February – The Bookish Mutant

Sunday Songs: 2/15/26

Posted on February 15, 2026 by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

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

This week: some of my favorite women in music getting unabashedly weird with it, the pioneering bisexuals of Britpop, and…crabs.

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 2/15/26

“Wonderful” – Cate Le Bon

In her review of Crab Day for Pitchfork, Laura Snapes said this about the album’s inspiration (Cate Le Bon’s young niece replacing the mean-spirited pranks of April Fool’s Day for Crab Day, where you celebrate by drawing crabs): “nonsense is often the best response to nonsense, that the constructs we use to prop up our lives are often totally arbitrary.” Le Bon has had a deep sense of absurdity, but Crab Day as an album is built all about taking ordinary things in our life to task, but also about being faced with the fact that half of the things in our lives are arbitrary, flimsy constructs. Some of it’s done gleefully, as in the creation of Crab Day, but for others, it’s more emotional—“I Was Born on the Wrong Day” came out of Le Bon’s mother digging up her birth certificate and admitting that they’d had her birthday wrong for decades. Crab Day, both lyrically and musically, explores the pain that comes from realizing that our world is built on the flimsiest stilts imaginable, but also the glee that comes with spitting in the face of them and embracing life’s absurdity.

There’s always been quirkiness surrounding Le Bon’s music, but Crab Day feels like the moment that the eggshell split open and she fully embraced offbeat, unconstrained creativity. That’s not to say that any of her earlier work isn’t creative—quite the opposite, having just listened to Mug Museum—but this album is where her current sound began to coalesce in earnest. It’s much more guitar-oriented than her more recent works, but it’s got all of the hallmarks of what’s become her signature style: artful blares of saxophone, offbeat lyrics, and slanted melodies and rhythms that read like the audio version of a picture frame hanging at a crooked angle. “Wonderful” exemplifies that crookedness, easily the most unfettered moment of weirdness on the album. The guitars scream Lodger-era David Bowie, and the lyrics of mid-’70s Brian Eno. But the fact that seemingly every commenter in the YouTube comments section has an entirely different band comparison as to what it sounds like proves how original Le Bon’s unique arrangement of elements is. With everything from the xylophones to Le Bon’s vocals at a breakneck pace, it’s an ode to being constantly in motion: “I wanna be your motion-picture film, oh yeah/I wanna be your ten-pin ball, ball, ball.” In the context of the album’s crusade to expose life’s absurdity, it feels like a concentration of her spirit throughout this album, but also her career at large: to be adventurous in all sorts of ways, and to be constantly be searching for a new way of setting creativity and weirdness in motion.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Floating Hotel – Grace Curtis – it’s difficult to match a song as singular as this to a book, since it’s so distinct; but if anything, this would match the bustle of a Wes Anderson-esque hotel in space.

“Marigolds” – Kishi Bashi

Realizing that Kishi Bashi had written a song named after my favorite flower was already an exciting revelation, but finding out how engrossing of a song it is made that discovery all the better. Tinged with both joy and melancholy, “Marigolds” surrounds cross-generational experiences, and bridging the gap of realizing that everybody around you has a complex inner life, separated by time, but united in the here and now: “It’s the realization that another person’s perception of the world is just as real to them as yours is to you, and that this humility is the first step in living in harmony on a planet that is ultimately made up of 8 billion parallel universes.” With that emotional core to the track, the field of marigolds couldn’t be a more perfect metaphor—each bloom appearing similar on the outside, but each one having a unique, complex makeup that can’t be seen from the outside. His usual lush string arrangements are layered in a glimmering swarm evoking the delicateness of flower petals and the ephemeral wingbeats of songbirds. Paired with a gorgeously animated music video by Geoff Hopkinson, featuring marigolds that turn into fantastical, jellyfish-like beings, “Marigolds” is an utterly transportive track, scented with pollen and wistful longing.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Record of a Spaceborn Few – Becky Chambers – “I wish that I could grow up with you/I wanna see the world the way you do/I want to fall off the edge with you/I want to have fun with you…”

“Drink Deep” – Florence + The Machine

You guys, I’m sorry. Every time I hear a Florence + The Machine song, it’s described as some masterpiece that leaves permanent claw marks on your heart, and then I listen and I come back feeling…perfectly alright? I’m sure there’s something I’m missing, but some things just aren’t everybody’s cup of tea all the way. Objectively, Florence Welch has great vocal range, and I’ve never hated any song of hers, but I’ve also never thought to myself, “I need to listen to more Florence + The Machine.” Maybe part of it’s just that she’s been unfairly associated with the TikTokification of female rage (or, “female rage is when a woman sings loud and man is bad”) and “divine feminine” becoming a buzzword, but that’s not her fault at all. However, as I follow a lot of music publications online, I saw that Mark Bowen of IDLES was one of the producers on her latest album, Everybody Scream, so I was at least intrigued.

One of my dearest friends has been trying to convert me for quite some time (once again, SORRY), but I heard a snippet of this one, and I was hooked out of nowhere. It sounds almost nothing like any of her other songs I’ve heard. Again, Welch has a great voice, but I feel like a lot of her songs seem to rely on the strength of her voice in order to amp up the emotion, and the rest of the music doesn’t always follow. “Drink Deep” is more contemplative, but also, a lot eerier than I gave her credit for. Here, Welch translates her experience with her life passing her by as she’s touring (while everybody else moves about normally in their lives) as akin to being prisoner to the fae, trapped and ageless in their realm for hundreds of years while everyone else ages naturally: “What I thought was a night was a thousand years/What I thought was a sip was a thousand tears/But still, they said/Drink deep.” It devolves into a kind of Celtic-inspired folk horror where what Welch ends up essentially cannibalizing herself at the will of the fae—an apt metaphor for what the music industry puts its performers (especially women) through. The atmosphere of “Drink Deep,” with an ominous, thundering drumbeat, chimes, and a warbling choir reminiscent of Kate Bush’s “Rocket’s Tail,” evokes the passage into another, darker realm, a descent into an unbreakable deal made in blood.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Familiar – Leigh Bardugo – “They gave me gowns and riches/Cut gold thread with their teeth/Every night I went to see them/No, I did not sleep/And every cup they brought to me/Oh, you know I did/Drink deep…”

“Moon” – Björk

Every time I mention Biophilia, it’s inevitable that I go on and on about the app—which is appropriate, since it is the backbone of the album. But I feel like you’re missing an entire chunk of the album if you don’t talk about the delicately constructed visual language of it—for me, you’re missing half the story if you don’t see the elaborate costumes and the artistry of the visuals. All of the music videos for Biophilia are showstopping, and the music video for “Moon” feels like the best introduction to the album’s aesthetic. Literally, it’s a moving version of the album cover, but the superposition of the moon phases over Björk’s body visually convey the lyrics and the concepts behind them. I love the jagged, glowing constellation-shapes surrounding her, both a map of the app and of a galaxy itself; and I cannot get enough of Björk’s costumes for this album cycle. That combination of her rusty, Mars-orange wig and the metallic shades all throughout her bronzy dress and the playable harp corset, against the stark black of the backdrop, are just such a memorable, cosmic color combination to me. The blue ringing her face and eyes brings out the contrast spectacularly. This is the epitome of a wholly realized creative vision brought to life. Granted, this is much later in her career, but it gives me some hope that maybe, in some ideal timeline, some of the projects that I’m envisioning can someday can get as much of my creative freedom inside of them as possible.

The best way that I can describe “Moon” is that I feel as though I’m listening to a perfect circle. Set in 17/8 sign to mimic the phases of the moon, the chorus of harps seem to circle each other, an elaborate, delicate Ouroboros that encircles itself forevermore. It takes a. rare genius to make a song sound like a shape, but that’s exactly the kind of musician that Björk is. Her mind!! Her MIND!! Having a lighter, more celestial tone for a song about the moon, a subject that often invokes more ominous, sweeping majesty or loneliness (see: Radiohead’s “Sail to the Moon,” Bachelor’s “Moon”) makes it stand out from its many, many peers; the instrumentation is so pearly and dewy, and her line about “adrenaline pearls” makes me think of “Cocoon” in the sweetest way. And more poignant still is how she relates these lunar phases to the phases we cycle through in life—”Best way to start anew/Is to fail miserably/Fail at loving/And fail at giving/Fail at creating a flow/Then realign the whole.”

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Activation Degradation – Marina J. Lostetter – “As the lukewarm/Hands of the gods/Came down and gently/Picked my adrenalin pearls/They placed them in their mouths/And rinsed all the fear out…”

“The Drowners” – The London Suede

I think I just like 90% of Britpop. The only band in the genre that I’ve never liked is Oasis, and I’ve heard some argue that they’re not stylistically Britpop, but were just lumped into the genre because they blew up at the same time as bands like Blur and Pulp. I’m not sure if I can agree in good conscience just because I despise Oasis, but given what I’ve heard of them…it makes sense. Other than them, I’ve loved everything I’ve heard from the rest of the Big Four—and “The Drowners” is really convincing me that I need to listen to more of The London Suede.

At the forefront of every other explosive new subgenre, you will find a bisexual. The London Suede were one of the first bands to be called Britpop in earnest, and contributed a significant amount to its sound, although they were focused less on British social commentary and more on a dramatic, glam rock resurgence that recalled David Bowie’s storytelling and subversive sexuality and Morrissey’s literary-minded lyrics (and half-unbuttoned shirts). In their earlier days, they very much banked on the profitability and controversy of the queer imagery and lyrics in their band, as Bowie did back in the ’70s, from the lesbian couple on their self-titled album cover to Anderson’s obliquely queer lyrics and androgynous presentation. If he wasn’t bisexual, I’d honestly feel like it bordered on queerbaiting, relying on the shock value of subversive sexuality to make more money. But it’s not his fault, necessarily—God knows there’s legions of glam rock/metal artists from the ’70s and ’80s who glommed onto the queer aesthetics for the money it made them, and later disavowed queerness entirely. (Lookin’ at you, Alice Cooper.) Ultimately, The London Suede feel more like they’re indebted to English literary tradition to me—often queer, often subversive, and dramatically indulging in themes of class division and excess. That’s what Anderson and co. feels like to me, and “The Drowners,” with its cult of ambiguous sexuality, glamor, and wealth, feels like a worthy tribute.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Atlas Six – Olivie Blake – this brand of Britpop being big and dark academia being a major literary trend missing each other temporally is either a major blessing or a curse—they fit a little too well with each other.

