my favorite of her songs, “Boyfriend” (also from this album): naught but guitar and Wolfe’s ghostly rasp, it evokes the same rise of power and overwhelming emotion as anything else she’s written. In the end, it all feels cavernous.
“Boyfriend” is plenty bleak, but there’s something about “Virginia Woolf Underwater” that feels so much more so; although it’s just as sparse as any other track on this album, the discordant nature of it all ties the despair of it together, with off-kilter chords punctuated by a tambourine. Only later do the orchestral strings come in, but they feel just as cold as the rest of the song. Alluding to Virginia Woolf’s early death by drowning, the song feels as distorted as voices floating in the water. Wolfe’s voice drifts in and out of focus. The lyrics imagine Woolf’s state: “Everything you’ve owned is gone/Everything you know is wrong/Everyone you’ve loved has left/Everything you’ve touched is dead.” Given Woolf’s struggles with depression and trauma from the second World War towards the end of her life, it’s not a stretch to think that she was thinking thoughts along these lines. That’s what makes the song tragic, but there’s something touching about how Chelsea Wolfe was able to connect to her all these years later, and was moved enough to write her an elegy of sorts. It’s a cross-temporal love letter, a call through the ether to tell not just Woolf that she understands, but for others to relate to and know that they are not alone in their experiences. Only fitting that now, 12 years after the release of Unknown Rooms, that her newest album is titled She Reaches Out To She Reaches Out To She. What better way to sum up Chelsea Wolfe’s brilliant career?
…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:
Godkiller (Fallen Gods, #1) – Hannah Kaner – this story similarly begins with Kissen, who has lost everything, and the novel follows her finding her purpose…with some killing gods on the side.
I feel like I shouldbe more invested in the fact that Beth Gibbons is releasing a solo album this May. Then again, I still haven’t picked myself up and listened to Dummy, so I feel like that’s the top priority. The only thing keeping me from it is the Sisyphean album bucket list I’ve created for myself, so we’ll see when I get around to it. Soon, given that at least a quarter of it had me in a nearly unbreakable chokehold in early 2022.
“Floating On A Moment” feels further removed from the trip-hop that Portishead was known for, opting for a more stripped-down form. Synths and samples have been exchanged for acoustic guitars and a choir, and the result is slow and gentle, like water trickling from the gutter. Admittedly, I expected something weirder from Gibbons, but I don’t not like this song—it’s good, but it’s not the kind of slow that’s always compelling (that would be Portishead). It’s good when you’re in the moment (no pun intended) and listening to it, but on the outside…I hate to say it, but it feels a little predictable? The fact that it’s track two on Lives Outgrown seems kind of bizarre unless the whole album is going to be this slow, or if it just has a slow start. What’s weirder is that “Floating On A Moment” is centered around the fleeting nature of time and staying in the present, and yet it’s so slow…I guess it could fit with the image of time slipping through your fingers, but this song feels anything but fleeting. If anything, it’s the slow drip of a memory recalled, an alternate reality pondered, a gradual crawl through the recesses of the mind. All that’s to say that this isn’t a bad song. For what it is, “Floating On A Moment” is as gentle as they come, something to have in the background. Again: I hate that I’m saying that about Beth Gibbons, of all people, but we don’t have the whole picture of Lives Outgrown. We’ll see what she’s got up her sleeve.
Even though the pervasion of AI art in music videos is maddening to me (at this point, it’s less about the fact that it’s AI and more that the “style” just looks objectively ugly), the AI elements of the music video for “Floating On A Moment” suit how the song feels; everything melting into a gloopy mess is a hallmark of AI animations at this point, but that kind of melting, combined with the real-life footage of Gibbons, melds surprisingly well with the slick, melting quality of the song.
Happy Sunday, bibliophiles, and happy New Year’s Eve!
2023 has been a year of growth for me; I’ve taken a lot of leaps that I never thought I would take, and all of them paid off. December has been busy, but now that I’m home for break, I’m glad that I’ll get some rest before the end of the year.
Let’s begin, shall we?
GENERAL THOUGHTS:
First off, I hit 600 followers a few days ago! Thank you all for sticking with me for all these years. Lots of love to you all.
Most of December was fairly stressful and chaotic, what with finals and all. The good thing about being an English major is that I typically don’t have any final finals that I have to take in class, but instead, I typically have to write rather long papers and slap some portfolios together. But now it’s all done! Now, I’m nearly done with my science credits, and I recently declared a minor in Women and Gender Studies, so I’m starting those classes next semester!
Blogging and reading are always slower around this time of year—the finals slump comes for us all. College (and getting older, I suppose) has slowed down my reading speed somewhat, but it makes me glad to spend more time with books on some days. (Doesn’t mean I still blow through books in a day sometimes. Happens to the best of us. The Siren, the Song, and the Spy was incredible.) It’s also been fun to introduce some book pairings to my Sunday Songs—I’m glad I can introduce a bookish aspect to them!
Other than that, I’ve just been getting work done pre- and post-finals, putting puzzles together, drawing when I can, celebrating the holidays with my wonderful family, and starting every week eagerly looking forward to Wednesday because of the new season of Fargo. (Dear LORD, what was that ending for episode 7?????? I’m SCARED)
READING AND BLOGGING:
I read 16 books this month! Inevitably slower going because of finals, but I’ve had a ton of great books towards the end of the month! I also passed my reading goal of 200 books—I read 207 books in 2023!
The Bookish Mutant 