Tag: Sunday Songs

Posted in Sunday Songs

Sunday Songs: 6/23/24

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

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

This week: I wouldn’t hold out hope for the tape deck…or the Creedence.

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 6/23/24

“Soul Love” (Demo) – David Bowie

This week on me being incredibly predictable: needless to say, I’m a wreck again. The demos. The David Bowie demos. They got me…………..

As if I wasn’t already eviscerated by what I’ve heard of Divine Symmetry (see: “Quicksand” [Demo]), we’re already back at it again with Rock n’ Roll Star!, a collection of demos, rarities, and live recordings from The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. For me, an album is one of the few things that isn’t ruined by seeing all of the moving cogs inside of its stomach; seeing the nymphs of what would become rock classics makes the process even more admirable—and more human, knowing how many costumes each song had to try on before debuting. A piece of “Moonage Daydream” was once less than two minutes, much less spacey, and called “So Long 60’s”; “Lady Stardust” went through several vocal changes before coming out the other side. Most of these were changes that were necessary for the songs to shine.

And yet, the demo version of “Soul Love” feels like the proper way that the song should have been all along. On Ziggy Stardust, it serves to ground the grandiose, anguished lament of “Five Years,” calming the album in vignettes of grief and young lovers. This demo includes some of Bowie’s notes—you can hear him telling his producers that he envisions the final products with lots of saxophone, which it eventually gained. There was no way that “Soul Love” would have ever made it onto Ziggy Stardust in its sparse, acoustic form; there’s no room for that kind of true quiet on an album that’s not only so lofty in its story, but unabashedly theatrical and glam rock. “Soul Love” was always intimate, but in isolation, with only Bowie and his acoustic guitar, the intimacy feels exactly how it was intended. In such a soft, enclosed space, the secrecy of “A boy and girl are talking/New words/That only they can share” and the silent mourning of “She kneels before the grave/A brave son/Who gave his life to save the slogans.” In the landscape of the Ziggy Stardust narrative, “Soul Love” is the period after the announcement of Earth’s impending doom, where fleeting images of people are shown in private, emotional moments—lovers embracing in the darkness, and a mother grieving her fallen son, but thinking also of the future—was it for the best that he was slain before the calamitous end of the world? That privacy is what makes the acoustic version feel much more fitting to the true intent of the song; the performance itself is as secretive and soft of a moment as the very vignettes that Bowie describes; hunched over his guitar, for the first time, you understand the purpose with which he sings “all I have is my love of love,” solid against his beating heart like loose change in his breast pocket.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Madman Yearbook ’95 – Mike Allred – pure love and David Bowie references abound. Might just be my favorite comic of all time…

“Little Bird” – Lisa Hannigan

The more I listen to “Little Bird,” the more I’m tempted to just copy and paste the lyrics here in lieu of actually writing something, because how else could I do justice to this song? When you’ve got the talent to open a song like this, how do you describe it any better than her?

“Your heart sings like a kettle/And your words, they boil away like steam/And a lie burns long, while the truth bites quick/A heart is built for both, it seems/You are lonely as a church/Despite the queuing out your door/I am empty as a promise, no more.”

One verse. One verse, and I can already feel my chest caving in. Christ. You can dress your story with all the metaphors you like, but Hannigan places them so intentionally that they were never throwaways to make anything more purple or flowery; there’s a quiet tragedy to them, like the squeal of a tea kettle as its contents boil. And it’s not just tying objects like teakettles and churches—thinking to make words disappear in a flush of steam and making the pinnacle of isolation a church is what makes them dig so deeply; it’s Hannigan gives new eyes to these metaphors that turn them into such gut-wrenching poetry. It encapsulates a sensation I often felt as a child, and on occasion now that I’m older: that of being in such a large crowd of people, and everything seeming to collapse into silence and loneliness around you, even though you’re as surrounded and secure as can be. Loneliness, homesickness, lovesickness—the more company it has, the more it aches, I find. Whatever the opposite of claustrophobia is how “Little Bird” is—the feeling of being in an enclosed space, but such a large and unfurnished one that it makes your body instinctively crouch into a small shape. It’s the caldera of loneliness as you grapple with the space one filled by someone, but now occupied by the tug-of-war between whatever made you stay and what made you let them go: “When the time comes/And rights have been read/I think of you often/But for once, I meant what I said.” But the paper-thin, lead-heavy lyrics would not be the same without their messenger—nothing brings it sailing back home like Hannigan’s solemn, wavering warble, each tremble never failing to give me full-body tremors.

In case that wasn’t enough to elicit a good cry, here’s her performance of it on her Tiny Desk Concert (skip to 2:32):

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Raven and the Reindeer – T. Kingfisher – “I was salted by your hunger/Now you’ve gone and lost your appetite/And a little bird is every bit as handy in a fight….”

“We The People…” – A Tribe Called Quest

Of course I came back to this song in an election year. I distinctly remembering “We The People…” coloring the deep-rooted anxiety and turmoil of 2016, what with the hate machine that was Trump’s election campaign and eventual presidency. I really, really want to say that “We The People…” sounds dated, but nothing about it is. First off, A Tribe Called Quest are just that talented, but more importantly…nothing about this song’s politics is dated. Here we are in 2024, and Trump is back, and spewing the exact same rhetoric, now with callbacks to Hitler that aren’t even trying to hide it anymore. In his reelection campaign, the only change to his status are the impeachments (PLURAL, remember) and the 34 felony charges. Predictably, that’s done next to nothing to sway his rabid fanbase. I really wish I could say that this song was a product of its time. Maybe in 20 years, when all of this is behind us, it will be. But no, in eight years, nothing’s really changed. A Tribe Called Quest stripped the desires of Trump and his supporters down to the bone, and eight years later, it makes me ill to think that we’re trapped in this same cycle again.

But you know what else hasn’t changed? Our anger. Back in 2016, we knew the dangers of letting such a raging, narcissistic bigot with no political experience into the White House, and now we’ve survived it, and we’re bent on making sure it won’t happen again. The anger and determination of “We The People…” rings the same, but with more tenacity. It may be disheartening to be stuck in this hell time loop, but at least we have high-quality protest music whose wit (and infectious beat) hasn’t dulled in almost a decade. Thanks, Tribe.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

No Gods, No Monsters – Caldwell Turnbull – political unrest and injustice in modern America…now with more monsters.

“Aikea-Guinea” – Cocteau Twins

For the Cocteau Twins, the song’s title is often more important than the lyrics; it’s a placeholder for the abstract feeling that Elizabeth Fraser and company string together, an anchoring point for attempting to describe their lattice-like melodies. In Fraser’s own words, “aikea-guinea” is Scottish slang for “flat shells that have been bleached and smoothed out by the sea and the sand. I’ve just ruined it for you by telling you what it’s all about, haven’t I?”

I really don’t think it has, not at all. In fact, it only sharpens the image that “Aikea-Guinea” conjures as it fizzes like waves dissipating on a rocky shore. By 1985, gated reverb was king (and likely growing overused, at least in mainstream music…and remember, kids, we have “Intruder” to thank for it), but the Cocteau Twins knew just the way to use it to their advantage. By cloaking all of their percussion in it, “Aikea-Guinea” dissolves in your ears like fizzing candy, or more accurately, like crackling sea foam birthed from a freshly-broken wave. Like “Oomingmak,” it’s swathed in mist, but this mist comes from the aftermath of a storm out at sea, the air full of nostril-tingling salt and faint coldness making goosebumps prickle on your bare arms. With each punch of percussion, such seashells that Fraser described tumble through the water, colliding with each other as time and water erode them. Fraser’s voice, which bobs and balloons like frogs after nightfall, is as transient as plankton in the water, spiraling like the trails of bubbles that carry each shell through the currents of time.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Light at the Bottom of the World – London Shah – a fitting soundtrack to an underwater England of the future.

“Lookin’ Out My Back Door” – Creedence Clearwater Revival

I’m not even that ardent of a Creedence Clearwater Revival fan—my knowledge doesn’t extend much past the hits—but I firmly believe that this is one of those songs, like David Bowie’s “Kooks,” that every kid should have in their life. The only crime about this song is that it wasn’t released in the same key as the music video, which, in my opinion, makes the lighthearted daydream of it feel all the more daydream-like. And speaking of daydreams…usually, I don’t get all up in arms when a given song gets interpreted as being about drugs, but oh my god. Please. “Oh, it’s about tripping, the spoon is an allusion to cocaine, the—” SHUT UP!! SHUT UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JOHN FOGERTY WROTE THIS SONG FOR HIS THREE-YEAR-OLD SON, YOU EDGELORDS!!! IT’S NOT AN ACID TRIP, THE LYRICS WERE INSPIRED BY DR. SEUSS!!! For fuck’s sake, man…of all the lyric interpretation cop-outs, this has to be one of the most offensive for me. Just because it was written in 1969 doesn’t mean that it’s about acid…

I guess what tweaks me so much, other than how much of a mainstay of my childhood that “Lookin’ Out My Back Door” was, is that people automatically see silly, nonsensical imagery and automatically attribute it to acid. Do none of you have any imagination? What, did you forget how you got bored in your childhood and started imagining happy creatures dancing on the lawn? Is that how out of touch you are with your inner child?? Okay, I’m getting far too worked up about that, but god. It genuinely gets under my skin that a song of such purity still gets misinterpreted like this. Just goes to show you how we treat childlike wonder and imagination.

Anyway. All that said, no amount of misinterpretation will ever sully this song to me; there’s a joyous warmth to it that really can only be the product of happy creatures dancing on the lawn. I remember imagining them somewhere along the lines of Mercer Mayer’s Little Critter books, and that’s the beauty of it. This song, like Dr. Seuss, was made to be a picture book: the language is simple enough for a child to understand, but there’s so much silliness and vibrance abound that, just like a peeling, well-loved board book, they’ll be asking to hear “doo, doo, doo, lookin’ out my back door” time and time again.

On another note: I’d planned on including “Lookin’ Out My Back Door” this week anyway, but putting it on the heels of rewatching The Big Lebowski recently was only fitting:

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street – Dr. Seuss – see above—this is the specific Dr. Seuss book that inspired the lyrics.

BONUS: an update to 6/2/24…they finally “Wuthering Heights”-‘d this shit up!!!!!

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: 6/16/24

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Sunday, bibliophiles!

First off: happy Father’s Day to my incredible dad! Not only are you such a wonderful role model for being a genuinely kind, accepting, and truly empathetic person, you’ve given me the gift of sharing music—what these posts are all about. To be able to share music with you back brings me all the joy in the world. I love you.

This week: 🚨SOCCER MOMMY HAS COME TO SAVE THE SECOND HALF OF 2024, THIS IS NOT A DRILL🚨

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 6/16/24

“Lost” – Soccer Mommy

SOCCER MOMMY RETURNS!!! Given the short tour (that’s nowhere near me……..no, I’m totally not mad, no way) that she’s currently embarking on to support some of this new material, there’s a fourth album (sixth, counting the self-released albums) on the horizon, and hopefully on a happier date. Poor thing. I still haven’t gotten over the fact that her last album, Sometimes, Forever, was unintentionally released on the day that Roe v. Wade was overturned. Jesus.

Something that I’ve admired over the years about Soccer Mommy is her willingness to experiment with her production. At their core, her songs have never changed their essence: honest, tender confessions of the trials of heartbreak, grief, and mental health. But the dressing is never the same twice, from color theory’s color-coded tonal shifts and synth-dusted melodies to the darker, more distorted soundscape of Sometimes, Forever. With the latter, Chelsea Wolfe wasn’t somebody that I’d readily compare to Soccer Mommy, but then she comes along with “Unholy Affliction,” and the comparison, at least on that track, is as clear as day. Just when you think she’s playing it safe, she comes out of nowhere with instrumentation that you’d never imagine attributed to her name—and almost every time, it still feels like nothing but Sophie Allison. There’s a boldness to her that’s rare in the genre; there is an expectation of sameness in the kind of indie circles she’s in, an expectation to box yourself into the image that the record label deems as “authentic” in order to stay in their good graces—and the good graces of fans who cling to their raw lyrics. Julien Baker, although her first two albums adhered to that, took a similar leap with Little Oblivions, and that, for me, was her best album to date.