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!

Sunday Songs

Sunday Songs: 2/8/26

Posted on February 8, 2026February 8, 2026 by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Sunday, bibliophiles!

This week: unfortunately, the pink theme couldn’t be scheduled for the week of Valentine’s Day, so enjoy your pink disentangled from the holiday. Also, Madeline being pretentious from the age of 5, a whole lot of beep-boop-beep, and Kathleen Hanna’s answer to these trying times.

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 2/8/26

“This Island” – Le Tigre

All rise for the anti-ragebait national anthem! The litany against ragebait, if you will.

I’m sure there’s some activism/politically-involved situation that Kathleen Hanna hasn’t written about, but you have to give it to her—in that sphere, she’s got a song for almost anything. Since 2024, every new Le Tigre song that I discover has hit hard in this political context, whether it’s the perennially relevant reminder to “Get Off The Internet” (destroy the right wing!) or the rallying cry of “Keep On Livin’.” Even in 2008, the internet already had shown the ugly side of not just enabling faceless trolls to spread misinformation, but for anger-inducing content to get the most engagement; it’s been a disaster for everything, really, but especially activism. Pair that with social media’s penchant to push the most shocking angles on news stories that are already shocking (and the sheer volume of said shocking, disheartening news), and you’ve got a recipe for disaster for anybody who wants to doggedly keep hope. It’s ground so many would-be activists into the ground, turning them into despairing doomers convinced that there’s no hope for the future.

“This Island” isn’t exactly the uplifting chant of “Keep On Livin'”, but it doesn’t necessarily need to be. Its target is that kind of person who’s so hopelessly entrenched in internet-peddled doom that they need a bucket of ice water to the face to snap them out of it. It’s tough love (part of the chorus is just a repetition of “You’re a mess!”), but it’s vital if you want to carry on. The brutal 3.3/10-rated (3.3? Did Le Tigre kick your puppy?) Pitchfork review of This Island lamented that the album sacrificed its normal political bite in favor of making it more watered down and commercially accessible. Yet although the instrumentals are smoother and the beats poppier, no major label production could ever defang Hanna and co.; “This Island” rings as an unflinching slap upside the head and a call to remember all of the good things happening in the world; the backdrop of the album was the War on Terror, but now, in…well, a new iteration of just that, this last verse hits harder than ever:

“The horizon’s like a ship in flames tonight/You say you just don’t know/If you can take this city, cause the/Rent’s high, and the war’s on/And it’s last call/Even your friends look worried/My friends all think you’re smart/We think you’re super-fine/But it’s high time/I mean it’s high tide…”

I’m not above doomscrolling. Goodness knows that I’ve needed said splash of cold water in my face more often than not. It’s not our fault—social media has been deliberately manufactured to keep you hooked as long as possible; in just the same way, the ruling class wants to keep you hopeless and constantly posting so that you only make money for their corporations and don’t rise up. What matters most is what you are—and what you do—outside of the internet. What matters is that you have the strength of your friends and community beside you. Even when it seems like all hope is lost, we can take this city. Le Tigre took this city in 2004—who’s to say that we can’t do it in 2026?

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

We Will Rise Again: Speculative Stories and Essays on Protest, Resistance, and Hope – edited by Karen Lord, Annalee Newitz, and Malka Older – several of the stories in here have a similar aim that Le Tigre did back in the day: to merge political awareness with art.

“Always On My Mind/In My House” (cover) – Pet Shop Boys

Separately, the elements of this song should not work. If you just said, without context, that this was an ’80s synth pop cover of an Elvis song (which was, as with most Elvis songs, a cover in and of itself) that devolves into acid house halfway through and stretches to nearly 10 minutes long, I’d probably be put off, to say the least. It’s like the musical version of “I hate gay halloween, what do you meanyou’re dressed as [insert combination of niche references]?” Things that were only possible in the late ’80s, folks. But against all odds, this is incredible. A few weeks back, I was listening to this on repeat while making a digital drawing, and I got into a flow state so queer that the drawing practically flew from my fingertips. Originally conceived to commemorate the 10th anniversary of Elvis Presley’s death, this, “Always On My Mind” later morphed into the 9-plus-minute remix and combination with “In My House.” Retrospectively, most of the writing on this song talks about how, by all accounts, this shouldn’t have worked. And yet Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe make it look like the combination of Elvis, house, rap, and random firework samples was always meant to be. It’s a case study in lulling a listener into a false sense of security before letting the floor drop out from under them. Every beat drop and twist works seamlessly—the switch from house back into the Elvis cover at 5:26 knocks me off my feet every time. You already need a boatload of talent for a song to sound effortless, but to be able to unite so many disparate elements and make it into a chart-topper—this was the #1 Christmas single in the U.K. in 1987.—takes a special kind of band.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

A Swift and Sudden Exit – Nico Vicenty – thematically, it fits nicely with this book, but this had to have been hidden somewhere in the ’80s scenes (or the ’90s ones, for that matter).

“Cover Me” – Björk

I always come back to Post. To me, it’s one of her most experimental albums, but not in the sense of musical genre—it’s one of her more accessible ones, right after Debut. But it’s much more experimental in its mindset. She sends her feelers out in every possible direction, and the joy of the album comes from the sheer range of emotions and genres she explored, from grimy, electronic tracks to an attempt to channel Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game” (in the way that only Björk could). The adventurous spirit that she first fostered on Debut, playing the role of ingenue in both her life and music, practically explodes out here. You can hear it more clearly on the louder songs, whether it’s the bevy of strange instrumentals pulsating outwards or Björk herself actually screaming—another staple of her music that’s carried on 30 years post-Post.

“Cover Me,” the penultimate track on the album, is often forgotten in the deluge of other masterpieces stacked on top of each other on Post. But to me, it represents, both lyrically and musically, a key part of where Björk would go later on in her career. It’s a prickly yet twinkly song—the main body of the instrumental consists of hammered dulcimer, which is played in such a way that it feels cautious, like any sudden movement or snap of branches could trigger a trapdoor; the feeling is accentuated by the humid, jungle-like atmosphere, with all sorts of rattling noises that disappear just as quickly as they appear. Without a doubt, it’s one of the less accessible tracks on the album. Every time I listen to “Cover Me,” I feel like I’ve stepped into Henri Rousseau’s painting “Tiger in a Tropical Storm (Surprised!),” pushing aside the woodcut-looking leaves and treading lightly so as not to alert the snarling tiger inches away from me; it’s fearful, but the fear is outweighed by the ecstasy of proving that “the impossible really exists.” Her lyricism feels fairytale-like, as though she’s mapping out an entirely new land, looking over her shoulder to guide you with her commentary; With a sly smirk, she declares, “I’m going hunting for mysteries.” Taking another step forward, she whispers back to you, almost afraid to admit: “This is really dangerous/But worth the effort.”

According to Björk, she wrote “Cover Me” to poke fun at herself for making the process of making the album so pointedly different, and purportedly, difficult. And yet, as the black sheep even in an album swarming with oddball anthems, it’s paved the way for exactly the kind of career that Björk has made for herself. Every part of her life has been about pushing music to its limits, whether it’s bridging together music, science, and technology to make a stunning album and an educational app or creating entirely new instruments for her tours. Björk has never shied away from what’s dangerous, and her willingness to bend, stretch, and outright break boundaries, musically and societally. Though she’s known by more iconic lyrics, this one might just be the best to describe her career so far: “I’m going to prove the impossible really exists.” And if there’s anything to be learned from her endeavors, is that all of that danger was well worth the effort.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Search for Wondla (The Search for WondLa, #1) – Tony DiTerlizzi – “While I crawl into the unknown/Cover me/I’m going hunting for mysteries/Cover me/I’m going to prove the impossible really exists…”

“Circuit” – Apples in Stereo & Marbles

Tragically, this song (and the album, Expo) aren’t even on YouTube. Criminal, if you ask me! But I think it should tell you how concerningly niche my music taste was, even as a child—”Circuit” was my favorite song when I was about 5. Less of a brag and more of a grim foreshadowing of me becoming an insufferably pretentious adult. Back in the day, I had this great little Hello Kitty CD player; I’ve got a specific memory of having this song on a playlist and having to press down on those thick, 2000’s buttons just so I could hear this song over and over, ad nauseam. I stand by 5-year-old Madeline—it never gets old.

Though it’s labeled under The Apples in Stereo, Marbles is the solo project of Robert Schneider, the Apples’s frontman; if you thought that you can’t possibly get any more beep-boop-beep than The Apples in Stereo…buckle up. Chiefly consisting of synths, Expo is nothing but electro-pop—emphasis on the electro. Every song I’ve heard from the album sounds like the kind of music that could only be made by squeaky robots from some ’50s pulp sci-fi movie. Little me specifically imagined Plex from Yo Gabba Gabba! singing it. It’s a self-contained sci-fi universe, complete with its alluring protagonist, some sort of robot or cyborg woman who “perceives circuitries/Inside everything she sees.” Lo and behold, this is the work of a man, not a machine. But with the precision applied to every single part of this track, “Circuit” truly is a well-oiled machine. Like the intricate, fragile fragments of a circuit board, every flourish of processed orchestral samples and every bubbly synth chord all work as cogs in a machine with so many moving parts, yet with effortless cohesion that so many artists can only dream of reaching. This is how you make a pop song. Embrace the beep-boop.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Infinity Particle – Wendy Xu – The robot is gender-swapped here, but he sure does see electricity.

