Tag: Mitski

Posted in Book Review Tuesday

Book Review Tuesday (9/8/26) – The Folded Sky (White Space, #3)

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!

I got hooked on Elizabeth Bear’s White Space series back in January. I figured I’d order The Folded Sky (on Bookshop.org of course…if you’re still ordering books on Amazon, go here instead!! Your money goes to indie bookstores and not Bezos!) with some leftover birthday money. Like all the other installations in this series, The Folded Sky did not disappoint.

NOTE: The Folded Sky is the third book in the White Space series, and while it doesn’t contain spoilers for books 1 and 2, it’s difficult to understand without the context that they give. For my reviews of the first two books, click below!

Enjoy this week’s review!

The Folded Sky (White Space, #3) – Elizabeth Bear

Dr. Sunyata Song was supposed to live a quiet life as a historian. Her studies of the Baomind—an ancient, moon-sized artificial intelligence created by a long-dead alien race—have so far not disturbed this. But a once-in-a-lifetime research opportunity to study the Baomind drags Sunya, her wife, and her two teenage kids out to the farthest edges of the galaxy. Sunya is elated, but she soon realizes that she’s in over her head, between the presence of her longtime academic rival, a potential murder plot, and the dying red giant that the Baomind orbits. In the midst of all this conflict, Sunya must make a choice as to what matters most to her—and all of the people around her.

TW/CW: kidnapping, child endangerment, gun violence, murder

Whoever was in charge of writing a succinct blurb for the back of this book needs a raise. Seriously. There is so much going on in The Folded Sky, and the blurb is just the tip of the iceberg. There’s the giant alien AI, of course. But that’s not even the biggest plot point. You’ve got pirates. Incredibly heated historian beef. A murder mystery on a janky space station. Red giants with horrifying implications. Did I mention pirates?

Elizabeth Bear’s characters are the reason that the White Space series as a whole works so well. Book by book, she’s not only created an increasingly multilayered and complex world, but shown it to us through the eyes of people (and systers) who are refreshingly flawed and lovable. I was already sold on the concept of a sleep-deprived, slightly-too-committed historian and her long-suffering but patient alien wife as the protagonists already, but Bear developed them so far beyond that concept; Sunya was one of the series’s most well-realized characters. She’s somebody who tries so hard to be civil and unbiased, but is not-so-secretly very impulsive and prone to being hotheaded—it’s a funny combination, but more importantly, it felt so real. Anybody with a strong sense of justice who’s also incredibly emotional can relate—all of her righteous seething about Vickee was so relatable. Her family dynamic was so heartwarming; Bear could’ve easily gone down the “teenagers are so annoying, hahaha look at them being stupid” route, but I loved how Salvie points out that Luna’s outbursts are just versions of Sunya herself (much to her dismay). Salvie and Sunya were such a lovely couple, and their devotion to their children—and justice as a whole—was the novel’s beating heart. Aside from Salvie being an alien, they felt like a family you could meet any old day, and that’s what sets the White Space series apart as a whole—nobody makes aliens (and people) as real as Bear.

Just when you think the worldbuilding of the White Space series can’t possibly get better…IT’S ELIZABETH BEAR WITH THE STEEL CHAIR!! INCOMPREHENSIBLE MOON-SIZED AI, COMIN’ RIGHT ATCHA! I love her no-holds-barred approach to making the Synarche unabashedly weird, and she followed through on that mission in The Folded Sky. This novel takes us to the more backwater, less technologically-advanced parts of the universe, and the experience of seeing what’s considered backwater in the first place is. All of the new Systers that get introduced were delightful. (Dr. Nonsense was a favorite of mine…you know I love a cephalopod, but Bear did an excellent job of making it more than just a cephalopod in space!) The Baomind itself was so meticulously thought-out, and even after Machine, Bear really pushes the limits on how strange robots and AI can get; I loved the song communication, and the twists that Sunya discovers in her studies are too fascinating to spoil. Either way, it’s proof that Bear is a worldbuilder in her prime, and this series is all th better for it.

The main reason that The Folded Sky didn’t get the full 5 stars from me was the pacing; for a series whose books that I’ve routinely gobbled up hundreds of pages of in one sitting, The Folded Sky had a slower start. But once that hurdle was jumped over, this novel was excellently executed from start to finish. I mentioned the dozens of disparate plot elements earlier, and juggling all of them would be a Herculean task for any author (much less whoever had to condense all that into a blurb). What struck me about The Folded Sky is that out of all of those facets of the plot, none of them were treated as afterthoughts. They were all a critical part of the tangled web of the novel. The murder mystery was just as compelling as Sunya’s historical work, as was the rivalry she had with Vickee and the pirates and everything else. Bear made it look easy, connecting threads that I couldn’t imagine connecting. Of course, it wasn’t perfect—in addition to the beginning, the climax was more drawn out than felt reasonable—but for a plot this jam-packed with different elements, Bear pulled it off surprisingly well.

But I feel like the chaos that the characters are mired in was so crucial to the central themes of The Folded Sky. For one thing, there was the whole Folded Sky concept in a series, and its connections to integrative complexity (new concept that I learned! And they say that only nonfiction is educational…thanks, Elizabeth Bear!) and being able to see issues and their consequences from multiple perspectives, and not, as Dr. Nonsense said, a human binary of only two sides. That was already a very powerful theme, but the chaos also related back to Sunya and her family. Though I don’t have any firsthand experience with parenthood, I loved how this theme was written; you bring children into the world, and you want to protect them from a world that is often cruel and unpredictable, and while you can’t protect them from everything, you desperately want to try. And either way, Sunya and her family are able to keep somewhat levelheaded because of the love they have for each other, and the love that they foster in their community. Overall, The Folded Sky is an ode to the power of multiplicity and many perspectives, whether that’s community-building, family, or studying history.

One more bonus point—look, I know “Life On Mars?” is one of Bowie’s most well-known songs, but the fact that it was referenced in passing still made me giddy.

All in all, a poignant and deeply moving addition to one of the best space opera series out there today. 4.5 stars!

The Folded Sky is the third book in the White Space series, preceded by Ancestral Night (1) and Machine (2). Elizabeth Bear is also the author of several other series, including the New Amsterdam series (New Amsterdam, Seven for a Secret, The White City, Ad Eternum, and Garrett Investigates), the Jacob’s Ladder trilogy (Dust, Sanction, and Grail) and many others.

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: 8/16/26

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

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

This week: Yes, I did, in fact, preorder a song for Sunday Songs because I knew that I’d have Things to say about Lost Weekend, even though it’s only been two days since it came out. No, I’m not trying to kill you by putting Sparklehorse, Mitski, and Phoebe Bridgers in the same post (I swear the Mitski is actually upbeat. No, really!).

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 8/16/26

“Little Fat Baby” – Sparklehorse

In the aftermath of a near-death experience that gave Mark Linkous chronic pain for the rest of his life, this is what he said that he realized: “I started noticing all these things I’d forgotten about. I remember I was outside the rehabilitation place and I noticed a grasshopper, and I’d forgotten about grasshoppers…I just had this new perception of things I’d been oblivious to.” Sure, Sparklehorse is a hallmark of sad bastard music (a label that Linkous himself somewhat chafed against). But as I get older, what draws me back to Sparklehorse again and again is the encased eggs of hope beneath the sadness. His world is populated with dust and rotten wood and bones, but there’s lively insects hopping around, bird’s nests in the rafters of crumbling barns. There’s a liveliness that persists in spite of many sources of great strife in Linkous’s too-short life.

“Little Fat Baby” is one of the more somber songs in an already somber album, It’s a Wonderful Life. Yet it’s also one of the more empathetic songs. In the chorus, he ruminates on the song’s nebulous protagonist: “He got dragged/By a donkey/Through the glass/And the myrtle/But he was once/A little fat baby.” We never know what circumstances lead to this man meeting such an agonizing fate, but Linkous peers beyond the pain to see the inherent humanity in this character. The circumstances aren’t the point—the point is that all of us started off as helpless little creatures deserving of love. “Little Fat Baby” is a tender duet between Linkous and Sol Seppy, who provides fairylike accompaniment to Linkous’s already fragile voice. Quivering strings give this track a kind of grand reverence, amidst the quiet sympathy it weaves for the man who was once a little fat baby. There’s a strange comfort in “Little Fat Baby” amid the sadness—the feeling that you can always come home, no matter what you did before you stumbled onto the doorstep.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Language of Liars – S.L. Huang – “Did you make the city slickers laugh?/He got dragged by a donkey/Through the glass and the myrtle/But he was once a little fat baby…”

“Fireproof” (One Direction cover) – Mitski

Everything that Mitski touches turns to gold. Well, maybe not Laurel Hell, but they can’t all be winners. The recent tenth anniversary of Puberty 2 prompted her to release an edition with two new covers with whiplash-inducing source material: Frank Sinatra (which I talked about around a month ago) and One Direction. Of course, Mitski didn’t have to try in order to make “Fireproof” loads more fun than the original, which is pretty much the dictionary definition of milquetoast. (How do you make a song called “Fireproof” and then make it into the most sauceless, pallid excuse for a song possible? Jesus.) Mitski, on the other hand, made the vague promises of the lyrics into something tangible and fiery—her breathless admission of “I’m feeling something deep inside/Hotter than a jet stream burning up” makes it feel real. Aided by the crunchy guitars of her Bury Me at Makeout Creek era, this cover feels like she means every word, even if they aren’t hers.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

A Song of Salvation – Alechia Dow – “I’m feeling something deep inside/Hotter than a jet stream burning up/I got a feeling deep inside/It’s taking, it’s taking all I’ve got…”

“Museum of Sex” – Robyn Hitchcock & The Venus 3

Having only seen him live twice, I can say in confidence that there’s a point in every Robyn Hitchcock show where it goes from a concert to a stand-up routine. The last time I saw him, he veered into a whole bit about how rock n’ roll was invented in the 1700’s aboard ships. There was a joke about “Horse Latitudes” somewhere in there. He quoted “Time and again, I tell myself/I’ll stay clean tonight” from Bowie’s “Ashes to Ashes” before segueing into “The Cheese Alarm.” The guy’s just naturally hilarious. This is the same man who casually used the interjection “yaysville!” multiple times in his memoir, after all. It felt nothing but natural.