But Soccer Mommy can’t help but be herself. “Lost” strays nearer to some of her sparer, more traditionally indie roots, but with production that feels spun from silk; inside of the glowing cocoon where Allison resides, threads of synth, birdsong, and yearning strings coalesce in what can only be described as the musical form of a grainy polaroid, a sunset tinged with ink, film, and bygone memories. Bygone memories, like much of her other material, is at the core of “Lost,” specifically bygone memories of those bygone. Given the trajectory of “yellow is the color of her eyes,” some have speculated that “Lost” is about her mother’s death, although Allison has chosen to not disclose the subject. whatever the case, I’m glad that Soccer Mommy doesn’t have the kind of rabid Swiftie fanbase that would relentlessly strip away at the press and at Allison herself to get to the bottom of who she’s mourning, because…that’s her own business, dammit. I’m glad us…whatever Soccer Mommy fans are called (does this fanbase have a name?) have the heart to give a human being space to breathe, because, judging from the lyrics (and all of color theory, frankly), Allison needs it. “Lost” distills grief in the truths of the cliche that every movie seems to repeat about grief: “I wish I’d had more time.” Most media leans on that universal kernel to hold the weight of such a complex, unmappable sensation, but Allison scratches at its heart; her grief rests not just in tangible objects, but in the reminders of the time never spent: “I’ve got a way/Of keeping her with me where I go/But how she feels, I’ll never know/It’s lost to me.” The pain of this track is in the insurmountable truth of never being able to fully know a person; of course you can never fully, truly know a person beyond yourself, but grief exacerbates that unsurmountable summit—even if you tell yourself that you could be a cartographer of a brain outside your own, that chance has all but slipped through your fingers. Grief has unrealistic expectations of you; in its throes, it tells you that you could have made up for all of the missed regrets in your lifetime, and that’s half of the knife in your gut. Half of the pain isn’t what didn’t happen, but what can’t happen, even in the alternate reality it presents. When she repeats “If I had another chance/I’d ask her then,” it doesn’t feel like a throwaway from a stale funeral in the MCU—it feels like the testimony of something still putting down the compass and fountain pen, knowing that this expedition was doomed from the start.

So, what, you ask, might us sad girls do while we wait for Soccer Mommy’s fourth LP, which will inevitably destroy us? Watch Allison and fellow storied sad girl Phoebe Bridgers unite to cover Elliott Smith:

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Only This Beautiful Moment – Abdi Nazemian – breaching generational lines to form an understanding of heritage, sexuality, and family.

“Drinking Song” – Haley Heynderickx

Contrary to the song title, Haley Heynderickx is (probably) not responsible for the kind of song that old men will sing in a pub while drunk for generations to come. I mean, that could be a possibility in some alternate universe. I’d like to see that. It’d make for an odd movie scene—nothing about this universe has changed, but instead of old Irish ballads, there’s a pub full of swaying people singing late-2010’s indie rock.

With a title like “Drinking Song,” I fully expected this song to be the prequel to “Oom Sha La La,” a telling of the period where “The milk [was] sour/I’ve barely been to college/And I’ve been doubtful/Of all that I have dreamed of.” Contrary to that, “Drinking Song” is a soft-spoken but resolute declaration of hope, delivered out a summer window while the crickets sing. Any darkness is the shroud of night, and all of the stars seem to bear witness to a constitution of better days to come: “And the edge of the world makes it seem/That everyone gone is still singing the same song/And I can believe in these things/That everyone’s singing along/The good and the bad and the gone.” There’s a kind of childlike optimism to the openness of Heynderickx’s declaration, but one with roots strong enough to hold it; with each repetition of “there’s a light at the end that I know,” that glow, like The Great Gatsby’s green light, pulses with more intensity with each incantation, until it becomes a portal to better times. It’s the opposite of negative overthinking; this song overflows with future vignettes of new cities to explore and new lovers to embrace, all held within the space of the back of your mind. “Drinking Song” is a snow globe containing every good future—all is too small to comprehend in the here and now, but with a little luck, you can hold them in your hands and watch them unfold before you.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Sea Change – Gina Chung – holding onto hope in a time of lovelessness and isolation.

“Bad Form” – Ganser

I like plenty of bands and artists whose catalogue consists of one or two songs tops (see: Wet Leg, Suki Waterhouse, etc.). What distinguishes said bands, for me, is that they’ve made a career out of making those two songs worth your time—they may only be two songs, but they play them well. Sure, “I Just Threw Out the Love of My Dreams” may be one of Weezer’s one, maybe two songs (and even that’s generous), but it’s such a bright and shining piece of machinery that you can’t help but gaze at said one song and know that, yeah, it may be the same song they’ve been peddling since 1994, but it’s one fantastic song.

The more I listen to Ganser, the more I realize that they fall into that camp. I hate to say that every time, but like I said, it’s not always an insult. Although they do have a good amount of deviation here and there, most of Just Look At That Sky, as much as I enjoyed it, is the same three off-kilter, drawled post-punk songs about being numb, exhausted, and angry, or some combination of the three. They’ve got a brand. Ganser, for me, stands out in that their three songs sound different enough from any given song that you can excuse them for relative lack of variety. None of their chords ever align pleasantly—it’s abrasive, grating, and honestly? Fun. As with “People Watching” (which I reviewed at the beginning of the month), Ganser makes the kind of punk that’s aware of how punk it sounds, and they lean into every inch of theatricality with their bleary-eyed drawls and itchy, buzz-saw guitar riffs, fuzzy and stinging like staring straight at the sun—just as like the climax of “Bad Form.” Ganser is a band that’s not afraid to make music that scratches your skin like un-filed, bitten nails, and if that’s their three songs, then three cheers for making three songs that are bold enough to sound unappealing.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Ten Low (The Facts Sequence, #1) – Stark Holborn – “I’m the other man/I’ll take the medicine/The room spins like a feather/Folding over and over…”

“Transatlanticism” – Death Cab for Cutie

I was first introduced to “Transatlanticism” when I was about 12 or 13. A few months after the first listen (and being irreparably entranced), I had an internship at a local flower shop, where the owner had Sirius XMU playing. This song came on at some point, and I’ll never forget the deeply concerned look she gave me when I told her, in the most 13-year-old way possible, how much I “loooooooooooved” this song. She was entirely justified.

Another thing that music criticism does that I’ve never understood: categorizing Death Cab for Cutie as emo. If I suspend my disbelief enough, I can see the basis being in the whine in Ben Gibbard’s voice, especially when he performs live, and the dramatic emotion is there, but…in what world does Death Cab for Cutie belong in the same breath as My Chemical Romance? Really? I could almost see them being the middle ground between emo and indie, with some of the lingering whine and drama, but the key with selling drama is what has always lost me with most emo music: it actually feels authentic. Never once does Gibbard sound like a suburban teenage boy who’s just discovered heartbreak and black eyeliner in one fell swoop. The whine, although it can fit into some of said teenage boy sensibilities (see: “We Looked Like Giants”), just seems more of a product of Gibbard’s natural range than it does a forced vehicle for airbrushed angst.

In theory, “Transatlanticism” fails my test of withstanding a long song; most of the time, in order for a long song to hold enough water past around the six minute mark, there has to be at least some sort of shift, whether that’s tonal, lyrical, or instrumental; it’s why “Cop Shoot Cop” by Spiritualized really feels like it’s over 17 minutes long, with its largely extended sleepwalk of monotony, whereas Nina Simone’s ten minute epic “Sinnerman” has the fervor and gusto, as well as an act structure similar to classical pieces, is a nail-biting journey that never lets go of your shirt collar. (To be fair to J. Spaceman, my guess is that the tedium is the intended effect, seeing as it’s about how his heroin addiction all but made him into a dead man walking. Knowing him, it’s fully intentional.) However, there’s songs like Blur’s “Tender”—nearly eight minutes long and without much change—that have the pure, undiluted heart to keep its sails billowing. You feel everything—it’s an IV drip straight through to the sparest, most instinctual emotions, heart-wrenching in its delicately-crafted simplicity. “Transatlanticism” takes a trick out of that same book; until the last third, all that accompanies Gibbard’s thinning, tender lament is about four piano chords, played over and over with a purposeful negative space between them. Come to think of it, negative space is exactly why “Transatlanticism” works so well. Transatlanticism as a whole is a concept album about long-distance relationships, and even without the lyrics, crushing as they are, you can sense the abyssal gulf cutting down the middle of this song. At the four-minute mark, after Gibbard has finished with the first repetition of “I need you so much closer,” a full minute passes of a single, instrumental strain: those same four chords, a spare guitar lick, and tiny tendrils of synth that faintly moan and rattle like dying machinery, as if trying to conceal their death rattles without bothering anyone. Transatlancism was aided with Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategies cards, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they drew the same cards that produced Bowie’s “Sense of Doubt”—”emphasize difference” and “try to make everything as similar as possible.”

The difference, in this case, is a shift in lyrical style; It’s all but silent compared to the lyrics in the first half, but that silence conveys the feeling of separation, of having a strand of your soul stretched across an ocean and not being able to see who’s on the other shore, just as heartbreakingly as words do. After Gibbard’s lament (“The rhythm of my footsteps crossing flatlands to your door/Have been silenced forevermore/The distance is quite simply much too far for me to row/It seems farther than ever before”), the exhaustion of sorrow leaves you with no strength to do anything but stare into the canyon wrought by distance, too far to even touch fingertips over. Simplicity is what kills me about this song; after that instrumental break, Gibbard repeats the “I need you so much closer” refrain, only to transform it to “I need you so much closer…so come on.” When all of the poetry’s drained, sometimes the most sparing lyricism destroys me. The ocean has spread its impossible distance before you, and all you can do is stare as far as you can, towards the bottom, with only the most baseline instincts of longing to keep you company. It’s such an artful buildup and approach to portraying such deep yearning—you feel that negative space as a tangible barrier. See what I mean about Death Cab for Cutie making their angst authentic? “Transatlanticism” hits me like a goddamn steam train every time without fail. Ow, dude, who kidnapped me and abandoned me in the onion-cutting factory?

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Aurora’s End (The Aurora Cycle, #3) – Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff – ow oof ow ouchie ow ow ow somebody hold me

“Country Sad Ballad Man” – Blur

And now, “Song 3.”

Blur’s self-titled album [slides Anthony Fantano glasses up bridge of nose] is an exercise in becoming the very thing you swore to destroy. After years of being right smack in the middle of the spotlight, participating in a manufactured battle of the bands, and pushing their mutual abuse of multiple substances to the edge, the band collectively decided that a change needed to be made. They packed their bags, temporarily relocated to Iceland, and hammered out a new album. The result was Blur, which had a much dingier, edgier, and altogether harder sound, with a lead single that famously parodied grunge, but then…circled around to being a smash success and an enduring stadium classic. That’s another story. (I’ll give you a hint: wooooooooohoo!) Yet, as much as they poked fun at American grunge, in all of its nihilistic, self-deprecating time in the sun, they slipped straight into the lifestyle, shedding their Britpop gloss for aggressive, alternative guitar, stubble, and, to the detriment of the whole band, excessive abuse of alcohol and heroin (see: “Beetlebum”).

Though the drug use is lamentable (to say the least), as all of the band members now agree, it was their mutual exhaustion and anger at being put through the British media meat grinder that allowed for such a hard—and delicious—left turn. On the verge of snapping, the band decided to put Parklife behind them and get grungy. It was bound to happen eventually, what with Graham Coxon’s adoration for the American alternative scene and the guitar sounds they were producing (should’ve listened to him earlier on that one…). Blur is all but absent of a bad track, crashing with the equivalent of a drum set tossed through a window one minute (“Chinese Bombs”) and slipping into acoustic melancholia in the next (“You’re So Great”). But “Country Sad Ballad Man,” for me, is a highlight I find myself sniffing out every six months or so. With one of the drier and more self-explanatory titles, this track feels like food left to rot out in a heatwave, festering and twangy. Every other lyric finds Damon Albarn stretching his voice into a creaky, scratching highs, as though mocking his own state of lying squarely at rock-bottom: “I haven’t felt my legs/Since the summer/And I don’t call my friends/Forgot their numbers.” The strings on Alex James’ upright bass come loose and unsteady, as though a few more takes of this song would’ve seen them snap off and collapse on the floor. Graham Coxon relishes in the alternative aggression that Britpop never fully allowed for, twisting riffs that seem to languish like drooping eyelids, dripping sweat and numbness. But the real freakout, one that must have been canned and compressed for ages, explodes in a vomit of wobbly distortion and screeching falsetto. It’s a vertigo-inducing outro that caves in like the mold-rotted roof of a wooden house, shattering in a hail of splinters and nails. In all of its spring-plucking chaos, there’s really no other lyric that fits it than Albarn’s self-aggrandizing, high-pitched screech of “I’ve done and fucked it!” yelled straight up from the well of rock bottom.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

So Lucky – Nicola Griffith – “Yeah, I found nowhere/It got to know me…”

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: 5/26/24

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

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

This week: we go back to that house, like we do sometimes.

