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theeverlastingshade · 5 years

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Favorite Albums of 2019

2019 proved to be another harrowing year to be alive, but there was plenty of phenomenal music released throughout the year to help distract from the encroaching apocalypse. While there were unfortunately a few artists like Kanye, Chance, and Xiu Xiu that dropped absolute bricks so unlistenable that you’d be forgiven for questioning your fandom in the first place, we were graced with much better than expected returns from the likes of Fennesz and Vampire Weekend, a culmination of a decade’s worth of increasingly realized releases courtesy of (Sandy) Alex G, Sharon Van Etten, and Weyes Blood, a further sharpening of their respective aesthetics from the likes of Tyler, the Creator, Earl Sweatshirt, Kim Gordon, Solange, and Sun O))), and promising first impressions from artists like 100 Gecs and glass beach. Duster ended their almost two-decade long silence, Empty Country rose from the ashes of Cymbals Eat Guitars, the legendary Jai Paul demos finally received a proper release, and plenty of artists like Big Thief, FKA twigs, and Oso Oso that completely leveled up this year and released the best work of their careers to date. No matter what kind of music you’re into, there was plenty to enjoy throughout this year. Here are my favorite albums of 2019.

10. Anima- Thom Yorke

While his work with Radiohead has been consistently great throughout their three plus decades together, Thom Yorke’s solo work has generally left a lot to be desired. That all changed with the release of his third LP, Anima. The record is full of the skittering beats, sinister synths, and general feeling of encroaching dread as the bulk of his work, but the execution has never before landed with such force. Yorke was inspired to tweak his approach to electronic composition after watching some recent Flying Lotus live sets. He began to improvise with loops the way that FlyLo did while performing, and then he sent the files to Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich who parsed the arrangements down to manageable samples for Yorke to work with. The songs on Anima all sound familiar from someone whose been recording electronic music on his own for over a decade, but they’re each far punchier and allow for more space to develop in all their exquisitely rendered texture. Anima is the rare veteran record that leans into the artist’s sweet spot while introducing just enough new wrinkles to an established formula that it allows you to hear them anew.

Anima consists of nine songs that are firmly rooted in the sort of moody, minimal electronic music that splits the difference between experimental bass and minimal techno that he’s always trafficked in to some extent. What’s noteworthy here is how crisp and sharp everything sounds. The songs throughout Anima are minimal but memorable, with instantly recognizable melodies that waft unassumingly from a few synths and a sprinkle of percussion. Whether it’s the strutting bassline propelling “I Am a Very Rude Person” or the unsettling synths juxtaposed against the steady hi-hats and repurposed samples of children cheering from “15 Step” on “Twist”, or the blaring sirens and chimes that give a great deal of dimension to “The Axe”, Anima is a gorgeous listen at every turn. Every song here is produced superbly, with great pacing and a generous use of space that allows plenty of breathing room for every arrangement. Nothing sounds rushed or inconsequential, and the record wouldn’t work nearly as effectively if any single song was omitted. It’s the first release that Yorke and Godrich have put together that doesn’t sound like it exists strictly in the shadow of Radiohead or any specific genres/scenes of electronic music.

The themes of the songs on Anima are the kind of tormented, dystopic nightmares that Yorke has been writing about throughout the vast majority of his career. Nothing else is as explicit as “The Axe”, in which Yorke chastises some unidentified piece of tech for denying him the experience that he sought “Goddamned machinery/Why don’t you speak to me?/One day I am gonna take an axe to you” and in most of the songs on Anima Yorke conveys images with abstract imagery and minimal phrasing. On opener “Traffic” Yorke grapples with an increasingly online world gripped by groupthink and hivemind “Submit/Submerged/No body/No body/It’s not good/It’s not right/A mirror/A sponge/But you’re free” while on “I Am a Very Rude Person” he finds solace in the creative process “I have to destroy to create/I have to be rude to your face/I’m breaking up your turntables/Now I’m gonna watch your party die”. On the record’s most impressive song and centerpiece, “Dawn Chorus”, Yorke looks back on his life and questions whether he would be capable of not repeating the same mistakes if he had a chance to do it all again “In the middle of the vortex/The wind picked up/Shook up the soot/From the chimney pot/Into spiral patterns/Of you, my love”. It’s one of the most quietly devastating songs that Yorke has ever written, and a testament to his unrelenting, unassuming brilliance.

Essentials: “Dawn Chorus”, “Last I Heard (...He was Circling the Drain)”, “The Axe”

9. Basking in the Glow- Oso Oso

Oso Oso became one of the defining contemporary emo bands with their exceptional 2017 sophmore LP, The Yunahon Mixtape, and with their phenomenal third LP, Basking in the Glow, they’ve continued to heighten the very things that landed them rapturous reception with TYM. Frontman Jade Litiri is still penning the most absurdly tuneful melodies I’ve heard on any album that’s come out this year, and his command over songcraft has only gotten tighter in the years since his 2015 debut, Real Stories of True People Who Kind of Looked Like Monsters. BitG is a collection of 11 tracks that blend emo, pop-punk, and straight up indie rock into a concoction of warm guitar pop that’s as immediate as it is accomplished. Nothing on BitG is surprising or unprecedented in any way if you’re familiar with Oso Oso’s prior work, but the band has improved considerably on all fronts, and they’ve never played with such confidence. Few records that I’ve had the pleasure of coming across this year offered such immediate pleasures right out of the gates while letting the intricacies of the music slowly make their way to the surface after repeated listens to the extent that Oso Oso managed with BitG.

Oso Oso did little to alter their approach this time around. They’re still playing ridiculously catchy guitar pop that places a premium on melody above all else, but the songs on BitG are sharper, and more fleshed out than the bulk of their past work. The hooks are massive, and don’t sound like afterthoughts in the way that hooks do in so much music today, and are for the most part the main draw here. The compositions are mostly upbeat, and draw from each of the aforementioned genres seamlessly without ever sounding strictly beholden to one dominant scene or sound. Oso Oso are working within fairly limited parameters which makes the immense range on display all the more impressive. There are immediate pop-punk anthems (“The View”), urgent emo slow-burners (“Priority Change”), acoustic lullabies (“One Sick Plan”) and thematically timeless, immensely cathartic sendoffs (“Charlie”). Nothing on BitG sounds forced, or derivative, or anything less than a tasteful display of staggering growth. Frontman Jade Liltri doesn’t have tremendous range as a vocalist, but few vocalists working today are as consistently expressive as he is, and the melodies that he’s imbued these songs with are richer, and more generous than those on any other album that I’ve heard from this year.

The songs on BitG are accounts from someone losing themselves in the thrall of newfound love. They’re primarily upbeat guitar pop songs that perfectly capture that dizzying sensation of the honeymoon phase when everything is rendered through a warm, euphoric glow. But even the more straightforward sentiments are peppered with self-deprecating jabs that allow you to glean his songwriting from more than just the obvious angles, such as on “The View” when he delivers a phenomenal hook “My eyes lit up when I saw it/A way of lookin for everything I wanted/My eyes lit up when I saw it/The view from where you sit/And apathy, I was in love with it” and the last line completely alters the depiction that he’s initially setting up. “Wake Up Next to God” tackles the struggle to love yourself (“Maybe I’ll figure out what it means/When I mean more to myself”) while the title track deals with navigating complacency “And these days, it feels like all I know is this phase/I hope I’m basking in the glow/Is there something bigger I don’t know?”. Everything comes to a head on the astonishing closer “Charlie” where Jade comes to terms with a breakup and resolves not to let it break him “I know it has to end/We’ll just play pretend, pretend/Yeah, I think that’s fine/’Cause you and I had a very nice time”. Those lines perfectly encapsulate the ethos of Oso Oso, and cap off one of the decade’s most accomplished emo records.

Essentials: “Charlie”, “The View”, “Basking in the Glow”

8. Titanic Rising- Weyes Blood

While every Weyes Blood record preceding Titanic Rising was a perfectly solid release in its own right, few artists managed to improve on all fronts as dramatically as Natalie Mering did this year with Titanic Rising. TR is a lush chamber pop record that finds Mering composing some of the grandest, and most impressive songs of her career to date. With the exception of the instrumental title track and closing track “Nearer to Thee”, the songs on TR are sweeping chamber epics flush with strings, brass, and synths that congeal remarkably well under the weight of her stirring voice. The songs are paced superbly and never verge on overstaying their welcome, but are produced with such rich texture that they allow new details to emerge with each listen. Not unlike acts like The War on Drugs or Amen Dunes, Mering tapes into well-worn forms with immediate comparisons that come to mind right out of the gates, but the music unfolds in a spellbinding haze that renders those points mute. Although her music has never before swelled with such expansive arrangements, she still manages to imbue these compositions with her strongest writing to date. TR sounds like the culmination of a singular voice that she’s been honing throughout the past decade.

TR is a gorgeous sounding record, and there’s nothing here that sounds fussy or overworked. The compositions are dense, but the arrangements move with a sense of grace that magnify Mering’s sentiments without drawing anything away from her stunning voice. Songs like “Wild Time” and “Everyday” contain some of the sharpest melodies that I’ve listened to all year, and the way they emerge patiently beneath heaps of tastefully arranged piano, strings, and brass only serves to maximize their impact. Even on songs like “Picture Me Better” that showcase the closest that TR veers towards minimalism, she’s composing with a deft intuition that keeps the arrangements economical without forsaking a sense of wanderlust. “Andromeda” begins with a lumbering bassline and kick drum rhythm while acoustic guitar softly snakes around her slowly blossoming voice. Shortly afterwards a string section slides into the mix and a massive chorus springs forth from beneath the mix. It’s anthemic but rendered in a dreamy hazy, and it already sounds like a classic. “Everyday” and “Something to Believe” are baroque pop at its most immediate, the former deploying a jaunty kick rhythm, lush strings, and sun-kissed harmonies while the latter is a breather that features terrific interlocking harpsichord/electric guitar leads snaking around her soaring vocals. And on “Movies”, her finest song to date, her effect-laden vocals and warbling synths build to a transcendent peak before transitioning into a spell-binding string-led coda. It’s an incredible sounding coda, and not a moment of it feels unearned.