What sticks to me about Robyn Hitchcock’s sense of humor to me is that yes, he’s got jokes, but he never half-asses them. He still puts his all into a song with lyrics like “I love that old museum of sex/You never know what’s happening next.” With the grooving, horn-laden accompaniment of the Venus 3, he launches into a track that winds along slinkily like a snake. He added in a lyric about said Museum of Sex closing at 4pm, to the laughter of the crowd, and all the while he’s chipping away at an artfully complex riff. He’s committed to the bit to a degree that most artists aren’t.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Early Riser – Jasper Fforde – there’s not a lot of books or authors I can think of that are similar to Hitchcock’s sense of humor, but Fforde’s quirky, dry wit and out of left field premises certainly comes close.

“The A Song (Laid In Your Arms)” – Spiritualized

“The A Song” is monumental. There’s no doubt about it. When I saw Spiritualized back in 2022, about a month before Everything was Beautiful was released, I remember being caught up in the towering tidal wave of noise. I could sense that “The A Song” was new, and all I could make out from the dizzying bee’s nest of sound was the line “One man’s crime is another man’s thrill”; the rest was just a shockwave.

It’s no wonder that I listened to Everything Was Beautiful to death when it came out. I had to take an extended break from it because it consumed me so much in mid-2022. To this day, I still think it’s one of Spiritualized’s best albums to date, nearly on par with Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space, no less drugged-out but with the optimism that comes with age—and the revelation that you’re still alive, and there’s a myriad of things that you can do with your body and your life. Sure, “The A Song (Laid In Your Arms)” is probably as much about being high and watching your life slip away as any given Spiritualized song, but it’s a truly spectacular show of the amount of command that J Spaceman has of sound. Watching him at work is like watching a conductor with a 60-piece orchestra; squealing horns, screeching guitars, and percussion like pounding waves all convalesce into a marvelous, tidal force that knocks me off my feet, even when I’m sitting down. It’s so meticulously controlled and constructed, and yet there’s something so primal about how this song just swallows you whole. “The A Song” is a cosmic force—like the album title, it’s the kind of immaculate construction that, in spite of its lyrics, taps into the wonder of watching life itself unfold in front of your eyes, just like J Spaceman’s arresting compositions unfold in front of you. I think that’s the point of Everything Was Beautiful, in the end; it’s a celebration of the overwhelming shock of being alive.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Brightness Between Us (The Darkness Outside Us, #2) – Eliot Schrefer – I associate this duology a ton with Spiritualized—they have a very similarly epic quality to them.

“Kill Me” – Phoebe Bridgers

Predictably, I’ve become insufferable about Lost Weekend. Phoebe Bridgers could’ve easily gotten away with releasing Punisher 2: Electric Boogaloo after six years of radio silence, but she’s easily defied it. It’s a different record, temporally and stylistically. I’m struck by how it sounds next to Punisher; the former was lonely in the way of expansiveness, intensely sparse, like the image of Bridgers staring up at the stars in the middle of nowhere on the album cover. Lost Weekend, on the other hand, is lonely in a way that only happens when you’re caught in the eye of a storm in a roiling sea of chaos. The album is all about upheaval and disorientation, both positive and negative, with the confluence of her father’s unexpected passing and her relationship with Bo Burnham. Add to that the unforgiving eagle-eye of the music industry and the tabloid press, it’s got enough hairpin turns to make somebody want to abruptly get off the ride and throw up.

Chaos is something that Bridgers takes full advantage of on Lost Weekend, with some of the stylistic detours feeling disorienting if not played in the right order. But in order, the cohesion is difficult to miss; it feels strung together in a more adventurous way, especially with the bevy of instrumentation and noise that’s been added to the soundscape. “Kill Me,” one of my standout tracks from the album, feels like the lodestone of the chaos and disorientation: the repetition of Bridgers’s breathy admission of “This is gonna kill me/Wait!” as the instrumentation blinks into momentary silence feels like stumbling off of a dizzying rollercoaster, not knowing which direction is up or down. (Fittingly, I had a similar feeling coming out of the accompanying laser show at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. In a good way, for sure. Fitting.) Much of the song deals with time out of time, years bending and blending together: “My boys are getting married/Turning 21/I’m not, but I was once certain, always.” That sense of uncertainty feeds into the verse about a shared kiss at a costume party where “the veil is thinning.” (Admittedly, I thought that the “flower with chemical petals” line was corny, but it turned out to be a reference to David Foster Wallace.) All of it culminates in a propulsive turn into cascading shoegaze at 3:34 that sounds like the fabric of reality itself is fragmenting into fragile pieces, buoyed by Cameron Winter’s (!!!) backing vocals. Bridger’s rallying cry of “Let’s go missing” certainly puts “Lost Boys” in a new light—all of this upheaval and heightened visibility would make anybody want to go off the grid.

Lost Weekend, in the end, reads to me like a beautiful statement about facing the inherent unpredictability of life. Some days, it’s enough to make you want to disappear. But some days, it represents a promise of something wonderful that you’ll never see coming on the horizon. Life is full of this chaos, in all of its grief and turmoil—there’s no use running from it, good or bad. Sometimes what’s on the other side is the very thing you’ve always wanted.

BONUS: Speaking of Cameron Winter [ahem] Son-John Johnson, here’s one of my other absolute favorites from the album, the duet “I Can’t Wait” and it’s newly released music video:

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Infinite Miles – Hannah Fergesen – “Turning twenty-one/I’m not, but I was once certain, always/Now all I know is the ending…”

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

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

Posted in Sunday Songs

Sunday Songs: 7/5/26

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

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

This week: in honor of the 250th anniversary of our glorious, flawless United States of America, I’ve concocted a color scheme that pairs well with the sickly algal green of the Reflecting Pool. God bless America, or something. Worry not: there’s enough women, queers, and people of color to give half of the White House a stroke. D.E.I.!

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 7/5/26

“Lost Boys” – Phoebe Bridgers

SHE’S BACK!! SHE’S BACK, THIS IS NOT A DRILL! LOST WEEKEND COMES OUT THIS AUGUST!!!

Returning to music—and the public eye—was always going to be a tall order for Phoebe Bridgers. In the absence of new music since 2022, her fame has unexpectedly skyrocketed. It’s so bizarre to think that when I got into her music in 2019, she was on par with artists like Soccer Mommy, Snail Mail, or Jay Som in terms of recognition, and now she’s selling out arena shows…whiplash, for sure. Opening for Taylor Swift on the Eras Tour was likely the turning point. Either way, when she finally came back, there would be an inevitable torrent of naysayers and unwarranted speculation. I almost still can’t believe that she’s back.

Most of my thoughts about “Lost Boys” coalesced while I was listening to it on repeat while making a grilled cheese, which feels strangely fitting—here’s a song with themes of immaturity and not wanting to grow up, and there I stood with the ultimate kid’s menu dinner. (At least it wasn’t American cheese and white bread.) But the doubts kept swirling around in my head. Is the production too polished? Are the horns and tempo too much like “Kyoto?” Was Punisher the only trick up Phoebe Bridgers’s sleeve after all? Sure, I maintain that the production feels on the unnecessarily slick side (damn you, Jack Antonoff). And it does ring similarly to “Kyoto.” But “Lost Boys” feels like being invited into something new. It feels like the lulling into a false sense of security before the sound of Lost Weekend unfolds in earnest.

Yet even if it wasn’t, “Lost Boys” would be a worthy addition to Bridgers’s catalogue. The “Kyoto” comparison is apt because they have that same quality of feeling like a reckless sprint—both to escape something they should’ve confronted long ago. Imagery of fantasy and escapism melds with Bridgers’s usual structure of very modern vignettes—these lost boys are emblematic of the kind of escapism she longs for, but she’s equally damaged by being in the company of that amount of emotional stuntedness and immaturity. It’s a bittersweet concoction, made all the more so by the effortless shifts from whispery reflection to the raw-throated count-off before the final chorus. “Fun” isn’t the word I’d normally describe Phoebe Bridgers with, but I can’t help but feel a rush of excitement every time I listen to this song—there’s something ecstatic about it amidst the uncertainty. Maybe it’s the fact that both Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus quietly contributed backing vocals. Either way, “Lost Boys” is a strong start for Bridgers’s long-awaited return.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Do You Dream of Terra-Two? – Temi Oh – “To another life/Where they make you cut your hair/Impatient with a rifle and your papers/Weightless, but not scared…”

“All My Loving” – Jim Noir

Jim Noir’s new album, The DLC Tapes, is now available exclusively on Patreon and Ko-Fi! If you’re financially able, I highly recommend this album alongside Programmes for Cools.

After all this time…not one but TWO Jim Noir albums this year! We truly have a bountiful harvest on our hands. Alongside Programmes for Cools (now available on all streaming platforms), Jim Noir has released The DLC Tapes, an album of 13 more songs previously released as part of the Jim Noir EP Club. (This song is technically a double-dip that I featured all the way back in 2022, but it was well before I even started writing these posts. If any song deserves it, it’s this one.) From the start of the Programmes announcement, I was holding out hope that “All My Loving” (originally from EP 7) would make the cut—it was one of the best tracks from his entire run of EPs, a delightful piece of catchy, ’60s-indebted jangle-pop. Granted, the changes from EP 7 to The DLC Tapes are minimal—mainly just the production—but it was exactly what I was hoping for. “All My Loving” was already a prime example of just how neatly Noir has carved his niche over the years—it’s proof that his craft has only gotten better as the years have gone by. The cleaner production amplifies the cheery, dreamy mood of the track—the harmonies, the starbursts of space-age synth, and the warm organ all get their flowers with this fresh coat of polish.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Cybernetic Tea Shop – Meredith Katz – the lyrics are minimal, but the electronic, cozy feel of this track wouldn’t feel out of place in a tea shop run by robots.