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 5/26/24

“All I Got” – Santigold

The only good part of 2016 was, without a doubt, the music. Blackstar remains unlistened-to just because I know that listening to it all in one sitting will destroy me (I’m only delaying the inevitable), but nothing will top that, I’m sure. Everything else, though. Teens of Denial? A Moon-Shaped Pool, which I also haven’t listened to all the way because it will similarly put me in the fetal position? Something was in the air, that’s for sure. Chances are that said something was the incomprehensibly crushing weight of grief and existential dread, but my sad bastards make do.

Santigold, thankfully, never got that memo, and saved 2016 early on with 99 Cents, full of gleeful odes to self-love and living to fight another day. It’s hard to think of people that really are cooler than her—if her music wasn’t enough to convince you, then consider her episode of What’s In My Bag, in which she’s wearing a Bauhaus shirt, casually mentions that she’s on a first-name basis with Mos Def, and talks about channeling Kate Bush all in one video. Even without all that, both the music she makes and the energy that she radiates is nothing but positivity, and not the shallow kind that denies some of the darker truths of life, but the positivity cultivated by a truly good and kind spirit that wants nothing but to share some of her goodness with the world. I’ve had bad luck trying to see her live (a 16 and older venue when I was 15, a canceled tour, and bad weather, in order), but part of why I thought last time wouldn’t happen was her posting before the concert that she had a broken leg. Wouldn’t you know it, she was bouncing around onstage with her leg in a cast. That’s just the kind of person she is. She’s a creator that makes odes to the joy of creativity, and her indomitable spirit never seems to let up, even in the face of adversity. And yet, she humanly recognizes the real-time taxes of the music industry—that canceled tour I mentioned was so that she could spend time with her kids. She’s really a rare kind of musician: her authenticity comes not just from her attitude, but her willingness to be true and kind to herself.

Even when she’s being critical, it still sounds as cheerful as ever. “All I Got” is practically covered in multicolored party streamers, the kind of thing you’d hear blasting at a pride parade (anybody wanna start Queers for Santigold with me?). But it’s delightfully petty—I’m almost embarrassed at how many of the lyrics I mixed up before l looked them up, but what I found was even better than what I thought she was singing. “All I Got” is the auditory equivalent of watching somebody dressed in the puffiest, brightest neon clothes and the sparkliest makeup promptly flip you off before gleefully running off into the sunset surrounded by a gaggle of similarly dressed friends. Santigold openly throws darts at the kind of figures that have spread like wildfire in the 1% of society—those who have the most, but barely worked for what they have: “I should ask but don’t want to know/How you get something for nothing at all/Build an empire for yourself/Don’t take this personal: go to hell.” Oh, it’s very personal, I’d argue. Whether that “something” is fame, acclaim, or money, it’s a smiling takedown of people who have never worked a day in their lives and yet earn more than the creative people who get less than the recognition that they deserve—somebody like Santigold, I’d argue, who has the kind of sound that should theoretically have been topping the charts since 2008, but most of her recent acclaim in mainstream culture was born and died with a namedrop from Beyoncé. Maybe modern pop can’t take more than one genuinely kind person with the creativity to match before the industry just implodes. She’s simply too powerful for them. Her talent is best spent on whatever she sees fit, recognition or not. And that’s exactly what “All I Got” declares—she’s blazing a path of her own, straight through the undeserving.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Your Plantation Prom is Not Okay – Kelly McWilliams – a story of one girl’s relentless determination in the face of small-minded, oblivious tradition.

“Take A Bite” – beabadoobee

beabadoobee recently announced a new album, This Is How Tomorrow Moves, out in mid-August! Is it promising? Yes. How about the album cover? Eh…compared to the cover for the single, it just looks like an outtake? Like they just snapped a picture while she was mid-sentence, put a nice filter on it and just called it a day? Welp…you win some, you lose some.

Either way, “Take A Bite” mostly makes up for the lack of a good album cover. It seems like a return to form—at least, of one of the forms she seems to have taken over the years. Thankfully, it’s the form I’ve liked best—the ’90s alternative-informed rock, with a dollop of slick vocals and production made for pop. “Take A Bite” oozes with tired dissatisfaction, with a minor key glossed to a sparkling shine, a coat of wine-red nail polish with a glittering overcoat. Kristi takes boredom and the dregs of an old flame with a sultry, heart-sore twist, drifting through her own imagination to make up for the color drained away by a breakup: “Indulging in situations that are fabricated imaginations/Moments that cease to exist/Only want to fix it with a kiss on the lips/But I think I might take a bite.” I suppose after “the way things go” (which I reviewed back in July), she’s moved from denial, dipped her toes in anger, and barreled straight into bargaining, making deals with her own mind to pull her out of this earthly plane. Her only sustenance is in her own head, and as she twists further inside, the instrumentals appropriately intensify, the background noise bleeding through the sheet of the background of sharp guitars as the unreal seeps into the real—or vice versa? The imagery in the music video isn’t exactly subtle, but either way, I love the shift between the bland, harsh daytime and the softer, sultrier nighttime worlds that Kristi straddles with a simple step through the alleyway. It’s sour and brittle, especially in the last, sore-throated mumbling of “do it all over again,” but like the skin of a cherry, it’s so smooth that you can’t resist at least one bite of the forbidden fruit.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

While You Were Dreaming – Alisha Rai – when a fabricated image and reputation falls apart, it takes the truest form of yourself to mend the pieces.

“Sugar” – Masters of Reality

Babe, wake up, NEW MASTERS OF REALITY JUST DROPPED?? MASTERS OF REALITY? For the first time since 2009? Wow. That wasn’t on my hypothetical 2024 bingo card.

Either way, they returned from their 15 year extended hiatus with “Sugar” in early May, much to the surprise of…well, everyone. I haven’t followed them closely, but I thought that they’d all but disappeared from the face of the music scene. In the YouTube description, it’s followed up with a promise of a new album (?) but they haven’t revealed much else save for that and some ongoing European tour dates this summer. According to an interview with Louder, Chris Goss said that “Sugar” has been forming since the late ’90s, and it came into being out a desire to “become less esoteric and more directly personal.” Which…okay. Again, I’m not terribly familiar with the band beyond Sunrise on the Sufferbus (now that’s a top 10 album title right there), but “esoteric” is not among the words I’d use to describe the Masters of Reality. Musically? Not necessarily. It’s not the kind of music I’d expect for a pretentious music bro to go “you just don’t get it” to—a lot of standard blues rhythms, and not the kind of odd time signatures or chord combinations that might sound esoteric. And the lyrics? Does a song about a bitey but lovable cat really scream “esoteric?” It’s great! I’d even call it the perfect theme song for my cat. But esoteric it is not. I’m not Chris Goss, but I can’t help but be confused. Either way, I applaud the desire to be more personal for his music—it never hurts to write from the heart. Good on you, man.

Neither complex lyrics nor complex music are things I’d put as hallmarks for the band’s sound, but they do have an uncanny ability to make their music sound so neatly consuming. “100 Years (Of Tears To The Wind)” (another top 10 song title) feels like a wave curling into itself, with instrumentals that don’t just circle, but drown you as they do so—it’s a neat rhythm, but one made to swallow you, not unlike the soundscapes of Spiritualized. When my dad reintroduced us to this song to my brother and I a few years back, we all kept marveling about even though every aspect of this song was so simplistic, it was just so wholly effective in what it does. How does a song with lyrics like “I move, like syrup slow/I move, I didn’t know” feel as powerful as a full orchestra? No matter the personal changes that Goss has vowed to make in his music, I’m glad he stuck that quality; though “Sugar” has a slow, steady build, but by the time the chorus hits you, you’re caught in a swirling riptide of distorted guitars, strings, and chimes, building like a tornado in slow motion around you as your feet remain planted on the ground. The lyrics themselves still feel simple: “Sugar ain’t happy, Sugar ain’t sad/But Sugar got something, and something ain’t bad.” And yet, the shift is easy to see—even if the word choice is more simplistic than not, there’s a clear story, and one that makes a compelling song. Although it’s unclear whether the character of Sugar is drawn from Goss’ personal life or simply fictional, Goss said this about the lyrics: “[It reflects] on intelligent women trying to find their place somewhere in the mess…a real picture of what real people feel. The inner emotional reality of one life and its relevance to many lives.” And that ubiquity is what makes the narrative work: it’s a story that conjures up images of a woman dead-set on paving her own path, however winding it may be. My mind goes to images of a woman alone with her car, filling up the gas tank as the sun sets, her mind wandering about where she’s been as she contemplates where her journey will take her next. That journey will be difficult, but “my Sugar don’t care.” There’s beauty to be found in Goss’ sparse lyricism—it reinforces that your word choice doesn’t have to be eloquent to tell a story worth telling or conjure vivid imagery. All that matters is the heart that you put to page—or song.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Camp Zero – Michelle Min Sterling – “Sugar got born, Sugar got raised/Left her hometown, got lost in a maze/Met lots of men, none of them worked/To just find a place where happiness lurked…”

“Sick in the Head” – Indigo De Souza

So. I Love My Mom. I only put off listening to it because of my tradition of drawing album covers on the whiteboard on my door at school. I know, it’s college, nobody cares, but I would’ve felt weird having skeleton tiddies on display on my door for two weeks, and I doubt it would’ve gone over well with the RA. So there you have it. But now, I am free of such shackles, listening to skeleton tiddy music at my behest.

But lord, what an album. Not only does it feed both my sad bastard and occasionally raw and shouty sensibilities, but Indigo De Souza is seriously a poet. The lyrics on almost every track jumped out at me like cartoon eyes, with that slack-jawed ba-zooooooooing as the reality sets in while I scrubbed my bathroom sink. School really is a better environment for me to process albums, because leaning over to scrub some leftover gunk from the mirror was not the ideal position to let “And there was no one home in that plastic box/In that widow’s womb with the childproof locks” set in. “What Are We Gonna Do Now,” which I reviewed back in March, is still the highlight of I Love My Mom for me, but “Sick in the Head” displays some of De Souza’s most bitingly vibrant poetry. Like…doesn’t “And now that house is gone/There’s a golden lawn/And there’s a silver spoon/Someone’s been choking on” hit you like a sucker punch? But beyond that, I’m so glad that I found this song when I did, because the lyrics resonate at this age. “Sick in the Head” feels to me like a journey through the bramble back to the past, but not necessarily of the painful memories, but the childhood ethos that’s been lost and found again: “Since then our bodies have warped and bent/And now we are gray/I go back to that house sometimes/To say what I need to say.” Whew, preach. It left me wondering how old De Souza was when they wrote this song, and…turns out they were around my age, at least when I Love My Mom came out. Oh. Wow. So I’ve never had an original experience in my life, huh? But I love the imagery of this space being an empty house, and going through some sort of thorny, vine-choked gauntlet to find the part of you that now retreats in a corner, ready to be received when what is right needs to be remembered. And the quest is set off by this essential problem of growing up: “We’re going cause we’re too damn old/And nothing’s making sense anymore.” Sometimes, it’s not the wisdom of age that needs to be consulted to put yourself back on the path: it’s the little kid in you, the one that didn’t yet know that they were being perceived, and just did what they wanted to. And it’s true. My art is truest when I ask myself what my younger self would have wanted to see. It’s so easy to dismiss the stuff that your child self pointed at and said declared cool as childish and the product of an unrefined mind; Sometimes, that might be the case, but too often, we overlook the merit of how much joy that reconnecting with that urge produces. I’m working on being less critical of my writing and art, but I try to think of how little Madeline would’ve thought of how cool current Madeline’s achievements are. There may be nobody home, but there is something beyond a body that lingers in that empty house: the essence of youth and love, that, if nurtured, will guide you to the light.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Thirty Names of Night – Zeyn Joukhadar – “And now we are gray/I go back to that house sometimes/To say what I need to say…”

“Oswald Opening Theme” (from Oswald) – Evan Lurie

I’m too scared to fully go into any kind of mommy blogging discourse just from the horrific baby names that it’s spawned, but sometimes that’s what Instagram spits out for me…for whatever reason. But in the age of iPad kids and Cocomelon, it’s comforting to see that some of the shows of my childhood are having a resurgence among new parents, particularly because of their low stimulation. In an age where kids are rapidly being fed…well, crap, basically, at incomprehensible speeds, and some parents have moved from using the TV as a babysitter to just getting their children an iPad fresh out of the womb (surely that won’t affect them 10 years down the line), some parents are reverting back to the lower-stimulation shows of yesteryear. Sure, not every single show in my childhood and beyond was angelic and perfect, and not every show now is ultra-high stimulation (I’ve heard Bluey has become gen alpha’s Blue Dog to Guide the Generations, taking the torch from Blue’s Clues), but I’m glad that the low-stimulation comfort that my parents raised me on, as well as some of the shows like Sesame Street that they were raised on, are helping kids this far down the line.