“Typical Love” – Cate Le Bon

“Typical Love” was cut from the Pompeii sessions, but according to Cate Le Bon, was “disassembled and reassembled it many times but it always felt like a second cousin to the other tracks so was put aside for a rainy day.” It’s in limbo between the production of Pompeii but with the kind of lyrics I would’ve expected on Michelangelo Dying, cataloguing the quiet, suffocating mundanity of a relationship gone stale. If it had any closer cousin on Pompeii, it would probably be “French Boys”; it has the same kind of wry comedy of Le Bon putting on airs—she might as well be muttering “Typical love, typical love” before taking a drag from one of those long, old-fashioned cigarette holders. But as with most of her tracks, “Typical Love” is anything but typical, with percussive bursts of her own breath, saxophone blares that bleed out like oversaturated watercolors soaking through thin paper, and an Eno-like taste for taking repetition to its logical limit, stretching melodies and words until they no longer feel like their original forms. It’s all at once angular and circular, like an abstract painting, woven from brightly-colored, dancing shapes.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Embassytown – China Miéville – “Nothing ever changed in your corridor eyes/Rely on me, baby/Rely on air/Only a shadow again/Typical 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!

Books

The Bookish Mutant’s Books for Black History Month (2026 Edition)

Posted on February 4, 2026 by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Wednesday, bibliophiles!

Here in the U.S., February is Black History Month! Another year, another post where I lament the erasure of history by the Trump administration. There’s no end to the irony of this erasure when our country was quite literally built off of the labor of enslaved peoples. This is just somebody’s blog and not some grand antifascist statement, but I can’t help but think that education, and reading in particular, is one of the best ways to combat the government’s erasure of the contributions of Black people in the U.S. And if my post gets just one person who didn’t know about our history to look further, then I feel like I’ve done something good.

This year, I’ve included nonfiction as well as fiction, many of them concerning the often glossed-over history of Black people in this country. But during any month celebrating marginalized people—and every month in the year—it’s so important to go looking for the history that your school, your government, or your peers have left behind. Black people always have been, always are, and always will be an integral part of United States history, from its literary tradition to its very foundation. Denying this is monstrous, and sets a dangerous precedent for the national perception of our country. So, as with every post like this I make: go out and read books by Black authors, and educate yourself about Black history in February and every month!

Below are some links to Instagram, but they provide resources for Black History Month—and every month!

For my lists from previous years, click below:

NOTE: not all of these books strictly adhere to the genres that I placed them in; a lot of them are fairly genre-bending, especially in the two genre fiction categories. It just goes to show how much of a creative bunch these authors are—we’ve got a lot of authors here who break and bend the rules of fantasy and sci-fi. Also, just for new readers—the “YA” on the cover image is a bit of a misnomer, but once again, I’m too lazy to make a new graphic for it and there’s only so much space for my WordPress media.

Let’s begin, shall we?

THE BOOKISH MUTANT’S BOOKS FOR BLACK HISTORY MONTH (2025 EDITION)

FANTASY:

Needy Little Things – Channelle Desamours | YA | magical realism, urban fantasy, mystery, disability | ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
Daughter of the Merciful Deep – Leslye Penelope | Adult | historical fiction | ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Somadina – Akwaeke Emezi | YA | LGBTQ+, romance, epic fantasy | ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
The Maid and the Crocodile – Jordan Ifueko* | YA | epic fantasy, disability, romance | ⭐️⭐️⭐️.75
Fate’s Bane – C.L. Clark | Adult | high fantasy, novella, romance, LGBTQ+ | ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms – N.K. Jemisin | Adult | high fantasy, romance | ⭐️⭐️⭐️.25

*NOTE: this novel is set in the Raybearer universe, but is a companion novel that can be understood without reading the original duology.

SCIENCE FICTION:

The Ephemera Collector – Stacy Nathaniel Jackson | Adult | LGBTQ+, disability, dystopia | ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Sky Full of Elephants – Cebo Campbell | Adult | speculative fiction | ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
Do You Dream of Terra-Two? – Temi Oh | YA | romance | ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Jamaica Ginger and Other Concoctions – Nalo Hopkinson | Adult | anthologies/short stories, speculative fiction | ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Library of Broken Worlds – Alaya Dawn Johnson | Adult | space fantasy, LGBTQ+, romance | ⭐️⭐️⭐️.75

REALISTIC FICTION/MYSTERY/THRILLER:

All the Noise At once – DeAndra Davis | YA | disability, contemporary | ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Afrotistic – Kala Allen Omeiza | YA | contemporary, disability | ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
If We Were a Movie – Zakiya N. Jamal | YA | LGBTQ+, romance | ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
When No One Is Watching – Alyssa Cole | Adult | mystery, thriller, romance | ⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Trees – Percival Everett | Adult | literary fiction, mystery, thriller | ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

NONFICTION:

All About Love: New Visions – bell hooks | Adult | essays, feminism |⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
You’ll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey: Crazy Stories About Racism – Amber Ruffin and Lacey Lamar | Adult | memoir | ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
How to Be an Antiracist – Ibram X. Kendi | Adult | politics | ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Wake: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts – Rebecca Hall | Adult | graphic novel, history |⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness – Austin Channing Brown | Adult | memoir |⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
A Black Women’s History of the United States – Daina Ramey Berry and Kali Nicole Gross | Adult | history |⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches – Audre Lorde | Adult | memoir, essays, feminism, LGBTQ+ | ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
All Boys Aren’t Blue: A Memoir Manifesto – George M. Johnson | YA | memoir, politics, LGBTQ+ | ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
Inciting Joy: Essays – Ross Gay | Adult | essays, memoir | ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK! Have you read any of the books on this list, and if so, what did you think of them? What are some of your favorite books by Black authors that you’ve read recently? Let me know in the comments!

Today’s song:

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

Book Review Tuesday

Book Review Tuesday (2/3/26) – The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms

Posted on February 3, 2026 by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles, and happy Black History Month!

As I’ve done for the past few years, all of my reviews for the month of February will be for books by Black authors. (Stay tuned for my annual Black History Month recommendations list!) I’ve been a fan of N.K. Jemisin for many years now. I was especially blown away by her Broken Earth trilogy, and I figured I would read this to see where she started out. I liked enough of it, but strangely, the flaws reassured me—in order for you to make something as mind-bending as The Fifth Season, you have to start somewhere. The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms happens to be that somewhere.

Enjoy this week’s review!

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (The Inheritance Trilogy, #1) – N.K. Jemisin

Yeine Darr never imagined herself in Sky—the opulent floating city of the Arameri, who rule over countless kingdoms. After the sudden death of her mother, Yeine discovers a royal inheritance that she never knew of. Now, in the world of political machinations, scheming, and dark magic, Yeine must fight her way through kings and gods alike. But Yeine has only scratched the surface of the secrets that have been concealed from her—and their consequences may shatter all of the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms.

TW/CW: rape, pedophilia, violence, slavery, torture, loss of loved ones, sexual content

Though she’s had some misses in her later career, N.K. Jemisin is one of the more inventive speculative fiction writers out there. The Broken Earth trilogy was so nuanced and mind-bending, and it was for sure one of the more creative adult fantasy series that I’ve ever come across. Yet somehow, even though I didn’t enjoy The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms as much as her other novels, it’s oddly comforting. You’ve got to write a weaker book before you get on the level of The Fifth Season.

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms is a cold book. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, I think it works in the main character’s favor. This novel is all about isolation, alienation, and othering, and that’s exactly how it manifests in our protagonist, Yeine. Jemisin’s exploration of her being an outsider—in terms of her age, her race, and her unfamiliarity with Sky itself—centered so much about the distance that she felt between herself and the people she’s suddenly meant to cause peers. Yeine is a flawed characters, but you see the exact circumstances that make her this way; groomed to demurely accept microaggressions and be derided and tossed around, she’s shrunk herself so far into a corner that she’s ceased to be herself. Jemisin didn’t shy away from making Yeine a flawed character, but what made her at least partially worth rooting for was seeing how intricately her backstory was constructed. At best, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms is a no-holds-barred exploration of how being subsumed into an empire does not just to your country, but to your psyche.

Over the years, Jemisin has built a name for herself in socially conscious fantasy, and The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms is, without a doubt, where it all began. Though I don’t think I’ll continue with the trilogy (more on that later), this novel excelled in talking about the politics of its world. Aside from Yeine’s alienation, I loved how Jemisin showed through the worldbuilding just how much the nations of the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms are willing to turn the other cheek to, be it war, racism, abuse, or slavery. It’s a dizzyingly large structure full to the brim with conniving politicians, but with the added bonus of warring gods to complicate things in Jemisin’s world. Even beyond the worldbuilding, what Jemisin does best is depict the staggering scale of an empire, and the intimidation that it causes. When the enemy seems too vast and layered to take down, it can force you into submission, or even absolute hopelessness. That hopelessness feeds into Yeine’s character arc once she’s faced with the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, and her gradual conquering of it made for a poignant, timely character arc, especially for a novel written almost exactly 16 years ago.