Even at the album’s most indulgent, (as on “Movies” which is also unsurprisingly TR at its best) the music still still brilliantly serves the narratives at hand. TR consists of 10 songs that examine the highs and lows of love through a distinctly contemporary lens. “Andromeda” begins with a reluctance to allow love into her life “Stop calling/I think it’s time to let me be/If you think you can save me/I’d dare you to try” before Natalie eventually succumbs to the temptation to not close herself off completely “Love is calling/It’s time to give to you/Something you can hold on to/I dare you to try”. “Everyday” finds Natalie lamenting the state of modern dating “True love is making a comeback/For only half of us, the rest just feel bad/Doomed to wander in the world’s first rodeo” while “Mirror Time” examines a periodic love without boundaries that plays out in short burst from time to time “Got a feeling our romance doesn’t stand a chance/Stand a chance to last/You threw me out of the garden of eden/Lift me up just to let me fall hard/Can’t stand being your second best”. On “Movies” Natalie is offering her ode to the films that she loved growing up that have helped shape the person that she is. She longs for her life to have the same sort of neat dependability as she’s come to expect from movies, lamenting the mundane realities that defines actual human life “Some people feel what some people don’t/Some people watch until they explode/The meaning of life doesn’t seem to shine like the screen”. Like the rest of TR it’s an unabashedly intimate yet grand sounding song that exemplifies the multitudes of Mering’s songwriting, and it’s as human as music gets.

Essentials: “Movies”, “Andromeda”, “Wild Time”

7. Purple Mountains- Purple Mountains

After over a decade since the last Silver Jews record, Dave Berman returned to music earlier this year and released a self-titled album under the moniker Purple Mountains. Purple Mountains detailed Berman’s struggles with depression in the years following the dissipation of Silver Jews, and a few weeks after the record came out he took his life. The music on PM is unrelentingly bleak on its own terms, but when viewed through the context of its aftermath it achieves an unbearable melancholy that makes it difficult to revisit. Berman has spent his music career as the mastermind behind Silver Jews penning sharp songs that use humor and wit to navigate the inner turmoil that’s plagued him throughout his whole life. Although PM isn’t a particularly easy record to digest from a thematic standpoint, I can still hear quite a bit of humor and hope embedded within the music that runs counter to the narrative. There isn’t a single Silver Jews record that’s anything less than good, but on PM Berman’s songwriting hit a new peak that showcased his singular voice in a newly refined, mature temperament with all the effortless irreverence that he’s provided in spades throughout all these years held perfectly intact.

PM is a jangly indie rock record that sounds like a perfectly natural extension of the music that Berman was making in Silver Jews, but it’s disarming to hear just how straight up tuneful this record is. Immediacy is not the first thing that comes to mind when describing Berman’s work, but the songs on PM are some of the tightest that Berman has ever penned, and many of them contain his finest melodies to date. “All My Happiness Is Gone” is a dead ringer for any kind of conceivable anthem for 2019, and when Berman sings those lines throughout the chorus against a stirring string section, rollicking drums, and a jaunty acoustic guitar lead it sounds far more like a triumphant admission of apathy than the sort of shrugged off platitude the words themselves alone might suggest. The following song “Darkness and Cold” slows down the tempo, but works in tandem with what came right before it as an anthemic melody swells up while he describes the experience of watching his ex-wife begin to go on dates again “Love of my life going out tonight/Without a flicker of regret”. The juxtaposition between the music and lyrics animates the record from start to finish, and helps offset some of the particularly devastating moments.

There’s no way around the fact that the record was written in the wake of the dissolution of his marriage. The struggles with depression and substance abuse penned throughout the record are commonplace themes in all of Berman’s work, but the collapse of his marriage happened in the years following the last Silver Jews record, and every song here feels tethered firmly to the end of that relationship. “She’s Making Friends, I’m Turning Stranger” finds Berman coming to terms with his innate introversion “She’s making friends, I’m turning stranger/The people on her end couldn’t make it plainer/Sometimes I wish we’d never came here/Seeing as I’m held in such disdain here” while closer “Maybe I’m the Only One for Me” suggests that Berman is able to find contentment in the admission that perhaps he simply wasn’t meant to be in a lasting relationship “If no one’s fond of fucking me/Then maybe no one’s fucking fond of me/Yea, maybe I’m the only one for me”. At its core, PM details the sort of weary acceptance of life in all of its difficulties that Berman has resigned himself to. There are moments of profound beauty sprinkled throughout his deadpan sentiments that hint at something beyond the veil of frustration and apathy.

Although things panned out tragically in the wake of PM, there’s a rush of catharsis that his vulnerability allows for that elevates the sentiments throughout the record to dimensions beyond the sort of gloomy, one-note rock of which it runs parallel to the pantheon of. Berman has always written with an unflinchingly honest gaze at himself and the world around him, and while not necessarily portraying himself in the best light he’s always grounded in his genuine beliefs. Thankfully, he hadn’t lost an ounce of his wit or wisdom in the years following Silver Jews, and his penchant for the absurd is kept well in check throughout PM. This is particularly evident on the album highpoint “Margaritas at the Mall” which finds humor by poking through the holes of the hollow capitalist complex “We’re just drinking margarita’s at the mall/This happy hour’s got us by the balls”. On “Storyline Fever” Berman examines the way we’re swept up by the narratives that we construct to examine life more neatly “You got storyline fever, storyline flu/Apparently impairing your point of view/It’s making horseshit sound true to you” and even on the bleak state-of-affairs- recap opener “That’s Just the Way That I Feel” Berman slips in some amusing imagery in-between his morose depictions of his inner torment “I nearly lost my genitalia/To an anthill in Des Moines/I was so far gone in Fargo/South Dakota got annoyed”. No matter the tone that he struck, Berman was always resolute in his openness, and thankfully his parting gift to us remains steeped in that conviction.

Essentials: “Magiritas at the Mall”, “All My Happiness Is Gone”, “Darkness and Cold”

6. Magdalene- FKA twigs

It’s been five years since Tahlia Barnett’s last full-length LP as FKA twigs, and in the time since she’s released the exceptional EP M3ll155X, directed several music videos, and acted in the film Honeyboy as the rest of the musical landscape slowly began to catch up to her warped approach to avant-garde pop. M3LL155X suggested a more maximal, mutated take on club music, and it now seems like a sly feint within the greater scope of her artistry in light of Magdalene. The songs on Magdalene rarely utilize more than strings, keys, drums, bass, and Barnett’s heavenly falsetto, with very little generally happening at any point in time. The vast spaces allow for her highly expressive vocals to emote more heavily than we’ve ever heard from her, the instrumentation is rich and varied despite the tight parameters, and she’s managed to make the most of the eclectic roster of collaborators that worked on the album. The album was inspired by the story of Mary Magdalene from the Old Testament, and in examining how Mary was maligned by her peers Barnett draws a clear through line from the cruelty women suffered as a result of conservative ideology from then up to the present day. The result is a deeply moving record about her experiences within a continuum of marginalization. It feels urgent but far from self-important, and cautiously hopeful without any tangible sense of real optimism. Magdalene has stronger writing, singing, and production more adventurous than the vast majority of records that I’ve listened to this year. It’s the most compelling and expressive release in her short but singular career.

Magdalene sounds like a perfectly natural extension of LP1. It’s more minimal, and sways with a more forlorn baroque undercurrent that propels her skittering electronics into warmer abstract shapes. Arca, Oneohtrix Point Never, Nicolas Jaar, Hudson Mohawke, Future, Sounwave, Skrillex, Cashmere Cat, and Kenny Beats are among the people who are featured or produced songs on Magdalene, but despite the myriad of people that contributed it’s still an incredibly cohesive record perfectly suited for Barnett’s voice. “Thousand Eyes” opens the record to a chorus of pitched vocals set against swelling strings pouring down from the heavens. The record gradually grows more pensive and moody as it progresses, allowing the Future collaboration “Holy Terrain” to sound like the most fitting pairing imaginable by the time we reach track four. Their chemistry is undeniable, and it’s a perfect bridge between the corrosive piano ballad “Sad Day” and the sleek synth rhythms of the record’s centerpiece “Mary Magdalene”. Unsurprisingly, the Jaar contributions and the OPN contribution rank as some of standouts here. Daniel Lopatin’s touch is all evident all over “Daybed” as a lone violin plays in the distance while a kick drum and synths collide softly. It’s the ideal ambience over which Barnett’s voice urgently sings of her experiences with depression. And the skittering keys coupled with the drum and bass assault that propels Barnett’s massive hook on “Fallen Alien” make for some of the most powerful and compelling music of her career to date.

