Tag: February

Posted in Sunday Songs

Sunday Songs: 2/25/24

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

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.

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 2/25/24

“House of Self-Undoing” – Chelsea Wolfe

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.

“Midlife Crisis” – Faith No More

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 so hard.

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?

“Sweepstakes” (feat. Mos Def & The Hypnotic Brass Ensemble) – Gorillaz

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?

…oh, wait. Damn.

“1000 Umbrellas” – XTC

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.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Scattered Showers – Rainbow Rowell – messy love and a chance of rain.

“The Rainbow Connection” – Kermit the Frog

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!

Posted in Book Review Tuesday

Book Review Tuesday (2/20/24) – No Gods, No Monsters

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!

I’ve had this book on my radar for a few years, as well as The Lesson; I almost read it earlier last week, but then I discovered that I could only read it on my phone, for some reason (nope). Coincidentally, I found it at Barnes & Noble later that week (on a very necessary detour I made with a friend), so I finally decided to pick up a copy for myself. Now, I’m so glad that I have a hard copy—No Gods, No Monsters is one of the most unique fantasy novels I’ve read in a while!

Enjoy this week’s review!

No Gods, No Monsters (Convergence Saga, #1) – Caldwell Turnbull

Around the world, strange creatures have come out of hiding from the shadows. Creatures of myth and legend, those thought to be confined to the imagination. In the wake of this unexplained event, known globally as The Fracture, the stories of people across America collide. A woman reckon’s with her murdered brother, unjustly killed by Boston cops, but learns that her brother’s life was more fantastical than she could have ever imagined. A professor goes in search of a friend presumed dead, but finds a schism between two cults in its place. A young girl must warm up to the presence of her adopted sister, who she grows to love despite her bloodlust. All of these events converge as the world of monsters is revealed, but can mankind reckon with their presence—and their demand to be seen?

TW/CW: police brutality, gun violence, gore, substance abuse/past mentions of an overdose, sexual abuse, domestic abuse

If I’m being honest, it’s a real shame that No Gods, No Monsters has an average rating of 3.45 on Goodreads. To be fair, it’s probably one of those “you love it or you hate it” books, but I absolutely loved it. Sometimes you love the book with an average rating over 4.00 and tens of thousands of reviews, but sometimes it’s those lower-rated and lower-reviewed novels that hit the spot. (see also: Spare and Found Parts – Sarah Maria Griffin)

No Gods, No Monsters truly felt dreamlike, and that’s what made this novel stand out to me. It’s not concerned with being overly coherent, and it drifts about in bits and pieces. I guess that’s the aspect that put a lot of people off, but it’s the kind of writing and storytelling that suits the story that Turnbull is trying to tell. It fits with the whole theme of “monsters have come out of hiding and we can’t do anything about it” theme—there’s global panic, sure, but first there’s the denial that anything is happening at all, and then the reality hits you, and you still try to deny it. This whole novel felt like navigating the haze of denial while the monsters creep out of the shadows: you know exactly what’s going on, but as long as you can help it, I’m not here, this isn’t happening.

I feel like No Gods, No Monsters could have just as easily worked as a short story collection. Each section, switching POVs from dozens of characters who are slowly woven together, works on its own, situated within worlds that are’ separate until the threads begin to tie themselves into an interlocking web of magic towards the end. They all felt like short stories, but I don’t think anything was taken away from them not being short stories—No Gods, No Monsters is a very non-traditional novel in several ways, and I liked that it toed the line between novel and anthology in order to flesh out the themes of community and the things that bound all of the characters together in the chaos.

My favorite section had to be that of Sondra and Sonya—their story was all at once chilling and tender, heartwarming, heartbreaking, and horrifying. Off of the top of my head, this instance in the novel is one of the few depictions I can think of where talking about complicated love in a fantasy/sci-fi setting really does feel complicated; the complication is very literal in the sense of depicting the drain (no pun intended—no spoilers, though) on Sondra, but her horror of both reckoning with the actions of Sonya in the present and how much they bonded in the past felt nuanced in a way that truly made me feel for Sondra. In general, this part of the novel is representative of what I loved about the novel as a whole: although there were some physical consequences to the monsters coming out of hiding, I loved that Turnbull chose to focus more on the emotional and interpersonal connections that happened in the aftermath.

Going off of that point, I loved how No Gods, No Monsters handled its expansive worldbuilding! The event that incites everything that happens in the novel is implied to be the start of a global upheaval, but Turnbull handles the complexities of it with aplomb. It doesn’t feel like every single action movie where we go instantly into mass panic and riots in the streets (although that is stated to have happened in the background), but instead gives us information in breadcrumbs through how it affects the many and varied characters of the novel. I did find myself wanting more of how the monster emergence is affecting the world, but a) I figured that the uncertainty is a consequence of the characters themselves not fully knowing what’s going on, and b) the fact that this is a series, so we’re bound to learn more in the books to come. I have We Are the Crisis downloaded, so I’m excited to find out more!

All in all, a truly memorable and inventive fantasy that explored the not-often-discussed areas of trauma and denial in the face of global upheaval. 4 stars!

No Gods, No Monsters is the first installment in the Convergence Saga, followed by We Are the Crisis. Caldwell Turnbull is also the author of The Lesson.

Today’s song:

my friend just got me hooked on indigo de souza, I’m OBSESSED

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

Posted in Sunday Songs

Sunday Songs: 2/18/24

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

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

Welp. Back to the black and white (mostly) color palettes again. Oops. But ’70s David Bowie heals all wounds, right? Right?

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 2/18/24

“Do You Want To” – Franz Ferdinand

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.

“Fascination” – David Bowie

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 is a 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.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Final Revival of Opal & Nev – Dawnie Walton – steeped in mid-’70s rock, I suspect the fictional music that Opal & Nev made was partially inspired by Bowie’s work around the same time.

“A Gospel” – IDLES

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.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Aurora Burning (Aurora Cycle, #2) – Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff – no spoilers, but I was distinctly reminded of a certain character after the fallout of a certain reveal near the end of the novel. Ouch.

“Virginia Woolf Underwater” – Chelsea Wolfe

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.

“Floating on a Moment” – Beth Gibbons

I feel like I should be 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.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Sea of Tranquility – Emily St. John Mandel – a quiet and understated but detailed vision of past, present, and future.