The Broken Earth trilogy had this kind of fairytale-like narrator who stepped into the narrative to occasionally interrupt the main storyline. It was an artful, cryptic part of Jemisin’s storytelling that gave those novels a unique flavor. The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms was clearly the trial run of this tool, because it was…nearly the same. At first, I was excited to get that signature N.K. Jemisin storytelling, but as much as I liked it in the first half, I’m not sure if it really worked for this novel. I won’t spoil The Fifth Season, because even though it’s been out for many years now, that twist is too good to ruin for new readers; but with that narrative framing in mind, it works exactly in tandem in the story. However, for The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, it didn’t fully make sense. I did like it in the sense of a trickster narrating the story, but for the kind of fantasy this is—much more about politics than prophecy—it seemed less of a narrative device and more just window dressing to spruce up what was already there. I’m all for those kind of elements normally, but I think it works better for a destiny, prophecy-oriented fantasy like The Fifth Season more than it does the more grounded, political machinations of this novel.

One of the main things that kept me from enjoying The Hundred Thousands Kingdoms all the way was the romance. Even calling whatever happened in this novel “romance” is generous. Everything between Yeine and Nahadoth was just…weird on a number of levels. Their first sex scene was written in such a way that I fully thought that Yeine was getting raped, and their dynamic never recovered from that perception. Either way, even with Yeine being the vessel for the most powerful goddess in this universe, there was obviously an uneven power dynamic at play, but I don’t think Jemisin wrote it consciously enough. Their relationship felt the same as the relationships between the domineering, condescending politicians of the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, and yet somehow, it was automatically romantic for them. These kind of power dynamics are something that Jemisin has explored in her later works and written with much more nuance and aplomb; once again, I guess you have to start somewhere, because this was a mess. There could’ve been some sort of Stockholm syndrome kind of thing going on with Yeine, but once again, no nuance—even though she’s a traumatized character, depicting it through a solely romantic lens was a mistake. Additionally, the final sex scene with Yeine and Nahadoth was painfully overwritten to the point where it was almost funny. Plus, the relationship that Yeine had developed with T’vril felt much more natural and beholden to a fleshed-out romance—where did Nahadoth even come from?

Also, because I can’t let go of this—yeah, I know, Sieh is technically an adult mind in a child’s vessel (there’s a fantasy explanation for this), but in what world did that weird ass kiss between Sieh and Yeine need to happen? Reverse Poor Things, much? Eugh.

All in all, a flawed but ambitious debut from one of the cleverest fantasy authors working today. 3.25 stars.

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms is the first novel in the Inheritance Trilogy, followed by The Broken Kingdoms and The Kingdom of Gods. N.K. Jemisin is also the author of several other sci-fi and fantasy novels for adults, including the Broken Earth trilogy (The Fifth Season, The Obelisk Gate, and The Stone Sky), the Great Cities duology (The City We Became and The World We Make), the anthology How Long ’til Black Future Month? and DC Comics’ Far Sector.

Today’s song:

saw Robyn Hitchcock on Sunday night—what an absolute treasure!!! this was a standout

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

Sunday Songs

Sunday Songs: 2/1/26

Posted on February 1, 2026 by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

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

This week: who would win in a fight: righteous haterism or unfettered whimsy? Neither, actually. They’re both more powerful when they’ve joined forces.

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 2/1/26

“Lipstick on the Glass” – Wolf Alice

It feels redundant to say that this is a very 2010’s song for it coming out of the 2020’s—”Lipstick On The Glass” only came out in 2021, and Wolf Alice were active all throughout the 2010’s anyway. And yet, I can’t shake how much they’ve crystallized that 2010’s indie sound. This song feels like a cousin of Eisley’s “Currents,” a favorite of mine in middle school, which came out in 2013. Both of them feel very cloudy and foggy, but adorned with clear, angular sparks that stick out of the mist like fragments of crystal. Even through the almost Cocteau Twins-kaleidoscope in the chorus, Wolf Alice have set up a system of lighthouses: the sharp percussion, and Ellie Roswell’s vocals, that range from a husky whisper to a diving bird of prey cutting through the sky. Free-floating and without much of an anchor, “Lipstick On The Glass” ha such a sense of urgency despite the deliberate blending of most of its musical shapes and textures into each other, making for an exciting, cinematic blend—especially when the chorus first kicks in. That beat drop is even more gratifying paired with Roswell’s lyrics, succumbing to the siren song of an old lover. But even after that beat drop, “Lipstick On The Glass” is beguiling all the way through.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Stars Undying – Emery Robin – “Oh, my body does deceive me/Just as did yours/Though we’re fighting different wars/In our ways…”

“Harbour” – Cate Le Bon

Straightforward for Cate Le Bon usually means that it’s still delightfully strange. When I first listened to Pompeii, “Harbour” was actually one of my least favorites—I never disliked it, but it wasn’t as in-your-face inventive as some of the others on the first listen. It’s a case of every song on the album being excellent, so the benchmark is extra high from the get-go, making songs like this get lost in the dust. To be fair, after experiencing “Dirt on the Bed” for the first time tends to overshadow all else when you listen to Pompeii, but that’s no excuse for leaving a song like this to languish. I maintain that it’s one of the weaker songs on the album, but at this point, a weak Cate Le Bon would be a career highlight in your average artist’s hands.

Pompeii as a whole has a pretty even, calm pace, as adorned with all kinds of weirdness as it is. “Harbour” got lost for me because it didn’t have the same strangeness on the surface, but the more I listen, the more layers I find hidden within it. That’s the joy of Cate Le Bon for me—even her more radio-friendly songs conceal everything from watery, pre-Michelangelo Dying synths to spurts of saxophone that sound like the happier cousin of the brass blasts at the end of “Dirt on the Bed.” Pompeii as a whole is quite ’80s, but not in the way of shoving neon synths down your throat—it’s just a more subtle exploration of the sound rather than a way to farm nostalgia; even so, the specific use of saxophones in “Harbour” veered too close to the latter territory on my first listen. Once again, the bar just breached the stratosphere, given how seamlessly Le Bon has been able to integrate saxophones (and brass in general) into her music without it being full on “Careless Whisper” cheese. Now, though she’s used it in better ways, it’s still a cut above the rest. That goes for “Harbour” as a whole—she’s a master at manipulating seemingly ordinary elements and twisting them just far enough to the left to make you do a double-take. She’s full of surprises.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Ministry of Time – Kaliane Bradley – “What you said was nice/When you said my face turned a memory/What you said was nice/When you said my heart broke a century…”

“Presumably Dead Arm” – Sidney Gish

I’m back with another unexpected kick back into late 2019 from my shuffle…OOF. This one came during the period where I discovered some the fruitful harvest of offbeat indie rock after I got Apple Music. The floodgates were open, allowing me to listen to way too much girlpool…and this.

The thing that stands out to me about Sidney Gish is that I think she’s a key part of a newer aesthetic that will probably be defined more in retrospect. She’s the spitting image of a certain brand of Gen Z, internet-bred musician who records their music on their laptops and cut their teeth with covers on YouTube. (Gish, for the record, has a very sweet cover of The Magnetic Fields’s “All My Little Words” that she recorded in her shower that stars her pet rabbit. That should give you an idea of her general vibe.) They’ve all got purposely poorly photoshopped album art and quirky, vaguely surreal lyrics. For Gish, I think she’s at least an inch above the rest because her lyricism is, for the most part, very distinctly her and not necessarily just there to service a meme-y aesthetic. Yet I’m almost certain that it’ll date her music instantly, given a decade or so. Ed Buys Houses is still a solid, unique album, but there’s no doubt that it’ll be more and more distinctly 2016 as time passes.

I think “Presumably Dead Arm” was the first song of Gish’s that I ever listened to, and to this day, the charm of it mostly holds up. The sound is so distinctly late-2010’s, complete with the fuzz you get from recording music off of an aging laptop speaker. Now that it’s 2026, I can’t see the title without hearing it in the same cadence as this, yet even so, it’s just such a softly charming little tune. It has a very late teenage kind of wistful melancholy to it, but with the added through line of finding said presumably dead arm in a graveyard (and taking it to prom). Between laments about isolation and drunk and high friends, Gish’s distinct flavor of lyricism shines through: “I’d rather let the poor kid sleep/But he’s tripping balls, he’s tripping testes/LSD, post-wisdom teeth/He got lost in the shower/And he barely knows the hour.” But what hits me now, seven years after I initially found this song, is the genuine fear hidden behind some of the lyrics, the kind you can only get when you’re approaching your 20’s and don’t have a clue what you’re going to do about growing up: “And all these pretend spouses are a happy storybook/That’ll turn to stark non-fiction in the time it took/For me to notice that I’m old, which means I’ll be thirty and happy/Likely married to personified business-casual khakis.” As silly as some of those lines are, they’re delivered with such an urgency that for a fleeting moment, I feel them like a skipped heartbeat in my ribcage. It’s uncanny, how quickly Gish can switch from abject silliness to existentialism. But that’s very Gen Z—and very Sidney Gish, in the end.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Girl Who Was Convinced Beyond All Reason That She Could Fly – Sybil Lamb – an underrated oddball of the book world, as Sidney Gish is to indie rock.

“Therefore, I Am” – Jim O’Rourke

I’m all for having compassion and empathy in your heart, but there’s a special, beautiful place in this world for songs that innately feel like a massive middle finger. Sometimes it’s healthy to indulge the spite and blast your fuck-you song. And if you’re looking for a good fuck-you song, then boy, do I have the song for you.

I mainly knew Jim O’Rourke from his far calmer, instrumental world and his role as the longtime producer for much of Wilco’s discography. I knew that he had a solo career, but I honestly thought that it was more along the “Bad Timing” side than this. Apparently he’d been so steeped in his more experimental musical roots for so long and decided to try his hand at a more straightforward indie rock album, and came out the other side with Insignificance. It’s a shame that he doesn’t tap into lyric-oriented music and sing more—he’s got a great voice. And I’m not saying the stuff about the lyrics because they’re some poetic, soul-searching kernel of wisdom. They just happen to be some of the most artfully vitriolic disses I’ve heard put to song. Take this one:

“We are on a sinking ship/But I’d like to stay on board and shoot the cannons at you.”