“I’m a Fool to Want You” (Frank Sinatra cover) – Mitski

If there’s any artist who genuinely baffles me with the unexpectedness of their cover choices, it’s Mitski. Case in point: for the 10th anniversary of Puberty 2, Mitski released an extended edition that included two extra covers: one of One Direction, and one of Frank Sinatra. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that Mitski was throwing darts at a board with all of the most popular artists of the past 70 years and covering whatever they landed on. But both of these covers—yes, also the One Direction one—show off the many different facets of her artistry that frequently show up in her original music. Her cover of “Fireproof” has notes of her more straightforward rock days, especially from Bury Me at Makeout Creek.

“I’m a Fool to Want You” is almost the exact opposite. Accompanied only by grainy, droning synths, she turned Sinatra’s swell of big band strings into some of her most desolate-sounding music. The comparison that immediately came to mind was This Mortal Coil’s cover of Syd Barrett’s “Late Night”; both are incredibly sparse in their instrumentation, letting both of their vocalists unnervingly tremble to their hearts’ contents, and shining a spotlight on the more abjectly dreary parts of the lyrics. The latter part is more applicable to “Late Night,” but Mitski’s interpretation “I’m a Fool to Want You” turns a lovelorn ballad into something weighed down with deep-seated shame. Without the backing of an orchestra and a chorus of voices, “I’m a Fool to Want You” becomes almost unbearably ominous and lonely…in typical Mitski fashion.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Salvation Gambit – Emily Skrutskie – there’s a very “dark, ominous, abandoned spaceship” atmosphere that Mtiski creates with those droning synths.

“Sea Life Sandwich Boy” – Horsegirl

On the subject of songs that take me back to high school…

“Sea Life Sandwich Boy” occupies a brief but distinct place in my memory: sometime in the winter of 2021, during my senior year of high school—the start of my eventual Horsegirl awakening. This song will always be arm-in-arm with The Beatles’ “Oh! Darling”—I was listening to both of them on repeat at the time. It’s very indicative of Horsegirl’s early days—a very ’90s sound, a random, jokey title unrelated to the song, and vocals buried in grainy effects. No band starts out in their prime, but I’d say that Horsegirl started out damn near close—”Sea Life Sandwich Boy” could have easily been a standout on Versions of Modern Performance. Swimming in airy harmonies and precise riffs that make each note flicker like stars cut out of paper, “Sea Life Sandwich Boy” was an ambitious single for the band, but one that pays off to this day.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Amelia, If Only – Becky Albertalli – this is a very high school roadtrip playlist kind of song—exactly what this novel is.

“While I’ll Keep Writing Songs for You” (feat. St. Vincent) – Mon Laferte

Sure, this is Mon Laferte’s song, but it seems like a sign that St. Vincent is almost done ripping holes her tights and setting things on fire. Laferte and St. Vincent collaborated on “Tiempos Violentos” (“Violent Times“) off of Todos Nacen Gritando, her Spanish translation of All Born Screaming; There, Laferte delivers a visceral scream that rivals Annie Clark’s, but “While I’ll Keep Writing Songs For You” is worlds away from the battered rage of Todos Nacen Gritando. Instead, Laferte and Clark’s voices form harmonies that are nothing short of soul-warming—they’re seriously such a match made in heaven. “While I’ll Keep Writing Songs For You” is a somber, sleepless ballad about trying to cling to a static, depressed lover who barely seems to respond to her affection. Clark and Laferte’s wordless preludes almost say more than the lyrics, purely plaintive as though they’re trying to get the last word out in the emptiness of space. Laferte’s music video feels laser-attuned to the feel of the song—her she is, all dolled up and surrounded by flowers in her shopping cart, but the world beyond her borders on colorless.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Our Wives Under the Sea – Julia Armfield – “Will we ever be ok?/You left hair in the shower again/Why don’t we laugh instead/There is no need/To argue over stupid things/You are still depressed/While I’ll keep writing songs for you…”

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

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

Posted in Sunday Songs

Sunday Songs: 4/12/26

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

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

This week: the ordering of these songs wasn’t deliberate, but either way, at least I’m easing you in with some bright, relaxing songs for spring before you get walloped upside the head. Apologies in advance. Also, in a twist of fate, the white guys are the DEI hires in this lineup.

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 4/12/26

“Puddles” – Not For Radio

Another offshoot of my recent mini-foray into The Marías’s discography, Not For Radio is the solo project of their frontwoman, María Zardoya. I haven’t listened to enough of The Marías to definitively say what the key differences are—or if there are any prominent differences at all. I’m sure there are. But on the surface, the sound of Melt (no, not the Peter Gabriel one) seems ever so slightly tweaked. Setting aside the gothy, densely forested album cover, what stands out to me about “Puddles” is that the watery sound of The Marías has come up for air. “Puddles” is still woozy dream pop through and through, but it has a sharper, drier sound than most of María Zardoya’s other project. I don’t mean drier in terms of content—it’s as compelling as any Marías track as I’ve heard. I mean that more in the fact that it feels more terrestrial and leafy, but in less out-there terms, I think it veers more into more guitar-based dream pop, with sounds that are less drenched in reverb and more grounded. “Puddles” is an apt title for this track in that respect—still watery, but corralled by verdant dirt and sprouts.

Despite that, “Puddles” is as woozy and hypnotic as any of Zardoya’s other projects. Her signature, whispery vocal delivery feels like being sung to sleep, uttering secret, seductive promises as you drift off into dreamland. The Pacific Northwest-looking music video feels just right for this track, with gentle notes that peek out from behind curled ferns and moss-covered logs under cover of shadows. Once it grows louder and the sound intensifies into a barely-controlled chaos, I can almost feel the chord progression become Radiohead-esque (especially with the slightly sinister, electronic moans that appear towards the end), but the sensual, hopeful nature of this track prevents it from fully going into irrevocably depressed Thom Yorke territory. But honestly, as much of a Radiohead-head as I am, it doesn’t need to be Radiohead—it just needs to be María Zardoya.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Fate’s Bane – C.L. Clark – “Puddles and puddles, I picture us there/Walking in circles and talking in stares/I’m seeing double, I’m already scared/Scared of what losing feels after we dare…”

“Sunshine Soul” – The Gerbils

God, I love Elephant 6. They were practically creating whole swarms of nasally-voiced dudes who liked ’60s psychedelic rock in a lab and setting them loose, and we’re all the better for it as a society. I’m sure there are some weak links among the ranks, but I’d be hard-pressed to think of any off the top of my head.

I haven’t explored The Gerbils as much as some of Elephant 6’s more prominent bands (see: The Apples in Stereo, The Olivia Tremor Control, etc.), but just from this one glimpse, I can tell that the spirit of those bands rubbed off on them. “Sunshine Soul” is a fuzzy, crunchy package of sun-bleached jangle pop, indebted to the ’60s but that couldn’t have come out of any other era but the ’90s. The production is grainy and muddled, but like a lot of its Elephant 6 compatriots, it only adds to the scrappy, garage-rock origins of the label. Even with the unexpected references to sewage and brains and arachnids in the second verse, nothing could dim the sparkle of this track. It’s nothing short of a quirky, homegrown jangle pop song, and a perfect song to celebrate the sun finally peeking out.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Strange Bedfellows – Ariel Slamet Ries – “Your life, it’s only a record/Turning ’round inside my brain/My life is only a needle/Scratching grooves into your vein…”

“The Bug” – Crumb

I feel like Crumb could transform any human emotion—positive, negative, or neutral—into a soothing, calm song. They’re not exactly endearing me to cockroaches in that video, that’s for sure. (Here’s hoping that the gecko at the end ate it?) But for a song that seems to be about anxiety—or any kind of notion, memory, or thought that never leaves your head—”The Bug” never ceases to be laidback and gently glimmering. All of their songs are hypnotic to me on some level, but the electronic drumbeat that begins at about 3:08 puts me under a spell every time. Almost two years after AMAMA was released, “The Bug,” as with most of the tracks on the album, remains a perfect, condensed terrarium of Crumb’s newest sound. Their songs are tiny ecosystems to me, with all kinds of delightful critters crawling about the moss…maybe some bugs, even?

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Taproot – Keezy Young – “We caught a fly/Reminds me of when I was some tiny child/Runs behind, but I can never see their eyes/Lost track of time…”

“Emily” – Joanna Newsom

Since the last time I talked about Joanna Newsom, my cousin ended up talking me into listening to Ys in full. It’s been at least two weeks since I’ve listened to it; honestly, I’m still chewing on parts of it, but it’s a lot more hard-hitting than I thought it’d be. Sure, there are parts that I probably just won’t fully get on board with (parts of it definitely get a bit too into “Dibbles the Dormouse Has Lost His Favorite Handkerchief [Movements I-IV]” territory for me), but to be fair, Ys is honestly quite a bit different than what I listen to on a daily basis. That could be why “Only Skin” was such a shock to my system. Listening to “Only Skin” kind of ruined it for me, since that’s still the best song on the album by a long shot, but there isn’t a single song that feels like an afterthought here. Even if I don’t mesh with every facet of Ys, I could just tell from the first handful of chords how much of a labor of love this album was. Not a moment on this album suggests that Joanna Newsom was ever messing around. Through all of its bardlike, folksy, and esoteric seasons, I really can’t say that there’s a lot that compares to this album. Kate Bush comes to mind, if in spirit more than instrumentals—I think I just love a weird woman, knowing that it took a ton of glass ceilings to break through the music industry as it is, both for Bush, Newsom, and so many others.