I’ve only seen Oswald come up in very few of these discussions, but I just remembered it the other day, and how quiet it was. It’s just so pure to me. Sure, Blue’s Clues and Zoboomafoo topped it, but there’s something to be said for how gentle and quaint it was. Comforting character design. Evan Lurie’s soft piano theme. Two British eggs who say “yeeees, yeeeeees” like some character that Blur parodied on Parklife. A little dachshund that looks like a hot dog. It’s just so…gentle. Thanks, Dan Yaccarino.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Good Night, Mr. Night – Dan Yaccarino – speaking of throwbacks…this one was a classic in my household.

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: 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!

Posted in Sunday Songs

Sunday Songs: 5/12/24

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Sunday, bibliophiles, and more importantly, happy Mother’s Day to my wonderful mama, to whom I owe so much in this life. My gratitude for you will never waver—I don’t know where I’d be without you. Every day, I only grow prouder that I’m your daughter.

This week: there’s no doubt about it…this is pop.

But before that: since I was deep in the trenches of finals hell last Sunday, here’s my graphic from last week, complete with an appropriately dreary color palette:

SUNDAY SONGS: 5/5/24:

Now, back to our scheduled program…enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 5/12/24

“This is Pop?” – XTC

I thought I had a healthy relationship with XTC. I thought my days of playing “The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead” on loop for an entire meal straight were behind me. But then this decides to slap me upside the head…damn you, Trash Theory.

Never has a song this indignant been so deliriously catchy…take away all the instruments, and it’s Andy Partridge yelling about how arbitrary categories are in music (reasonable thing to yell about, but please chill, dude, I can see a filling in your molar 😭). But it’s the most danceable indignant song I’ve ever heard—that aspect of it makes it uniquely pop, just as Partridge is content to shout in your face about. In a landscape where music critics threw terms at XTC to see if any of them would stick (punk, post-punk, etc.), they staunchly had their own brand of pop engineered with the genes of the likes of The Monkees, The Beatles, and The Beach Boys, and they had no other intention other than to make pop music, no matter which category the critics shoved them into. Even in the video, at about the 2:01 mark, Partridge has started to look like this recurring experience has pushed him to the verge of his own Joker arc. (“Ahahaha! Ahahaha, call us post-punk one more time, I dare you…”)

It’s a definition of pop that I’d like to think Jeff Tweedy would align with—when describing Wilco’s most recent (and very excellent) album Cousin, he called it pop (specifically art pop), but not in the way most would interpret the definition: “To me, pop music will always be the genre that people used to also refer to as “Bubblegum.” It’s sweet and seemingly meant for mindless consumption, but has a Trojan Horse-like power to transform minds and hearts.” Like them, XTC can crank out earwormy hooks for days, but there’s always something beneath it—Andy Partridge and Colin Moulding always had something poking out from the wooden slats of that Trojan horse, whether it’s skeleton liberation or [Jesus? JFK? Neither, actually]. And if pop was their mission, they had it down to a science—it’s got a stompy groove that’s virtually impossible to not at least try to sway around to. (Can confirm, as I had this playing on my laptop while sitting in bed the other day and the urge still overcame me.) Moulding’s bass constructs the slickest, shiniest jungle gym for the rest of the band to swing around in, and Barry Andrews’ lightning-fast keyboard work leads me to believe that he’d been possessed by the spirit of Rowlf from The Muppets. You can’t help shaking your hips—this is pop. This is also the perfect song for an impromptu, one-man dorm dance party. Methodically tested and proven by yours truly. Does wonders for your mood.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle – Stuart Turton – on the subject of Trojan horses of genre…man, do I have the book for you…

“Red Wine Supernova” – Chappell Roan

Apologies for missing Lesbian Visibility Week by [check notes] about two weeks, but this should suffice, right? Frankly, kinda lesbophobic that it coincided with finals week this year.

Remember what I said about mainstream pop not being my thing? I’m woman enough to admit when I love it. And have I listened to this an unhealthy amount of times? Absolutely. Another banger for dancing alone in your dorm to, only much gayer and raunchier. And honestly? I hope Chappell Roan gets huge. She deserves stardom—her songs are impeccably performed and produced (the amount of gleeful electronic hums and glistening tidbits woven in the background of this song should be proof of that), and she’s got a massive talent for commanding a crowd and coming up with the most deliciously camp outfits (and lyrics). But even if she doesn’t, I do have a testament to her fanbase: a friend of mine officially became an American citizen not long ago (!!!), but the day she went in to take the oath happened to be the same day that she’d gotten tickets to see Chappell Roan. When I jokingly asked her afterwards if it was worth missing Roan for, her answer was a vehement “NO,” and if that doesn’t sum up the loyalty of her fans, I don’t know what will.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Midnight Girls – Alicia Jasinska – somehow, I’ve never come across a book about lesbian magicians (somebody needs to write that), but lesbian monster-witches who eat human hearts are close enough, right?

“The Pretty Things Are Going to Hell” – David Bowie

’90s Bowie just could not stop cooking, huh?? On this track, at least. I’ve heard that hours… , which was cobbled from songs that were written for the video game Omikron: Nomad Soul, is less cohesive than some of his other ’90s output. hours… isn’t high on my Bowie priority, but dare I say that this song is pushing it higher? I might be setting myself up for disappointment here, but it can’t be any worse than…I don’t know, Tonight?

Or maybe Toy is a more apt comparison, the album that would have been released after hours… if not for it being shelved…then resurrected in 2021 as a largely mediocre cash grab. What struck me on a first listen of “The Pretty Things Are Going To Hell” is that it felt like a more chiseled, streamlined version of a Toy-era track. It has more focus—it’s got a target locked, and it speeds towards it with glammed-up efficiency and power. A collaboration with his longtime musical partner and Tin Machine bandmate Reeves Gabrels, it’s a clear callback to his glam days and some of his longtime collaborators during that era—the driving, Black Sabbath-like guitar notwithstanding, the title is a reference to both “Oh! You Pretty Things” and The Stooges’ “Your Pretty Face Is Going to Hell.” Bowie and Gabrels’ idea for the crunching guitar riff came from their desire to make “the simplest Neanderthal part possible,” which…well, to be fair, it is mostly one chord until the chorus hits, but I think it’s doing the power of said riff a disservice. It’s the bones and blood of the song, the meat anchoring down the swirl of percussion and electronics whirling around it like a blizzard.

“The Pretty Things Are Going to Hell” also had the potential for an iconic music video, but it was ultimately scrapped; directed by Dom and Nic, the team behind the iconic “I’m Afraid of Americans” music video, it would have seen Bowie performing live, but surrounded by giant puppets of four of his past personas: The Man Who Sold the World, Ziggy Stardust, The Thin White Duke, and the Pierrot from “Ashes to Ashes.” (The video linked above is the incomplete version of the video, containing only the footage of the real Bowie.) Said giant puppets were made by Jim Henson’s Creature Shop, but they were the reason that the video ended up being shelved: according to Bowie, “It was abandoned after we found that the puppets looked like puppets…it didn’t have the east European darkness that Dom and Nic had wanted to achieve.”

Bowie with “The Pretty Things…” puppets
Sleep Paralysis Demon Ziggy Stardust (left) and puppeteer Rick Lyon (right).

What’s that about a “lack of darkness?” I totally didn’t want to sleep tonight, thanks! But it’s a very poignant concept to go with for the music video. The fast-paced drive of “The Pretty Things Are Going to Hell” speaks to its lyrics, full of speed-of-light debauchery and living on the edge: “The pretty things are going to hell/They wore it out but they wore it well.” At first, I couldn’t help but almost be sad that that the pretty things of “Oh! You Pretty Things” all but ended up dead in a ditch, but I don’t think that was the end goal; the existence of these giant, hulking puppets of his past selves are proof. It almost seems like an indictment of his youth—not the optimism or boundless creativity, but the reckless, drug-addled, and often downright reprehensible (looking right at you, Thin White Duke) behaviors that he let slip. The choice of the personas for these puppets are key—you have The Man Who Sold the World at the very sprout of his fame, and by the end, you have the Pierrot, a visual symbol of him trying to break free of addiction through “Ashes to Ashes.” There’s no Jareth or Let’s Dance era Bowie in sight—as much as I rag on ’80s Bowie…at least he had a better outlook on life and a healthier lifestyle. At least he was feeling good. But the ’70s lingered with him for all of his life: “I am the blood at the corner of your eye/I found the secrets, I found gold/I find you out before you grow old.” I almost think that the puppets looking puppet-like would have worked if this haunting by his past recklessness was what he was going for—they’re all so gaunt that they look like specters, even if it wasn’t the “darkness” that he and Dom and Nic were going for. Cynical as it may be, “The Pretty Things Are Going to Hell” seems like Bowie reconciling with his past—it’s something he’s trapped in amber (or massive puppets), but they’re false memories now, a version of himself that undeniably left a mark on the world: larger than him in stature, but most certainly less alive than the person he was at the turn of the century.

This is a level of cursed I didn’t anticipate when I started writing this post

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Off With Their Heads – Zoe Hana Mikuta – if not for the fact that they’re already in hell, said pretty things would be on the fast-track…

“You’re still breathing but you don’t know why/Life’s a bit and sometimes you die…”

“My Fun” – Suki Waterhouse

It’s one thing to release a catchy, feel-good single, but it’s another to do that around a week after giving birth. Damn. A huge congratulations to Suki Waterhouse & Robert Pattinson on their new baby!

I almost wish this single was pushed back at least two months—partially to give Waterhouse a bit of rest, but also because “My Fun” is the perfect summer song. Or maybe it’s a gracious move: she’s given everyone enough time to add it to their summer playlists before the weather gets consistently warm. Either way, it’s one of the most carefree songs that she’s released in ages. Most of Waterhouse’s songs have been so meticulous and slick in their production, from the smooth glide of “Good Looking” to the sweeping, dress-twirling grandeur of “To Love.” By contrast, “My Fun” feels pasted from the same images as the music video—a collage of bright, silly imagery, cut-out pictures dancing in circles around each other. There’s bits of that “Authentic™️” raw audio here and there, with no sign of the sheen and polish of most of her catalogue. Instead, we’ve got an image of her that’s much more willing to let loose, unafraid to stumble around the place, even if it is curated. I never thought I’d see the day where we’d hear a recorder (and not just for a bit—it sticks around) in a Suki Waterhouse song, but I can’t think of many songs beside this one that make me think, “hmm, this would unironically be enhanced by a plastic recorder peeping in the background.” I guess shittyflute beat us all to that revelation, but that’s…much more front and center, shall we say. But it matches the carefree, poolside atmosphere of “My Fun”—sunbaked ease, with no worries plaguing you, save for when to set out on the next unplanned adventure.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Just Your Local Bisexual Disaster – Andrea Mosqueda – warm, carefree, and full of confusing love in unexpected places.

“someone to” – Adrianne Lenker

i won’t let go of your hand – EP is available exclusively on bandcamp—all proceeds go to the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund! Chip in what you can—the EP is pay what you want, so long as it’s $10 USD and up. Free Palestine.

I’m woefully behind on my Adrianne Lenker content—I’ve been so swallowed up in this year’s multitude of fantastic albums that I haven’t gotten around to listening to Bright Future, though I’ve loved most of the singles that came out of it (see 12/31 for my review of “Ruined”). It’s high time that I should—after all, the self-effacingly titled songs was my top album of 2023, according to Apple Music, so even if the data is screwy and that was just because I played “forwards beckon rebound” so many times in September, that ought to mean something. In the meantime, I bought i won’t let go of your hand – EP, since a) it’s Adrianne Lenker, c’mon, and b) any money sent to help Palestine is money well spent, in my book. The title is an apt one—the lo-fi acoustics make the whole EP sound like it’s being played from somewhere in a secluded cabin, which, given that this was the exact process that birthed most of the songs from songs, seems like a process she’d repeat. It’s a fruitful sound—and one suited for her personal lyrics. On the EP closer “someone to,” she speaks the lyrics as though she’s hiding inside of a cupboard, pressed against pots and pans as she rolls out her confessions: “Could you come forgive me? We get angry and hide/All of this lonely living, someone to walk beside.” Even if the instrumentals aren’t as intricate as I’ve come to know her work, the vulnerability remains front and center; “someone to” is a plea for forgiveness, peering through the dark to realize that all of the turmoil created from whatever relationship this song stemmed from has left her lonely. At around 2:21, she makes some percussive noises that, from what I can tell, came from thumping her fist on a counter or a similar surface—with the faint metal clangs, you can almost see cutlery and hanging pots rattling on their hooks, echoing through a cramped, wooden space. All of this adds to the log-cabin atmosphere that Lenker has mastered so beautifully—even if she didn’t return to the same cabin in Massachusetts that songs marinated in, she’s an expert at making the most of scarcity.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Infinite Noise – Lauren Shippen – “Could you come forgive me? We get angry and hide/All of this lonely living, someone to walk beside…”

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: 4/28/24

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

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

This week: holding back on my thoughts on my most anticipated album of the year and a movie that makes me angrier than I’d like to admit, but just for the sake of showcasing the songs I meant to showcase, I kept that short.