DAMN. DEDICATION. On my first listen, I just kept hearing this over and over with each successive lyric:

I would not want to be on the receiving end of that. I pity whoever Jim O’Rourke was beefing with circa 2000. “As you can see/I’m a happy guy”—are you sure, Jim? For a song sung so calmly, every line is a gleeful slap in the face—it’s not just a fuck-you to whoever it may concern, but an open brag about how much his life has improved ever since they ended things. The instrumentals have a very Brian Eno, repetition-oriented feel to them (with a guitar tone that scratches every good itch in my musical brain, I might add), and yet even without any screaming or hammering guitars to pieces on stage, it manages to be so cleverly bitter under such an unassuming guise. Perfect cure-all for any and all breakups, toxic friendships, or just thinking about the excess of scummy authority figures all around. I need some Riot Grrl bands to cover this. God, it’s so fun.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

To Shape a Dragon’s Breath – Moniquill Blackgoose – “Why do you hide behind somebody else?/There’s one too many in this room/And I think it’s you…”

“Octopus’s Garden” – The Beatles

I know the whole situation of 3/4 of the Beatles being at each other’s necks during the Abbey Road/Let It Be sessions while Ringo Starr just made a song about an octopus has been memed to death. But really? We should all aspire to be like Ringo in that scenario. Observe the chaos around you and defy it openly with silliness and childlike wonder. Being labelled as the goofy Beatle must’ve had its perks, because I doubt anybody would’ve expected “Octopus’s Garden” to have as lasting of an impact as it did. It’s a classic, both in the Beatles sense and in the sense of most every child since 1970 having fond memories of it. And it’s a classic for a reason. Unlike some of the other more obliquely “joke” Beatles songs (see: “Wild Honey Pie,” which, I’m gonna say it: a thing of sheer beauty), the production is staggeringly good. It came on shuffle the other day, and when I just expected to have a little laugh with Ringo, I got blown away at just how tight of a composition it is—the piano arrangement? George Harrison’s guitar riffs? The harmonies? EVERYTHING? For a song that often gets dismissed as one of the more shallow songs in their catalogue, “Octopus’s Garden” has all manner of hidden layers to it, like bits of seashells hiding just beneath the surface of the waves.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Sea Sirens – Amy Chu and Janet K. Lee – I’m convinced that this book is set exactly where Ringo Starr set “Octopus’s Garden.” We found it, gang. We found the Octopus’s Garden…

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!

Monthly Wrap-Ups

January/February Wrap-Up 🚍

Posted on February 28, 2025 by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Friday, bibliophiles!

Man, time to do wrap-ups? Barely, but I have some time on my hands and there’s nothing I love more than organizing my reading stats into bulleted lists, so why not? (The only reason I’ve been able to make this many posts this week is because most of them were started several weeks prior, but I digress.)

The past few months have been strangely calm, if you set aside…well, everything that’s been going on lately. I don’t think I have to explain. I’ve been working really hard to try and be as levelheaded as I can in the face of all of these crises. Levelheaded and hopeful. Neither of these mean ignorant bliss to me—I’m continuing to speak up when I can, read what they don’t want us to read, and put my money into places that respect my existence. (wink wink, nudge nudge…hope everybody who was financially able participated in the economic boycott today! 😉) Miraculously, this semester has given me the space to work at practicing that—I’ve had a lot more free time (almost an alien concept after last semester), so I’ve been working at putting my energy into what counts, mainly being creative and feeding my soul. I finished the first draft of book 3 in the sci-fi trilogy I’ve been working at since I was 16 (!!!!!!!!!!). I’ve tried to take up knitting. (Unsuccessful so far, but I’m trying to keep at it), and I’ve tried to draw and read when I’ve got the time. That, and getting on the mining grind in Minecraft and being paralyzed as Severance consumes every waking thought I have. GOD, what a show. All this is to say that this isn’t a straight journey—I’m by no means a master at being levelheaded and balancing work with creativity, but I’m trying to learn from my mistakes. All you can do is try.

JANUARY READING WRAP-UP

I read 15 books in January! In the gap between winter break and the start of the spring semester, I read some fantastic books, from whimsical graphic novels to classic sci-fi hijinks.

2 – 2.75 stars:

The Marble Queen – Anna Kopp and Gabrielle Kari (⭐️⭐️)

3 – 3.75 stars:

Heavenly Tyrant (Iron Widow, #2) – Xiran Jay Zhao (⭐️⭐️⭐️)
The Blue, Beautiful World – Karen Lord (⭐️⭐️⭐️)
The Circumference of the World – Lavie Tidhar (⭐️⭐️⭐️)
How to Steal a Galaxy (Chaotic Orbits, #2) – Beth Revis (⭐️⭐️⭐️.5)
Desert Echoes – Abdi Nazemian (⭐️⭐️⭐️.5)
The Cat Who Saved Books – Sōsuke Natsukawa (⭐️⭐️⭐️.5)
2 A.M. at The Cat’s Pajamas – Marie-Helene Bertino (⭐️⭐️⭐️.5)
American Hippo – Sarah Gailey (⭐️⭐️⭐️.75)
Hammajang Luck – Makana Yamamoto (⭐️⭐️⭐️.75)

4 – 4.75 stars:

Good Girl, Bad Blood (A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, #2) – Holly Jackson (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)
¡Ay, Mija!: My Bilingual Summer in Mexico – Christine Suggs (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)
Dust – Alison Stine (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)
Tidesong – Wendy Xu (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)
The Infinity Particle – Wendy Xu (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5)

FAVORITE BOOK OF THE MONTH: The Infinity Particle – 4.5 stars

REVIEWS:

BONUS:

A Reading List for the Coming Four Years | Books for Rising, Resisting, and Keeping the Hope

SUNDAY SONGS:

FEBRUARY READING WRAP-UP

I read 13 books in February! This month was slightly slower (and shorter, obviously) than January, but I was able to read several books that I’ve been excited to get around to for months! As I usually do, I focused more on Black authors for Black History Month, and discovered some great books and authors as a result.

2 – 2.75 stars:

Blood Debts (Blood Debts, #1) – Terry J. Benton-Walker (⭐️⭐️.5)

3 – 3.75 stars:

When No One Is Watching – Alyssa Cole (⭐️⭐️⭐️)
Blood at the Root (Blood at the Root, #1) – LaDarrion Williams (⭐️⭐️⭐️)
Whiteout – Dhonielle Clayton, Tiffany D. Jackson, Nic Stone, Angie Thomas, Ashley Woodfolk, and Nicola Yoon (anthology) (⭐️⭐️⭐️.5)
Drown Me with Dreams (Sing Me to Sleep, #2) – Gabi Burton (⭐️⭐️⭐️.5)
Needy Little Things – Channelle Desamours (⭐️⭐️⭐️.5)
The Maid and the Crocodile – Jordan Ifueko (⭐️⭐️⭐️.75)

4 – 4.75 stars:

Death of the Author – Nnedi Okorafor (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)
No One is Talking About This – Patricia Lockwood (for school) (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)
How Women Made Music: A Revolutionary History from NPR Music – National Public Radio (anthology) (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)
All About Love: New Visions – bell hooks (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)
Jamaica Ginger and Other Concoctions – Nalo Hopkinson (anthology) (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)
How to Be an Antiracist – Ibram X. Kendi (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)

FAVORITE BOOK OF THE MONTH: All About Love – 4 stars

REVIEWS:

BONUS:

The Bookish Mutant’s Books for Black History Month (2025 Edition)

SUNDAY SONGS (+ more music stuff)

BONUS:

Phonetics On and On – album review

Today’s song:

DEBUT AAAAAAAUGH DEBUUUUUUUT

That’s it for my wrap-up of January and February! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Music

Phonetics On and On – album review

Posted on February 27, 2025 by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Thursday, bibliophiles! Finally had time to do an album review…unprecedented…

I first fell in love with Horsegirl in my senior year of high school. Back then, they were afloat on a handful of singles and on the cusp of a debut album. By the time Versions of Modern Performance came out, it was the soundtrack to the summer before I went to college. Their clever, endlessly creative style, informed by the ’70s and the ’90s in equal measure, enchanted me—it felt like almost nothing like what many other musicians of their generation were putting out. Along came 2024, and the promise of something somehow even better was on the horizon: a new Horsegirl album, produced by Cate Le Bon and recorded in The Loft, the famous (at least to me) Chicago studio owned by Wilco. What could go wrong? Almost nothing, as it turns out—Phonetics On and On is proof that the playful, inventive spirit of Horsegirl lives on, and that it’s beginning to mature into something spectacular.

Enjoy this album review!

PHONETICS ON AND ON – HORSEGIRL

Release date: February 14, 2025 (Matador Records)

TRACK 1: “Where’d You Go?” – 8/10

Just shy of two minutes long, “Where’d You Go?” is a song that lives up to the band name—the propulsive beat has the urgency of a racehorse speeding down a track. Drenched in tight, Feelies-esque (crazy) rhythms, it kickstarts the album with a jolt of sparking energy. Gigi Reece’s drumming has the lightning-fast patter of rabbit’s feet against the dirt, while the dueling voices of Nora Cheng and Penelope Lowenstein tug the track in two directions, a short leash that snaps to allow for a crayon’s scribble of a guitar riff to burst in at the 1:12 mark. The frenetic energy is a remarkable bridge from their work on Versions of Modern Performance to this album—vestiges of their earlier compositions, but the beginnings of a divergence into musical maturity. That’s how you start an album.