Magdalene opens with “Thousand Eyes” which is the sound of the wall of voices signaling the disintegration of a relationship, presumably the one between her and ex-fiance Robert Patterson “If I walk out the door, it stars our last goodbye/If you don’t pull me back, it wakes a thousand eyes”. Magdalene primarily delves into the aftermath of her relationship with Patterson, with songs like “Cellophane” and “Sad Day” that touch on not being enough for someone “They’re hating/They’re waiting/And hoping/I’m not enough” and taking the chance on being hurt again “Taste the fruit of me/Make love to all you see” respectively. In addition to the songs that focus on heartbreak Magdalene also touches on the ways that women have been maligned throughout history on the album’s centerpiece “Mary Magdalene”. Here she touches on how women have had their achievements erased from the history books “A woman’s war/Unoccupied history/True nature won’t search to destroy/If it doesn’t make sense” and pays tribute to Mary by acknowledging her as someone who was maligned as a whore due to a misreading, instead of an equal to Jesus. And on “Daybed”, one of Tahliah’s most impressive songs to date, she lays out in stark terms her struggles with depression “Tired of my resistence/Smothered is my distance, yeah/Careful are my footsteps/Possessive is my daybed” over eerie synths and strings courtesy of OPN.

Despite the thematic ambition on display throughout all of Magdalene, it never comes across like an oppressive slog. It’s all too common for records with such weighty concerns to collapse under the weight of their subject matter, but Magdalene is never anything less than an immensely engaging record. The production is gorgeous from start to finish, and the restraint that Tahliah opts for allows the impact of her outre leaning sound design to land that much more powerfully. With nine songs across 38 minutes every moment feels like it’s purposefully building towards something transcendent. She continues to fuse r&b, baroque pop, synth-pop, experimental bass, trap, and avant-garde electronica into something only recognizable as hers. The pacing is superb and while the obvious peaks like “Fallen Angel” and “Cellophane” provide a great deal of momentum, the transitional breathers like “Mirrored Heart” are just as exquisitely rendered and deeply felt as anything else she’s ever done. Magdalene sounds at once both very much of this current cultural climate and completely out of step with everything but her own sensibilities. Tahliah has been in a class of her own since LP1 dropped, but Magdalene makes a much stronger case that she’s one of the most compelling musicians of our time.

Essentials: “Fallen Alien”, “Daybed”, “Mary Magdalene”

5. Agora-Fennesz

The music that Christian Fennesz conjures as Fennesz has always taken on a larger than life quality far greater than the sum of its parts. Through a combination of heavily processed guitar, manipulated samples, and droning synths Fennesz has managed to carve out a singular lane within ambient music that began in earnest with his 2001 masterwork, Endless Summer, and can still be felt deeply on this year’s Agora. Agora consists of four massive ambient compositions within the span of forty-seven minutes. The music is darker, and flickers with a discernable sense of dread that’s most reminiscent of his stellar 2008 record Black Sea. But tone aside, Agora is a singular record unto itself, and quite possibly the best thing that Fennesz has done since ES. There’s a sweeping sense of scale present in these compositions that’s notably grander than we’re accustomed to hearing from Fennesz. This is still unabashedly ambient music, but there’s a weight to these songs that lends them a more dramatic and unnerving disposition than the genre typically allows for. Plenty of compelling ambient producers have emerged this decade and have helped push the genre forward to thrilling new heights, but with Agora Fennesz proves that he’s still in a class of his own.

There are few producers throughout this century, working within the parameters of ambient or otherwise, that have consistently crafted such vibrant soundscapes that flow so effortlessly with texture, space, and undeniable melodic intuition. Despite not a single song clocking in under ten minutes they each justify their length through exceptional pacing, sublime sound design, and a palpable sense of discovery lurking around every corner. Each song on Agora is constantly in a state of building towards or coming down from some massive peak, and there isn’t a moment that doesn’t feel earned or purposeful. Fennesz gives himself just as much time as he needs to really flesh out each of the compositions, and we’re better served for his patience. Each composition consists of droning synths, loops of guitars caked in distortion colliding alongside each other, and the occasional reverb-drenched vocal sample. The tone of these songs are uniform in their remote temperaments, but the dynamics of contrasting textures that animate each are in a constant state of flex and offer plenty to unpack throughout the course of multiple listens. Like most of Fennesz’s work, there’s a warmth to Agora that’s unusual for ambient music, and even at Agora’s darkest it still sounds positively radiant. The sound design and mixing of Agora is the main real draw, and there’s a strong case to be made that it’s the best produced album of 2019.

Right from the moment that the droning synths begin to flare up on “In My Room” it becomes clear that this is going to a far more ambitious outing than one could have reasonably expected from Fennesz this far into his career. Much like the two great 2019 Sunn O))) records, Agora exemplifies the greatest qualities of the musician making the record on a grander scale than we’ve ever heard prior. “In My Room” gradually builds up volume and additional texture as it progresses, slowly blossoming into a massive wall of sound that seems to slyly live up the grandiose production of the group whose name likely informed the song’s title. “In My Room” builds steadily throughout the course of its runtime culminating with an enormous eruption that trickles out organically, while the following song “Rainfall” builds to a blistering peak of guitar distortion early on and simmers in a vat of field recordings smeared in reverb, and soft-swelling synth melodies peaking out beneath the rumbling of the samples. His careful restraint is felt throughout all of “Rainfall” as he teases another eruption that never quite arrives. The title track then follows suit, and continues in the vein of slow-burning, doom-laced ambience that sifts through a multitude of texture while it simmers eerily yet gorgeously for several minutes before transitioning into closer, “We Trigger the Sun”.

As “We Trigger the Sun” slowly drifts towards its majestic conclusion it ends Agora with the slightest hint of uplift, courtesy of calamitous, droning synths that envelop the mix in a bright haze. Agora doesn’t end too differently from where it began, and it’s remarkable to hear how Fennesz managed to wring such potent emotion out of such a narrow set of parameters. No two songs on Agora sound alike, but the pacing of each individual song, and the sequencing of the record on the whole, renders it a spectacularly cohesive listen. For nearly two decades now Fennesz has proven himself to be one of ambient’s greatest contemporary practitioners, and with Agora he’s continued to lean into his intuition for melody, atmosphere, texture, and tone, while trimming down his compositions so that, despite being unabashedly maximal, they still adhere to a purposeful sense of economy. Like most ambient music Agora necessitates your patience, and it doesn’t offer any immediate entry points to give a quick summation of what you’re getting into. But if you allow Agora to let its spectacular sound design wash over you, you’ll find that it's a pleasure to continuously lose yourself in its spellbinding current.

Essentials: “In My Room”, “We Trigger the Sun”

4. Remind Me Tomorrow- Sharon Van Etten

Sharon Van Etten has been releasing increasingly well-realized, intimate folk rock records for a full decade now, and with her fifth LP Remind Me Tomorrow she’s released what may very well go down as her magnum opus. Eschewing the narrow sonic parameters of all her prior records, RMT is a pristine, synth-pop record that’s brighter and bolder than anything that she’s released prior. The shift towards synths being the most prominent instrument in these compositions doesn’t fundamentally shift her songwriting the way that those sort of observations tend to posit. There’s still a hushed intimacy at the heart of her compositions, and the arrangements on RMT offer more texture and atmosphere than we’re used to hearing from her guitar-led compositions, but her approach to structure and songwriting remains recognizable to that of everything that she’s done prior. RMT is elevated, simply, by stronger songwriting and a heightened level of experimentation that Sharon has never really indulged in prior. There’s nothing that will rewrite your perception of her artistry, but it’s the most consistent and comprehensive testament to her greatness as musician to date.

What’s particularly impressive is how cohesive a listen RMT is despite such a heightened range on display throughout the entire record. All of her past LPs are cohesive, but they all work within incredibly narrow parameters. The album was produced by John Congleton, and therefore has an unsurprisingly massive sound that allows torch-bearing epics like “Seventeen” and “Hands” to tremble with an immense fervor that she’s never quite summoned beforehand. On RMT the downtempo, industrial-lite noir ballad “Jupiter 4” emerges right on the heels of the the synth-fuzz swagger of the record’s first single “Comeback Kid”, but nothing about it sounds contrived or forced. It’s easy to get the sense that Congleton may have encouraged her to step further out of her comfort zone than ever before, but regardless of the impetus the sheer audacity behind some of what she attempts here would be impressive even if they didn’t quite land with the impact that they do. The pacing is masterful, with comedown waltzes like “Malibu” and “Memorial” popping up after heavyweights like “Seventeen” and “No One’s Easy to Love” respectively. “You Shadow” and “Hands” emerge towards the end of RMT and each slowly continue to build up one final, cathartic peak before the serene closer, “Stay”. Sharon was well ahead of the pack of introspective singer-songwriters well before RMT dropped, but the vast gulf between her artistry and the bulk of her contemporaries has widened immensely as a result of this record’s eclecticism alone.

RMT is her first album in almost five years, and in that time Sharon has acted in the OA and Twin Peaks, she’s obtained a degree in psychology, she’s gotten married, and she’s had her first child. The album on the whole isn’t explicitly about motherhood, and the bulk of the songs actually focus on her relationship with her now husband, but that monumental transition animates every moment of the album with a renewed sense of focus and clarity. There are straightforward love songs like “Malibu” that revel in small details “I walked in the door/The Black Crowes playing as you cleaned the floor/I thought I couldn’t love him anymore” and some that are sonically more abstract like “Jupiter 4” that succinctly hone in on her emotional headspace “I’ve been waiting, waiting, waiting my whole life/For someone like you/It’s true that everyone would like to have met/A love so real” even as the songs threatens to collapse in on itself at any given moment. RMT’s first single “Comeback Kid” was the first indication of her sharp sonic overhaul while also hinting at the emotional stakes she was grappling with in her private life “Don’t let me slip away, I’m not a runaway/It just feels that way”.