“Emily” immediately clues you into the fact that Newsom isn’t easing you into the record. You kinda know what you’re into the minute she opens the opening track with this: “The meadowlark and the chim-choo-ree and the sparrow/Set to the sky in a flying spree, for the sport of the pharaoh.” If you’re not down with that, you have about 30 seconds to jump ship, because she doesn’t let up after that. At 12 minutes long, this song is the second-longest on the album, and it’s emblematic of a lot of the atmosphere on it: intricate harp (and some jaw-harp), sprawling orchestral composition, and esoteric lyrics that feel like getting punched in the gut with an oven mitt embroidered with flowers and moths. (Another bit to add to my hypothetical list of song pronunciations that I love: the way that she sings “meteoroid” is so full of wide-eyed wonder.) I think what makes “Emily” hit so hard for me is the subject matter, somewhat obscured as it is; the Emily in question is Newsom’s older sister, an astrophysicist who imparted the wonders of the universe onto her more creatively-inclined sister at a young age. Some of the lyrics feel like twisting the knife in the gut, since I have a similar relationship with my brother—sure, it’s not a one-to-one ratio of science and humanities, since he’s obviously a writer and a generally very creative person himself, and I wanted to be a scientist as a kid—but the song’s scenes of following her sister through the woods remind me fondly of my own childhood, turning our backyard into some Darwinian expedition before we’d go home and make up creatures in our notebooks. And thankfully, like the trajectory of “Emily,” my brother and I have managed to maintain that closeness into adulthood. The melody rocks and quakes, similar to “Only Skin”‘s feeling of a boat being tossed across a stormy sea, as Newsom recounts what they have weathered together as sisters. What solidifies their harmony is a repeated chorus, a promise made to her sister, a unity of her love of science and Newsom’s love of music:

“Though all I knew of the rot universe were those Pleaides/Loosed in December/I promise you I’d set them to verse, so I’d always remember/That the meteorite is the source of the light/And the meteor’s just what we see/And the meteoroid is a stone that’s devoid of the fire/That propelled it to thee.”

Ow. Right in the fondly-remembered sibling relationships. Anyways…love you, Max.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Lost Story – Meg Shaffer – “The whole world stopped to hear you hollering/You looked and saw now what was happening/The lines are fading in my kingdom…”

“I Bet On Losing Dogs” – Mitski

[coughing, covered in sweat, in the fetal position on the ground]

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU—

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Seep – Chana Porter – “I bet on losing dogs/I know they’re losing and I pay for my place/By the ring/Where I’ll be looking in their eyes when they’re down…”

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

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

Posted in Sunday Songs

Sunday Songs: 3/8/26

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

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

This week: in a terrible day for feminism, I only have a single song by a woman this week, on International Women’s Day, no less. Cancel me if you must. Also, saying “Cobra” by Geese makes me sound like a caveman giving somebody directions for exhibits at the zoo.

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 3/8/26

“Cobra” – Geese

“Cobra” starts at 6:15.

Shit. Okay. I get it now.

The mountain of hype finally caught up to me. I can’t say that Getting Killed lives up to all of the hype it’s received, but that’s because it’s probably gotten enough hype that, if it were all translated into text in a uniform size, it could probably circle the Earth itself. But Getting Killed really is an excellent album; though it does have some low points, I think it embodies a kind of breaking point in alternative music, and I think that’s what’s resonated with so many people. Getting Killed oscillates between fevered, dystopian breakdowns and moments of contemplative tenderness, but what ties it together is that, for this generation, those emotions often go hand in hand in quick succession. To me, it feels like a response to Gen Z turning to the horrors of the world and poisoning everything with irony; Geese saw this landscape, and the irony we put into it, and slaps us upside the head with this bit from “Islands of Men”: “You can’t keep running away from what is real.” And that monumental amount of hype has to be tapping into something deep within our generation. Honestly, I’m right here raising a glass at the celebration of the death of Gen Z irony poisoning—it’s not fully dead, but hell, Cameron Winter and co. are ready to clobber it with baseball bats. What they’re putting out is chaotic, frenetic, and not always organized or perfect, but it sure as hell feels authentic.

There’s something pure about “Cobra.” By all accounts, the lyrics don’t feel all that wholesome—there’s a strong undercurrent of “that guy isn’t right for you, leave him for me,” which could either be noble or more egoistic. With the whole cobra motif, there’s plenty of back and forth between venom and temptation, and all sorts of spite. So how does it come off so purely? Was it just because I heard the “you can dance away forever” bit and latch onto that? It sure does make you want to dance away forever—it’s a song that commands at least a little shimmy out of you, and the instrumentation—from Emily Green’s high-pitched, intricate guitar work, Winter’s innate ability to make a piano yearn, and the percussion that feels like Tiny Desk without being recorded at Tiny Desk—itself seems to smile. There’s an anthemic quality embedded into a lot of the lyrics, and regardless of whatever romantic foibles it happens to be about, it’s about severing yourself from unwanted temptations and breaking free. And despite the resentment the narrator holds towards this temptor character, I almost feel a kind of respect—he’s still saying that she should leave her boyfriend because he’s keeping her from doing things independently that she was always capable of. So I think that’s what makes this circle back around to feeling wholesome. “Cobra” is like being tugged out of monotony and onto a dance floor bathed in sunlight. It’s so joyous.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Stardust Grail – Yume Kitasei – “Whatever he’s got in his hand/You can get it on your own, you’ll see/Baby, let me wash your feet forever/Baby, you can stay in my house forever and ever…”

“Wu-Tang” – They Might Be Giants

They Might Be Giants have practically been a part of my life since…well, birth probably. I grew up in the golden age of their children’s music (Here Come the ABC’s, Here Come the 123’s, and Here Comes Science), so they were about as vital to my hipster development as the milk in my baby bottle. Okay, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but I’d be hard-pressed to think of a memory from early childhood that they’re not present in. And yet, other than said children’s albums, I’ve consistently loved them…but never their full albums. Other than Flood, I’ve never been compelled to listen to an entire album of theirs. They’re been prolific since the ’80s (this coming album, The World Is to Dig, will be their 24th), which means that there’s a lot to love…but also a lot to cherry-pick. And unfortunately, as much as I admire them as a band, their newer material has rarely grabbed me. I like them, but I never love them.

Until now. “Wu-Tang” is a burst of energetic, jangly joy, much more lively and enlivened than a lot of their new material. (Speaking of jangly, I swear the guitar part beginning at 0:20 sounds exactly like the guitar on Graham Coxon’s “You & I.”) The World Is to Dig, though the title is an homage to Maurice Sendak’s classic children’s book A Hole is To Dig, means “dig” in the more “beatnik-y” sense, according to John Flansburgh: “A bit beatnik-y for sure…but hey daddy-o. That’s me.” In that context, “Wu-Tang,” which is about, well…how much the Johns like the Wu-Tang Clan, the title makes even more sense; apparently they’re sitting on dozens of songs that are simply about whatever’s grabbed their attention and has given them joy, which is as good a rulebook for songwriting as any. Impervious to any sort of industry molding or trends, They Might Be Giants have continued to be the flagship for musical weirdos everywhere—and heck, I’m glad they’re still going.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

A Letter to the Luminous Deep – Sylvie Cathrall – “Something was hid in a secret compartment/Inside my heart/Somebody planted a seed and/They’d have me believe that it/Was all my idea…”

“Fireworks” – Jim Noir

HE’S BACK! MY BOY IS BACK!!

Well, he’s only been gone from streaming, really, but the man himself has returned from his almost seven-year album hiatus (not counting his phenomenal and criminally underrated side project Co-Pilot). However, for those who have been following him on Patreon, we know that this has been a long, long time coming. He initially revived the Jim Noir Club, where he released EPs that gradually became his 2012 album Jimmy’s Show (real ones know that this album was originally going to be Jimmy’s Show 2), with the promise that in 2023, he would have three whole albums to show for it. I can’t fault him—I know I’ve made big declarations about projects and not followed through on them until way later. But as we got even more EPs than originally planned, I knew that the album that eventually became Programmes for Cools was going to be something special.

Three and a half years was an excruciating wait for a new album, and that’s also bookended with the time since his previous album, A.M. Jazz. (Insert the “it’s been 84 years” GIF from Titanic here.) But my recurring thought while listening to Programmes for Cools was that it was worth the wait. There’s nothing more gratifying than seeing an artist that you’ve been intimately watching craft an album finally put it out into the world. The demos and first takes have blossomed into fully-formed and polished incarnations of the offbeat pop that Jim Noir has made a name for himself (in my heart, at least) in; it’s slick, it’s ’60s, it’s synthy and sampley, and nothing but him.

Back when he was releasing EPs through the Jim Noir Club, “Fireworks” was a cut from EP 2 (you can probably guess how far along into the project it was released) all the way back in 2022. EP 2 remains one of my favorites of the bunch (it’s a crime that “Mr. No-One” didn’t make it onto the album, but maybe there’s a chance for Programmes for Cools 2…). It was difficult to imagine “Fireworks” getting much better than it already was, but the final version if it makes me realize how much potential was brewing in it from the start. The mix on the original was much more muddied, and in the light of day (the morning light, if you will), it gleams ten times brighter than before—just like the crackling, incandescent explosions that it takes its name from. Jim Noir has honed his craft here more than ever, creating a whole coral reef’s worth of different species of sound, with all sort of electronic blurts and flourishes that make it feel more like a bustling cityscape than the work of a singular man. But there is just one man behind it, and I’m as happy as ever that he’s populated our world with his music.

Programmes for Cools is only available on Bandcamp as of now, but Jim Noir has said that it will come to streaming eventually. In the meantime, support him on the former!

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Murder by Memory – Olivia Waite – I imagine Jim Noir’s synths being the soundtrack to Olivia Waite’s heavily-populated generation ship.

“That White Cat” – Mitski

So…Nothing’s About To Happen To Me, right?? I stand by my opinion that The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We is the best Mitski album of this decade, but this one was a success for sure. Though it’s not as cohesive or quite as emotionally potent (though it has plenty of moments that come close), it’s an album with a clear vision. It’s a Shirley Jackson-esque house with peeling, moldy wallpaper and women scratching claw marks down the walls. Mitski’s occasional ventures into Americana weren’t quite as successful as the ones on The Land for me, and at worst, the transitions between those and the more rock-oriented tracks were jarring; but as a whole, the album is nervy and feverish, but wholly certain of its image. After so long working with more deeply personal lyrics, it’s clear that Mitski’s indulging in a more fictional image—and it’s worked a charm so far. And yet, she can’t help but imbue her lyrics with the truth: about fame, about womanhood, and predatory people (see: “Dead Women”).