TRACK 2: “Rock City” – 7.5/10

Reining in the freewheeling energy of “Where’d You Go?”, “Rock City” mellows the album into the pace that much of the rest of Phonetics On and On settles into. It’s odd to have a more transitional track by only track two, but that feels like the function of “Rock City” is to me—it’s one of the weaker songs on the album, but nonetheless great; it serves to weave together the fluctuations in energy from track one to many of the others. That being said, it’s not a bad song by any stretch of the imagination. With its pastoral imagery and catchy, upbeat stillness, it’s the perfect track to relax the unbridled momentum of the opener. Cheng’s lighter vocals give it a gentle levity, while the sudden jumpstart in structure at 3:16 ensures a recurring theme on the album—you can’t be lulled into a false sense of security, because Horsegirl always has something up their sleeves.

TRACK 3: “In Twos” – 8/10

Initially, “In Twos” wasn’t a standout track for me. The slow pace didn’t bother me, but it didn’t grab me like many of the other tracks did. Yet the more I listen to the lyrics, the better it gets. Horsegirl are masters of crafting emotion from simplicity; much of Phonetics On and On was inspired by their collective experience of uprooting from Chicago to New York City to go to school at NYU, and the isolation of coming of age and moving to a new city. You can feel that understated alienation all over “In Twos,” a slow, wistful recollection of how “every car that passes by drives to you” and “your footprints on the street, they walk in twos.” It’s almost resentment, but feels to me more like a familiar feeling: watching people live normal lives as an outsider. The Rolling Stones-like repetition of “and I try” reminds me of that aching, to want to be accepted and feel normal and live a traditional life, but knowing that you’ll never fully mesh with them, and that life has a different destiny for you, no matter how hard you try to fight it.

Oof. Definitely got me there. Horsegirl lures you in with the “dadadadadada”s and then boom. ALIENATION! Seriously, this is starting to become one of the more impactful tracks on the album.

TRACK 4: “2468” – 8/10

Reviewed on Sunday Songs, 12/1/24 – a fascinating first taste of the album—Feelies worship, weird violins, Wes Anderson quirks, and above all, weird talent.

TRACK 5: “Well I Know You’re Shy” – 8/10

Picking up the pace that “2468” jumpstarted, “Well I Know You’re Shy” is just about the most Velvet Underground love song I’ve heard since Lou Reed tapped Moe Tucker to sing “After Hours.” I realize it’s hyperbole, but I can’t help but see the DNA woven between the two. Composed of old-timey phone cords and shyly open windows, it presents a love song that could only happen between two sharply-dressed Wes Anderson characters. Punctuated by Nora Cheng’s clean guitar riffs, it talks of a romantic looking out their window wishing to “sing for you/I wanna sing like I do/out your window,” continually rueing the fact that “what happened out there/I wish it was me.” There’s no tormented confessions of love or on-your-knees begging for a kiss, but a precocious, simple wish: “What happened out there/Well I know you’re shy/If you’ll listen to me/You’ll know I want to say hi.” I hesitate to call it childlike, but it has a doe-eyed purity to it that makes it so charming.

TRACK 6: “Julie” – 8.5/10

Reviewed on Sunday Songs, 12/29/24 – a glimpse into Horsegirl’s emerging introspective side, proof of their untapped ability to tap into tender emotion.

TRACK 7: “Switch Over” – 9.5/10

Reviewed on Sunday Songs, 2/2/25 – still the brightest, catchiest, and really the best song on the whole album.

TRACK 8: “Information Content” – 8/10

This is one of the brightest songs on Phonetics On and On, and I don’t mean that in intelligence—listen and you’ll understand. “Information Content” glows with the blinking spirit of a glass lightbulb. The brightness comes in no small part from how jangly they go with the guitars on this one—in between Reece’s soft drumming and egg shakers, Cheng’s voice is allowed to be so cheerful and airy, even when the lyrics might as well be crossing items off a grocery list or striking a day from the calendar. That’s the power of Horsegirl to me (Horsepower?)—they dredge so much playful joy from the mundane and ordinary, making a trip to the kitchen into a spring-stepped skip. There’s something about “Information Content” that feels distinctly Wilco to me as well—it seems that the influence of The Loft rubbed off on them. (How could it not?) At 2:58, the guitar solo kicks in, but gets crumpled into tinfoil chaos just as quickly; it’s so prickly and collapses in the blink of an eye, and I can’t help but be reminded of Nels Cline’s improvisations and swift-fingered touch to his guitar playing, or even the way that Glenn Koche’s drumming descends into madness during “Via Chicago.” Of course, nobody can come close to that level of masterful insanity (especially on their second album), but I can hear the influence loud and clear—and I love it.

TRACK 9: “Frontrunner” – 8.5/10

The last single to be released before the entire album came out, “Frontrunner” lies in the same vein as “Julie”—a slow-paced, more instrospective side to Horsegirl that’s unafraid to strip down to more raw, spare elements. On the composition, the band said that this gentler track was born after “[I] had just had a really terrible, emotional day…and Nora and I were like, ‘OK, we should just play guitar today, you need to do something.’ And we wrote that song together.” It’s so simple, yet so heartwarming to me that such a tender song came out of ordinary moments that we’ve all shared with friends; Even before I knew the context behind it, “Frontrunner” rang proudly as such a distinctly friendship song to me, and I loved it for just that. For me, it embodies another kind of college feeling, the post-freshman feeling of realizing “oh my god, I’ve got friends?” and that realization powering you through the day that you have so many new, wonderful people to share your life with who are only an arm’s length away. The repetition of “I can’t wait/And I can’t wait/And I can’t wait” is filled with a wistful, anticipatory glee despite the slower tempo of the track, but the happiness on the horizon is what made it such a winner for me. A frontrunner, if you—[gets dragged off the stage by a comically large cane]

TRACK 10: “Sport Meets Sound” – 7/10

Horsegirl claimed that they’re mostly finished with the “joke titles” that composed most of Versions of Modern Performance (“Rock City” is allegedly the last of its kind), but…if this isn’t the most Versions of Modern Performance title I’ve ever laid eyes on…

Taking cues from the more laid-back tone of “Frontrunner,” “Sport Meets Sound,” contrary to the speed that the title implies, eases the album close to hitting the brakes. With a steady, marching band-like drumbeat from Reece and strings of “dadadadadada’s” aplenty, it doesn’t do a whole lot to distinguish itself from the other tracks, in the grand scheme of Phonetics On and On; like “In Twos” and “2468,” it’s lyrically twins with “Rock City” (see the “Young man sickened by the sight” refrain), but unlike those two, it doesn’t stand out as much as the former two do. But if that’s a weaker Horsegirl song…man, I’m so impressed with their output, because even at their weakest, they can make a truly catchy indie rock song, and that’s just what “Sport Meets Sound” is. It’s a transitional song to the end, and it works perfectly as such.

TRACK 11: “I Can’t Stand To See You” – 8/10

Sliding in to give Phonetics On and On a final spark of momentum, this track lifts the smile of the album at large, a peppy victory lap that unites all of the best aspects of the album at large. The jangle-o-meter has been calibrated so much that it’s broken, the spring in their metaphorical step is even springier, the “da-da-da-da-da’s” unfurl out before you like a promising scroll. The lyrics become playfully self-aware both of the song’s status as an album closer: “Do you want to go home now?/The night’s almost through.” Yet with a sly wink, they promise that they’ve got more up their sleeve: “Just another walk around the block now.” It feels more like a closing theme to a children’s TV show than a closing track to an album; It declares that there’s one more bout of carefree fun to have before Horsegirl has to say goodbye. In a way, it’s a thesis of the album’s spirit: so aware of itself that it becomes a blast, and so carefully constructed that the joy is an integral part of the process.

I averaged out all of the ratings for each track, and it came out to an 8.1! Without a doubt, Phonetics On and On is set to become one of my favorite albums of the year…and it’s only February. Horsegirl bring a welcome, much-needed dose of free-spirited yet tightly-constructed craft into their art and to the world, piling catchy melody after catchy melody for a record that sees them maturing into fledgling artists, yet never denies the play that is central to their ethos. I’d go so far as to say that we’re all better for the joy they bring to their music. I know I am.

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

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

Book Review Tuesday

Book Review Tuesday (2/25/25) – When No One Is Watching

Posted on February 25, 2025 by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!

I’ve had my eye on When No One Is Watching for a few years now. I’m not typically a thriller fan, but the concept intrigued me, despite the consistently mediocre to low ratings on Goodreads and The Storygraph. Alyssa Cole is a new-to-me author, and I figured I would give her book a try. However, I’ve come out of it with a mixed bag and uncertainty as to whether I’ll read more of her books in the future. When No One Is Watching had an excellent premise that it only halfway delivered on, but was still entertaining and timely in the end.

Enjoy this week’s review!

When No One Is Watching – Alyssa Cole

Sydney Green has called Brooklyn home for her entire life, yet her childhood is quickly slipping through her fingers. Her neighborhood, which was once home to a diverse group of homeowners, is quickly beginning to be gentrified. Condos are springing up where her neighbors once lived, and her Black and brown neighbors are being driven away one by one. Sydney suspects that something is amiss, and that there may be something more insidious to the gentrification of her neighborhood. With the help of Theo, her well-meaning neighbor, Sydney seeks to uncover the truth of her neighborhood’s fate, but what she finds may be even more sinister than she could have ever imagined.

TW/CW: racism, misogyny, gun violence, murder, loss of loved ones, police brutality, kidnapping

First off, When No One Is Watching is an incredibly timely thriller, and having a thriller surrounding the themes of gentrification is genius. When you strip past the apathy the general American population has of living not just on stolen land, but land that has driven its people of color into the worst possible conditions, it really is a frightening reality to live with. Even if the gentrification of neighborhoods itself isn’t some grand conspiracy, as it partially is in this novel, it’s a no-punches-pulled look at what’s happening to neighborhoods all over the country. Adding in snippets of social media doesn’t always work in books, but weaving in the neighborhood groupchat into When No One Is Watching also served to add a critical piece of the puzzle: that a lot of white people in such situations are so easily willing to dismiss any kind of racism if it doesn’t affect them, even if it’s happening in their own backyard. With an unflinching pen, Cole examines all of the aspects of gentrification, from its history to its current iterations, making for a thriller grounded in a real source of fright.