“Hands” is a slow-burning, sludgy synth-pop song about getting over the small things in relationships that really don’t matter “Put your hands on your love/I’ve got my hands up/Mean no harm to one another” while “No One’s Easy to Love” illuminates Sharon’s reluctance to enter into another relationship with the ghosts of past ones continuing to haunt her “The resistance to feeling something that you put down before/But keep quiet of it as you could not face it anymore”. One of the record’s most powerful sentiments arrives on the last song “Stay”, with Sharon expressing how the love between a parent and child is a bond that will last a lifetime “You won’t let me go astray/You will let me find my way/You, you love me either way/You stay”. Her voice is calm but firm, and confident in the uncertainty about how the relationship between her and her child will progress outside of the love that she’ll always feel. It's one of the most tender and vulnerable moments in a discography with songs brimming with those descriptors, and it ties the rest of RMT together as a snapshot of what her life looked like as she transitioned into motherhood.

The highlights on RMT are immense, and every song here is worth talking about, but the song that's impossible to ignore, which happens to be the greatest song that she’s ever written, is “Seventeen”. An epic of grand proportions in the lineage of Springsteen epics of grand proportions, “Seventeen” slowly builds and builds and builds while quaking with a level of urgency I’ve only heard a few other times this decade. “Seventeen” is propelled by a motorik rhythm that underpins a delicate piano melody and a procession of blaring synths while Sharon’s voice increasingly swells with fervor. The song is about Sharon talking to her seventeen-year old self and trying to provide a sense of reassurance that things will turn out alright despite what she’s going through in the moment “I see you so uncomfortably alone/I wish I could show you how much you’ve grown”. As the centerpiece of RMT, it serves to reinforce how far Sharon has progressed as a musician throughout the decade, and RMT on the whole hints at a myriad of other compelling directions that she may take her sound moving forward.

Essentials: “Seventeen”, “Jupiter 4”, “Hands”, “No One’s Easy to Love”

3. Leak 04-13 (Bait Ones)- Jai Paul

Before June of this year I thought there was a very strong chance that I would never get to hear Jai Paul’s exceptional debut LP. After it leaked in early April 2013 all traces of it vanished from the face of the internet and Jai went dormant. “BTSTU Demo” and “Jasmine Demo” were the only songs that he actually released from the album, and those two alone suggested that Jai was onto something truly idiosyncratic. They teased a remarkably well-realized fusion of Prince, Neon Indian, and J Dilla with a lighter, more malleable touch. After Bait Ones leaked Jai went reclusive, but as the decade progressed you could hear the influence of those irresistible leaks trickling down into the entire landscape of pop music, particularly when sampled by de-facto gatekeepers like Drake and Beyonce. By early 2019 it should have been evident to anyone that heard those leaks that pop music throughout the second half of the decade had come to resemble a post-JP world despite there being only two songs officially released to his name. On June 1st of this year Jai released the leaks in their demo forms, sequenced the way that the leak was initially. Six years on from that leak, the demos not only validate the hype, but present something of a wunderkind who was years ahead of his time.

After an unassuming ten second interlude “Str8 Outta Mumbai” kicks off the record proper, and it becomes immediately clear that Bait Ones is a very different kind of pop album. Constructed from sleigh-bells, lazer synths, a propulsive low-end, samples of Ravi Shankar’s soundtrack to the film Meera, and Jai’s infectious, understated falsetto “Str8 Outta Mumbai” is remarkable for striking a simultaneous balance between sounding like a timeless classic and the future of pop music. Everything is layered superbly, nothing dominates the mix, and it’s difficult to fathom anyone arranging music quite like this save for Jai. “Str8 Outta Mumbai” is the best song that he’s released to date, and is well worth the price of admission alone, but it’s just the beginning. Following right afterwards is “Zion Wolf Theme Unfinished”, and it sustains the momentum of the former while continuing to showcase Jai’s intuitive sense of melody and rhythm and providing some meta-commentary on his elusive nature “Can I make you fall in love with me?”. The percussion is warm and jittery, and there’s the constant thrill of discovery at every moment as some new instrument enters the fold without disrupting the sense of flow. All of the songs on Bait Ones are beats that stretch the confines of pop music through the incorporation of eclectic styles, disparate genres, and the pervasive sensation of of borders eroding between different sounds and cultures. Nevertheless, Bait Ones has the feel of a plunderphonics record, with the sequencing in particular giving the impression that it was constructed from a patchwork of influences he plucked from in accordance to his whims alone.

The songs on Bait Ones all split the difference between art pop, synth pop, and r&b to seamless effect. Some songs are built around samples, but for the most part these are compositions that Jai recorded from the ground up himself. Aside from the intro interlude and the “Good Time” interlude, “Str8 Outta Mumbai” is the only song here that isn’t a demo. The official release of Bait Ones is very similar to the version that was leaked, with overall fidelity improvement and the removal of unlicensed samples being the primary differences. Bait Ones is sequenced the same way, but it’s clear that the overall mix on the vast majority of these songs isn’t quite finished yet. Nevertheless, the songs on this album are examples of pop music at its finest. The smooth bass and synth strut coupled with Jai’s sensuous vocal delivery on “Jasmine Demo”, the back and forth harmonies over flickering hi-hats and bright synth lines on “Genevieve Unfinished”, the gorgeous multi-tracked harmonies that close “100,000 Unfinished”, the short-lived, but satisfying clipped harmonies and stomping percussion on the “Baby Beat Unfinished” interlude, and the slow, synth-fuzz creep and overall superb arranging alongside Jai infectious vocal line on the “BTSTU Demo” are just a few of the many exceptional moments on Bait Ones where it sounds clear that Jai is just as intuitive and inventive, if not more so, as most of his peers. Bait Ones is a sharp example of pop at its most omnivorous, inviting, and curious. With just a little bit of tweaking, Bait Ones could have been a serious contender for AOTD.

Most of the songs on Bait Ones seem to touch on a missed connection and the struggle to remain present. On “Str8 Outta Mumbai” Jai struggles to strike up a conversation with a love interest “Want to talk to you, but you don’t know what to say/And you don’t know what to do” but makes a resolution that he’s in it for the long haul “Grinding, this ain’t no quick ting/I wanna last/It’s gonna take time”. “Jasmine Demo” and “Genevieve Unfinished” are tender pleas for connection, the former draped in funky basslines and soft synths swells while the latter is up-tempo synth-pop propelled by cow-bells, frantic kick drums, and bright synth arpeggios. On the other end of the spectrum there’s “Crush Unfinished”, which finds Jai taking things as they come and not rushing into anything serious “It’s just a little crush/Not like I faint every time we touch”. The rough vocal mixing actually heightens the sentiments that Jai expresses throughout the course of Bait Ones. Jai’s first song, “BTSTU Demo”, in a strange feat of prescience features the hook “I’ve been gone a long time/But I’m back and I want what’s mine”, which makes it a perfect fit for the album’s closer. There’s an undercurrent of weariness that runs throughout Bait Ones, a sense of trying to make up for lost time. By the time we reach “BTSTU demo” Jai sounds comparatively renewed, and unwilling to be taken advantage of any longer.

Along with the release of Bait Ones Jai released two one off singles titled “Do You Love Her Now” and “He” respectively that were recorded during the same sessions but weren’t leaked. Both “Do You Love Her Now” and “He” are great singles that rank up there with the rest of Bait Ones and confirm Jai as among pop’s true auteurs of the moment. It’s surreal to have the demos still in the same form as when they were leaked, as well as the prospect of new music from Jai supposedly on the horizon. Whether or not he ever decides to follow-up this masterful collection of demos seems uncertain, but it’s nothing short of miraculous that Jai saw fit to revisit the pain of having his work compromised for the sake of sharing it with the world this far after the leak. Few pop albums from this decade seemed to so fuse such disparate genres so seamlessly and inventively with such striking, undeniable melodic intuition. Bait Ones already sounds like a future benchmark of pop craftsmanship, the kind of record that still probably wouldn’t have gained a tremendous amount of traction had it been released through conventional channels, but one whose influence would still continue to ripple for years to come through the underground and mainstream alike regardless.

Essentials: “Str8 Outta Mumbai”, “BTSTU Demo”, “Zion Wolf Theme Unfinished”

2. U.F.O.F.- Big Thief

There are few musicians that have developed as remarkably this year as Big Thief. Their first two records, 2016’s Masterpiece and 2017’s Capacity, are both solid records that demonstrate a song command of songcraft and a striking, singular voice in songwriter and vocalist Adrianne Lenker, but with U.F.O.F. and then again later this year with Two Hands, Big Thief have become one of the best bands active period. U.F.O.F., the first of these two phenomenal records, is one of the most beautifully realized folk albums that I’ve had the pleasure of listening to all decade. The music is delicate, but sturdy, intricate and well-constructed but never showy despite the band’s considerable chops. The arrangements are economical and tight, and the band have superb chemistry with one another that allow the album’s naturalistic compositions to feel that much more organic than they would otherwise. Each of these songs unfolds with a natural sense of grace and patience that plays down how intricately they’re each composed. No other album this year achieved such a well-realized aesthetic, and for that alone U.F.O.F. is an impressive record. But the dreamy compositions coupled with Lenker’s wise-beyond-her-years voice touching on loss, nostalgia, growing old, and questioning who she is elevates U.F.O.F. to the state of one of the decade’s understated greats.

Big Thief is a four piece that, in addition to Adrianne Lenker, consists of guitarist Buck Meek, bassist Max Oleartchik, and drummer James Krivchenia. Each member of the band contributes equally to these recordings, and it’s unlikely that these songs would work with anyone else filling in for one or more of these roles. With the exception of the solo acoustic guitar and vocal interplay of “Orange” each of these songs is fleshed out considerably by the remaining members of the band, and the tight interplay between the members on U.F.O.F. is more pronounced than on the vast majority of records that I’ve heard this year. In a decade dominated by bedroom auteurs and laptops, the notion of a four-piece band playing dreamy folk songs skews downright subversive. But whereas Capacity found a hungry band that sounded unlike anyone else on the precipice of greatness, U.F.O.F. is the sound of that band mastering their voice and claiming a sound for themselves. Electric and acoustic guitars snake around each other nimbly, the rhythms unfurl patiently, and Lenker’s delivery is soothing and eerie simultaneously. Their music conjures all manner of nature, but through a surreal gaze that could only exist within your subconscious. Both “From” and “Terminal Paradise” originally appeared on Lenker’s solid 2018 debut solo LP Abysskiss, and while they were among the highlights of that record, when fleshed out with the rest of the band and rendered through the same production as the rest of U.F.O.F. their potency spikes dramatically. On U.F.O.F. Big Thief claim this sound for themselves alone.