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS

“Sweetest Fruit” – St. Vincent

Sometime when I’m out of the finals woods, mark my words: there will be a review of All Born Screaming, because, predictably, I have Thoughts. But, in the interest of not making myself sound like a broken record a few weeks in the future, I’ll keep it snappy. All Born Screaming is a great album, but…not in the way that I expected it to be. What it isn’t, however, is the hard rock album that it was advertised as. It’s much less cohesive than I’ve come to expect from St. Vincent, but for the most part, the individual songs that were thrown into this unexpected stew are good—we’ve got the world’s most perfect pairing for “Marrow” (Annie I am BEGGING you to play these two back to back live), “Five Years” 2: Electric Boogaloo, and tons of other elements that hit you from beyond left field. It’s a mess, but I’m starting to feel like that’s almost the point: All Born Screaming is the musical form of a mental breakdown, and it certainly sounds like it. I swear that’s a compliment. Mostly. Some of it’s dissonant in a way that doesn’t seem all the way intentional. But that’s a discussion for when I break down the whole album.

For now, I’m shifting the focus to my favorite of the new tracks. “Sweetest Fruit” is, like the title suggests, genuinely delicious to listen to. The main synth line that anchors it balloons and blossoms like polyps, or a sped-up version of said sweet fruit ripening on the branch. In a quieter, science fiction world, that sound feels like an alarm, a reminder—maybe that the laundry’s done, or that your spaceship is alerting you to the fact that you’re close to docking at the planet of your choice. But unlike MASSEDUCTION, where such synths were the stiff, Barbie pink foundation upon which all the tracks were built, it’s woven through with lightning strikes of her signature shredding, jaggedly slicing into the synth-pop frame just when you start to feel relaxed. Now, for my token mention of St. Vincent’s godly self-titled record: All Born Screaming is far less organized than it, but sonically, this is the closest it’s been in a decade; it’s not fully glossy pop like MASSEDUCTION, but there’s plenty of dystopian franticness undercutting what would otherwise be neat. And the synthy, shiny feel is the perfect medium for, at least, part of what “Sweetest Fruit” was meant to do: for Clark, it partially functioned as a tribute to the late SOPHIE, who Clark has said that she “admired from afar” for quite some time. Most of the mention of her is reserved to the first verse and doesn’t continue, but some took it as capitalizing on her death; if the whole song was about it, I could almost see it, but it’s simply a retelling of a too-soon death; in 2021, SOPHIE fell to her death while watching the moon on the roof. I don’t mean to rush to defend everything that she does (because the album cover hasn’t stopped being tone-deaf, and I’m incredibly disappointed that she didn’t at least acknowledge that), but this seems like a stretch. It isn’t like this is anything new for Clark—what was “The Melting of the Sun” if not an extended tribute to the women who she loved and who inspired her, dead and alive? I remember hearing, back when MASSEDUCTION was released, that she’d scrapped several songs that were tributes to David Bowie; I can see why that would have felt like capitalization as well, since MASSEDUCTION was released a year after his death, but there’s something to be said for connecting artists across music, whether the other hears it or not—we are all indebted to so many people for the styles we create, as much as they are our own. And if there were any track to eulogize SOPHIE, it would have to be “Sweetest Fruit,” coated with the same, shining gloss with which SOPHIE made a name for herself.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Drunk on All Your Strange New Words – Eddie Robson – in terms of how I visualized both the look of the Logi and the sensation of hearing their language in your head, it aligns neatly with the globular, polyp-y synths throughout this song.

“The Dresses Song” – Lisa Germano

This song does in less than four minutes what Poor Things failed to do in two and a half hours. I’m not saying that I could do better than an award-winning director, but at this point…skill issue. Lisa Germano did all that without the gratuitous shots of Emma Stone’s feet as her character learns how to masturbate…at the mental age of a toddler.

Can you tell I had beef with Poor Things?

Now that I’ve got that off my chest, let’s shift the focus to a tale of feminine identity that’s actually worthy of praise. I haven’t listened to Lisa Germano’s debut, the ironically-titled Happiness, in full, but its clear from the start that she came here to make unsettling music, and that’s exactly what she made a career out of, as criminally underrated as she continues to be. Happiness, though steeped in solemn, eyes-averted confessions (see: the hauntingly beautiful “The Darkest Night Of All,” which I talked about back in October), hasn’t yet gone off the deep end in terms of said unsettling quality just yet—it would be another few years before we got into the “mom, come pick me up, I’m scared” atmosphere that came to dominate her sound. Yet “The Dresses Song” unsettles in its flatness and complacency. Not quite at the shivering, clenched waver that I’ve come to love in her voice, Germano instead sings much of “The Dresses Song” in a flat affect, dull and sucked dry of emotion. Amidst the bounce of tapestry-weaving bass, clinking tambourines, and the kind of folksy violins that would suggest somebody’s about to break out into a jig, Germano seems to sit cross-legged as everything happens around her, but never to her: “You make me think about nothing/It feels so good like that/You look at me so fragile.” Germano sings of the powerlessness of slipping into a loss of autonomy; like the doll’s head on the album cover, she sings as though she’s being dragged through the dirt by a child, dressed up and posed for tea parties at will, outwardly welcoming but inwardly dreading the surveillance of her body. Every repetition of “you make me wanna wear dresses” is uttered as a twist of the knife, convincing herself that oh, it’s not so bad, and yet her hollow, bird-bones voice strips the illusion bare—the illusion that, like in the music video, that’s she’s okay with being paraded around in costume like a child. “The Dresses Song” comes from a place of the darkest kind of complacency—the period where you’re stuck at the bottom of an empty well, but you’ve convinced yourself that the polluted water trickling down goes down just fine—at least it’s something to drink.

Isn’t it so lovely to grow up where every inch of your body is policed just because of your gender? Surely that won’t have mental repercussions further down the line. Surely, one Yorgos Lanthimos would at least somewhat understand that and realize that a) discovering one’s sexuality isn’t the be-all, end-all of what makes a liberated woman, and b) that said depiction of sexual exploitation was so constant and gratuitous that it became exploitative in and of itself. Surely.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Womb City – Tlotlo Tsamaase – “take me to your castle/it feels so good in there…”

“Some Time Alone, Alone” – Melody’s Echo Chamber

I’m honestly surprised that Noah Hawley hasn’t come across Melody’s Echo Chamber (that we know of), because…come on. This was made for Legion. It’s not even psychedelic inspiration anymore—it’s purely psychedelic in a way that’s not just trying to recreate a sound from the sixties.

Like Tame Impala, it just seems like the next generation of psych-rock. So it was not a surprise in the slightest when I found out that Melody’s Echo Chamber’s self titled record (pushes glasses up bridge of nose) was produced by Kevin Parker himself. (Did you know that Tame Impala was just one guy? It’s just one guy. Can you believe it? I bet you didn’t know that. It’s just one—[gets pulled offstage by a comically large cane]) “Some Time Alone, Alone” has distortion so thick that you practically have to wade through it with a hazmat suit—it’s hard to describe the atmosphere that Melody Prochet and Kevin Parker have created with any words other than thick. It’s like sticking your arm into rainforest greenery, endlessly pushing aside massive fronds just to find the pulse of light gleaming at the heart of the glen. Every riff and rhythm circles into each other like a diagram of an atom, forever orbiting the warm nucleus—Prochet’s voice, which has the feel of Nina Persson if she happened to stumble upon the blue drugs from Legion, suspended in the ether. It’s gone beyond sounding like the ’60s into something truly representative of how the genre has evolved: it sounds so modern, but never in a polished way. It’s a child nurtured by the ’60s, for sure, but there was no place it could have gestated other than a 21st-century test tube.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Shamshine Blind – Paz Pardo – lost in a tangled conspiracy—and the confines of your mind, brought on by artificially-induced emotions.

“Here Comes President Kill Again” – XTC

Nothing I could say could complicate this song or shed new light on it, really, and certainly not when we’re living it, and have been living it on and off at least since the ’80s. Probably further. XTC always seemed to be attuned to the needle of the social climate, and save for a handful of outdated political references here and there, they’ve stood steadfast against the battering of the waters of time. “Ain’t democracy wonderful?/Them Russians can’t win!/Ain’t democracy wonderful?/Lets us vote someone like that in.” Certainly feels like King Conscience and Queen Caring have been rolling in their graves for quite some time…ah, no, surely, we don’t need to put our heads together and solve pressing issues like gun violence, climate change, genocide, and a nation bent on killing its queer children, no way! We’ve got to call the national guard on the student protestors using their right to free speech to call attention to the horrific Palestinian genocide that our tax dollars have basically been funding! Ain’t democracy wonderful?

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

1984 – George Orwell – you could really slot this one in with any given dystopia, but this novel was the blueprint—and the dirge-like feel of “Here Comes President Kill Again” certainly fits in.

“Strange Phenomena” – Kate Bush

If there’s anybody who’s intimately familiar with strange phenomena, in whichever meaning you take the phrase, it’s Kate Bush. How else does one write the most horrifying song about being turned into a kite against your will and make it so groovy?

Most of my enjoyment of The Kick Inside remains dominated by “Them Heavy People,” “Wuthering Heights,” and the aforementioned “Kite,” but ever so often, another track rises back from the ether, summoned by the erratic will of my shuffle. It’s easy to lump “Strange Phenomena” into that very specific breed of early Kate Bush where it’s all swinging-from-the-curtains theatre, and…yeah, rediscovery didn’t erase that quality (see: the video linked above), but it made me remember why Kate Bush (mostly) gets it right. Centered around the concept of what Bush described as “how coincidences cluster together,” it has the starry eyes of an ingenue as piano notes rise and fall propelled by wind from a fan, made to make her hair billow. (Apparently it’s not centered around getting your period, despite the opening: “Soon it will be the phase of the moon/When people tune in/Every girl knows about the punctual blues.” The only thing convincing me of anything else than the period reading of that line is the “punctual” part. Punctual my ass.) “We can all recall instances,” she said to Music Talk in 1978, “when we have been thinking about a particular person and then have met a mutual friend who—totally unprompted—will begin talking about that person.” It’s an unabashed celebration of whatever it is, that unknowable part of the brain or simply a truth of the unknowable universe, reveling in the love that we can glean from ordinary things. I can’t think of a much happier outlook to life that Bush’s declaration that “we are surrounded by strange phenomena,” whether or not you believe that something is pulling the strings to bring them together. For once, the theatre doesn’t come off as silly or overly self-important—it feels like a calculated response to the joyous puddles that we leap through as we move through this life.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Shadow Speaker – Nnedi Okorafor – strange phenomena aplenty, whether it’s friends in unexpected places or the mutation of the Earth itself.

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: 4/21/24

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

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

This week: bright green to match the verdant buds sprouting on the tre—oh, god, not again, WHY IS IT SNOWING…

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 4/21/24

“Questions and Answers” – The Apples in Stereo

Note: this isn’t the official music video (there isn’t one), but it is in my eyes. Somebody just put this song in the background of videos of their cats in 2009. And they’re some friggin’ cute cats. I miss the days when YouTube used to be a simple, wholesome place…

I would have talked about this album…oh, a good three weeks ago, but I stubbornly made several color palettes that didn’t match Her Wallpaper Reverie at all, so I’ve regretfully withheld from it until now. Somehow, it was only the second Apples in Stereo album that I’ve listened to all the way through (the first was Travellers in Space and Time, but that was ages ago, so this felt like the first), and it’s just about the jangliest, summeriest (glad that’s actually a word) album I’ve heard in ages. By then, Robert Schneider and company had carefully chiseled their craft so that everything sounded like either a lost Beach Boys demo, some kind of space-age, robot dance break, or somewhere in between. (You’d be surprised at the commonalities between the two. They make it work.) You’ve got the cut-and-dry indie, almost Pavement-like “Benefits of Lying (With Your Friend)” on one end, and “Drifting Patterns,” a thicket-dense, borderline anxiety-inducing instrumental that sounds like it should be playing in the entry hallway to the space exhibit in the Denver Museum of Nature and Science on the other, but there’s no sense that either are out of place; strung together by a sprinkling of instrumental bites that clock in at less than a minute long, Her Wallpaper Reverie just feels like a showcase of the exact range that The Apples in Stereo are all about.