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

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

Posted in Book Review Tuesday

Book Review Tuesday (2/13/24) – Sing Me to Sleep

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!

I always love stories about mermaids and sirens, so Sing Me to Sleep instantly went on my TBR when it came out last June. Sing Me to Sleep presented a land-bound take on sirens that proved fascinating, and resulted in a tense, seductive YA fantasy!

Enjoy this week’s review!

Sing Me to Sleep – Gabi Burton

Saoirse is hiding a deadly secret. She’s a siren, driven by the urge to kill and seduce, which has made her into the perfect assassin. Her talents took her all the way to the good graces of the royal family of Kierdre, but they don’t know of her true identity—and she must hide it at all costs, lest she incur the wrath of their creature-hating king. But working as one of the personal bodyguards to Prince Hayes has its perks, and soon, Saoirse finds herself questioning her loyalties—and drawn towards a prince who would kill her if he discovered her true self.

TW/CW: genocide (past), kidnapping, fantasy violence, murder, poisoning, drowning, stabbing, torture

I’m not going to bog down this review by starting it with another rant about how jaded I am with epic and high fantasy, but I’ll leave it at the fact that this was the reason that my expectations for Sing Me to Sleep were so average. But I ended up blowing through this novel, and I haven’t done that in weeks—it’s just pure fun.

I won’t lie—I was a little disappointed when I realized that Sing Me to Sleep took place primarily on land when they had a siren protagonist. Mermaids and sirens are an instant draw for me, so I was excited to explore some of those magical aspects and how Burton realized them in her fantasy world. However, once I got into the novel, I ended up enjoying how Saoirse’s siren status affected her when she was confined to land, from the call of the sea every time she came near it to being momentarily thrilled by having her head dunked underwater while being tortured for information. Burton’s handling of Saoirse’s hidden thirst for male blood was similarly well-executed; it set a kind of time bomb of sorts whenever she was around her targets, and made the stakes feel tangible and not just an aside thrown in to remind the reader that she’s a siren. The way that Burton utilized these aspects made for a novel with just the right amount of stakes, with tension in all the right places.

Sing Me to Sleep hinged on the twist of Saoirse, trained to seduce and take advantage of men before killing them to satisfy her bloodlust, accidentally falling for Prince Hayes and not knowing what to do with herself. I was banking on it being a little cheesy (this is YA fantasy, after all), but I really appreciated how slow Burton took it with the budding romance! Not only was the forbidden aspect of it enhanced by the aforementioned handling of Saoirse being a siren, Burton didn’t go headfirst into the romance, like so many authors end up doing while trying to pull off enemies-to-lovers. The initial hatred and disdain felt genuine, and Saoirse’s inner conflict when she realized that she was falling for one of her marks was appropriately a shock to her senses. Although I didn’t particularly care for Prince Hayes as a character, Saoirse’s reactions to him felt true to what enemies-to-lovers should be. I’m interested to see how the romance will play out in the sequel…

Again: I’ll spare you my gripes with epic fantasy as a whole, but unlike of much of the fantasy I can remember reading recently, Sing Me to Sleep had the beginnings of some fascinating fantasy worldbuilding! The novel does a great job of establishing all of the different magical races and subsequently detailing the history of discrimination and subjugation amongst them. Burton did have quite a lot on her plate, but for the most part, she juggled it well, making for a world with limits that made sense and enough hints within to make me want to read the sequel just to see how some of the hidden elements get explored. Half the hard part of worldbuilding is making it something that the reader is actually motivated to read once you’ve done all the heavy lifting to create it, and Burton succeeded on that front!

However, while Burton did well with juggling several moving parts in her worldbuilding, I’m not sure if I can say the same for her characters. Although Saoirse was a compelling protagonist with motives that were appropriately fleshed-out, most of the others—of which there were a ton—left a lot to be desired. Besides Hayes, if we got any trace of their personalities, it was left at one character trait (or physical description) to distinguish them, and not much else. Combine that with the expectation that there were dozens of these characters running around that we had to remember to get all of the plot, and it just made for a mess as far as remembering why any of them were important save for their job descriptions. If some of them had been cut out, it would have solved the whole problem—it’s just a case of Burton biting off much more than she could chew, which is entirely understandable for a debut novel.

All in all, an action-packed fantasy full of tension, forbidden love, and bloodlust. 4 stars!

Sing Me to Sleep is Gabi Burton’s debut novel and the first novel in the Sing Me to Sleep duology, concluded by Drown Me with Dreams, which is slated for release this August.

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!

Posted in Sunday Songs

Sunday Songs: 2/11/24

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Sunday, bibliophiles!

Huzzah! No more black and white color palettes! Color has returned! And somehow, I’ve managed to cram way too many songs that I’ve had on repeat into a single post, so get ready for some rambly paragraphs. Also: music that changed the game (several games, in fact), people who really liked the ’60s, and me freaking out over an Instagram post that’s already over a week old.

Before we get into that, here are last week’s songs:

2/4/24:

Now, enjoy (oops) this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 2/11/24

“Read the Room” – The Smile

I already rambled about this song plenty on my review of Wall of Eyes from last week, but if you haven’t read that, take my word for it. “Read the Room” was half the reason I was excited for the whole album in the first place just because of how arresting it was to hear it live for the first time without knowing they’d been cooking it up. From that, I thought I was going to destroy my hopes for this song because I’d hyped it up so much, but no. It’s still hypnotic in every way possible. Just listen, okay?

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

To Shape a Dragon’s Breath – Moniquill Blackgoose – massive egos and magic rainbows aplenty, but this time in the form of gaslighting and colonial pressures surrounding Anequs, an Indigenous woman fighting to make her voice heard.