There are plenty of scary scenes in When No One Is Watching, but the fact that Cole mines the horror out of Syd being in an Uber and her driver driving her away from her destination should tell you something about where this novel lies. That particular scene is at the beginning of the book and isn’t the scariest thing that happens, but man…Cole is excellent at squeezing the horror from very grounded, real events. With the exception of the more sinister twist at the end, this novel creeped me out because almost everything that happened was real—its horror drawn from the realities of racism, misogyny, and gentrification. I can’t speak to this personally, but it felt like the inherent horror of being a marginalized person in the United States, but specifically of being a Black woman, a group that this country has historically done everything in its power to silence and oppress. It really gives weight to the expression “truth is stranger than fiction”—in this case, truth is scarier than fiction. That’s where Cole finds the fear, which made When No One Is Watching so effective in its brand of suspense.

However, a lot of the realism that came through in the suspense aspect of When No One Is Watching was deadened somewhat by the excessive use of modern internet lingo. I don’t mean the AAVE at all—that part was great, and I’m glad to see more of it integrated into literature, because there’s no need to cater to white audiences anymore at this point (and there’s many conversations to be had about how twitter/tiktok/etc. slang has subsumed AAVE so quickly and stripped it of its original meaning). No, I’m talking about the very millennial-sounding, tweet-ready one-liners that many of the characters dole out to make the story “funnier.” (Whew. Lots of hyphens in that sentence, even for me.) If I hadn’t seen the quote “I need you to channel the confidence of a mediocre white man” on at least 10 different t-shirts, stickers, and tweets, it would’ve been funny. About half of the humor in When No One Is Watching lands, but the other half is about the same as this: quips that have been circulated on the internet for at least a decade that could’ve been funny years ago, but have gone so stale that they’ve lost all novelty, originality, and more importantly humor. Again, I liked that When No One Is Watching was able to balance levity with some of the more thriller aspects, but it would’ve tipped the balance even more if more of the humor was original. Even five years after this book’s release, it was so easily dateable. Give it another five, and it’ll be painfully dated.

What hindered When No One Is Watching the most, however, wasn’t that: it was the pacing. It was just odd. When the suspenseful moments came, they were appropriately suspenseful, but there was so much middling around in between these moments for the first 75% of the novel that I started to question whether or not I was reading a thriller. But once the big twist comes in, it’s when I was about 80-85% of the way through the book—and the entirety of the big reveal, the climactic final battle, and the resolution were crammed into only about 15% of the book. It was whiplash-inducing, but not in a way that a thriller should be. Thrillers aren’t my go-to, but for more thriller/horror movies, I like when I have some breathing room between the suspenseful/scary moments (see: Alien, Nosferatu). When No One Is Watching theoretically had that down pat, but where it suffered was that the breathing room was rarely interesting. Other than the fantastic commentary on racism and gentrification, the plot between the suspense was just boring. I didn’t care much for Syd and Theo’s romantic subplot, I didn’t care for them randomly running around and ultimately discovering very little. So much of it could have been condensed in order for the climax to not feel like being chucked out of a bus window and onto the highway—not in a suspense way, but in a wild pacing way. Big reveal, shootout, resolution, and bam, it’s all over…in about 30 pages, tops. As with the humor, there needed to be balance with the plot—more suspense spread out through the novel, and more room to process and mine into the commentary of the climax.

All in all, a thriller with sharp, relevant commentary on racism and gentrification that excelled in its suspense, but was dragged down by uneven pacing and humor that dated itself far too quickly. 3 stars.

When No One Is Watching is a standalone, but Alyssa Cole is also the author of several other novels for adults, including the Reluctant Royals trilogy (A Princess in Theory, A Duke by Default, and A Prince on Paper), the Off the Grid trilogy (Radio Silence, Signal Boost, and Mixed Signals), The Loyal League trilogy (An Extraordinary Union, A Hope Divided, and An Unconventional Freedom), and many other novels.

Today’s song:

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

Book Review Tuesday

Book Review Tuesday (2/18/25) – Drown Me with Dreams (Sing Me to Sleep, #2)

Posted on February 18, 2025 by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!

QUICK ANNOUNCEMENT: because I’m trying to divorce myself from Amazon as much as I can, I’m finally moving over from Goodreads to The Storygraph. From now on, my reviews will be available there @thebookishmutant.

I started the Sing Me to Sleep duology last year, and now that book 2 is out, I figured I would pick it up for Black History Month, but also so I could finally get some resolution! And I sure got a resolution…one that wasn’t as enjoyable as the first book, but nonetheless a twisty, romantic ending to a fantasy duology that balanced fun and social commentary.

Now, tread lightly! This review may contain spoilers for book one, Sing Me to Sleep. For my review of Sing Me to Sleep, click here!

Enjoy this week’s review!

Drown Me with Dreams (Sing Me to Sleep, #2) – Gabi Burton

Saoirse is on the run. Now that her siren identity has been exposed, she must flee to the other side of the wall that divides Keirdre from the rest of the world. Taking sanctuary with the budding Resistance, Saoirse discovers a world full of different species that Keirdre drove out of its kingdom, all waiting for the day that they can take back what is rightfully theirs. But tensions are brewing, and war is imminent. On the other side of the wall, King Hayes, her secret love, awaits, but do his loyalties remain with Saoirse? And will Saoirse be able to fend off the rising tides of war?

TW/CW (from Gabi Burton): murder, graphic violence, discrimination/segregation (fantasy), genocide themes, blood, descriptions of injury, imprisonment

You would think that a book that’s over 400 pages would have plenty of time to work out all of the wrinkles in the plot and the worldbuilding…apparently not. In a perfect world, Drown Me with Dreams would be a great second book in a trilogy, but in this world, it was a duology concluder that tried to do far too much. That doesn’t mean that it was bad by any stretch of the imagination, but it was certainly a step below Sing Me to Sleep.

Oops. I end up stumbling into books with startling relevance to the current climate, and oh my god, am I sick of using that phrase. But. Drown Me with Dreams does an excellent job of expanding on its themes of resistance, racism, and misinformation! Saoirse has now figured out that there’s a wide world beyond the walls of Keirdre that has been obscured by the racist regime in her home kingdom; now that she knows the truth, she’s exposed to a myriad of perspectives and has to do the work herself to deconstruct the lies she’s been fed all of her life. She meets dozens of new mythical species that have been respectively discriminated against by Keirdre, and finds out firsthand how many falsehoods that the ruling powers have upheld for decades. The simultaneous revelations and discomfort of Saoirse discovering the truth is such a wonderful thing for a YA fantasy book like this to explore—in the end, it’s up to us, in our varying experiences in the real world, to discover the truth about how our governments can shape (and mis-shape) the narratives we grow up on. I also love the themes of solidarity present—fantasy or not, I love that the kind of feminism that Drown Me with Dreams champions is the kind that holds celebrating individual experience and solidarity under shared oppressions in equal regard. It’s the kind of unity that I believe will push feminism forward, and it made for a powerful statement in Drown Me with Dreams.

Even though Saoirse and King Hayes were kept apart for the first half of the novel, Drown Me with Dreams had a great resolution to their romance! Was it classic, YA fantasy romance cheese? Yes. Was it good cheese? Absolutely. To paraphrase one of my high school English teachers, there’s a difference between gourmet cheese and “American cheese-food.” I’ve been a YA reader for quite some time now, and there’s a difference between cringeworthy cheese and high-quality cheese. Drown Me with Dreams falls into the latter category, 100%. There’s angsty angry-kissing aplenty, but it’s written believably. If anyone is looking to do slow-burn, enemies-to-lovers romance right, look no further. Saoirse and Hayes weren’t just given enough time to have their romance develop—the stakes of their forbidden love were built up for the whole series, and their chemistry together made for some high quality smoldering. It’s not trying to be enemies-to-lovers in the way that most BookTok fantasy books try and fail to do—Burton’s given us a well-developed romance you can root for, and it made Drown Me with Dreams a standout read in that department.

In my review for Sing Me to Sleep, I mentioned that the book’s main flaw was that it was juggling far too many characters. In that same review, I commended Burton’s ability to craft a rich, layered fantasy world. Both of those aspects collided in Drown Me with Dreams with disappointing results. In Drown Me with Dreams, we finally see the world beyond Keirdre, and it’s full of all of the creatures that Keirdre drove out—dryads, goblins, sprites, you name it. On the surface, I was so excited to see this aspect of the world, but two main issues arose. The first was that we were introduced to a truckload of characters, almost 80% of which had barely anything memorable about them other than the fact that they were from a “new” species. Some of them were slightly consequential, but only just. I had so much trouble keeping track of all of them, which definitely muddied my reading experience. The second problem was that all of this worldbuilding was crammed into a single book—with a kingdom and world this expansive, it needed at least another book to develop fully, which hindered how fleshed out the world ended up being, after all of these promises of it being fascinating and new. (Also, I get the point about racist narratives being made with the goblins, but…what was the reason for making goblins into glorified elves? Why did they need to be conventionally attractive?)

Which brings me to my second major gripe: this series should not have been a duology. Not only are we introduced to a staggering amount of worldbuilding that only amounts to a single book, the same goes for the plot. A full resistance movement, the tensions within said resistance movement, the looming threat of war from multiple sides, and the fallout from said monumental war are crammed into 424 pages…should be enough, right? Most of what I described only happens in the last 2/3rds of the book, and nothing gets nearly the attention it deserves. We get dragged along with a pointless red herring of a love triangle (only for Saoirse to end up with her main romantic interest and for the other guy to just DIE GRUESOMELY? I didn’t really care about the guy, but pour one out for Carrik), and all of the interpersonal conflict rarely lasts, only providing detours on what should’ve been a rich plot on its own. As with the worldbuilding. Drown Me with Dreams should have had at least one more book to expand on everything. It’s a case of Burton biting off far more than she could chew, to unfulfilling results.