Some of my favorite moments on the album were when Mitski returned to her scratchy, guitar-oriented roots from albums like Bury Me at Makeout Creek. As much as I love her newer sound, something inside me always longed for the explosive torrent of her guitars from albums past. At least half of the album scratched that itch, and I could not be happier. In a downright neurotic album, “That White Cat” might be one of the most neurotic tracks. With only the accompaniment of bass and drums for most of the track, Mitski howls about losing control of her house thanks to a white cat whose scent-marking has declared her house his: “It’s supposed to be my house/But I guess according to cats/Now it’s his house.” Her ragged vocals lament the takeover of her house by a whole menagerie of invading animals in her signature, frantic lyricism: “Gotta go to work/To pay for that cat’s house/For the red corseted wasp/Who lives in the roof/For the family of possums/For the bugs who drink my blood.” Pushing her vocal range to the limits, making her voice rasp and gurgle and growl, she laments the loss of her autonomy, an invasion of her house—and her mind.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Yellow Wallpaper – Charlotte Perkins Gilman – this might be cheating, since this is a short story and not a full-length book, but I kept thinking about this story for the entirety of the album. Mitski had to have drawn some inspiration from here.

“A Globe of Frogs” – Robyn Hitchcock & The Egyptians

Getting this excited about a remastered, remixed version of a song means one of two things: either I’m officially getting old, or I’ve just surpassed some new benchmark of pretentiousness. But why don’t you go and listen to the original and then the 2026 remix/remaster of “A Globe of Frogs” and then look me in the eye and say that it isn’t a marked difference? The 1986 original was never subpar by any stretch of the imagination, but this remix, 40 years later, brings out what was blooming under the surface in the original. It’s far clearer and brighter. It feels like how the world looks after you wipe all the gunk off of your glasses. Robyn Hitchcock’s lyrics and artistic vision at large never needed any improvement; as it was before, “A Globe of Frogs” feels like taking a walk through the gardens behind a Victorian mansion, but the gardens slowly lead into Wonderland—not the Disney version, but the Lewis Carroll one, for sure. All that was evident from the first demo, I’m sure, but this reworked version feels like forcefully blowing the dust away to find the clean glimmer beneath.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Mad Sisters of Esi – Tashan Mehta – the strange world of this novel is certainly adjacent to the microcosm in “A Globe of Frogs.”

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 Feminist Books for Women’s History Month (2026 Edition) 🚺

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Wednesday, bibliophiles!

In the U.S., March is Women’s History Month! More than ever, it’s blatantly clear that this administration views women as inferior and disposable, given the sweeping legislation attempting to curtail women’s rights and the complete lack of consequences here in the States for those in the Epstein Files. With all of that weighing on my shoulders, it’s hard to not feel that I’m disposable; I’ve unfortunately realized from a fairly young age that the government does not have my best interests at heart, but it’s hard not to internalize that rhetoric that I don’t matter. But that’s exactly how they want us women to feel. We have to remember, especially now, that the government is no match for the power that we have in numbers and strength. After all, this is Women’s History Month—there’s a long, proud line of women who have fought before us, and if they could face the oppression of their times, then we can face the oppression today. For all women—women of color, queer and trans women, disabled women, immigrant women, and all the rest—there is always hope.

So for the occasion, I’ve compiled another list of feminist books for women’s history month: fiction and nonfiction, Adult and YA, and from all different genres and contexts. (NOTE: I’ve included We Will Rise Again in this list; not all of the contributors to this anthology are women, but I thought this would be fitting since it directly talks about resistance and feminism, and many of the contributors are women. This is not to diminish or invalidate the different identities of the authors, but rather to celebrate the feminist message that they encourage.) I hope you enjoy this list, and I hope it makes you realize that there are so many ways to be a feminist.

For my previous lists, click below: 

2021

2022

2023

2024

2025

Let’s begin, shall we?

🚺THE BOOKISH MUTANT’S BOOKS FOR WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH🚺

SCIENCE FICTION:

FANTASY:

REALISTIC & HISTORICAL FICTION:

NONFICTION:

TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK! Have you read any of these books, and if so, what did you think of them? What are your favorite feminist books? Let me know in the comments!

Today’s song:

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

Posted in Monthly Wrap-Ups

January/February 2026 Wrap-Up 🌨️

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Saturday, bibliophiles!

We’ve all felt it, right? Like the past two months have simultaneously crawled by excruciatingly slow and then sped up, and then the cycle repeats itself? Anyways, I’m in denial that tomorrow is the first day of March, but in the meantime, I’ve got some books to recap.

Let’s begin, shall we?

GENERAL THOUGHTS:

Before I go on: my heart breaks for the trans community, and especially all of the trans folks in Kansas. I’d like to direct your attention to somewhere to donate to/a potential resource if you need to get out of a dangerous state—the Trans Continental Pipeline, an organization based here in Colorado that helps relocate queer and trans people from unsafe environments. Donate if you can! Sending all of my love to my trans siblings, today and every day. You are loved.

Alright, so here goes nothing with this recap of the first two months—

Wait, first two months? Insert that one Tintin meme (“What a year!” “Captain, it’s only February…”) here.

But if there’s anything that those two humble months have taught me, it’s the value of staying busy during difficult times. The government committing war crimes not even a week into 2026 feels about as American as apple pie and baseball at this point. I can’t remember a time since the age of 12 where it hasn’t been at least partially a scary time to be alive, but January and February both exemplified that, what with the horrors of ICE in Minneapolis (and elsewhere in the States) and the formal declaration that our government is a rat’s nest of the richest and most depraved pedophiles (what else is new?) imaginable. I’m rarely grateful to be this busy. What with the honors thesis and everything crammed into my final semester of undergrad, I’ve had so much to keep me busy, and this period of work couldn’t have come at a better possible time for me. I get frequent flashes of guilt that I should be doing more: the world is burning, and I’m just chiseling away at this thesis in a coffee shop. But this is my education we’re talking about, and I’m trying to focus on not falling into stagnation creatively and keep my mind limber, which isn’t nothing. And I did knit the Melt the ICE hat—I spent about 75% of these past two months learning how to make a hat in preparation for this, and I’m glad I’ve got this finished project to show for it.

It’s difficult for me to separate politics from the past two months. But I’ve still been going at a number of projects. There’s all the reading, which has also kept me afloat both intellectually and emotionally. I’m taking a class on People of Color and Social Movements, and I’ve already gotten several great books out of that. Ever since picking up knitting, I’ve discovered that I’ve accumulated and awful lot of hobbies. But what better time to have a ton of hobbies? So I’ve been knitting my way through the horrors. I’ve been chipping away at some Cate Le Bon and Robyn Hitchcock on guitar…to varying degrees of success. I’ve been sketching out sci-fi soldiers and spaceships and ordinary people to better visualize my thesis and my novel. And speaking of said novel…ANOTHER DRAFT DONE, BABY! 108,000 WORDS! The key for me here, above all, is to not become stagnant—that’s when it’s easiest for both my negative anxiety thoughts and excess rumination on the bad news to take hold. At this point, Instagram has made it so that sticking my head in the sand isn’t an option, but I sure can limit my intake of negative news. So don’t underestimate the value of putting the phone down, hanging out with friends, and your craft of choice—and, obviously. reading.

Anyways, here’s my Melt the ICE hat:

My magnum opus.

BONUS: I meant to slip this in as a bonus after one of my Sunday Songs posts, but there’s one, singular thing that has made me feel patriotic as of late, and it was the Benito Bowl. Have I ever really cared about his music? Nope, but I respected his politics. I did not expect to be crying while watching the Halftime Show the morning after the Super Bowl. I full-on saluted my phone with tears in my eyes when he shouted out Colombia. GOD BLESS AMERICA!

JANUARY READING WRAP-UP:

I read 13 books in January! Though there were some misses here and there, I had an absolute slam dunk of a month, with two 4.5 star reads and one 5 star read. If that’s not a good start to my reading year, then I don’t know what is!

2 – 2.75 stars:

Son of the Morning

3 – 3.75 stars:

Pod

4 – 4.75 stars:

Railsea

5 stars:

Borderlands/La Frontera

FAVORITE BOOK OF THE MONTH: Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza – 5 stars

Borderlands/La Frontera

REVIEWS:

SUNDAY SONGS:

FEBRUARY READING WRAP-UP:

I read 12 books in February! I mixed it up with new-to-me and familiar authors, and although I had my first book in the 1-star range this month, there were tons of fantastic books that I discovered too. I thought I’d get lower than this because I ended up reading several VERY thick books in a row, but I’m happy with this number. And as it’s Black History Month, I focused on Black authors.

1 – 1.75 stars:

Every Variable of Us

2 – 2.75 stars:

This Great Hemisphere

3 – 3.75 stars:

This Town Is on Fire

4 – 4.75 stars:

Salvation: Black People and Love

FAVORITE BOOK OF THE MONTH: The King Must Die – 4 stars

The King Must Die

REVIEWS:

SUNDAY SONGS:

BONUS:

Today’s song :

NEW MITSKI, HOW ARE WE FEELING

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

Posted in Sunday Songs

Sunday Songs: 1/25/26

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

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

This week: Here it comes again; a fantastic voyage to Palo Alto to answer this essential question: where’s my phone? It’s been undone!

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 1/25/26

“Where’s My Phone?” – Mitski

It’s finally come to that time of year when I start accumulating albums that I’m looking forward to. Nothing’s About to Happen to Me, which is set to release on February 27, is topping the list at the moment for sure! Mitski is back for her first album in two and a half years, and as usual, she’s set to put a pulse on the neuroses of the world; Nothing’s About to Happen to Me seems to be a concept album about a recluse who never leaves her cluttered house. With the aesthetics of cats and old wallpaper, this album has such a clear image—and an intriguing one. Mitski channels some of her heavier guitar work on “Where’s My Phone?”; it’s an exciting sonic callback, like she’s been dusting off the old Bury Me at Makeout Creek sounds (!!!). Adopting a falsely cheery tone, Mitski sings of this character desperately repressing every possible source of negativity, yearning to be “clear glass with nothing going on.” The sentiment of “I keep thinking surely somebody will save me/At every turn I learn that no one will” is pure Mitski all the way down, but it’s refreshing to see Mitski going headfirst into a new character; her introspection, fictional or nonfictional, is where her art shines. Plus, that music video, in which Mitski’s multigenerational home gets assailed by dozens of strangers, is nothing short of bonkers. Definitely somebody’s vivid anxiety dream, for sure.