“Enjoy” – Björk

Finally. I’ve finally gotten around to listening to Post, and with every song I come back to, I keep hitting myself for not listening to it sooner. Not just because some of my favorite Björk songs (and no shortage of childhood nostalgia, courtesy of my parents and their wonderfully indie taste) were on it, but just because I’ve seen it held on so high of a pedestal for so long. Normally, that’s not a primary motivator for listening to an album unless I’ve had it recommended by someone I trust, but if it’s Björk, talent of talents, that’s being held on said pedestal, then why shouldn’t I? Now that I’ve listened to it, I’m struck by the feeling that Post sounds simultaneously like nothing I’ve ever heard and everything I’ve ever heard. Every song sounds so unique, and yet screams of everything that’s come after it, whether you’re looking at the world of rock, trip-hop, or electronic—a route that Björk took on this album when she felt that rock music held little opportunity for the experimentation brewing inside of her. And that experimentation was truly wild—wild in the naturalistic sense, in the sense that she’s always meant when she’s said that she isn’t necessarily inspired by the music of her native Iceland, but of the volcanic landscape of Iceland itself. There’s musical eco-brutalism rife in this album, a full-frontal fusion of the natural and the industrial that grinds together into something that feels both alien and familiar, but wholly captivating. Maybe eco-brutalism isn’t quite the right word—I’m sure there is a word for this, but the “brutalism” part, although it is distinctly industrial in some places, feels sleeker and more technological. Post feels like that picture of a bunch of bright green plants crawling out of the dirt, but they’re planted inside of the headlight of a car; both images are strikingly different from each other, but they were always meant to be distinctly harmonious without bleeding into each other.

“Enjoy” was one of the songs that I hadn’t heard previously, and now, I’m practically waiting on its every beck and call. I just cannot stop listening to it. With something so simple as a walking, looping synth to provide its chrome backbone, “Enjoy” becomes a kind of cyberpunk catwalk, a confident strut through metal and neon lights. It’s no surprise that Tricky (who Björk had a short-lived relationship with at the time) had a hand in this track; it’s got trip-hop written all over it, but even that couldn’t place it as anything but purely Björk. With brass blasts punctuating the spiraling web of synths thickening every note, it feels like the formula that she’s molded like clay for her whole career—taking two distinct things that would sound horribly out of place in the hands of any other artist, but in her hands, sound like they were made to mesh together, a cyborg chimera of spare and found parts. And through it all, Björk’s signature, growling belt rings like a cry of confidence, a declaration (of independence?) as she struts the cyberpunk catwalk, hungry for tactile sensation, branching her feelers out for anything they can grasp. Björk described it as “[being] greedy, to be eager to consume a city,” and “Enjoy” feels like nothing but riotous consumption, something swallowing whole continents in its wake in a search for something to feel.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Translation State – Ann Leckie – this novel features an alien character with a deep desire to experience the same sensations of other intelligent life that have been excluded from them; the overwhelming urge to seek out the tactile of “Enjoy” radiates through here as well.

“Chapter 8: ‘Seashore and Horizon'” – Cornelius

I’m a warm-weather creature at heart. I can’t get too warm, but I tend to come back alive once the sun comes out. I’m practically a reptile in that regard—I take any crumb of warmth that I can get, then I soak it up for the rest of the day like stolen nectar. Similarly, I find myself gravitating to sunnier, more summery music in these chillier, gloomier months. Here I am, looking out my window: all the trees are bare as can be, there’s half-melted snow sliding off the neighboring rooftops, and the ground beneath my feet is a mess of slush, dirt, and who knows what else. If you squint, there’s a tiny pocket of blue between the clouds, but it’s gray as far as the eye can see. But in these times, I turn to musical sunshine for my fix. I’m thinking back to last year, and that’s around the time when I was playing Fishbone’s “Everyday Sunshine” more often than not. Now, we’ve got some sparkly sunshine in the form of a trip to the beach.

Up until now, I only knew two Cornelius songs (“Mic Check” and “Smoke”), both collages of synth, samples, and brightly-colored, digitized sparkle. What I’ve taken away from looking into his background is that Cornelius (a.k.a. Keigo Oyamada), is, if nothing else, a student of The Beach Boys, to the point where he put a picture of himself dressed as Brian Wilson in the liner notes of Fantasma, the album where we get “Chapter 8.” Somehow, it never once dawned on me while listening to this song, but it’s like a sledgehammer in the face of Pet Sounds influence once you realize. This is literally just The Beach Boys if they had a few more synths and discovered sampling. And like what made Wilson and co. famous, “Chapter 8” feels like if warm sunshine over an endless, golden beach were channeled into just under three and a half minutes of music. Combined with the equally peppy powers of Robert Schneider and Hilarie Sidney of The Apples in Stereo, there’s no adequate words to describe this song other than carefree. You can almost see Schneider and Sidney nodding their heads in time as one strums an acoustic guitar, with animated sea creatures dancing around them. But what elevates the joy of this song is the way their high-pitched harmonies dance together, feather-light.

What a joyous, whimsical song! Sure would be a shame if…oh, for fuck’s sake, Cornelius did WHAT? Jesus Christ…at least The Apples in Stereo are good people…

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Sea Sirens (A Trot & Cap’n Bill Adventure) – Amy Chu and Janet K. Lee – a brightly-colored trip into a fantastical world under the sea.

“The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead” – XTC

Everybody’s weekly Apple Music replays should be generating soon, if memory serves, and I’m just waiting to see which spot out of the top 5 that this song has occupied, because it’s kind of a given that it’s going to be somewhere in there. It’s an inevitability at this point. As evidenced by this post, there’s no space left in my brain for important stuff to occupy, because it’s all been clogged with Björk, The Smile, and this for 2 weeks straight.

For XTC, it’s easy to see why. Andy Partridge always had aspirations of being a pop star, weaned on ’60s groups like The Monkees, whose style inspired his quirky musical career. And although he never got the Monkees-level fame that he’d always dreamed of (maybe that’s for the best? Who would want to have a fake show centered around you and then have to own up to not playing any of the instruments on live TV? Maybe that’s just me…), his pop craft is unmistakable. Their hits were more on the side of…well, ADHD, valium withdrawal, and poking sticks at God than “Daydream Believer,” but, as he frequently insisted, the music he and the other members of XTC was pop—it was just confined to the fringes, for the most part. “The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead” feels like it could have been the crowd pleaser at sold-out stadiums in some alternate universe where fawning girls had posters of Andy Partridge and Colin Moulding in mop haircuts on their walls. It’s a tragic and biting song, but it’s got the command of a song made for people to wave their hands along, raised in prayer in a mass mourning for Peter Pumpkinhead. The song did, in fact, start out as a smaller version of that kind of pity; the Peter Pumpkinhead character was inspired by a jack-o-lantern that Partridge had proudly carved, then slowly watched rot day by day, which led him to not only pity the poor thing, but toy with the concept of a person who was purely good, and therefore, according to Partridge, “I thought, ‘god, they’d make so many enemies!'” And it’s easy to see—not to be cynical with it, but most governments despise the idea of Peter Pumpkinhead-like people simply because he’s everything they’re not—charitable, kind, and just purely good, and capable of letting every criticism bounce off of them (“plots and sex scandals failed outright/Peter merely said ‘any kind of love is alright!'”). The music video, which was later heavily edited for us Americans, didn’t just expand on the allusions to Jesus in the song’s final verse (“Peter Pumpkinhead was too good/Had him nailed to a chunk of wood”), but straight up recreates the JFK assassination. Not just a few references or anything, no. It’s literally just JFK’s assassination, complete with a Marilyn Monroe lookalike, a flashing image of Cuba superimposed onto a picture of a pig, and a weeping Jackie Kennedy sprawled out of the back of the car. Certainly a ballsy move, but not even the ballsiest move they made when it came to American audiences. If being memorable was the aim, then they succeeded. But even without it, “Peter Pumpkinhead” has pathos in spades, the kind that brings people to their knees.