“Questions and Answers” stood out as a favorite for me—it’s squarely on the “we’re making the jangliest jangle-pop song known to man and we cannot be stopped” side of The Apples in Stereo, but you know me. I’m eating it up. It’s such a shame that Hilarie Sidney, their longtime drummer, left the band in the first place (but it’s understandable, given that she’d just recently divorced Schneider), but I find myself wishing that they’d lent her more opportunities for her to have lead vocals (see also: “Sunndal Song” and “Stay Gold”). She has a command of her voice in such a similar way to Schneider that they both could fit into any song he wrote; they both have a nasally quality that never grates—it just would feel weird for an Apples in Stereo song to not be nasally sung, somehow. But in this case, Sidney was the better choice to lead “Questions and Answers”; as much as I love Schneider, I can’t quite see him getting quite the same vocal sway and tightness that Sidney brings here. Maybe that’s because I’m having trouble envisioning him singing in the same key that Sidney is singing in, but I swear that “Questions and Answers” wouldn’t be the same without the way that she stretches the vowels in “moon” out like taffy in the hot sun or her unrelenting devotion to this song’s impressively airtight rhythm.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet – Becky Chambers – the bounciness of “Questions and Answers,” plus all of the references to moons and star maps, would fit right into Chambers’ cozy galaxy.

“Yesterday’s World” – Circulatory System

Yup. Sorry. Get ready for some more Elephant 6-posting this week. Sometimes the urge just overcomes me.

Elephant 6, in terms of its bands, tended to cross-pollinate quite a bit: chances are, if you take any given band from there, at least three members of said band will have been in or formed other bands on their own, also in Elephant 6. Jeff Mangum of Neutral Milk Hotel fame was, for a time, in The Apples in Stereo, as was Bill Doss (rest easy), who was half of the brains behind The Olivia Tremor Control. It branches inwards infinitely. Circulatory System was an offshoot of The Olivia Tremor Control, fronted by Will Cullen Hart, and…I hesitate to outright call it Olivia Tremor Control 2: Electric Boogaloo (2 Tremor 2 Control), because that really isn’t a complaint on my part. We need more bands like The Olivia Tremor Control, and we need more of their sense of…well, fun. “Yesterday’s World” is glee cleverly disguised as a serious, psychedelic shredder. Yes, you’ve got the churning guitars, but woven in between them is a chorus of young kids (who faintly go off-script in the background), a quivering assembly of woodwinds, and marching band-like drums towards the end. With the lyrics factored in, I can’t help but think that these childlike elements were stirred in to nail in this desire: “Yesterday feels/Feels just so far away/From these days.” At the age that I’m at, I’ve been frequently grappling with the same thing; now, more than ever, I am both physically and chronologically distanced from the freedom of youth, but there’s also the growing “get a job/move out/etc.” pressure of age and capitalism. Such a fun age. Time moved too quickly for me to grasp that those days wouldn’t last forever. I’m glad I tried to train myself at 18 into knowing that age doesn’t mean that the joy gets sledgehammered out of you the minute you become an adult, but it’s an ongoing process, and I’d be lying if I said that I’d mastered it. For now, all I can do is the same of what Circulatory System are doing: integrate those moments of childhood and freedom into my newly adult life. They have their chorus of smiling, jumping kids within their music, and I’ve got the battered copies of my favorite book series from elementary school on my dorm bookshelf. Yesterday’s world isn’t always out of reach, even as we must live in the world of the present. Keep the kiddo alive.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Psychology of Time Travel – Kate Mascarenhas – yesterday’s world has been reached…

“Jesus Came from Outta Space” – Supergrass

Seems that rock n’ roll, as a collective, has come to the conclusion that this is where Jesus has been chilling out all this time: as Robyn Hitchcock put it, “out on the rim of space.” Seems that Supergrass also came to the appropriate conclusion about how Jesus would feel if he were to see the state of the world as it is now: disappointed. (Remind me again of which part of the Bible told you to harass trans kids? Oh, you can’t find it? How strange…) At least, if anything, we can take this message with us, whether or not it’s delivered from Jesus or Gaz Coombes: “Love is all, love is tall, love is older than you/Love’ll talk, love’ll walk, love’ll speak up for you/Love’ll shake, love’ll wake, love’ll wake up with you.”

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The First Sister – Linden A. Lewis – I raise you: Jesus in outta space? (Sort of?)

“Kill Me” – Indigo de Souza

Through only a handful of songs, it seems to me that Indigo De Souza has mastered the art of being really, truly, messy. It’s not just messy through a few sparing, self-deprecating lyrics about how far you’ve dug yourself into a sinkhole of misery. No—there’s some of that, but if there’s anything that her music does, it’s drag you right along with it, in all of its exhausted, cake-smushing glory. Riddled with aftershocks of a breakup, “Kill Me” crawls along the floor on its hands and knees, snuffling for scraps amongst the rubble, searching for something to hold onto. Oscillating between said “kill me” refrain in its handful of variations and a poisoned urge to crawl straight back to the person who caused all this strife, it’s a song, like “What Are We Gonna Do Now,” that feels like a frozen time capsule: minutes after the phone call that ended things, tear stained, dirty-clothed, and desperate—for answers, for comfort, and for reciprocation. It’s a raw-throated kind of desperation, but one that replicates the feeling of looking down at yourself in your grease-stained shirt and asking yourself what the hell happened to me? There’s a sardonic humor in the way that De Souza declares: “No one asked me/To feel this fucked up/But here I am, fucked up,” an exhausted chorus barking out the final “fucked up” along with her. “Kill Me” moves along like paint spilled on the floor, seeping into the floorboards no matter how much you try to scrape it out, muddying into an ugly mess of what used to be good colors into the woodgrain.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Something Like Possible – Miel Moreland – post-breakup exhaustion and misery that leads to blossoming growth—and new love.

“I Miss You(r Dog)” – Addison Grace

Following on my unintentional train from Lisa Hannigan’s “What’ll I Do” last week, here’s another lighthearted breakup song. Unlike Hannigan, it’s not so much laughing through the pain, but this one laughs more at an aspect of breakups that not enough songs talk about—the pets that get dragged into it. It’s a fact of life: sometimes toxic people have really lovable pets. They’re innocent. They didn’t have to get into this mess, but here we are. Granted, it is slightly weird that Addison Grace basically treats said dog like it’s a child that he’s battling for custody over, but it adds to the humor. It’s just a silly song through and through, from the bait-and-switch parentheses in the title to the purposefully placed sound effects (“I’m sure you told all your friends that you think I’m a [dog bark]”…ba-dum tsssss). And for all of the breakup songs wallowing in self-pity, sometimes all you can do in that situation is laugh and fixate on the silly parts. Or, if you’re Addison Grace, get it through to said ex that their dog deserves a birthday befitting a king.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Radio Silence – Alice Oseman – this one isn’t specific to this book, but more Oseman’s larger universe—given how much music seems to inform her creative process, this song is just begging to be included somewhere in it. Feels in line with her penchant for cheery but emotional indie pop.

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: 4/14/24

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Sunday, bibliophiles!

This week: only one question remains…can you dig it?

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 4/14/24

“What’ll I Do” – Lisa Hannigan

A small but vibrant joy of life: songs coming back to you when you least expect them to. Not long ago, I just had a fleeting memory of the chorus, and so I went back through Passenger to try and find the exact song (because I was not about to google “Lisa Hannigan song that goes oh oh oh oh eh eh ah ah ah eh eh”). Luckily, it didn’t take much digging, and now I have this parcel of dancing happiness.

One of the top YouTube comments on the music video for “What’ll I Do” calls this song “the happiest sad song ever,” and there’s really no other way to describe it. Lisa Hannigan does have a penchant for belting out her melancholy, but this one somehow feels happy, even though it’s about a breakup; the lyrics are like watching an slapstick comedy where miserable event after comically miserable event starts crashing down on the protagonist (“What’ll I do now that you’re gone?/My boat won’t row, my bus doesn’t come/And I have the fingers, you’ve got the thumb”), but somehow, they’re smiling through the pain, and clicking their heels for the heck of it. “What’ll I Do” sits squarely at the point where so many bad things have happened to you that you just have to laugh—there’s no use in being miserable anymore, so why not just have a laugh at yourself and do a silly little dance? And Hannigan has juiced that emotion out in barrels, making this circus of bad luck into a full-on show, a folksy singalong that’s begging for a line of cheerful dancers. I wouldn’t complain about that for the music video, but the one that we do have is hilariously fitting as well—seemingly filmed from a phone, the whole video is Hannigan singing the song while on a rollercoaster; the camera shakes incessantly, and she has to break the lip sync at least twice just so she can grab her hat before it flies away. (I get it. We’ve all been there. Currently thinking about this Hello Kitty baseball cap that fell off while I went to Legoland that one time. I never forgot about you…) Like the lyrics, it’s a rollercoaster that’s already dragged you around and thrown you up in the air, making you want to puke, but there’s nothing left to do but have a laugh until the ordeal is over.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Reggie and Delilah’s Year of Falling – Elise Bryant – the story of a distant crush told through holidays, all while reconciling with current relationships gone stale and grappling with changing feelings.

“Dust Bunny” – Crumb

Crumb? Making somewhat uptempo music? It’s more likely than you think.

…I actually mean that seriously, for once. Other than a handful of songs off of their last album, Ice Melt, Crumb has been known for their calm—gentle, electronic dream-pop melodies that drifted along like the bubbles in a can of soda, and tasted of that same sweetness. At least, that’s how I think of their music—in the past few years, they’ve been the band that my mom puts on when she needs to focus on her (incredible!) art, or just do some cleaning—any task that necessitates some calming of the brain. Crumb have recently announced the release of their third album, AMAMA, which is set to release just over a month from now (!!)—May 17. I initially missed “Dust Bunny” when it was released as a single last year, but now that I’ve listened to it alongside “AMAMA” and “Crushxd,” it seems like some sort of shift is on the way for the band…even if it is just the tempo. “Dust Bunny” has picked up the pace, letting the drums take the wheel as the frantic energy blossoms from the (always plentiful) synths. As evidenced by the underwater-sounding effects on both the instrumentation and Lila Ramani’s voice, they’ve never lost that wooziness that coated their earlier songs like syrup (see “Locket”), but the molasses has melted enough to allow for their constant wiggling to speed up. The lyrics, too, feel like a far cry from “I don’t have class/Got a lot of time on my hands/To sit, wait around…”; just as with the music, Ramani recalls a vignette of panic and guilt: “You’re seeing a ghost/Can’t undo what’s been done/Forever no more/Stacks of clothing fill your room, you/Can’t find one thing to return.” Despite the spaciness of the synths, there’s no doubt that it’s morphed from danceable upbeat to the kind of upbeat that’s only so because it soundtracks the search for your sprinting around the house to try and find your keys 5 minutes after you were supposed to leave for work; or, if we’re sticking to the metaphor, trying to get that one dust bunny out of your dorm before your RA comes to do a room inspection so that they don’t think you’ve been living in a pigsty this whole time. But that panic never overwhelms the music—being so cloaked in color-changing mist and melting shapes as it is, it’s still the same ol’ Crumb deep down.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

And Other Mistakes – Erika Turner – reconciling with the weight of your past actions and other people’s perceptions takes center stage in this novel.

“Can U Dig It?” – Pop Will Eat Itself

Yet another infectious earworm that I have my dad to thank for, and also, I can definitively say that I’ve found it: my favorite band name. I mean, come on. Pop Will Eat Itself? How true is that? And doesn’t it just sound so cool as a name?

If you’re expecting their songs to be a meditation on the nature of pop, as their band name is, I’m not entirely sure if you’d be satisfied. Granted, I’ve only heard two of their songs (including this one—check out “X, Y, & Zee” for more), and neither of them concern their lyrics with such things. What they’ve got is something far superior: four and a half minutes of listing off comics, movies, TV shows, and bands that they like—sorry, dig. And it’s a blast. Aside from the fact that I never anticipated Alan Moore ever being directly referenced in a song, it’s just a catchy, synthy, fandom-fest—I’m surprised that this hasn’t been accepted as some kind of comic con anthem. Plus, there’s the enhancement of the music video, in all of its terrible ’80s CGI glory—lots of old TV sets floating around in the ether and the band members superimposed over panels from Watchmen and The Killing Joke. It’s the nerdiest club banger I’ve ever heard. What else is there to say? It slaps. Glad we can formally acknowledge that Alan Moore knows the score.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

…well, pretty much anything that they mention in this song: The song is basically a reading list in and of itself, so…

“Poo Pants” – Cyriak

It’s a metaphor for capitalism.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The YouTube description: Marx who?