All in all, a duology-concluder that didn’t deliver on its epic worldbuilding promises and rushed its climax to a dizzying degree, but delivered on its past themes and promised romance. 3.5 stars!

Drown Me with Dreams is the second and final book in the Sing Me to Sleep duology, which begins with Sing Me to Sleep.

Today’s song:

so uh guess who’s obsessed with the apple tv+ björk concert film

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

Sunday Songs

Sunday Songs: 2/16/25

Posted on February 16, 2025 by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

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

This week: We’ve got Paul McCartney and a song about a dog on the docket, but nowhere is “Martha My Dear” involved. Sorry, gang.

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 2/16/25

“Jimmy Fallon Big!” – Japanese Breakfast

Michelle Zauner jokingly referenced this song when posting about her recent appearance on the Tonight Show to promote “Orlando in Love,” the first (excellent) single from her forthcoming album For Melancholy Brunettes (& Sad Women). But before she got Jimmy Fallon Big, someone else tried to—Deven Craige, the bass player for her former band, Little Big League; Zauner wrote the song about how he split the band after his other band was, in his words, about to go “Jimmy Fallon big,” and decided to put his energy into that instead of Little Big League. The move left Zauner crushed: she told NPR in 2017 that “it felt like losing a brother, and there was this shame, feeling like I was never going to get there myself.” There’s truly something more than bittersweet about it—the passion she poured into every bit of the vocals shows a deep devotion to her former bandmate, and yet the resentment sloughs off of the chorus in relenting waves: “Why walk/When you can show up on time?” I mean, they’re on good terms now, but BURN.

I promise this segue will become relevant, but I recently listened to the first episode of Björk’s excellent Sonic Symbolism podcast, where she frequently refers to the history of music as a great tree with thousands of interspersed branches that connect and diverge from one another. Listening to “Jimmy Fallon Big!” is one of those 21st century moments where I can so clearly see the tree rings, the ancestry and lineage where an evolutionary branch broke off. Michelle Zauner has been crafting intricate, emotional dream pop for quite some time now (see: “Sit,” which I talked about back in July), but this track has the Cocteau Twins written all over it. It’s not just the warm, dreamlike drone of the instrumentals, but the way that said instrumentals obscure the meaning of the chorus almost completely. It makes the opening line of “We aren’t bound by law/We aren’t bound by anything at all” make all the more sense artistically. On the first few listens, I almost wondered if it was born from the same songwriting method that Fraser used to craft her nonsense miracles. Where they break off—besides having a clearer anchor tying the music down to earth, is how Zauner grounds the emotion; not many people can get to the level of Fraser, and I don’t think Zauner is one of them, but she’s got the clear talent of crafting the most elaborate musical smoke screen to cloak her misgivings.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Radio Silence – Alice Oseman – painful secrets, fractured friendships, and a mysterious podcast.

“Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey” – Paul & Linda McCartney

Memes aside, shoutout to Paul McCartney and his joyous whimsy. I’m fully aware that I use the phrase “joyous whimsy” with the same frequency of congresspeople emailing you saying that you have a MIDNIGHT DONATION DEADLINE and it’s URGENT, and I don’t want to repeat myself, but I think the world needs more of it. And who’s got it? PAUL!

BUTTAH PIE!

BUTTAH PIE?

THE BUTTAH WOULDN’T MELT, SO I PUT IT IN THE PIE, ALRIGHT?

As far as Beatles lore goes, I feel like Ringo gets more of the credit for whimsy, and for good reason—the dude saw the other three tearing at each other’s necks and decided to write a song about an octopus. But as obnoxious as Paul got during a lot of those sessions, over the course of his career, he had a gentleness to his artistic soul too, and it showed in his songwriting.

“Admiral Halsey notified me/He had to have a berth or he couldn’t get to sea/I had another look and I had a cup of tea and butter pie?” C’mon. That sounds like something straight out of some 1940’s British children’s book with yellowing pages and inked illustrations. But uptight is the opposite of how McCartney and McCartney—Linda deserves the brunt of the credit for the sheer jubilation she brings to the “Hands across the water, Heads across the sky” refrain—delivers this song. Plus, the Admiral Halsey in question was loosely based off of an American admiral from World War II, and McCartney painted him as a stiff authoritarian who is “symbolic of authority and therefore not to be taken too seriously,” so it’s making him uptight just so you can stick your tongue in his face. It’s just so infectiously jolly. There’s an orange-hued, sunlit laughter to the whole bit. It’s got the warmth of reuniting with an old friend, or being back in some rose-tinted decade and sweeping your lover off their feet on the dance floor, particularly the “Admiral Halsey” section. It’s hard to think of a song so wonderfully carefree, in every sense of the word. Hands across the water, heads across the sky indeed.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Tidesong – Wendy Xu – hands across the water, as well as a hearty, healthy dose of childlike wonder.

“Falling to Pieces” – Faith No More

Hoooooowhee. Going straight from Paul & Linda McCartney frolicking through a field to Faith No More…I don’t think whiplash even begins to describe that. Well. Welcome to my shuffle.

Faith No More seem to have been on the fringes, even where hard rock is concerned, and it’s easy to see why even the freakier people weren’t as willing to embrace them—Mike Patton’s voice and their mishmash of rock and early hip-hop influences stand out immediately. As does the goofy video. The lyrics and subject matter are standard fare for any kind of alternative music of the time (“Indecision clouds my vision/No one listens/Because I’m somewhere in between/My love and my agony”), but everything else is just off the walls. Directed by Ralph Ziman, the video is the last thing you’d expect to match the song’s aesthetic—neon colors aplenty, Mike Patton in a bowler hat and some kind of clown suit for half the video, and enough fish that I imagine the storyboarding process went something like this. Patton’s distinct vocals rangefrom a nasally standard to a hint of the heights he’d later reach on “Midlife Crisis,” and they stand behind a bassline that holds all of the instrument’s resentment for being in the background for decades. Even in a subgenre that’s already weird, this is real weird, unpredictable, unabashed weirdness. Somebody needs to bring back green-screen goldfish back into hard rock.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Shadow Speaker – Nnedi Okorafor – the lyrics are broad enough that I couldn’t narrow it down to a specific theme, so I added the mood—and came to this book, a bold, chaotic punch to the face.

“Sylvia” – Julien Baker & TORRES

On April 18th, I’ll have to show where my allegiance lies…Thee Black Boltz and Send A Prayer My Way come out on the same day. Well, okay. I’ve already decided. My allegiance is to Tunde Adebimpe, to the republic! But I’ll stagger my listening. The former has a priority over Julien Baker & TORRES, but I’ll give both a listen.

“Sylvia” is the second single Send A Prayer My Way, and it proves a valuable point: we need more good, wholesome songs about our pets. Why not write love songs for the little creatures that enrich our lives? I mentioned “Martha My Dear” earlier, but we need more songs about our furry (and not furry) friends, if you ask me. (See also: Jim Noir’s “My Little Cat”) TORRES takes the lead on this track, which recounts their experience with a foster dog and how a puppy can touch your heart in the way that only a puppy can: “anyone who has ever had the honor of sharing a home with a beloved pet knows that a pet is family—they’re the best friends you could ever have.”

They recalled an experience of taking Sylvia on the road and feeling as though they were truly meant to be. There’s something special about holding a puppy when you’ve just brought them home, and not just in the warm-and-fuzzy way. There’s an immediacy you feel, the knowledge that you’ve got a little heartbeat next to yours, a furry, helpless body that you’re suddenly in charge of. It really is a new member of the family, and one that you have the responsibility to protect. Puppies are exhausting—the time my boy Ringo slipped out of his collar, ran down the street, and evaded me for a solid five minutes before showing up on my porch with a shit-eating grin comes to mind. But “Sylvia” taps into that feeling of knowing you have more than a companion: “Haunted by all the goodnights that I’ve missed/Every time your cheek goes unkissed/A day for me is a week for you/And my life’s already halfway through/Tomorrow, today’s worries might turn out to be regrets…” It taps in to being conscious of your pet as something you can keep around for amusement, but a deeply ingrained part of your life, while retaining the simultaneous fear and joy of giving them all the love you can in their short lives.

And because we NEED a picture of sweet Sylvia…

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by TORRES (@torreslovesyou)

BABYYYYYYYYYY

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Book of Lost Things – John Connolly – “Sylvia” had me thinking of fictional dogs—as far as books go, my first thought was of Boswell, David’s loyal dachshund that accompanies him on his adventures.

“Love Spreads” – The Stone Roses

Really and truly Severance-pilled rn…CAN WE TALK ABOUT SEVERANCE? The deepening of existing friendships and yet also the storylines of corporations driving a wedge in their workers to discourage them from solidarity? Unity…unions, perhaps? HELLY WOULDN’T BE CRUEL? SHAMBOLIC RUE? THE WORST MELON PARTY YET? A CHILD? PAPERCLIPS? THE TENDENCY OF CORPORATIONS TO SHOW PROGRESS AS MARGINALIZED PEOPLE SIMPLY SWALLOWED INTO THEIR SYSTEM? GOATS? THE—

Oh, wait, there’s a song here? ALL THE BETTER TO PUT INTO SEVERANCE—

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

A Song of Salvation – Alechia Dow – “Let me put you in the picture/Let me show you what I mean/The messiah is my sister/Ain’t no king, man, she’s my queen…”

Since this posts 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!