For some reason, my mind got stuck on the classic censored beep sound on the “I would fuck the hole all night long” line. Sure, we are in the age of musicians proactively self-censoring, but of all musicians, Mitski seems like the last one to do that, especially with how she’s clawed to keep her individuality—and sanity—intact in the music industry. She’s not a Taylor Swift type, and she hasn’t shied away from profanity before. There’s no clean version of the song, and the music video has it too—and yet the official lyrics don’t censor it. So what’s the deal? Was it some sort of artistic touch for the album’s central character’s supposed shame and guilt? I still haven’t come to a conclusion myself, but I swear that it’s intentional. Whatever the case, “Where’s My Phone” buzzes with neurosis, crunching at the edges, an ember of anxiety.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

I’m Thinking of Ending Things – Iain Reid – “I keep thinking surely somebody will save me/At every turn I learn that no one will/I just want my mind to be a clear glass/Clear glass with nothing instead…”

“Fantastic Voyage” – David Bowie

As calm of a song “Fantastic Voyage” is, it’s a certainly eerie start to Lodger. I finally got around to listening to the album in its entirety not long ago, while mourning 10 years since Bowie’s passing in 2016. Listening to Lodger not long after Taking Tiger Mountain By Strategy put me in an irreparable chokehold makes me realize the sheer impact of Eno on Bowie—his weirdness was all there, but after decades of being mainstream, it was Eno who resurrected the less palatable parts of weirdness. I’m sure it was less unexpected at the conclusion of the Berlin Trilogy, but expecting another “Starman” and getting…I dunno, “African Night Flight” must’ve been some unparalleled whiplash. And he’d keep the act going throughout his entire career. In a way, Lodger is a microcosm of what his career would later be. There’s no shortage of tricks up his sleeve, from the strange, often eerie left turns to the sneakier tricks; for one, “Fantastic Voyage” and “Boys Keep Swinging” have an almost identical chord progression, but their atmospheres are so radically different that I didn’t even notice. It’s a trickster kind of album, obstinate in its mission to not be boxed in.

After falling back to Earth, the Berlin Trilogy got much more worldly, and Lodger was its peak. The entire album reeks with the recollection that the world is rife with the unknown, be it in places unseen or the machinations of politics. “Fantastic Voyage” is the thesis of that song; it reads like a scrawled diary before the apocalypse, and it very well could have been, what with the threat of nuclear annihilation and the Cold War on Bowie’s mind. He pits the casual dehumanization of entire peoples against the plea for the dignity of all individuals. He looks skyward, pondering the missiles that could rain down on the population and end everything in an instant. But in the midst of all this turmoil, decades after 1979, the final verse rings truer than ever: “They wipe out an entire race and I’ve got to write it down/But I’m still getting educated/But I’ve got to write it down/And it won’t be forgotten.”

Oof. Certainly feels like a slap in the face, given that ICE has been snatching children off the streets and shoots unarmed civilians in Minneapolis, and I’m just holed up in my apartment trying to get my thesis done. Yet Bowie’s words feel like a guidebook. I’ve got to write it down—I interpret that both in the sense that we have to commit the crimes of these monsters to paper, lest the government conveniently paints them in a more pleasant light (as they already are), but also that in spite of everything, we have to keep on with our creativity. Sometimes, all we can do is write. Of course, that doesn’t make political action, however small, null and void, but sometimes it’s all you can do but journal everything around you to stay sane. All that matters, both for Bowie and for all of us, is to keep the pen moving—that keeps our minds sharp, it creates a record of the soul.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Do You Dream of Terra-Two? – Temi Oh – “Remember it’s true/Dignity is valuable/But our lives are valuable too/We’re learning to live with somebody’s depression/And I don’t want to live with somebody’s depression/We’ll get by, I suppose…”

“Palo Alto” – Radiohead

In a move that’s probably stunned nobody, I’ve decided to become the insufferable neighbor and take up collecting vinyl; my parents were nice enough to gift me with a record player, as well as my two favorite albums: David Bowie’s Hunky Dory and Radiohead’s OK Computer. I can’t thank them enough. My neighbors, on the other hand, are probably rueing the day that they had to hear “Fitter Happier” through the walls without warning. Your honor, I plead “whoopsie daisies.”

OK Computer—specifically, the 2017 remaster with all of the b-sides, OKNOTOK—all but swallowed me whole in my freshman year of high school, and the version of me that got chewed up and spit out was irreparably, permanently changed. Whether it was for the best or the worst is up to interpretation, but either way, it’s given me a love of Radiohead that hasn’t waned to this day, more than seven years after I first listened to the album. However, at that age, I was still in the woeful process of immediately deleting whatever songs that didn’t hook me on the first few listens from my library. The destruction left in the wake was irreparable—and it also made me completely forget that this absolute gem existed. I can’t even put my finger on why it wasn’t a favorite at the time; the only reasonable explanation is that OK Computer is just so jam-packed full of songs that shattered my brain that brain-shattering became the standard. I was harsh back then.

Yet on my new record player, “Palo Alto” came out of left field. In the mindset of Thom Yorke, I can sort of see why this one got the axe back in the day—musically, it’s less adventurous than some of the other tracks. It’s very much of the same, more straightforward rock/Britpop crop of The Bends, despite the avalanche of fuzz and decorative beep-boops. Thematically, it’s on par with the anxiety of OK Computer, with the tiresome monotony of corporate life: “In a city of the future/It is difficult to concentrate/Meet the boss, meet the wife/Everybody’s happy, everyone is made for life.” Even if it’s not as compositionally inventive as some of the a-sides, even Radiohead’s more straightforward songs are a cut above the rest, and “Palo Alto” is proof. With the sudden, grinding assault of Jonny Greenwood and Ed O’Brien’s guitars against Thom Yorke’s exasperated delivery of regurgitated small talk, it encapsulates the exhaustion of being trapped in an endless cycle of work buttressed only with surface-level interactions.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Embassytown – China Miéville – “In a city of the future/It is difficult to find a space/I’m too busy to see you/You’re too busy to wait…”

“Here It Comes Again” – Cate Le Bon

I regret to inform you that I’ve been listening to way more Cate Le Bon again, but I can’t help it that it faintly fits the vibe of my honors thesis. Michelangelo Dying, Pompeii, and Reward all got revisited last week, and you will be hearing about it. This is, once again, a threat.

Among the many impressive things about Cate Le Bon is the myriad ways that she makes her music sound innately aquatic. I talked about how watery all of Reward feels when I first listened to it back in July, with “Miami” and its sounds of aquarium gravel and bubbles. Unlike a lot of her songs, “Here It Comes Again” feels more like water rhythmically; with an almost waltz-like rhythm, it feels like the motion of a plastic toy boat being carried out to sea. The melody continually repeats and lives by eating itself, a gently cyclical waltz across a flooded ballroom covered in algae. That precise quality of the melody is what enhances the lyrics. It’s implied in the title (and the chorus), but “Here It Comes Again” drowns in monotony, its sonic eyelids growing heavier with each repetition: “Man alive/This solitude/Is wrinkles in the dirt.” Very few artists make solitude and dreariness into such musical feasts like Cate Le Bon does—if it’s loneliness, she’s spun it into something as appealing as a bowl of candies with brightly-colored wrappers.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Here Beside the Rising Tide – Emily Jane – “Man alive/This solitude/Is wrinkles in the dirt/I borrowed love from carnivals/Set it in a frame/Here it comes again…”

“Been Undone” – Peter Gabriel

HE’S BACK! PETER GABRIEL IS BACK TO SAVE 2026!

Once again culminating in an album coming out this December, o\i is being released in singles corresponding with each full moon of 2026. Three days into 2026, it gave me some hope—and a bittersweet full-circle moment for me. I spent the spring semester of my freshman year of college listening to i/o‘s singles, and I’ll be spending the spring semester of my senior year listening to its inverse. The songs comprise of both castoffs from the i/o sessions and from further back in his career; according to this video, the chord progression for “Been Undone” has been on the back burner for several decades. As the starting gun for the album, it’s an expression of some of what I love best about Gabriel: his boundless creativity and his grounded humility. “Been Undone” is all about learning moments—the ones that cause us pain or overwhelm us, but ultimately teach us something valuable: “By all the forms that you get from the Mandelbrot set/I’ve been undone/By the recursive slaves in the home of the brave/I’ve been undone.” I’m assuming the latter is in reference to the deeply broken U.S. prison system, but back to back with a mathematical concept that results in dizzying, fascinating patterns, it proves the song’s point: both great wonder and great pain can be the origin of learning. Musically, I thought it was going to be a more standard new-era Gabriel song, and it continues so for nearly 6 minutes; but at 5:59, he takes a left turn back into “The Tower That Ate People” territory, turning a pleasantly synthy tune into his personal brand of almost-industrial, proving that even at 74, he has no shortage of tricks up his sleeve.

Also, the bit where Gabriel was asked about the Bright/Dark-side mixes and if he allows the producers to play with the structure cracked me up—probably the clearest vocalization of “no <3” I’ve ever seen HAHA

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Life Hacks for a Little Alien – Alice Franklin – “Though I want to observe, it keeps touching a nerve/And I’ve been undone/By the past that you trace, by a moment of grace/I have been undone…”

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

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

Posted in Sunday Songs

Sunday Songs: 11/3/24

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

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

This week: next stop, Big Feels™️ central…totally haven’t been anxious for the past week and a half, how’d you guess?