“Somebody Up There Likes Me” – David Bowie

And that’s another Bowie album for the books! As…incapacitated as he was during that period, Young Americans feels like the first album of proof of how easily it came to Bowie to slither in and out of genres as easily as most people stroll through an open door. It oozes with slickness—somewhere in my mental periphery, this album exists solely in a smoky nightclub as midnight ticks by, clammy with warmth and blasting with saxophones. Personally, sometimes the sax went on a little too long for my liking (see “Win”), but for the most part, Bowie knew exactly how much to smear about—and make it sound deliciously raw and sultry.

But sultry isn’t all that the album boasts—Bowie always has something clever and meditative up his sleeve. Fresh off of Diamond Dogs, which was full of the proposed contents for a musical version of George Orwell’s 1984 which he never got to make, Bowie had Big Brother on the brain; the kind of theatricality that what I’ve listened to of Diamond Dogs suits a musical well, but as he turned his genre gaze to soul, it almost feels like he had that sultry quality in mind and turned it into deliberate deception. The subject of “Somebody Up There Likes Me” is the sleaziest of the sleazy—a politician who seems to float amongst his subjects without any fear of retribution: “He’s everybody’s token, on everybody’s wall/Blessing all the papers, thanking one and all/Hugging all the babies, kissing all the ladies/Knowing all that you think about from writing on the wall.” As the saxophone howls, Bowie’s fictional figure struts through the street, stopping once in a while to sweep a woman up into his arms and plant a kiss on her cheek. But every act of generosity is an empty one—this is someone grooming the public along with his own image, putting on a show of authenticity just to get them to cough up the spare change from their pockets. Bowie sums it up in the bridge: “Was a way when we were young, that/Any man was judged by what he’d done, but/Now you’ve pick them on the screen (What they look like).” Fresh off the heels of Nixon, I’m sure this was already closer to the political climate than most people wanted to admit, but I can’t help but think of how this has only been exacerbated—and not just in the 21st century. We got Reagan only a handful of years after Young Americans was released (there’s a “savage son of the TV tube” for you), and the cycle has only repeated itself in the years since. But for me, the genius in this song isn’t necessarily about the message, timely as it continues to be; this song could have been put in any of his albums, but having it on Young Americans makes the sleaze glow like neon. Setting this politician against the backdrop of a distinctly American sound, something that comes off so howling and genuine, encapsulates that political climate disturbingly well—a façade of a clean-cut, American man of the people with charm and sex appeal, but with all manner of evils stowed just out of reach of the cameras. The soundscape of Young Americans begs for some kind of old Hollywood love story, and Bowie knew it—and he took that atmosphere to its most perverse extreme just to make it ring true.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Some Desperate Glory – Emily Tesh – skeevy politicians persist into the future…

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: 4/7/24

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

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

This week:

Choose the best answer: You can blow with:

a) This

b) That

c) Us

d) All of the above

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 4/7/24

“Flea” – St. Vincent

Affirmation of the week: I have listened to this song a healthy amount of times. At least I didn’t pull the “listen but nothing but this song for almost four hours straight” stunt that I did with “Broken Man.” See? I’m better now. I’m savoring this one, and by “savoring,” I mean “listening to it slightly less, but still putting it on repeat for at least half an hour when it comes on shuffle.” What new St. Vincent does to an mf.

“Broken Man” is shining proof that All Born Screaming has a good chance of being my album of the year, but somehow, Annie Clark outdid herself even more with this latest single. I’m glad that “Broken Man” and “Flea” are tracks three and four on the album, respectively; even past the fact that they fit so slickly together, I like the idea that the title and closing tracks are a secret—she’s got something insane up her sleeve. I can just tell. After “Broken Man”‘s torrent of fury, vengeance, and Dave Grohl’s drumming, “Flea” makes the transition into the outright bloody—not bloody in the sense of the trail of destruction that “Broken Man” left, but in the sense of parasitism. Clark described the upcoming All Born Screaming as being bred in “That kind of isolation [that] breeds paranoia and loneliness…loneliness can breed violence.” Now I can see exactly where the whole “post-plague pop” label she stuck on it comes from. “Flea” slinks along on tiny, pointed legs, thrumming with a racing heartbeat and an insatiable thirst for blood; the repetition of “Once I’m in, you can’t get rid of me” is sung lower and raspier, a threat paired with a predatory lick of the lips. The kind of loneliness and violence Clark described seems to be exactly where this kind of sinister lust comes from—being isolated for so long could easily make love turn to lust, and lust consequently to hunger, so drained of human touch that what was once affection has become leeching for nutrients at the other person’s expense. And everything about “Flea” sounds frighteningly hungry, down to the parched-throat rasp with which Clark delivers the verses. When she ends verse two with a dried-out confession of “I look at you, and all I see is meat,” followed by a faint belch in the background, I suddenly got the feeling that I was being watched by something waiting to tear me limb from limb and suck me dry. It’s intense, but it’s the kind of intoxicating thrill ride that I’ve taken with Clark for nearly ten years. And the chorus finds the narrator covered in someone else’s blood, begging for just one more bite; the desperation sloughs off like a second skin, every blood-soaked belt starved and howling. It’s a kind of visceral musicianship that I haven’t seen from St. Vincent in years; although Daddy’s Home was certainly raw, it was the kind of raw you get from getting someone enough wine to spill about their childhood trauma and laugh it off. All Born Screaming is about as raw as flesh itself—it’s all the clearer that Clark has no intention of pulling punches, and that’s exactly what makes a St. Vincent song so iconic. “Rattlesnake” and “Severed Crossed Fingers” don’t illicit waves of emotion in me for nothing—they’re hearts laid bare in the street. In other words: Clark is at her best when she’s herself. Should be a given, but it’s more evident in some albums than others.

God, April 26th can’t come any sooner…

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Hell Followed With Us – Andrew Joseph White – depending on how All Born Screaming goes, I might preemptively merge this with “Hell Is Here”…

“Tonight” – TV on the Radio

Aaaaaaaaaand, that’s one more album on the Sisyphean Album Bucket List. Between the “Wolf Like Me” (the best song there is about werewolves after this), the deeply moving “Province” with its David Bowie feature (YOU HEARD ME!!), and this, I now know that Return to Cookie Mountain has to make its way into the rotation. I have Chelsea Wolfe to thank for this one; at her fantastic show at the Gothic Theater in March, she played this before the show—I wouldn’t be surprised if she was a fan before, but I suspect that it’s a kind of thank you to the fantastic Dave Sitek, who produced her truly fantastic new album, She Reaches Out To She Reaches Out To She. Also, with a title like Return to Cookie Mountain, I feel like I just have to listen.

What “Tonight” made me realize about TV on the Radio is how effectively—and quickly—they can craft an atmosphere. Some of the most layered ones I can think of are from their early career, namely the first version of “Staring at the Sun” that appeared on their debut EP, Young Liars. Instead of the shorter version that made the cut for Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes, this one has a thirty second intro (that feels longer, honestly) that consists of just the a cappella vocals of the band, interspersed with an excerpt from a Spanish-speaking radio station. Even though the chatter on the radio station seems cheerful and singsong, the drawn-out gives it a prolonged air of foreboding and sorrow to come, like the next thing we hear will be the somber announcement of someone’s death. Thankfully, that doesn’t happen, but the first lyrics we hear on the heels of that are “Cross the street from your storefront cemetery,” which, bam. That’s how you start a song. When it comes to both of those aspects, “Tonight” operates in a similar way, creating an atmosphere that’s haunting before the instruments even kick in. With the whine of a distant siren and the ever-so-slightly distorted collision of wind chimes, “Tonight” instantly transports you to a place of brown grass and barren vastness, pockmarked by dead trees strung with glass bottles and the faint sounds of the road in the distance. The music seems to lumber with every step, a beleaguered creature that lurches with every step, as if its limbs are tied down with the wind chimes you hear tinkling throughout the song. Hollow whistles harmonize with a moaning clarinet and Tunde Adebimpe’s clarion call of a voice, all at once ragged and brimming with vitality. A fair amount of the buzz surrounding TV on the Radio when they got their start were vocals comparisons of his to Peter Gabriel, and it’s an apt one—they have a similar quality of being roughly visceral, but booming with emotion. Dave Sitek is also credited with “magic” on this song, which I cannot find a musical definition for the life of me, but if there’s anything that you would credit the man for, it’s that. He has the touch.

I often get so caught up in the atmosphere that I only mine the lyrics later, but the lyrics in “Tonight” pop out so prominently on the first listen; as the wind chimes huddle for warmth, Tunde Adebimpe’s voice cuts through them like a steak knife through fabric—”My mind is like an orchard/Clustered in frozen portraits.” How does this man do it? Every single line in this song is a literary gem in and of itself, and it’s not just because of the repeated references to Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Telltale Heart”—like heartbeats rumbling through flimsy floorboards, the lyrics never fail to send chills up my spine: “Her rusty heart starts to whine/In its tell tale time.” My rusty heart sure does whine whenever those lyrics wash over me. And like the sparse nature of the atmosphere, the lyrics tell of a spare mental space, one so full of sorrow and unpleasant memories that, like the telltale heart, cannot be pushed from the mind. The song still haunts me in a largely melancholy way, but it has an uplifting sentiment at its heart. I can’t help but think of Soundgarden’s “The Day I Tried to Live” and its similar atmosphere of doom, but its lyrical heart being the fact that despite all of the horrible things crashing down around you, there will always be something left to live for, so all you can do is push through. Adebimpe’s sentiment feels like wading through a slurry of unpleasantness that never seems to end (“Blossoms that bloom so fine, just to drop from the vine/I’ve seen them all tonight), but he makes the light at the end of the tunnel shine as bright as it can: “The time that you’ve been afforded/May go unsolved, unrewarded/Some nameless you cannot know, may be coming to show you/Unbridled love and light.” No matter how much you have to push down and wade through, never doubt that good things are coming. It’s something I struggle to hold to heart, but I’ve added this song as an unexpected guiding light. I can never know the future. It scares me. But there is certainty in the love lingering beyond my current time. There is always love.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Bad Ones – Melissa Albert – a similarly haunting atmosphere woven from swirling memories.

“the rot” – Dean Blunt

Contrary to my graphic, this is not, in fact, that well-intentioned but ultimately regrettable black square everybody posted back in 2020. My text box accidentally cut out the 2 on Black Metal 2, the only thing distinguishing it from the cover of Black Metal, which is…also just a black square. Gotta admire Dean Blunt for committing to the bit.

I stumbled across this song thanks to Arlo Parks, who chose Black Metal 2 as one of her picks on her episode of Amoeba Records’ series What’s In My Bag?, where she also talks about my bloody valentine and happens to be wearing one of the coolest Radiohead shirts I’ve ever seen. The songs she discusses there—“VIGIL” and “the rot”—serve as bookends, the opener and closer of Black Metal 2, respectively. Both of them have the atmosphere of a massive curtain thrown over your eyes—you’re immediately thrown somewhere else in a space that Blunt has created; no time is wasted in transporting you into his world. While “VIGIL” has the tidal-wave mounting tension of strings to prop it up, “the rot” is the last, gentle minutes of a plane ride home. It’s a distinctly sunset song: you’re slumped back in your seat, golden light is spilling through the window, and you have the sense, more than ever, that a chapter is closing, but not necessarily in a negative way. You can tell that there’s a myriad of different instruments, but all of them are toned down to a faint crawl, strings gently winding, acoustic guitars drifting away like insects in the early evening. “the rot” in particular has such a gorgeous vocal contrast between Blunt and guest artist Joanne Robertson; like Phoebe Bridgers and Jeroen Vrijhoef on “Garden Song,” what grounds the song is the stark difference, although that of Blunt and Robertson feels much more natural and less jarring than the latter. Where Blunt has the warmth and thickness of the ocean lapping over a volcanic shore, Robertson’s words float like the breeze stirring the water. Both of them drift like motes of dust into the air, closing out Black Metal 2. Without even having listened to the whole album, I can tell how successful “the rot” is as a gentle closer.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Echo North – Joanna Ruth Meyer – the frost, like the rot, lures you into the woods and makes you chase after old dreams.

“Weapon of Choice” – Fatboy Slim

Me when I walk without rhythm (I didn’t attract the worm):

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Dune – Frank Herbert – as is written.

“Satellite of Love” – Lou Reed

Ugh, I’m so glad this song came back intro my regular rotation recently. The outro did wonders for amping me up for my astronomy midterm.