Hooray for Peter Pumpkinhead, indeed. He’s got my vote, but I feel like we already established that he’s not the kind of guy to run for public office, so I’d just shake his hand.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Last Human – Zack Jordan – being the last human in the galaxy tends to make you too many enemies, even if you don’t deserve it. Also tends to happen when you’re a teenage girl.

“The Party” – St. Vincent

Oh god. God. Help me. St. Vincent wiped her entire instagram and posted a video setting aside the blonde wig from the Daddy’s Home tour H-E-L-P. HELP ME. I AM NOT OKAY.

Through my unceasing hyperventilation, I’ve come back to some of her older genius through a scattered few songs from her (slides on hipster glasses) sophomore album, Actor, and its timeless gateway into the singer and guitarist that she’s become. It’s uplifted the quirky art-pop of Marry Me into something sharper, at times more sinister (“Marrow”), and at times more heartfelt (“Laughing With a Mouth of Blood”). Only two years into her solo career, and she’s already got a full brass section at her back, but even that couldn’t stop her as a singular, meteoric force; Actor proved that she had the plentiful talent to command a room and supercharge it with artfully jagged energy, always lingering on the edge of ecstasy and fear. Compared to some of the other tracks, “The Party” isn’t necessarily the captivating explosion of some of the other tracks, but it’s still an explosion in its own right. Like “Laughing,” it’s more downtempo both in instrumentation and lyricism; for the glut of the song, Annie Clark is only joined by spare drums and specks of tasteful piano chords as she wistfully recalls tired companionship with someone as a party winds down. There’s a kind of delirious drunkenness to it as Clark watches her subject fade through her fingers in the form of scant memory: “I licked the ice cube from your empty glass/Oh, we stayed much too late/’Til they’re cleaning the ashtrays.” Lines like “oh, that’s the trouble/of ticking and talking” are straight out of the cheeky, red-lipstick mannerisms of Marry Me, but as the song unfurls like a creature hatching from an egg, it’s a concentrated specimen of her growth in the years since. As her voice fades out of lyrics and into chorus, joined by a choir rising like fog, it feels like she has her finger lingering over the button to unleash chaos, a nuclear release of creativity. Drums skip beats and fade out of line, synths blip and crackle like they’re struggling to hang on, and Clark and her chorus rise from the waves like Aphrodite rising from the sea. For a section that occupies such a small space in the song, it crams so much dare I say cosmic fervor into only a minute and a half. If “Marrow” and “Actor Out of Work” are explosions, “The Party” is an explosion in slow motion, the kind you watch from afar as debris arcs over your head and flames balloon outwards into oblivion. It’s even more evident watching it unfold in Pitchfork’s Cemetery Gates series (why did they ever stop doing those, by the way?)—there’s no other way to hear the meticulous chaos, especially in its extended form, than in an old church, where surely, Clark’s talent reverberated through the walls like the aftershocks of an earthquake.

What I’m trying to say is that there is a right way to close out an album, and this is how.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Gilded Wolves – Roshani Chokshi – the image of a dying party and the faint, tender moments shared between the narrator and the unnamed character remind me of Séverin and Laila sharing a tense (but romantic) moment amidst magical glamour.

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

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

Posted in Books

The Bookish Mutant’s Books for Black History Month (2024 Edition)

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!

Apologies for the lack of a Book Review Tuesday this week; like with Sunday Songs, I’ve just had a busy few days, and I wasn’t able to put anything together in time, but I was creating this post in advance, so I figured today would be a good day to post it.

Here in the U.S., February is Black History Month! Since I’ve started making these recommendation lists back in 2021 (and focusing on reading more diversely in general), I’ve discovered so many incredible authors, and now that I’m reading YA and adult novels in almost equal measure, my scope has broadened so much more. (Note: I’m still frugal about my media space on WordPress, but this list, like last year’s, contains both YA and adult novels, even though the header image just says YA.) But as with every single year, it’s more crucial than ever to uplift Black voices—not just to amplify them and other marginalized groups in the fields of literature and publishing (especially when the industry sees diversity as nothing but a box to be checked off, more often than not), but especially since we’re living in a climate here in the states (and elsewhere) that is intent on erasing both our systemic racism (past and present) and silencing Black voices. And one of the most accessible ways to fight this poisonous rhetoric is to read—to open your eyes, to learn for yourself, and to share what you have learned with others. In a landscape where anything other than the white, cishet, abled majority wants to ban any voice that isn’t theirs, reading is an act of resistance.

For my lists from previous years, click below:

Let’s begin, shall we?

THE BOOKISH MUTANT’S BOOKS FOR BLACK HISTORY MONTH

FANTASY:

SCIENCE FICTION:

REALISTIC FICTION:

TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK! Have you read any of these books, and if so, did you enjoy 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:

thanks again to my brother for exposing me to this one!

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

Posted in Music

Album Review: “Wall of Eyes” – The Smile

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Sunday, bibliophiles!

Apologies for a lack of Sunday Songs this week. I’ve just been busy with schoolwork, and I didn’t have time to polish anything for this week. I was, however, already about halfway done with this post by the time Sunday rolled around, so hopefully I can throw you a bone here.