As a lyricist and vocalist, Lenker has continued to develop immensely from record to record. The sentiments on U.F.O.F. are wise, touching, and ultimately profoundly human. She remains an astute observer and masterful impressionist, painting vivid scenes with the barest of words “Vacant angel, crimson light/Darkened eyelash, darkened eye/The white light of the living room/Leaking through the crack in the door/There was never need for more/Things we’re meant to understand/Crawling closer to your hand” as on the first verse of “Open Dessert”. The title track finds Lenker nostalgic for her home state of Minnesota “Going back home to the Great Lakes/Where the cattail sways/With the lonesome loon/Riding that train in late June” while “Contact” finds Lenker confronting her habitual state of feeling numb to everything around her “Wrap me in silk/I want to drink your milk/You hold the key/You know I’m barely, barely”. On “Strange” she’s contemplating the nature of mortality and the beauty that will outlive us “You have wings of gold/You will never grow old/And turquoise lungs/You have never been young” while “Century” seems to find Lenker contemplating power dynamics in a relationship “No resolution, no circling dove/Still caught in the jaw of confusion/Don’t know what I’d do for love/But stay another hour”. And on the stunning closer “Magic Dealer” Lenker looks back on her life so far with a resolution to remain more present moving forward “Starve, magic mirror/I thought the crumbs of your life wouldn’t dry/It hurts to see clearer/Falling like needles, the passage of time”.

Nothing on U.F.O.F. underwhelms or sounds out of place, but the best of what’s here makes a strong case that Big Thief have grown into one of the defining bands of their generation. Album opener “Contact” sets the tone with delicate fingerpicked guitar, jangly electric guitar, and a lumbering tom rhythm that lays a nice foundation, but by the time the chorus hits Lenker delivers a goose-bump inducing vocal melody that propels their cozy arrangements into anthemic territory. The singles “U.F.O.F.” and “Cattails” are both delightfully knotty compositions that sustain the wanderlust temperament through faint traces of droning bass, the aforementioned intertwining guitars, and sparse percussion. “Century” provides a nice mid-point breather with a jaunty rhythm and some of Lenker’s sharpest and most restrained melodies, while “Strange” chugs along with a comparatively quick rhythm and steadily builds into, what might have been a piercing guitar solo on Two Hands, but is instead a cathartic wall of Lenker’s multi-tracked voice that soars triumphantly over a rollicking bass solo. And on career highlight “Jenni” Big Thief come the closest that they’ve ever come to straight up shoegaze as the band chug along at a crawl while thoroughly enveloped by distortion. The pacing is immaculate, and when the chorus of “Jenni’s in my room” hits, it lands like one of the most awe-inducing moments that I’ve listened to on a song all year. It’s the sound of Big Thief fearlessly pushing past their acknowledged parameters, and into the unknown.

By the time we reach “Magic Dealer”, Big Thief have completely grown into themselves as a band “. They play with a sweeping serenity that feels timeless, but somewhat far removed from the current musical climate. There’s something profoundly human that the four members of Big Thief are able to tap into with their playing that imbues their compositions with a heightened sense of catharsis. Adrianne Lenker is able to articulate what’s ultimately so sacred about human life, her voice aching and tender but with firm conviction. Their intensity and earnestness sound genuine and well-earned, and there’s no pretense of self-righteousness or self-seriousness. Two Hands is a remarkable record in its own right, and cements their position as one of the most compelling bands currently active, but it’s U.F.O.F. that stands as their magnum opus to date. Their progression into the sublime, singular indie folk band that they are today is genuinely inspiring, and their 2019 records provide a compelling example of a band breathing new life into well-worn forms of music. U.F.O.F. and Two Hands provide an engrossing dichotomy of the band’s sound, and regardless of where they decide to take their sound moving forward, it’s clear that right now Big Thief simply cannot miss. Contrary to what one of the decade’s most relentless myths would lead you to believe, bands like Big Thief have helped ensure that guitar music is in a great place at the moment.

Essentials: “Jenni”, “Strange”, “Contact”

1. House of Sugar- (Sandy) Alex G

Very few artists have released a body of work this decade that’s as rich and rewarding as that of Alex Giannascoli’s. After having released several great records on bandcamp he signed to Domino starting with his great 2015 grab-bag Beach Music, followed by his terrific, eclectic 2017 record Rocket, and this year he dropped his magnum opus and eighth LP House of Sugar. On HoS Alex marries his strongest proclivities, those being off-kilter, supremely melodic guitar pop songs with warped production and a plethora of pitch-shifted vocals that tastefully imbue his vignettes with direction and distinction. Most of the songs consist of Alex’s vocals, acoustic guitar, drums, piano, and bass, with a variety of synths that provide welcome texture all throughout. He’s also supported by a variety of musicians that he tours with, in addition to the vocals and violin of Molly Germer and vocals of Emily Yacina. The songs are richer, and generally more unpredictable than we’re used to from Alex, but they perfectly exemplify his gift for songcraft through strong melodies, engrossing narratives around gluttony and deceit, and spectacular production. It’s not quite as immediate as 2012’s Trick or 2014’s DSU, and it doesn’t have the kind of range that 2017’s Rocket does, but on the whole HoS is the most well-realized record that Alex has released to date. It caps off a strong decade of experimentation from one of the most exciting voices in music at this moment.

Like the rest of his records, HoS was written and recorded primarily by Alex, but contains plenty of tasteful contributions from members of his touring band that also helped flesh out Rocket including Samuel Acchione, Colin Acchione, John Heywood, and David Allen Scoli, Molly Germer, and Emily Yacina. The music on HoS still retains the intimate, bedroom pop glow that’s marked all of his records despite the heightened fidelity. HoS is the richest, most beautifully produced record in his catalogue to date. More so than on any of his prior records HoS finds Alex seamlessly weaving analog and electronic instrumentation to infectious effect. Opener “Walk Away” begins with slurred pitched shifted vocals over warm acoustic guitar and within short order a lumbering drum beat, droning violins, and harmonized chants emerge alongside Alex’s low-pitched croon. “Walk Away” could have easily collapsed under the weight of how packed this mix is, but the pacing is sublime, and by the time a lone jangly violin begins to ripple down the mix it sounds like euphoria. The next few songs lean into Alex’s sweet-spot for infectious guitar pop, but by the time we hit career highlight “Gretel” HoS begins to shift back towards more abstract compositions. And a song like “Gretel” is just impossible to simply gloss over. Opening to chip-tune chants, a decayed synth melody, and a boom-bap drum beat “Gretel” erupts into sinister, distortion-laced guitar pop and quickly introduces one of the most anthemic melodies that he’s ever penned. Like Sharon Van Etten’s “Seventeen”, “Gretel” sounds like a victory lap, the culmination of sorts after an incredibly impressive decade as an artist despite in this case being a meditation on greed that twists the story of Hansel and Gretel into one where after leaving Hansel to die, Gretel can only think about returning for more candy “I don’t wanna go back/Nobody’s gonna push me off track/I see what they do/Good people got something to lose”. “Gretel” perfectly balances the dichotomy between sweet and sinister, and contains some of Alex’s best production to date.

Although the opening suite of songs on HoS consist of the singles, and therefore by default some of the record’s most buzzed about songs, the abstract, electronic-influenced (particularly what sounds like the influence of Oneohtrix Point Never) middle section of HoS accounts for some of the most compelling production of Alex’s career to date. “Taking” unfolds slowly as the acoustic guitar that opens the song begins to make way for what sounds like warped sitar drones, a barrage of chip-tune vocal melodies, and subdued synths. The repetitious, Panda Bear-esque vocal dirge “Near” provides some of his most thrilling, and unpredictable synth arranging to date while the following song “Project 2” is propelled by an erratic hi-hat/kick rhythm and radiates the new-age sheen of early decade vaporwave. The bad trip nightmare-fueled rush of “Sugar” bleeds otherworldly pitch-shifted vocals, violin arpeggios, and a sinister synth melody while providing a sublime transition between the jaunty, country-influenced swing of “Bad Man” to the acoustic ballad “In My Arms”. By this point Alex has gotten all of the overt electronic experimentation out of his system, and ends HoS with two more gorgeous acoustic ballads, “Cow” and “Crime” respectively, and the surprising, but welcome Springsteen-esque live cut of “Sugarhouse” (which doesn’t yet have a studio recording). HoS is paced superbly, and despite having more range than all of his records that aren’t Rocket, it remains a remarkably cohesive listen through even the most overt sonic shifts. While it’s understandable that many longtime fans of Alex G may have found some of the experiments on Rocket a little too gimmicky, on HoS it’s hard to deny that he completely commits to the warped-americana meets electronic guitar pop aesthetic, rendering the atmosphere rich and engrossing from start to finish.