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 11/3/24

“Promises of Eternity” – The Magnetic Fields

I had the privilege of seeing The Magnetic Fields a second time last weekend; this year marks the 25th anniversary of an album that (from what I’ve heard) is not so much an album but a great balancing act of music itself: 69 Love Songs, a triple album consisting entirely of songs about love. (Make no mistake, they’re not all romantic. See: “How Fucking Romantic,” “Yeah! Oh, Yeah!” “I Think I Need a New Heart.”) I’ve yet to find the time to set aside a whole three hours and listen to the album in its entirety, but even a glimpse at around half of it over the course of my lifetime leaves me in awe of how Stephin Merritt and company pulled this off. Especially Merritt, as he wrote every single song—his songwriting never falters, but to not sputter out after 69 songs is a feat as awe-inspiring as his vocal range.

Somehow, “Promises of Eternity” slipped by my notice, but it hasn’t let me go since last weekend. Sung by Merritt on the album and by Anthony Kaczynski live, it immediately stuns. In both mediums, the synths just bowl you over—they don’t play as much as grandly announce their presence with the flourish of the same velvet curtain that the song speaks of. That chest-clutching drama defines the rest of the song—all of the lyrics detail the hypothetical collapse of the world if the narrator’s lover did not love them back: “What if no show ever happened again?/No seven, no eight and a half, no nine and no ten?” Most of Merritt’s singing has a sarcastic current to it that almost makes you question if the guy really believes in true love (though “The Book of Love” disproves that hypothesis quickly), but the way that he belts out “What if the clowns couldn’t be clowns?”, of all lines, gives you the feeling that he’s just fallen to his knees and is begging straight to your face. Apparently, the absence of clowns will signal the end? Who’s to say, really? Along with the circus imagery, the organ sound created by the synth makes “Promises of Eternity” feel like an elaborate, gilded carousel of lovesickness, with instrumentals that wouldn’t be out of place at a fairground, but lyrics fit for Romantic (in the Keats way, not the general way) poetry.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Caraval – Stephanie Garber – circus imagery aplenty, as is the levels of drama being off the charts.

“Surgeon” – St. Vincent

In the age where you can make a synth—and most any instrument, really—make almost any sound you want it to, I shouldn’t be surprised at the staggering achievements that music has made in the simple terms of what noises we can make. What sounds like “the future” feels entirely subjective when we’re talking about anything past the 2010’s—electronic music had exploded, and plus, what sounds futuristic to me might not sound futuristic to you.

My waxing poetic about St. Vincent has mostly been directed to her self-titled 2014 album, which, ostensibly fits that description for me. But with each successive listen to “Surgeon,” I’m blown away at just how much this sounds like the future. This was 2011, and aside from the percussion, most everything on this track sounds utterly alien. Watching the 4AD sessions recording that I linked above was genuinely eye opening—every few minutes, I just found myself going wait, that’s the instrument that’s making that weird noise? The synths are manipulated to the point where they could just as easily be the vocalizations of a children’s choir from another planet. Even the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it trill of a flute turns into a glitch in some kind of code. I can see the threads of Björk—especially Homogenic—throughout, yet it’s so distinctly Annie Clark. By far the most masterful of these manipulations should be obvious: Clark’s guitar solo beginning at 3:36 feels like she’s almost reached the extreme of what the instrument can sound like. It’s hardly even a solo anymore—it doesn’t just sound like a synth, it sounds like some kind of creature whose consciousness has been trapped in a computer and is howling to be freed. If you were to somehow visualize this music, I’d fully believe it if it came out fleshy and trailing with electrodes.

Oh, to spend a day in her mind…

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Freshwater – Akwaeke Emezi – stagnation, grappling with identities beyond the human, and the desire to free that identity with help of a surgeon.

“Oodles of O’s” – De La Soul

Is it possible for De La Soul to have a bad song? Well…okay, I haven’t gotten into their later catalogue, which seems to have a worse reputation (I don’t know, though, “Snoopies” is pretty fantastic), so that’s up for interpretation. But for me, De La Soul are one of those bands where almost every new song of theirs I find feels like digging up buried treasure. At least in the ’90s, their creativity seemed to come to them as easy it is for the average person to breathe. The lyrics? Deadly serious, but still full of whimsical, silly rhymes—nothing but De La Soul. The best part is that every single line ends in an o sound—quite literally oodles of o’s! The samples? That Tom Waits bassline sample is something to behold. This is my kind of hip-hop. Can’t say if their entire catalogue is perfect, but “Oodles of O’s” is. We need to bring back the word oodles. Carry on the spirit.

At the end of the day, it’s beautiful that this got the video that Dave wanted it to have, now around a year and a half after his passing. Maybe it’s not the grittiness he envisioned, but a donut shop more than makes up for it.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Geekerella (Once Upon a Con, #1) – Ashley Poston – admittedly, a much fluffier take on fame, but an exploration of how it reduces you nonetheless.

“Anchor” – Soccer Mommy

With the workload I’ve been swimming through this semester, I’m not sure if I’ll get around to reviewing Evergreen, but rest assured—I LOVED it. After a few listens, Sometimes, Forever remains on top, but Evergreen is special. There’s a matured, bedroom-pop-grown-older familiarity to it, but as with every successive album, Sophie Allison always has something new to offer. Her fourth album is a cartography of grief, detailing the tangled web of loss, healing, and pining after your Stardew Valley wife, as it turns out. As with every one of her albums, it’s her introspection that shines—with every kind of grief that she experiences, it feels like a flag planted in the ground, a recognition of every hill and valley of the harrowing trek she’s been on, but recognition that it’s not the end, no matter how much of it is behind her.

In contrast to the largely acoustic (or at least traditionally guitar-driven) landscape of Evergreen, “Anchor” instantly singles itself out as the black sheep of the bunch. Though it covers some of the same ground as the rest of the album, the production doesn’t jump out at you so much as it pounces on you like some creature going after your ankles in the dead of night. I should’ve expected that Allison would retain some of the sound from Sometimes, Forever, but with how the rest of Evergreen sounded, it was a surprise—and a 100% welcome one. With synths and bells that wouldn’t sound out of place in a Chelsea Wolfe track, it has a jaggedness and fear that the rest of the album lacks. In a song about feeling so unmoored in the face of loss, it’s one of the most creative stylistic choices on Evergreen to me. In the same way that a simple object or scent or song can trigger a domino effect of memories that takes days or weeks to recover from, “Anchor” comes out of nowhere with its instrumentation. It has the static and crunch of watching yourself bolting through the woods through the lens of a trail cam, and that’s how grief can make you feel—cornered and in the dark.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Hell Followed With Us – Andrew Joseph White – “When we left the harbor/I was certain of my path/There’s no turning back/Now I long for something that/Could stop me in my tracks/An anchor to cast…”

“Remember My Name” – Mitski

Knowing that “Remember My Name” was released so close to the time that she almost quit music (back in 2019) really puts this song in perspective. Mitski’s still battling being in the spotlight, but this song presents the other side that’s been waging that war; deep down, she harbors a desire to be musically immortal, even at the steep cost: “I gave too much of my heart tonight/Can you come to where I’m staying/And make some extra love?/That I can save ’til tomorrow’s show.” With its crunching guitar riff that’s begging to be sampled and the way that the chorus consumes you in the same way that watching an approaching tornado on the horizon does, there’s so much urgency and volatility packed into just over two minutes. The best of Mitski speaks to that part of me that is so easily overcome by emotion and gives itself over to its throes—sometimes, whatever the situation, you do feel like you need something bigger than the sky. What works so well is that Mitski is dead serious—every song is an explosive, cathartic release. Of course, again, that’s probably what attracts so many parasocial weirdos to her shows, but I at least have the tact to not yell “MOMMY” at her, much less anybody else. That’s exactly the price of the fame she speaks of—she places her heart on a platter, people tear it to shreds, and the process repeats itself every day. I’m just glad that after The Land is Inhospitable and So Are We, she’s repaired that volatile relationship with music, or at least started to. Much as I love a good Mitski explosion, her best music comes when she’s healed, or at least processing it.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Shadow and Bone – Leigh Bardugo – “I need something bigger than the sky/Hold it in my arms and know it’s mine/Just how many stars will I need to hang around me/To finally call it Heaven?”

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

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

Posted in Sunday Songs

Sunday Songs: 5/19/24

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

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

This week: in addition to my blue and black/white/gray periods, it’s become increasingly obvious that I also have a green period. On another note, food processors are great!

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 5/19/24

“Advert” – Blur

The restraint I displayed by not blowing through Blur’s entire discography back in the last half of 2021 is restraint that I have yet to parallel, so it’s only now, almost three years after the initial Blur Breakdown, that I’ve gotten around to Modern Life is Rubbish (if there was ever a more British title). I did sort of sully it with the experience of listening to it while crawling under my bed while trying to exorcise the last of the dust bunnies from my dorm (and getting caught on the rain), but that’s all me—this is the first Blur album where they started to feel like themselves.

I’d never thought of Modern Life is Rubbish, Parklife, and The Great Escape (the final Blur album to surmount) as a trilogy until Trash Theory described it as such—from my understanding, this is what cemented their reputation as the foremost clever spectators of British life in the ’90s, peering out of every windowsill with a snappy remark about the passersby. Modern Life feels like Parklife just before it morphed into the masterpiece it would later be—all of the pieces were there, and all that was needed was to make it larger than life. The melted shoegaze of Leisure was hanging on by a thread (it’s much more evident in the special edition—see: “Peach”), and they’d shifted from staring off into the distance, bleary-eyed and exhausted, into taking out that exhaustion on whatever they saw fit. Straight off of the heels of the triumphant “For Tomorrow,” “Advert” opens with a soundbite from the commercial you’ve just heard (“Food processors are great!”) before launching into what feels like the genesis of Graham Coxon’s signature assault of pounding guitars that practically demand every crowd to jump up and down. This relentless guitar work feels like witnessing the larval stage of “Jubilee,” crashing and bouncing with unending abandon. And this kind of guitar that threatens to consume the track is perfect for the endless consumerism that “Advert” comments on—commercials everywhere, a flood of inescapable offers leeching off of the dissatisfaction of the ordinary man: “You need a holiday somewhere in the sun/With all the people who are waiting/There never seems to be one.” This consumerism leads to even more dissatisfaction, which leads to more consumerism to quell said dissatisfaction, which leads to…ah, capitalism. What could possibly go wrong?