My high school love of Radiohead predictably went down the pipeline to The Smile back in 2022, when their first album, A Light for Attracting Attention, was released. (I was going to review it then, but it ended up getting sidetracked by several other albums that were coming out at the time. Sadly, the Arcade Fire only took a few months to age like milk. Believe survivors.) Either way, A Light was one of my favorite albums of 2022, and I even had the incredible privilege of seeing them on that tour—that was a concert where I definitely cried a little once I’d gotten into the car. It was a beacon after I’d gotten through my first semester of college. Thom Yorke’s music isn’t one that I usually categorize as uplifting, but I remember saying—and thinking—that seeing them live was the happiest I’d been in a long time. And I meant it. Something mended a part of my soul that night.

So of course I lost my mind when I figured out that they were releasing Wall of Eyes so soon! And even more so that “Read the Room” would be among the ranks, which I’d been eagerly waiting to hear since December of 2022. I was afraid that I’d overhyped the whole shebang for myself because of how rosy those memories of seeing them were, but, as they often do, they did not disappoint—in fact, Wall of Eyes feels like a more refined effort after A Light, sharp and distinct in ways that make a colorful but cohesive record.

Let’s begin, shall we?

WALL OF EYES – THE SMILE

Release date: January 26, 2024 (XL Records)

TRACK 1: “Wall of Eyes” – 8.5/10

After A Light for Attracting Attention, The Smile’s trademark became the jazz-rock acrobatics that they regularly performed: unique time signatures and rhythms that were ever so artfully off-kilter. That’s part of what separates them from most other Thom Yorke or Radiohead-related projects, but the title track of this album proves that not every track has to be this way. Sometimes, they can revel in quiet, almost-acoustic numbers and make it feel as innovative as anything they’ve put out. “Wall of Eyes” adds another landscape of alienation to the general…well, absolute menagerie of those kinds of landscapes that Yorke has put out over the years, but this time trades uneasy synths for the strumming of an acoustic guitar, spare orchestral notes, and faint, rumbling synths that ripple like water reflected onto an unpolished ceiling. It’s a track that easily lets you drift into the immaculate world that Yorke, Greenwood, and Skinner have concocted, full of fainting pulsating lights and shadowy figures drifting in and out of focus. And Yorke’s fading, sinister laughter puts the icing on the already decadent cake, pulling this track into a haze of uncertainty and unwilling vulnerability.

TRACK 2: “Teleharmonic” – 8/10

“Teleharmonic” (if there could ever be a more Smiley song title) is where Wall of Eyes breaks out of its shell and begins to bristle and hum. Crackling with static and vibration, you can almost see the delicate waves strung through it, the kind of physical sound that feels like would shy away from your touch if you tried to lay a finger on it. Yorke’s voice is made to echo like he’s trapped in a digital cavern, resonating like words through a canyon distorted by a wool sweater of synths. Skinner’s thin, precise drumbeats seem to speckle the melody like falling bits of hail, melting into the kaleidoscopic vision that “Teleharmonic” plunges us headfirst into. If “Wall of Eyes” was the steady hand that eased you into the album, then this track is when the hand is wrenched away, leaving you to fall face-first into truly alien territory.

TRACK 3: “Read the Room” – 10/10

That’s your opinion

That’s how the story goes,

A magic rain, a magic rainbow,

So big it bends the light…

The Smile, “Read the Room”

Mark my words, this will not be the last time you’ll hear about this song from me. I’ll try to keep it short so I don’t find myself sounding like a broken record, but I can’t resist. This was my most anticipated track from Wall of Eyes, and I am elated to say that it did not disappoint in the slightest. Continuing the general theme of unrest (political, personal, and otherwise) and surveillance, it falls in the vein of “A Hairdryer” with its commentary, with its mentions of “magic rainbow[s]/So big it bends the light” and “massive egos.” To that, there’s no poetic response that Yorke has defined himself with; it’s gone so far that all there is to say is “I am gonna count to three/Keep that shit away from me,” as though to chide a child. And…well, yeah, at this point, that’s the only way you can probably speak to some our world leaders today, but it’s potent either way. “Read the Room” also feels like the smoothest, sleekest track to come out of The Smile’s catalogue, chrome-shiny but with all the same bite that they usually have. The intro is genuinely intoxicating to me, instantly loopable and blooming. Just as captivating as it was live.

TRACK 4: “Under Our Pillows” – 9/10

Episodes wiped clean,

This is major league make-believe.

The Smile, “Under Our Pillows”

Like “Read the Room,” “Under Our Pillows” opens with plucky, off-kilter guitar notes that could masquerade as synths just as easily. It gives the whole track the feel of watching a candy ad from the 2000’s, like I should suddenly be surrounded by Dippin’ Dots raining from the sky—everything is round, smooth, and full of artificially vibrant color. With a similar frantic, skipping beat as “Thin Thing,” it radiates both enticing sweetness and pent-up, anxiety, but there’s no denying that “Under Our Pillows” is full of energy—and a sinister energy, of course. (What else would it be, it’s The Smile! The Smile was always full of rotting teeth!) And to match the candy-colored vibrance is the promise of handshakes cloaked in lies—”A slate wiped clean, a white loss of feeling If you’re ready and willing.” Somebody’s taking the current environment of real, necessary change being nearly impossible to make because every politician you can think of has sold their soul and shoved themselves deep in somebody’s linty, corporate pocket well, huh? Guess he’s taking it well as any of us can. The western world may be an absolute joke, but at least Thom Yorke is here to pen some absolutely glorious music.

TRACK 5: “Friend Of A Friend” – 8/10

cannot stop thinking about the fact that Jonny Greenwood plays piano like a Peanuts character

Oh, what was that I was saying about politician’s being in corporate pockets? Oh…oh! Oh. Yeah. Comin’ atcha with round two.

“Friend Of A Friend” continues not just the political theme, but the pairing of said theme with enticing instrumentals to drive the hypnotic lyrics home. No pun intended, but just like the allure of money and the easy descent into corruption, this track is about as friendly as a Smile song can get, with its gentle, bass-driven start and Thom Yorke’s thin, resonant vocals, almost unchanged since at least 1999. It’s amazing how little (by little? okay, I’ll shut up) his voice has changed over the years; I wouldn’t call it deepened, but there’s undoubtedly a fullness that wasn’t all there in the post-Bends days. The pool was already full of his soaring, gut-wrenching falsetto, but the pool has only continued to overflow with his talent. The combination of Greenwood’s gentle piano and the soft hiss of Skinner’s drums only adds to the feel of the song being the last thing you hear before slipping into the trance, like someone’s put you under a spell, and the last thing you see before you go under is their eager eyes staring down at your prone body.