The lyrics on HoS aren’t particularly direct for the most part, which shouldn’t have come as a surprise to any fans of his, but they do a nice job of framing his depraved vignettes which each fixate on characters succumbing to their gluttony. “Taking”, “Hope”, and “SugarHouse Live” hone in on drug dependency, with the narrator of “Taking” succumbing to it “That’s how she found me this morning/Buried my head in her arms/Lifted my spoonful of sugar/Taking”, “Hope” providing a harrowing look at the havoc that opioids have wreaked in Alex’s community from a survivor’s perspective “Yeah, Fetanyl took a few lives from our life/Alright” and “SugarHouse Live” using gambling as a metaphor for drug addiction “You never really met me/I don’t think anyone has/But we could still be players together/Let SugarHouse pick up the tab”. “Near” depicts its narrator in a state of unrelenting lust “I said no/Hold my hair/I’m not there/Black feather/Come big boy/Tear me up/Draw my blood/No fucking” while “Crime” finds its narrator sidestepping his comeuppance for an unidentified misdeed “They killed him for the crime/But I know that they’re mistaken/It was me the whole time”. Throughout HoS Alex does a superb job of blending reality and fiction to deliriously blurry effect, with aspects of both informing one another and making it increasingly difficult to hone in on the distinction.

HoS doesn’t have too many songs with the kind of immediacy that many of his past LPs have, but the highs on HoS are without question the best songs that he’s ever written. “Hope” opens with unbearable devastation “He was a good friend of mine/He died/Why write about it now?/Gotta honor him somehow” and finds Alex singing about the opioid crises in Philidelphia, “You can write a check in my name/Eddie take the money and run” over some of the sharpest guitar arrangements of his yet. On “Southern Sky” Alex, along with the harmonies of Emily Yacina and Molly Germer, provides one of the most gorgeous vocal melodies of his to date over jangly acoustic guitar, violin, and a lumbering rhythm. The warped collage breakdown “Sugar” is one of the most fascinating songs that he’s recorded to date, and is perpetually on the verge of breaking down as guitar drones, violin arpeggios, and the unsettling, borderline-incomprehensible vocals “You will be a bird/All of my life/Whirl in the air/Speck in the sky” collide violently with one another. The tender deep-cut “Cow” ranks as among Alex’s most beautiful songs, even more so for obfuscating the object of his affection “You big old Cow/You draw me out/Lie on the ground/Kiss on the mouth”. Most of HoS takes multiple listens before the pleasures of each song begin to emerge, but few records I’ve heard this year struck such a fine balance between immediacy and abstraction.

From Race through HoS it’s hard to deny that Alex G has had a remarkably fruitful decade of releases. With HoS he’s cemented his status as one of the most compelling artists in not just indie rock, but music in general. His surreal storytelling, sharp melodic instincts, and relentless tinkering have propelled his rich catalogue of lo-fi DIY releases onto a level, alongside Car Seat Headrest’s Will Toledo, that’s far beyond the bulk of his peers. HoS, alongside Rocket before it, has further expanded the parameters of Alex’s sound, and teases a multitude of future directions that he could pursue that are far beyond anything that records like Race or Winner could have ever suggested. That sense of unpredictability and adventurous spirit are traits of his music that are just as compelling as the singular voice and immense sense of intimacy that all of his music is imbued with, and with each release from DSU onward those traits of his have been paying some serious dividends. Regardless of what his next record sounds like (I’m really hoping for some freak-folk or straight up ambient) it’s impossible for me to not to just give him the benefit of the doubt at this point. As long as Alex is following the direction of his whims alone, the results will likely remain captivating for many years to come.

Essentials: “Gretel” ft. Molly Germer, “Cow”, “Southern Sky”, “Sugar” ft. Molly Germer, “Hope” ft. Molly Germer & Emily Yacina

#alex g #big thief #Jai Paul #Sharon Van Etten #fennesz #fka twigs #purple mountains #weyes blood #oso oso #Thom Yorke

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recommendedlisten · 6 years

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To its credit, 2019 has taken a much different path and feel to its start than recent years in music. There has definitely been more than enough to appreciate, but if you look through these first three month’s of recommended listens, it’s held with it a unique way of intriguing us with albums by artists on the rise and breaking out, those of familiar faces reinventing themselves, or some mastering what they’ve always done exceptionally well. There’s plenty more of that which this one-human writing operation didn’t have a chance to elaborate its admiration for on initial release. With a fresh season in swing, here’s a dozen more listens that will help you soak in the longer stretches of daylight in the coming months.

American Football - American Football [Polyvinyl Records]

American Football's music holds a magical conjuring to it that elicits cozy desires of the purest emo feels. The band is two decades removed from the hallmarks of their 1999 genre-defining classic debut, however, and as with all things in life, time has changed them, and that’s especially evident on their fully grown third eponymous effort. On American Football, Mike Kinsella and company leave home, but don’t forget where they’ve come from. Lyrics reflect on adulting with a worn out twinkle of the eye in a way that sees the past, but move on from living in it. The sonic sphere of the Midwestern scene heroes has shape-shifted according as well -- No longer concerned with deciphering ornate arpeggio patterns of long division inside insular spaces, and instead expanding the vantage point over gorgeous, lush-flowing atmospheres of post-rock. Voices of Paramore’s Hayley Williams, Slowdive’s Rachel Goswell and Land of Talk’s Elizabath Powell make apparitions inside Kinsella’s daydream realities as well, and with that, American Football find a new world of somber comfort to live in.

Angel Du$t - Pretty Buff [Roadrunner Records]

True punks embrace change, and Angel Du$t are a very good example of moving beyond the comfort zone boundaries. The Baltimore band, which began somewhat in the fashion of a supergroup led by Trapped Under Ice’s Justice Tripp, fellow TUI bandmate and frontman for Turnstile in guitarist Brendan Yates, his ‘mates in drummer Daniel Fang and rhythm guitarist Pat McCrory, as well as Jeff Caffey of Mindset, has turned the corner of throaty melodic hardcore heard on their 2016 debut Rock the Fuck on Forever, and head first into jockish feel-good pop-punk jams with their sophomore effort (and first since signing with heavy-hitting major Roadrunner Records) Pretty Buff. Stripping down amps in favor of crunchy power-pop bliss radiates positivity throughout their music. At any point, these songs can become love odes to a human as much as they can be a fur friend, with Tripp’s positive glee.being the kind of thing that ushers in the upcoming days where more warmth and daylight has a funny way of making you appreciate everything around you a tiny bit more.

Ariana Grande - thank u, next [Republic Records]

It’s somewhat of a shame that Ariana Grande’s fifth studio album thank u, next has arrived so soon on the heels of last year’s blockbuster Sweetener, because we didn’t even have a chance to get sick of. What’s different here, though, is that while thank u, next’s hit singles have led the charts in abundance, these jams are more so a testament to her stylized staying power, art of the mood-making, and consistency in craft rather than the big production immediacy of what songs like “no tears left to cry” or “breathin” blew out of the speakers. Essentially, it’s a suitable bookend to its predecessor from a different point of view -- A comedown, if you will, to the glitter and stardust where Grande meets her old nemesis heartbreak once again in the middle, and this time around, challenges the way it shapes her expression. There’s a reason why Grande has been adorned this festival season’s pop crossover headliner, and it’s because albums like thank u, next defies the mainstream’s conventional wisdom.

Better Oblivion Community Center - Better Oblivion Community Center [Dead Oceans]

It was so obvious and almost too good to be true, yet we set our expectations to disbelief. Better Oblivion Community Center, however, is the secret gift given to us by kindred songwriting spirits Conor Oberst and Phoebe Bridgers we should have seen coming all along. Bridgers, a spry 24, is the student mastering the art of veteran Oberst’s long lineage of sad eyed songwriting, and that they had toured and collaborated occasionally with one another before unveiling their self-titled debut was an early indication that this creative bond was formed for the long haul. Leaning into each other for their journey into the unknown, the two bring out each others’ best, which is a testament to Bridgers’ rising star as a contemporary vanguard and a redemption for Oberst, who has been finding his way back to himself slowly since putting his Bright Eyes days to rest. Songs wield in cryptophasia, with voices mutually pitied and political in their shared perspective, while chords tumble in the same key. It’s pure craft, because of how real they’ve always kept it.

Girlpool - What Chaos Is Imaginary [ANTI-]

There was a time when Harmony Tividad and Cleo Tucker’s sights were merely set on their world getting bigger, but with Girlpool’s third studio effort, the duo have ventured into an expanded universe of promising new patterns in their continuous evolution as artists and individuals. What Chaos Is Imaginary is the natural progression forward from what their 2017 sophomore effort Powerplant generated in melancholic electricity. Tividad’s songwriting blusters in dreamy swaths of reverb, and although the stories told only become more opaque in their synthetic texture, it’s fitting for the outer body experiences they indulge. Tucker on the other hand is becoming comfortable with their hands, with LP 3 being the first release since they began transitioning and discovering their own sure footing in brittle indie rock honesty. We’re witnessing both Girlpool members come into their own elements here, and having each other’s backs every step of the way only reinforces that growth.

Hand Habits - placeholder [Saddle Creek]

Meg Duffy has spent many years playing an important hand in crafting other people’s music inside the studio (they have worked alongside Kevin Morby and Weyes Blood), but on placeholder, their breakout sophomore effort as Hand Habits, all attention goes into both their own words and sound in a warm-lit display of tumultuous memories stretched across the canvas with an ease that juxtaposes their difficulty. Akin to their new Saddle Creek contemporaries Adrianne Lenker and Tomberlin, Duffy knows their way around every detail in the moment in the same way they know how to ornate them through rustling folk guitars, a vocal calm, and burning ember production that sweeps beneath this collection of songs’ melancholy pacing with just enough lasting impression to keep them in the corner of their rearview vividly. It’s not necessarily moving on, but rather sitting with these emotions where Duffy processes them the most through their creative identity.