It’s been about four years since I’ve consciously started listening to this song, but I’m sure my dad played it in the car long before that. But I’ll always love this era of Lou Reed, and you know who I’ll also always love? David Bowie. And Bowie, along with Mick Ronson (Bowie’s guitarist in the Spiders from Mars) co-produced Transformer, which has spent a woefully long time on my album bucket list. It’s smack dab in that early-’70s sound that I just live for, and I’ve already heard a handful of the classics from the album already—“Walk On the Wild Side” and “Perfect Day,” to name a few. But “Satellite of Love” remains my favorite thus far, and it’s not just because I collect space-related songs like a bower bird collects shiny rocks and trinkets. As with…well, almost every Lou Reed song, “Satellite of Love” is tinged with melancholy; it tells of love watched from a distance, the aftermath of a breakup watched from below like a stargazer looking at a meteor shower. The offbeat admission of “I love to watch things on TV” feels like an admission of what Reed thought that the relationship had turned into—just something to pass the time and make the eyes go limp. I can’t help but think of Lisa Hannigan—I can’t be sure if this was her exact inspiration, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the chorus of “Passenger” came from a similar metaphor of distant love adrift in the sky—”Oh, my satellite/Oh, my passenger.” For once, Lou Reed is the one that doesn’t sound abjectly in mourning—wistful, sure, but there’s still some light shining in the corner of his eyes, even if it’s just the reflection of a star. For me, the outro is what pumps just the barest pulse of hope into “Satellite of Love”—the piano begins to gallop, clapping and snapping dominates the percussion, and Reed begins a harmony with a wailing, angel-voiced Bowie. Reed remains anchored to the ground, but Bowie, naturally, ascends skyward with every note. There’s something about it that feels like he’s extending a hand from somewhere in the night sky, inviting us to join in the chorus.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries, #1) – Martha Wells – the detached observation of love (and humanity in general) is much more humorous than wistful in nature here, but we can’t deny that Murderbot likes to watch things on TV.

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

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

Posted in Book Review Tuesday

Sunday Songs: 3/17/24

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

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

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Despite appearances, you theoretically would not actually be able to pinch this week’s graphic for not wearing green, despite wearing mostly brown. Please give it up for Lucy Dacus and her green top.

Also, most of the songs this week are either bittersweet or just………flat-out sad, so…apologies in advance.

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 3/17/24

“Sarah” – Alex G

I knew it. I knew I’d fall into the Alex G trap eventually. My Car Seat Headrest-poisoned brain finally succumbed to another sad white guy with voice cracks and bedroom recording equipment. It was only a matter of time.

I genuinely can’t decide if “Sarah” is fully tragic, or if there’s some sweetness in there. The atmosphere that Alex G creates certainly leans toward the former; listening to this song is a blur from a car window, sticky with the humidity of the South as you drive past flat, dismal lawns and white-painted houses that have stood there so long that the paint has peeled and molded to brown in the corners. It dwells in a kind of dream-space where the narrator is hesitant to leave, knowing that the consequences will crash down upon them the minute they step foot into the less-green grass on the other side of the fence. Again, my mind has permanently been altered by listening to too many of the earlier, lo-fi Car Seat Headrest songs when I was at the tender, impressionable age of 14, but there’s an enchanting melancholy of the cheap distortion on the guitar and the synths that drift like ribbons underwater, each note trailing off like a thought unsaid. In a way, “Sarah” is a kind of love song, but with a love that’s overshadowed by the damning realization that you’re not the right person for the one you love. And yet, the narrator cannot extricate themselves from Sarah, wanting to cling to her desperately, but knowing that the more they stay, the more they’ll destroy her. It doesn’t feel like a self-hating, depreciating kind of awareness—it’s a crushing realization that the narrator really is, in some way, in a place where they’ll only drag the people they love down with them, against all of their wishes. That’s what makes it tragic to me; Alex G sings half of the song in a higher pitch that drives his voice to shattering cracks, and you can hear his voice break as he sings the line “she loves me like a dog.” The distorted howl of “did I make a mistake?” feels like it drifts up into a smoky, firework-scented sky as it dissipates into digital nothingness, an anguished thought birthed in the depths of introspection.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Man o’ War – Cory McCarthy – a painful and poignant journey of learning to love yourself and other people.

“Houdini” – Kate Bush

Two years ago, I doubt I would have listened to The Dreaming in full. I warmed up to Kate Bush’s earlier stuff more easily, but with the onset of the most recent season of Stranger Things, I was just kind of Kate Bush’d out, which, for a woman of her insane talent, it kind of embarrassing to say. I just couldn’t turn a corner without hearing “Running Up That Hill”—as objectively good a song as it is, the omnipresence of it turned me off. But two years, a listen to The Kick Inside, and more than a good word from my brother (the world has never seen a more fervent Kate Bush superfan), and I finally found myself here. I’m glad I listened to it now—even though my love for “Suspended in Gaffa” (still my favorite track) persisted through the summer of 2022, there was so much weirdness and artistry to the album that it was almost overwhelming—more than once it felt like that in a “mom, come pick me up, I’m scared” way (see: “Get Out of My House”), but overall, that was all apart of the package deal. Admittedly, I can’t fully get on board with all of it; as much as I love the lyrics to “Sat in Your Lap,” that song has irrationally annoyed me since I was a kid, and that quality hasn’t exactly faded—I wish it had, but it’s in the minority of songs that I actively skip on this album. After three albums, this almost feels like Bush’s Hunky Dory: the moment where she had honed her skills and image and officially started going absolutely bonkers.

One such aspect that Bush had nailed by the time that The Dreaming came around was channeling raw, untapped emotion; you can almost feel the bewildered, shaking tears slipping from her eyes as she is faced with something divine in “Suspended in Gaffa” and the feral release in the form of braying like a mule at the end of “Get Out of My House.” It’s overwhelming because it’s exactly what you’re supposed to feel—both of these songs are about separately intense and overpowering emotions, and I believe there’s very few musicians out there who can make that tidal wave translate from the music to the body. That’s already a feat, but given that she was 24 when she released this album…okay, I need to stop googling “how old was Kate Bush when she released [insert album],” because I inevitably get existential. Either way, it’s talent—and “Houdini,” the album’s grief-drenched penultimate track, is testament to that. Recounting the story of Houdini’s wife, Bess, who tried to contact him through seances with a code that the two had devised to ensure that it was him (“Rosabel, believe”); contact was allegedly made in 1929, but she lated believed the code to be the result of trickery from beyond the grave. It’s a deeply tragic story, and Kate Bush pulled no punches in drowning “Houdini” in sorrow. Soft piano dominates the piece, but when it isn’t demure and solemn, Bush lets out a mourner’s wail so convincing that I’d easily believe that she’s channeling Bess Houdini’s bereaved spirit as she bellows out “With your life/The only thing in my mind/We pull you from the water!” That image, of Houdini passing the key to his chains to Bess through a kiss, was what made it on the cover art—I thought it was a wedding ring for the longest time, but to be fair, only the round part is visible on her tongue, and the rest is concealed behind her lips.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Monsters We Defy – Leslye Penelope – romance, daring, and communicating with spirits beyond the veil.

“Objects” – Big Thief

Alright. That’s enough of the abject depression for now. Here. Sit down on the bench beside me. Here’s $20, go see a Big Thief.

I’d like to think that I’ve found out about all of these separate Big Thief songs independently, but in reality, all of the songs I end up listening to are the ones brought up by my fantastic brother’s equally fantastic girlfriend, so once again: thank you. If there was ever a song to describe this time of year—nearly spring, almost warm, and the grass is still brown but peppered with sprouts pushing through—it would be “Objects.” Each pluck on the guitar feels like worms and beetles gently crawling through crumbly earth, the shifting of tiny pebbles and dead leaf fragments as they bore tunnels through the ground. This was only recorded about eight years ago, but there’s already a stark difference in Adrianne Lenker’s voice; when I think of this song and earlier songs (see also: “Velvet Ring”), her voice sounds papery, thinner than thumbnails and soft enough to fold into simple origami. It’s gotten simultaneously more feathery, more feral, and richer with the years, but what I’ve heard of these first two Big Thief albums feel like time capsules in her vocal evolution. And like the springtime that “Objects” evokes, the lyrics are all about the spillover of love as it begins to blossom; like the same sprouts that push their way to the sunlight, the object of affection inspires the narrator to “[Leave] the familiar/Air is getting chillier/Stepping outside your skin.” It’s not just Lenker’s voice that feels understated—all of the instruments feel restrained and green, but it conveys that fizzy, bashful feeling of the beginnings of love.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

A Million Quiet Revolutions – Robin Gow – queering the Revolutionary War, and the blossoming of young love.

“Your Young Voice” – King Creosote & Jon Hopkins

I generally have Joe Talbot of IDLES to thank for a lot of things, namely the musical positivity he’s brought into my life, but I also have him to thank for finding this song. Recently, Talbot was featured on BBC’s CBeebies bedtime story segment, where, after reading the picture book Under the Love Umbrella, he listed off some songs to soothe children. This was one of them, and the minute I heard it, I understood completely.

This song is a very sparing one. In a sense, “Your Young Voice” is barely a song at all. It’s only two lines that repeat for almost three and a half minutes: “And it’s your young voice that’s keeping me holding on/To my dull life, to my dull life.” And yet, it tugs at the heartstrings more than some songs with a full verse-chorus structure of the same length. The lyrics are so simple, and yet, their repetition weaves together what a mountain of unnecessary stanzas do in any other piece; their repetition feels like a promise, a mantra—you get the sense that whoever’s young voice is keeping the narrator anchored, the only thing keeping them clinging to the end of their fraying rope. Repeated over these three and a half minutes, it feels like a prayer to remember why they’re enduring this life in the first place. King Creosote (a.k.a. Kenny Anderson…King Creosote is a fantastic stage name, if I’ve ever seen one) has a voice with a constant, shuddering waver that whispers over your ears like cold wind over the plains, and that waver is what cements that image of frailty and unconditional love for me. “Your Young Voice” is also simple in its composition—mostly acoustic guitar, with some piano that fades into the ending as Anderson’s voice dissipates into the fog, but this song is all about dredging the well of deep emotions from a place of emotions stripped bare: there’s no need for embellishment or flair. No matter if your interpretation of the young voice is a parent to a child or teenagers falling in deep (not the interpretation that would’ve come to mind first, but that’s how Sex Education took it, although they used a cover…not nearly as good as the original, in my opinion), this song is love, boiled down to its tearful essence.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Under the Earth, Over the Sky – Emily McCosh – not to double-dip on the pairings (it’s been three months, it’s fine), but this one is an even better fit, in my opinion—the bare tenderness of the father-son relationship at the heart of this novel was made to be listened to with this song.

“My Mother & I” – Lucy Dacus

When I was thinking about organizing this graphic, I was just loosely going off of looks, not necessarily what order the songs are in. That’s generally how the process goes. However, there are times where I end up shooting myself in the foot and then turning around and shooting the feet of everybody else who might happen upon this post. I mean…I guess “Houdini” or “Sarah” would been kind of an awful way to end this batch, but it looks like we’re bringing down the house with…Lucy Dacus ruminating on the complicated relationship between her and her mother. Real light stuff to go with your Sunday morning cup of coffee, huh? My bad, guys.

2019, the album where “My Mother & I” appears, is part cover album, part original material, each song released to coincide with a holiday—“La Vie en Rose” for Valentine’s Day, “Dancing in the Dark” for the shared birthday of her father and Bruce Springsteen, and “In The Air Tonight” for Halloween (Lucy, it’s a good cover, but…that’s the song you cover for Halloween? Out of all the objectively spookier songs that exist?), etc. “My Mother & I,” as you probably gathered, was released on Mother’s Day, and also to coincide with Taurus season—both Dacus and her mother are Tauruses, part of what the song anchors itself around (“The stars have a lot to say/About women born in the month of May”). It’s a beautiful song, but I find myself glad that I haven’t been able to connect to it fully; the relationship that Dacus describes with her mother, the distance and later connection emphasized by the fact that Dacus was adopted, is one that seems to be full of fractures, but scored by the love that ultimately tethers them. I’m so close to my own mother that it makes me thankful that, even if I had the aspiration to write music, the only feeling that would come up is gratitude because I have the honor of being her daughter. There’s a restrained kind of sorrow that hints at places where Dacus seems to have needed the guidance of her mother (“They called me an old soul/When I was too young to know/The difference between a soul and a ghost/I feared what was inside/Trapped in my body, kept from the other side/A spirit searching for a second life”). “My Mother & I” comes from a place of wistful rumination, but ultimately reaches for a sense of forgiveness and commonality—Dacus branches beyond the Taurus connection to a wholly human one—”We want love, warm and forever/We want to die in the presence of our loved ones/My mother and I.” It’s…ow. Yeah. I don’t know why I went into a Lucy Dacus song that I hadn’t heard and not thought “hmm, surely it won’t be emotionally crushing!” But in this case, the emotional core comes from a kind of forgiveness that has taken years to spread its roots, but has only grown stronger in the dirt with age. And it seems that the forgiveness is mutual, since she’s since performed this song with her mother on backing vocals:

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Our Crooked Hearts – Melissa Albert – forbidden magic with lineage through a flawed mother and a daughter left to pick up the pieces.

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!