TRACK 6: “I Quit” – 7/10

I try not to worship the ground that Yorke, Greenwood, and Skinner walk on, but don’t worry, I still have criticisms of both this album and A Light for Attracting Attention. The main issue of the latter was that many tracks, despite being well-crafted and atmospheric, had the tendency to blend into each other—the same (no pun intended…oh god, I need to stop) jazzy, low-key rumbles that bled into each other too easily, like watercolors left to spill and blend into a muddy mess; every color was beautiful on its own, but they faded far too much into each other. For a title like “I Quit,” I completely expected it to be in the Bends-callback style of “You Will Never Work in Television Again,” but in actuality, it’s the slowest track on Wall of Eyes—I suppose the title makes a different kind of sense if the quitting in question is more from exhaustion and giving up as opposed to towel-throwing anger—”This is my stop/This is the end of the trip.” Drenched in delay on every possible instrument, “I Quit” has a lethargic crawl that could fit right in with A Light, but on this album, provides a calm respite from some of the more skittering, uptempo tracks. I see why it’s the subject of many critics’ ire, but I’d argue that this sleepier track has its place.

TRACK 7: “Bending Hectic” – 8.5/10

“Bending Hectic” was the very first single to come out of Wall of Eyes, and I reviewed it when it was released back in July (why, why, WHY did none of you tell me THAT I SPELLED THE SONG WRONG IN THE GRAPHIC AND THE POST?? WHY???) In concert with the rest of the album, it feels just as seamless and cinematic as it did when it stood alone. Now, bridged between the rambling quiet of “I Quit” and the uneasy shoulder-tapping of “You Know Me!” (see below), it feels like an elongated cat’s stretch, reveling in the softer moments but crashing like a volcanic explosion and letting the fiery debris rain down upon our ears with reckless abandon. Like “Read the Room,” it remains as gene-altering in real time as it felt seeing it live without knowing anything else about it, a swirl of sharp colors. And god. I can’t shut up about Jonny Greenwood’s guitar work, can I? I won’t. It never ceases to amaze me just how many innovative ways that this man can manipulate the instrument into something truly colossal.

TRACK 8: “You Know Me!” – 8.5/10

You are standing in my light,

You have wound yourself around me

Like you know me…

The Smile, “You Know Me!”

I wouldn’t have expected anything less from The Smile, but god, what a gloriously eery way to end the album. It has the feel of a latter-day Radiohead track, but with a much more modern sensibility—the lyrics are full of manipulation and trickery, which could just as easily be how it feels to be surrounded by advertising on social media in the corporate world, or just a sour relationship. Given Yorke’s history with this kind of thing (see: OK Computer), I’m gonna go with the former, but either way, the culmination is chilling, with echoing, distorted instrumentation and piano that sounds like it’s being transmitted from somewhere underwater. With the addition of the lyrics, “You Know Me!” feels like a boa constrictor slowly wrapping itself around your chest to suffocate you, but whispering in your ears that it’s for the best with every breath that it squeezes out of you: “None of this is mine/Always ‘you know me.'” Even the exclamation mark in the title feels like a corporate smile of misplaced trust, like a “we’re here for you!” as they lay off hundreds of their workforce. How’s that for an album closer, huh? Take notes.

I added up my scores for each track, and they came out to an 8.4! It’s really a shame that Wall of Eyes came out so early this year, because it’s going to be hard to compete with this album. (At least their competition is just as exciting—Chelsea Wolfe, IDLES, and…St. Vincent? Be still, my beating heart…) Now that they’ve slimmed down their track count and refined—and redefined—their sound, The Smile sounds as fully-realized as ever, brimming with sharp commentary and truly alien, expansive soundscapes full of vibrant colors. The talents of Yorke, Greenwood, and Skinner could never be called into question, but if they ever were, Wall of Eyes is a testament to their work as a truly powerful trio, cohesive and boundary-pushing in equal measure. (Why yes, I have had this on repeat for a solid week and a half, why do you ask?)

Since this is an album review, consider the whole album to be today’s song.

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

Posted in Monthly Wrap-Ups

February 2023 Wrap-Up ⛷

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!

I’m running out of winter emojis for these wrap-ups…what else am I supposed to do when this month has been so consistently cold and miserable? Totally can’t tell how ready for spring and summer I am, can you? Nuh uh, no way…

The snow has made for some pretty beautiful scenery, though. I will say that.

GENERAL THOUGHTS:

February’s been a quiet month for the most part (although the high winds last week made me feel like I was in The Wizard of Oz, and not in a good way), which I alway appreciate. The great thing about taking mainly humanities classes is that midterms are a lot less stressful—most of my classes just have papers, so they’re far less daunting. And it’s been great to have comics and sci-fi as my reading material—even though my science fiction class has had its ups and downs, I loved re-reading All Systems Red and re-watching Blade Runner 2049 for homework.

I felt like my reading slowed down, but looking at the numbers, it really didn’t. School reading has started to make up a significant portion of what I read now that I’m in more English classes, but I’ve read a lot of interesting novels and graphic novels—Bitch Planet, Monstress, and now re-reading Kindred, to name a few. But I did read a bunch of great novels for Black History Month in my free time, and I’ve discovered so many wonderful books! I just finished The Fifth Season, and I’m kind of invested in the series now…

Other than that, I’ve been watching Only Murders in the Building (✨fabulous✨), Our Flag Means Death (not as funny as people made it out to be, but the last two episodes HURT), and Flight of the Conchords (THEY CALL ME THE HIPHOPOPOTAMOUS, MY LYRICS ARE BOTTOMLESS…[cough]), drawing, playing guitar, skiing for the first time in over a year (so much fun, but also so much soreness), and listening to new music from Black Belt Eagle Scout and Gorillaz. So much new music out (that’s on my radar) already…

READING AND BLOGGING:

I read 20 books this month! I feel like school reading has taken up a good chunk of what I’ve read this month, even if it’s been re-reads, but what I’m loving about college is that I’m reading more novels that I’m interested in (with the exception of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?…ew), so that’s a plus.