HEALTH - VOL. 4 :: SLAVES OF FEAR [Loma Vista]

The way HEALTH has evolved from being one of the most aggressive experimental noise acts into that of a blown-out industrial complex has been a rewarding part of their allure over the years Their 2015 effort DEATH MAGIC was arguably thei band’s largest shift away from dense layers of sonic collision and creating noise for the sake of, as they began to emboss pop vocals and the impact of EBM into their sound with an effect to match the pulsating gristle of their live show. VOL 4 :: SLAVES OF FEAR is the Los Angeles trio’s full commitment to that side of their creative identities, as the listen -- while still devastated by crushing drums and industrial pile-ons -- is onset with a glossier coverage of rock textures as well as a heavier focus on movement. It’s also elevated singer Jake Duzsik platform on their earth-rattling surface, as his hollow echoes lead HEALTH further into the downward spiral of their nihilism, enjoying the free fall rather than trying to fight it.

La Dispute - Panorama [Epitaph Records]

La Dispute’s wilderness of post-hardcore isn’t the easiest to navigate. For years, the Michigan quintet have been of the most intentionally experimental of “the wave” alongside the likes of Touche Amore, Pianos Become the Teeth, Defeater and Make Do and Mend in a sense that makes it easy to conceive them as the scene’s answer to a band making their own Radiohead-like trajectory. Panorama, their fourth full-length effort, is another dense, complex exploration into the nuances between dead silence and deafening blows, again seeing its ebbing arpeggios, percussive footsteps, and angular detours polished into knifelike maneuvers and expanded into widescreen view by producer Will Yip as their first album for punk vanguard Epitaph Records. Despite its big picture feel, Panorama is deceptively focused on more intimate ruminations concerning love, death, grief, and existential relief. As vocalist Jordan Dreyer narrates his trek from points in Grand Rapids to Lowell alongside his partner, we meet the faces of each, though often they’ve been familiar to us all along.

Lomelda - M for Empathy [Double Double Whammy]

Where we last left Lomelda’s Hannah Read was in the pursuit of outward-seeking connection in the midst of wanderlust on her 2017 breakout Thx. Its follow-up may be a departure from that quiet grandeur, though what’s most curious about a return by the Los Angeles-by-way-of-Austin songwriter to tape deck bedroom folk lore is how it also suffices to compliment a flip on perspective from the other direction. M for Empathy, a brief 16-minute-long listen, isn’t short of inward inspection on the matter of better understanding one another in many directions, and given a deeper appreciation for it thanks to her time on the road. This mental homework performed by Read is done justice in its humbled environment of tender acoustic strums, warm key hums, and memory fragments. Just as she knows how to make the most of these simple strengths, she knows herself better, too.

Nanami Ozone - NO [Tiny Engines]

Let’s be honest: Today’s young indie rocker are very much going to the well one too many times in reappropriating alternative’s golden age, but at least Nanami Ozone are breathing their influences in a totally different atmosphere. NO, the sophomore effort from Nanami Ozone, is a borealis of bliss. By now, we’ve heard punks do their best to reinvent the wheel of dream-pop and shoegaze to an exhausting degree, but what the Arizonian quartet are doing the most here are is searching far beyond the static to make it sound both loud and colorful. That they’ve two vocalists to lead these distortion waves through that polarity in guitarists Sophie Opich and Colson Miller is one aspect of it, but collectively alongside bassist Jordan Owen and drummer Chris Gerber, NO is multi-dimensional in its ‘90s pillaging of big riffs and feedback, equal parts indebted to the Breeders knack for noise pop, Sonic Youth’s dark mazework, and the psychedelic haze burning off Swervedriver. It’s heavy with an objective, and anti-gravity when emotions take the reigns.

Nothing - Spirit of the Stairs -- B-Sides and Rarities [Relapse Records]

The sound of Nothing now exists in a plane within this music universe beyond the heavy shoegazing punk of the Philly band’s formative years. Last year’s great third full-length Dance On the Blacktop was evidence of how the quartet have maximized an already loud sound to fill the void with bigger production cues and reigning control over reverb in a way that can make deathly quiet moments feel just as huge. Appreciating the steps made from getting to point A to point B is thoroughly documented on Spirit Of The Stairs – B-Sides & Rarities, a collection of demos, live outtakes and covers of songs by Grouper, Low and New Order that the band has amassed since their early years until today, and now collects itself as an essential listen for any listener of their work, be it longtime or someone being introduced. Hearing the bones rattle on some of their more recognizably fleshed out listens colors Nothing’s catalog in new shades of darkness while shedding light on its depths.

Solange - When I Get Home [Columbia Records]

Solange’s 2017 soul-baring standout A Seat At the Table was a contemporary R&B pop masterpiece that demanded a voice for women of color amid the white noise of volatile world, and was executed with such pristine songwriting precision that it was undeniable to ignore. With her fourth studio effort When I Get Home, Solange is setting her soul free, however, as she escapes into an experimental sonic revelation obscured by the fragments of its many Houstonian fingerprints she’s pieced together in mosaic fashion that feels fittingly reactionary to its predecessor. Here, she crosses a 19-song-long universe in just 38 minutes time through production that’s locally sourced and rooted in chopped and screwed samples, cosmic jazz free flows, and futuristic hip-hop. Appearances by the likes of Earl Sweatshirt, Tyler, the Creator, Steve Lacy, and Pharrell are masterfully complimentary, yet barely visible against the backdrop of her black energy, which the listen wholly beams even if refracts in the light.

#lists #american football #angel du$t #ariana grande #better oblivion community center #girlpool #hand habits #health #la dispute #lomelda #nanami ozone #nothing #solange #features

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ayankun · 8 years

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Los Angeles When It Sizzles

Fandom: La La Land Type: unabashed schmaltz (you know that’s all I’m good for) Characters: Mia/Sebastian Warnings: you probably want to see the movie first Word Count: 2277 Tag: Summertime and the livin' is easy

Note: You can listen to the cut of the album as referenced here.

Los Angeles When It Sizzles

His sweaty palm squeaks on the knob when he grips it, the metal warm to the touch even in the false-twilight of his apartment, the windows thrown wide and the curtains shut tight. Sebastian opens his front door without bothering with the peephole, mildly curious and vaguely alarmed and slightly annoyed: not too many people have this address, could be somebody coming to collect on a debt, and they've woken him from a joyless midday nap to do it.

He doesn't catch who it is at first because he's squinting against the hyper-fluorescent LA sun and yawning like a lion. Eyes watering, he blinks the sleep away and giddily comes to realize that the vision before him is anything but a dream.

Sebastian leans his head against the cracking paint of his door and smiles, stepping back to allow Mia room to enter.

That's all the invitation she needs. "Before you say anything," she starts, whisking her way through the kitchen to the shadowed corner that is his dining nook, "These coffees were iced when I left work, I promise."

Sebastian quietly closes the door after her, meanders across the bare living room floor towards the sound of her voice. She meets him on the far side by putting a sweating plastic cup into his hand, its contents murky and ice-less. He looks at it and then back to her, but she's turning away, shrugging her clutch off her shoulder and onto his table; taking her hair down and then incomprehensibly putting it up again; talking all the while at a mile a minute, the endearing whisper of her lisp stronger than he's ever heard it.

"I thought, he goes five miles out of his way for samba/tapas coffee, so, first, he drinks coffee. Second, this time of day, traffic's not usually that bad, right? It can be, but it's not normally, you know, awful, but lucky me, there was an accident on the 134, of course, so I sat there staring at the Universal building for like, twenty solid minutes, I mean at a dead stop." She winces, "That's an unfortunate choice of words because actually I think somebody might have died? I'm not sure. The one car was pretty much under another car, it was sort of impressive, really. Impressive and really, really unfortunate and horrible. Oh, and in case you hadn't noticed, it's at least a million degrees out there. So. That was my hour in hell."

Lip bitten and eyes wide with comical frustration, Mia's head shakes with minute, manic twitches like a Small World puppet with a haywire servo in its neck. Reflexively, she swipes her own cup off his counter where she'd left it to puddle a ring onto the formica, taking a drag off the straw with habitual ease. Her face scrunches, contorts, her shoulders rising against an invisible foe.

"That's -- disgusting, don't even--" she says, trying not to choke on a mouthful of watery, lukewarm coffee. "Here, give it."

She reaches for the cup he's still holding wordlessly, and wordlessly he gives it up. Still shaking her head, Mia disappears into the thin kitchen with the de-iced coffees. He hears the refrigerator open and close, its incandescence briefly sending shadows across the walls in the dim half-light.

"Digging the outfit, by the way," she calls from behind the wall, "Though I must admit it kinda makes a girl feel overdressed."

Sebastian glances down as if he's forgotten his own attire. White A-shirt. White shorts. No holes, minimal stains. When he looks back up, she's grinning at him from the dining nook, arms crossed over the sensible blouse she wears on the job. What grin -- try smirk.

Off his blasé shrug, she tips her head back and her eyes narrow to conspiratorial slits. "I bet you answer the door in your underwear for all the girls."

Sebastian scrubs a hand through his hair, a trivial concession to appearing presentable. He changes the subject. "I thought you worked last night?"

It's not a deflection but a welcome segue, and she visibly melts against the kitchen counter at the reminder of her never-ending toil.

"Arthur's boyfriend locked him out ("Again?" - Sebastian, incredulous) -- again, so they called me at, what, four-thirty to open." Mia's face falls into a sideways, downward twist of regret and self-pity. There's red in her eyes and black underneath. "I've made it this far on nearly-lethal doses of caffeine."

Sebastian sighs, holds out his arms to her.

"Mia, Mia, Mia."