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Early Riser – Jasper Fforde – consumerism: the perfect diversion from an oppressive, unlivable winter!

“Abbey” – Mitski

LUSH, Mitski’s first album, was made for an end-of-year project when she was a junior in college; there’s an unverifiable TikTok rumor going around that she got a C on it, which, given the traction of the Mitski fandom, is just going to become an urban legend at this point. So it goes.

Either way, it’s both remarkable and understandable that she wrote all of these songs and had them produced while she was still in college. Remarkable, because just from “Abbey,” she clearly had the nascent talent for wringing emotion out like ice-cold water from a towel from a young age, and understandable, because sometimes being alone and sleepless in your dorm on the very first night of college brings out that flood of inner darkness. Leave it to TikTok to leave out the best part of the song for whatever trend it latched itself to; the slow, chanting a cappella that gained traction feels like a prayer to a void growing within your chest, a litany of acknowledgment to that which you want to reach, but cannot touch. As an instrument, Mitski’s voice, unaccompanied until halfway through the song, is a haunting, flitting machine, the slow peak and valley of a heart monitor. But once the digitized drums sweep through, it feels as though the sky has opened up. This prayer has transformed from a whisper into the confession box into a plea bellowed to the heavens. “Abbey” chronicles a search for the soul, a ravenous hunger that cannot be sated that lies just out of reach: “There is a light, I feel it in me/But only, it seems, when the dark surrounds me/There is a dream and it sleeps in me/To awake in the night, crying, ‘Set me free’/And I awake every night, crying, ‘Set me free.'” Hoowheee. God. Makes me want to travel back in time just to give her a hug, but it seems like she’s now far removed from that time in her life, emotionally: she described the version of herself that wrote the album as being “long gone,” so I can only hope that she’s been able to fill her heart, as much as the music industry has kept her from doing so.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Hell Followed With Us – Andrew Joseph White – a void within that only becomes hungrier the more it grows.

“Side By Side” – Crumb

AMAMA, which came out on the 17th, wasn’t at the top of my most anticipated albums of the year, but after only one listen, it’s cemented itself as one of the most exciting ones so far. It’s a side of Crumb that hasn’t been let loose until now, one that, instead of gently dribbling like age-old water from the precipice of a glacier, skitters around on the smallest legs, darting this way and that like a frightened millipede. The whole album feels like watching a bunch of beetles hopped up on sugar water run a race: their iridescent shells catch the light as they crawl about, scaling walls instead of the tiny racetrack and occasionally clambering over each other to get ahead. No wonder they named a whole song “The Bug”—I need the instrumentals of AMAMA just so that somebody can use them for a documentary about insects.

AMAMA‘s three openers—“From Outside A Window Sill,” this song, and “The Bug”—are its strongest links, and although the album never falters, these three shine the brightest. “Side By Side” ricochets with an energy that I never would have expected from the likes of Crumb; both the drum machine and the actual drummer are working overtime to create a scampering beat that frantically bounces like a honeybee trapped under a plastic cup. It’s a song that yearns to go, go, go, and go it does—the swirl of rapid-fire synth beats are unpredictable in their flight path, so much so that I feel a jittery, sugary rush just listening to it. For me, the most fascinating part of this change in speed for Crumb is how easily Lila Ramani’s voice adapts to the change; it’s not like I thought she couldn’t sing more quickly, but her voice only slightly seemed to change speed along with the music. Her voice is permanently trapped in a slurry of amber, unaffected by time or space—I feel like her vocals, no matter the speed, would mesh with any tempo. It retains that syrupy calm that made the rest of Crumb’s catalogue so soothing and laid-back—a quality that feels suspended in a space beyond time.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

A Half-Built Garden – Ruthanna Emrys – skittering with life and energy (and some insectoid and arachnid aliens).

“Lusitania” (feat. St. Vincent) – Andrew Bird

It took me how long to find out that Andrew Bird had recorded a song with St. Vincent? I’m surprised that 12-year-old me didn’t find this drifting around somewhere, but to be fair, St. Vincent’s name isn’t listed on the official track.

In 2024, Andrew Bird and St. Vincent do seem like an odd couple; since 2012, Clark’s style has morphed so many times that it’s difficult to imagine her stylistically even going near Bird’s songbird-whistling, violin-dominated alternative folk. It makes sense that this was probably recorded sometime in 2011—post-Strange Mercy, but before the last dregs of Actor and Marry Me were out of her system. She’s still never been fully folk, but the intersection of the Venn diagram of her early style and Bird’s is wider than I thought it would be. With her guitar playing mostly absent, what shines in “Lusitania” is her voice; you can tell in the first half that she’s been quieted in post-production or that she’s holding back on completely dominating the track. “Lusitania” makes me miss those artsier sensibilities of 2008-2010 St. Vincent, the delicate turns of phrase and the more feathery clarion calls her voice twisted into. Just like that, I’ve got another song in my hypothetical playlist of songs where artists sing certain phrases in a way that scratches all the itches in my brain: in this case, her singing of “there’s no shame” at 2:44. Her warble seems to chain-link with Bird’s in a way that produces its own chord, something more than a harmony that feels like a tuning fork struck at my heart.

But why don’t I talk about Andrew Bird, though, since…y’know, he’s the one who made the bulk of this song, anyway? Totally unlike me to go on about St. Vincent…completely uncharacteristic. (I have not changed a bit since middle school.) The instrumentation doesn’t stand out to me on this one as much, save for the rising cymbals that nearly swallow both Bird and Clark’s voices. But it’s clearly to make way for the lyrics—a clever string of World War I metaphors, presumably about a relationship where one party suffers volley after volley of abuse, while the other doesn’t even think to recognize that their behavior is harmful: “If your loose and libel lips/Keep sinking all my ships/Then you’re the one who sank my Lusitania/But somehow it don’t register as pain at all.” As far as ship metaphors go, the Titanic has likely been used one too many times, but the Lusitania feels especially potent on several fronts. The use of such a large passenger ship (and its sinking) drives home the metaphor of weathering emotional abuse until it drowns you. What’s more effective still about the Lusitania was its eventual role in the First World War; since a significant number of its passengers were Americans, the sinking of the Lusitania by a German U-Boat was part of what pushed public opinion towards entering the war on the side of the British in 1917. Just like the boiling public outrage of the American public, the Lusitania was the straw that broke the camel’s back, an event so explosive that there could be no other option than to break away, no matter how many casualties it cost. “You laid mines along the shore” feels like the last gasp of this deeply harmful relationship, the claws that scored scars down the narrators back as they squirmed free of their bloodied grasp.

I really should have seen this collaboration coming, not because of my middle school obsession, but also because it slipped my mind that it wasn’t the first time. Here they are in 2009 performing “What Me Worry?” (15:51) and “Black Rainbow” (21:09).

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Fireheart Tiger – Aliette De Bodard – “If your loose and libel lips/Keep sinking all my ships/Then you’re the one who sank my Lusitania/But somehow it don’t register as pain at all…”

“The Mainline Song” – Spiritualized

How I’ve never covered Spiritualized on Sunday Songs is genuinely beyond me. I did sort of discuss them when I talked about “Monster Love” last June, but that was more of a remix than anything. They’ve been in my top 5 artists of all time for at least 4 years now, but I suppose I blew through most of their catalogue before I started writing these posts. Mark my words, “Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space” is always on in the background of everything else I’m listening to.

Everything Was Beautiful, which came out around two years ago, was some of J. Spaceman’s best work to date; at the time it came out, I remember describing it as Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space but happy. Insane concept, I know…when was the last time you saw J. Spaceman and happiness in the same room together? Hardly ever, up until maybe 2017, right? Jesus. This poor man has to be the dictionary definition of “going through it.” Which is why the “happy Ladies And Gentlemen” hit me so deeply—all of the heroin, heartbreak, and near-death experiences have begun to fade away from his newer music, but the explosive, immersive creativity remains the same—you can really tell that these positive changes in his life have really begun to take root. And I am so glad. This man has been on the brink of death not once but twice. He doesn’t just deserve it: he needs it.

Like Ladies And Gentlemen, Everything Was Beautiful is always at the back of my mind, usually in the form of the uproariously celebratory “Always Together With You” and the nearly 10-minute long, haunting and cinematic closer “I’m Coming Home Again.” “The Mainline Song” lands on the side of euphoria, and thank god that it’s not heroin-induced this time (as much as “She Kissed Me (It Felt Like a Hit)” slaps). J. Spaceman’s immeasurable talent lies in how quickly he can not just create an atmosphere, but how he can create one that consumes so instantly. It’s not a building wave that darkens you with shadows before swallowing you whole: a more apt comparison would be falling into the core of a star, instant immersion with stardust sounds and white-hot flares roaring all around you. Every song is a universe contained in a spare amount of minutes. However, even if I did cast aside the part about there not being a build before the immersion, the buildup to “The Mainline Song” may just be its main draw. The build itself is part of the universe; J. Spaceman doesn’t even start singing until the halfway point, letting the song construct itself from fragments of stardust and train tracks as it swirls into being. It’s a song patched from the breeze of night, the kind you only find when sticking your head out of a car window, breathless and ecstatic. It’s a sprint through the streets as city lights blink like so many stars. It’s the wind parting your hair as you run to catch the bus, panting as you stumble inside with a fit of laughter. As many songs as there are about this kind of adventuring, none of them quite capture the hopeful feeling of “The Mainline Song.” No feeling necessitates J. Spaceman’s magical universe creation more—the swirl of horns, choir, and machinery bottle the feeling in all of its rapid euphoria, as blurry as the world passing by from the window of a train. Like nothing else, “The Mainline Song” captures the look you share with your friend as you reach a silent agreement to leave everything else and run. The destination isn’t what matters: it’s the breathless thrill of love.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

A Scatter of Light – Malinda Lo – warmth, adventures in the city, and an unforgettable summer.

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!