2 – 2.75 stars:

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

3 – 3.75 stars:

Ms. Marvel: Fists of Justice

4 – 4.75 stars:

The Fifth Season

FAVORITE BOOK OF THE MONTH (NOT COUNTING RE-READS): Nothing Burns as Bright as You – 4.5 stars

POSTS I’M PROUD OF:

POSTS FROM OTHER WONDERFUL PEOPLE THAT I ENJOYED:

SONGS/ALBUMS THAT I ENJOYED:

the first half of this month was nothing but Super Furry Animals, and that’s not a complaint at all
and when the dust settled after said Super Furry Animals, all that was left but two older St. Vincent singles that I put on repeat
“Panopticom” was pretty good, but THIS has me really excited for i/o
GUESS WHO’S BACK
such a lovely album!!!
you thought you could escape Blur on this blog? fools

Since I’ve already posted once today, check out this week’s Book Review Tuesday for today’s song.

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

Posted in Music, Sunday Songs

Sunday Songs: 2/26/23

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Sunday, bibliophiles! Hope this week has treated you all well.

Here we are at the end of the shortest month of the year, and we’ve got a bit of a…chaotic mishmash of songs for the occasion this week. I suppose it always is, but even though the album covers are somewhat coordinated, the songs were strung together like angry children reluctantly getting shoved into a family photo. I like them all, though, and I hope you do too. Climb aboard the (emotional) rollercoaster, you never know what’ll hit you. Hopefully not whiplash.

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 2/26/23

“The Court (Dark-Side Mix)” – Peter Gabriel

“Justice is a luxury for the rich” HERE KING YOU DROPPED THIS 👑

I end up sacrificing color schemes for chronology in these posts more than not, but in the end, it’s more about talking about the music I’m generally liking, so I’ve abandoned the guilt at this point, even though we’re closer to the next full moon to when “The Court” actually came out. Anyway.

I talked a bit about “Panopticom” last month, and I liked it, but it felt like there was something missing. Turns out that this song was what was missing—I was already excited for i/o, but “The Court” is getting my hopes up. From the barely audible, slowed-down laughter hidden in the intro, there’s a creeping, sinister feel to the whole song; you can almost feel a shadow being cast across your body when the chorus echoes with “And the court/Will rise/While the pillars all fall.” It’s a slow build, but unlike “Panopticom,” which left a sort of void that I was waiting for the entire time, “The Court” weaves into an ominous spectacle, that, regardless of the Dark-Side or Bright-Side mix, wraps you up in a cloud of smoke. A bit of theatricality, almost reminiscent of some of Gabriel’s orchestral reimaginings of his earlier songs, creeps into the bridge as his voice (still just as rich even when he’s in his 70’s…oh, happy belated birthday, by the way!), making for a song that functions as an individual piece, but has the feeling of a great album opener. I’m not even sure. I think it would be a good opening, but we won’t have any semblance of order for i/o until the end of the year, so we’ll see…

“MFSOTSOTR” – Sidney Gish

As of now, it’s been a few weeks since the actual announcement, but Sidney Gish is back!! She’s been teasing a new album that was originally set to be released in January, but as of now, is still being worked on. But for now, she’s released two singles as part of the Sub Pop Singles Club—this song and “Filming School,” which is just as great. On the process of writing “MFSOTSOTR,” Gish said that “the lyrics were freestyled while staring at a meme of a buff man wearing high-waisted jeans. No edits were ever made to ‘MFSOTSOTR.’ It has haunted my hard drive for three years.” And if that doesn’t sum up the wonderfully oddball spirit of Sidney Gish both in her songwriting and personality, then I don’t know what does. Even though it’s barely a minute long, this song is packed with everything that endeared Gish to me back in 2019—it’s the definition of carefree, building off of freestyle riffing without any worry about meaning. From the deliberate mispronunciation of “question” to the delicate layering of Gish’s harmonies, it’s made me so excited for what the future has in store for her—let’s hope that album comes out soon (whenever she feels like it’s ready, of course), but for now, we have some bite-sized, joyful weirdness to enjoy for the time being.

“Enter One” – Sol Seppy

And now we’re at the polar opposite of the spectrum of sadness. Whoops. Apologies for the emotional whiplash.

I can thank my mom for this one after she found it in the soundtrack of Dark (which I still haven’t seen, oops), and all I can say is that it’s heartbreakingly beautiful. This is my first exposure to Sol Seppy (a stage name for Sophie Michalitsianos), but knowing that she was part of Sparklehorse’s backing band for several years (most notably on their 2001 album It’s a Wonderful Life) makes the sound of this song make even more sense. It has the same bare, melancholic sparseness, with a delicate piano as the only instrumentation for most of the song. That should be enough to signal how rough of a ride this song is, but I digress. Seppy’s voice does no small amount of heavy lifting as its layered over each other, rising like an impending tidal wave that casts a long, creeping shadow over the beach. And given that, from what I can sort of glean from the lyrics, it seems to be about letting go and welcoming/coming to terms with death (“Fear not this light/We are on this light divine/Welcome/Enter one”), the atmosphere is palpable—it’s a painfully beautiful song, and it’s difficult to listen to, but nonetheless a gorgeously written piece of music. I guess that’s why at least 3 different death (or somehow emotional) scenes from several different movies or TV shows came up when I searched it on YouTube…

“Rotten Ol’ me” – Shakey Graves

Alright, here we go. Back to happy times again. The dark clouds have parted, and in the sunshine comes Shakey Graves.

I haven’t had the time to listen to Deadstock – A Shakey Graves Day Anthology in its entirety, but I decided that I’d listen to the iTunes previews of the songs that sounded promising to me. I sifted a handful out of that initial listen, but “Rotten Ol’ me” has quickly risen to my favorite of the bunch. The opening riff perfectly captures the feel of this song—darkly mischievous and playful, with the feeling of a tiny devil with a pointy goatee sitting on your shoulder with a guitar. (Or maybe the giant, hovering skull on the album cover instead? Either one fits the vibe, really.) Alejandro Rose-Garcia is, without a doubt, one of the more innovative alternative/folk musicians to come out of the past few decades, and that’s not even talking about some of his drum techniques, but “Rotten Ol’ me” is proof of his sheer guitar prowess. With its multilayered melodies and a rapid plucking style that makes my fingers hurt just think about it, each note feels like a thread in a giant tapestry, each one knotted to the other to create a lively folk song full of hooks.

“D.I.Y.” – Peter Gabriel

I thought I was done doubling up after two weeks ago, but Peter Gabriel will always be just that good. This one’s worlds away from the feel of “The Court,” and it comes off of his second album, Peter Gabriel 2: Scratch (you know, the one where he’s got the frighteningly long acrylics—oh, those are scratches, you say?). My first thought upon listening to this was that it reeked of Berlin Trilogy-era David Bowie (Low, “Heroes,” and Lodger, for reference). Scratch was released just a year after both Low and “Heroes,” so there’s no doubt that this guy was leaning over Bowie’s shoulder and taking notes and hoping that he wouldn’t notice. Robert Fripp produced this album and worked with Bowie around the same time as well, so I guess there weren’t any hard feelings. Still a few years fresh off of Genesis, “D.I.Y.” is full of art-rock defiance, jangling and bright but ready to spit in the face with it’s pre-chorus: “Come up to me with your ‘What did you say?’/And I’ll tell you, straight in the eye, hey!/D.I.Y.” With its climbing instrumentation and Gabriel’s simultaneously bright and rich vocals, it’s instantly catchy, proof of his versatility even that early on in his career.

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

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

Posted in Music, Sunday Songs

Sunday Songs: 2/19/23

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Sunday, bibliophiles!

Another week, another snow, and another wish for just a little bit warmer weather. Just because I’m used to it doesn’t mean I’m a fan of snow until May…but I think these songs are more fit for spring or summer. At least the colors are.

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 2/19/23

“Fancy Dance” – Black Belt Eagle Scout

I talked about The Land, The Water, The Sky more in depth in my album review a few days ago, but out of the newest songs, “Fancy Dance” was an immediate standout. As short as it was—one of the shortest tracks on the album, in fact—it immediately snagged my by the shirt collar on the first listen, so much so that I didn’t notice that my water bottle that I’d been filling had started to overflow. This song is what I’ve been wanting from Black Belt Eagle Scout for so long—Katherine Paul letting loose, unleashing a bite-sized package of driving, alternative rock joy. Paul’s air-light voice juxtaposes with their lightly-fuzzed guitars, making for a summery, upbeat, and carefree hit that instantly makes me want to get up on my feet. The whole album was fantastic, but this was one of the best songs I’ve seen her do in recent years.

“Meet the Parents” – Jim Noir

Back with another lovely, upbeat tune, here’s one from an artist who I’ll never stop describing as criminally underrated. “Meet the Parents” comes from Jim Noir’s debut EP, A Bird Sings in Wool, and man, all I can think is that if I publish something as good as this right off the bat, I could honestly die happy. The whole EP is nothing short of brilliant, but this song always pops back out at me. “Delightful” really is the best word to describe it—as I hear the lines “If I had to meet your parents/I would probably lose my head/And my legs would fall off/And my eyes would fall out,” “delightful” isn’t exactly the word I’d use right off the bat, but the whimsical, Britpop delivery of it gives me a more cartoonish image of little googly eyes tumbling out of flat, 2-D sockets and bouncing around like rubber balls. There’s a consistently lighthearted feel to it all; A Bird Sings in Wool is the musical equivalent of a light spring rain—not the kind that ruins your day and makes you gloomy, but the kind that makes you want to run out on the lawn and spin around in the dewy grass.

+ if you have the means, I’d highly recommend supporting the wonderful Jim Noir on Patreon! He’s been putting out several EPs over the past few months which will eventually grow into an album, so if you want to hear new music from him firsthand, look no further!

“Sing” – Blur

The fates (read: that list randomizer website) picked Blur’s debut album, Leisure, for my listen this week, and for the most part, it was a good album; I wouldn’t say that there are any bad songs on it, but it did tend to err on the side of repetitiveness (they even had a song called “Repetition,” funnily enough). It’s the clear product of a monumental band first trying to find their feet and create a signature sound, but only dipping their toes in the pool water where the album cover’s swim cap lady is resting beside. I’d only heard “She’s So High” and “There’s No Other Way” before listening, and now I can add “Bang” and “Wear Me Down” to some of my album favorites, but musically, “Sing” is the most unique of them all. Clocking in at just over six minutes long, “Sing” is like drifting through a haze, windmilling your arms around as you try and fan away the fog. Over the droning melodies, the harmonies of Damon Albarn and Graham Coxon create a dizzying, proto-shoegaze atmosphere that envelops you until the final grinding of the last 10 seconds. It’s so radically different than anything else on the album, and even here, at the very start of their career, you can already hear the forebears of some of the more experimental tracks on Blur, 13, or even Think Tank, a magnifying-glass glimpse into what Blur would eventually become. It’s comforting to know that they were always a little weird from the start.

“Shy” – Hether

A chance encounter on an old friend’s Instagram story led me to this bright and summery song, and it’s been on repeat ever since. It has all of the sweet simplicity of a 50’s love song, translated into modern terms with punctuated record scratches and woozy vocals. Everything about “Shy” seems bright—the tones of the barely-faded electric guitars, the hazy cloud of electronic background noise, and the acoustic guitar strums—the clearest thing to come through in this song, like a lighthouse beacon in the middle of a misty sea. The bright, lime green of the cover of the Hether Who? EP only increases the feeling of carefree summertime that this song emanates in waves. Right down to the last distorted notes, it’s a perfect example of the persistence of a simple, 3-minute pop song, just barely translated into indie. It’s a time-tested formula. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

“Fate Is…” – Wednesday

After hearing about Wednesday on NPR and listening to “Cody’s Only,” I ended up snagging a few other songs of theirs from Apple Music on a whim. “Fate Is…” immediately stood out, coming in strong like a punch in the face with a tidal wave of grungy guitars and percussion and Karly Hartzman’s relentless, persistent voice. It’s a song that grabs you by the shirt collar and never lets go, especially when Hartzman’s voice rises past the point of cracking along with the edges of the instrumentation. Even when the momentum dips down in the chorus, it’s brought back up screaming, never letting go until every instrument seems to vanish into thin air in the last seconds in the song, winking out of existence in a smoky cloud, leaving only remnants of the fuzz behind. This is only one of my first few Wednesday songs, but I hope they don’t lose their guitar-heavy sound. Maybe I need to give I Was Trying to Describe You to Someone a listen too.

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!