He meets her halfway, tucking her head into his shoulder, pressing a hand to the small of her back. Her shirt's damp from the hour spent stewing in the driver's seat of her Prius, but his isn't in any better condition. The last time he attempted to run the AC, it shorted half the units on the ground floor.

In fact, the comfort of the embrace is only bearable for so long in this stuffy heat. Mia pulls back after a moment and he leans to kiss her forehead before she can get too far out of reach. She compromises by turning to put herself at his side, her arm around his waist and his over her shoulder.

"Make yourself at home," he welcomes, sweeping his hand around at … the inexcusable mess of unpacked boxes and precariously stacked jazz memorabilia that haunts his living room. He scratches at the scruff under his jaw, squinting at the clutter. "I'm pretty sure there's a couch under there somewhere."

Mia's arm ghosts from around him, fingers digging into his side before she disengages fully. "I've seen worse in my day," she assures him, "And I'm not above sitting on the floor."

She's making good on her claim as she speaks and he hastily bends to catch her by her elbows to stand her upright again. "No, no, no, Mia, no. I can't let you think I'm some uncivilized churl who makes his guests sit on the floor."

"You? Uncivilized?" She snakes a hand forward lightning-quick and snaps the band of his boxers. "How could anyone come by such an outrageous notion?"

Sebastian squirms back a step, nearly crashing into the corner of the piano, hands raised in supplication. "Okay, fair, I understand where you're coming from -- Give me two minutes to move some of this out of the way. And then, if you'd like, you're invited to sit on furniture that was invented for sitting on."

"Aw, you're sweet," she says, with something of a playful bite. "Regular knight in shining armor." She advances as he retreats, until she's draped over the near end of the piano top and he's considering the logistics of the Jenga-esque situation with a weary eye.

Mia catcalls when he squats to heft one of the non-load-bearing boxes. "And I'm the uncivilized one," he grunts as he stands. He gives her his best stink-eye as he passes, which is, in all honestly, more of a sly grin than anything else. Dropping the box gently onto a flat-enough pile of unopened mail on the table, Sebastian turns to see Mia rifling through the open tops of the remaining boxes.

He freezes. "Ah--" The hands he's raised with the instinctive intent to pry her off the goods are recalled, wringing together apprehensively as he comes up behind her. Mia blinks around at his chewed-off sentence, a plastic-sleeved 10-inch LP in her hands. His eyes go to it, fingers curling tight around air with a restrained possessiveness.

"Oh, geez, I'm sorry," she sputters, holding out the record to him like it's a baby bear and he's the mama. "You don't want me digging around in your stuff, I'm sure some of this must be priceless, right? Here, I'll just…."

He doesn't take it from her. Sebastian's chest swells and sinks with a quick, deep breath. He licks his lips and a twitch of a smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. He nods towards the turntable sitting beside the piano. "Put it on."

She stalls, thumbing the protective plastic and studying the bold mustard-and-ketchup color scheme of the album art underneath it. Sebastian puts a hand on her shoulder and ducks down to catch her eye.

"Or I can, if you want. Either way, I think you'll like it. It's a little different, but it's quality stuff."

Her eyes roll up to his and an impish grin unfurls across her face. He straightens out of her way as she pushes boldly past him to the turntable, carefully sliding the record from the sleeve as she goes. "I resent the implication that I may not know how to work a record player," she tells him, shooting a look over her shoulder. "My aunt's collection included every original Broadway cast recording ever printed."

"Fair enough," Sebastian acknowledges. Still, he watches the way she handles the vinyl disc by its edges, settling it over the spindle and flicking the switch to get it spinning, dropping the needle delicately on the outside rim.

Sonic scratching fills the room for the merest of seconds; then, the golden notes of a harp drop through the speaker into the room, landing on an dreamcloud of soft, angelic violins. Mia's brow furrows, her head cocked, the thin press of her lips asking "where's the jazz?" Sebastian meets her expectant eye and jogs his own eyebrows skyward in the same beat as the orchestra's sudden climb, and there, like a cloudburst -- she laughs as a flurry of brassy notes tumble over each other, cutting through the saccharine strings with a candid, confident bluster.

"Charlie Parker," Sebastian explains, "A dream of his come true, recording with a string section."

"Ah!" Mia's quick to catch on, holding up the album cover and indicating the title with a flourish. "Charlie Parker with Strings."

"He loved his heroin and he loved his chicken, good old Charlie Parker." Sebastian sighs, hands on his hips, one foot on land and the other in a sea of nostalgia as the attention shifts from the alto sax to the strings and back again. "That's how he got his nickname, you know. Yardbird, Bird."

She purses her lips and blinks over at him, skeptical. "They called him 'Bird' just because he loved chicken?"

"Well. Yeah." He shrugs. "I think 'Black Tar' would have been too on-the-nose."

"Okay, well that sounds slightly made up, but I can't judge. Reminds me a little of the stories about how Bogie got his scar, and how they were probably all invented by the studio purely for drama's sake. You know Bogie's infamous scar, don't you?" She taps her lip as a reference point and he surprises a hiccup of laughter out of her when he slinks forward and kisses her on the spot.

"That's all people are, isn't it?" Sebastian asks, eyes bright. "Stories that become myths that become legends."

She smiles up at him. "I suppose so."

Mia puts her arms over his shoulders and entices him into a gentle sway in time to the music. There's an oboe in the mix, and a piano, and Sebastian's fingers dance up and down her sides mimicking the pianist's flighty runs. It's just the two of them, hidden away in the secret, shadowed den of his apartment, adrift from the strident rush of life that carries on without them beyond these four walls.

They drift together through the second track, a suitably dreamy ballad that ferries them back across the ages. At the start of the third, a number with a touch more pep to it, Sebastian drops a kiss to her temple and takes her hand to spin her in place.

"I think I was supposed to be excavating a long-lost sofa," he says. They both look over at the remaining tower of boxes and wince.

"It's really not that big of a deal," Mia starts to say, but the last half of her sentence is somewhat obfuscated by the swell of a sudden yawn.

He offers her a look of condolence. "Caffeine's finally wearing off, eh?"

"Yikes," she gets out before another yawn stops her in her tracks. "I'm crashing for sure. Maybe I should just head ("No" - Sebastian, gently pulling on her hand) -- home?"

"No," he says again, sliding his other hand over hers and stepping backwards until the slight tension draws her forward. "You're gonna drive how far in your condition just to hit the hay? I have a bed right here."

She squints her eyes shut in amenable grin, shuffling after him towards the little bedroom off the little hall. "Not that I want to argue with that logic," she says, "but now doesn't this make me the uncivilized … what word did you use?"

"Churl, I believe," he supplies helpfully, rounding the corner into his bedroom.

"The uncivilized churl who shows up out of the blue to make demands on your time only to immediately fall asleep and in your own bed no less? Surely I was raised better than that."

Sebastian climbs backwards onto his unmade bed and she follows him down. Settling together as near as can be comfortable in the airless swelter of the enclosed space, a moment passes where their world narrows to rustling fabric and creaking bedsprings and the unattended strains of Charlie Parker filtering in from the living room.

"What about old Yardbird?" Mia asks, snuggling into his pillow like it were her own. Her eyes have already closed and they don't seem likely to open any time soon.

"Ah," Sebastian waves off any concern, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear once she's sufficiently nestled. "He'll be here when you wake up. And so will I."

#La La Land #fanfiction #Mia Dolan #Sebastian #words

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theliterateape · 5 years

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The Throwing Muse

By Dana Jerman

ERIC AND MARIE, MARRIED FOR ALMOST A YEAR, are sitting docile in their second floor apartment, in front of the TV on a Thursday night in very late September. A freakishly warm sixty-four degrees in the Minnesota town, as perfect accompaniment came the light breeze down the well-lit residential street where they live on a corner above a low-ceilinged garage. Tall, slim pines can be seen through every window, and they give Eric and Marie the illusion of living isolated in a forest.

At about 9:30 p.m., the two are sitting in separate chairs staring passively toward the talking box. The couple had chosen for the evenings viewing a documentary, and the pale flickering purple-blue thrown from the television bathed them while they sat in the dark. The lights in the room reflect off of their stale glares representing respective moodiness.

Here’s what’s wrong with Eric and Marie: Eric is a twenty-eight-year-old writer. He’s alright at it and lives off of it when it pays well, which is most of the time, and he’s made a comfortable space for he and Marie in their marriage in the world. But as of the past two months, and for no particular reason, Eric has the unfortunate luck to be experiencing what writers sometimes call a "block," which some claim does not really exist and others claim can be all but deadly. This is Eric’s problem.

Marie, twenty-three years old and quite bright, has recently graduated from a university where she received her bachelors degree in both biochemistry and bioengineering, two things that come very naturally to her, yet she lacks a true passion for the subjects and can’t see a career involving them that would give her the promising future she ostensibly deserves. Therefore, she is having a great bit of difficulty choosing a graduate program that will suit her, and while she deliberates on her position in this land of opportunity spread out before her, she has taken up drinking alcohol to pass the time.

Eric and Marie love each other. They are close and spend a great deal of their time together, and happily. Somehow though, they are in separate places; a cloud has descended.

So here they sit — a near empty bottle of citrus vodka beside Marie. Her face like a blank page in the open notebook on the lap and favorite black in pen in the left hand of Eric. During commercial, Eric swings his head to look at his wife. Her gaze smoothed over, she blinks a few times and turns to meet his glance, delivering a glazed smile.

Here’s what’s wrong with Eric and Marie: Eric is a twenty-eight-year-old writer.

“You look a little tipsy baby.” Audible exhaustion in his voice. She leans toward him and shakes her head smiling bigger, brighter. Looking at him through sleepy slats for eyes, her head tilts back with the weight of itself. A large hiccup-belch comes out of her that makes him laugh and her cover her mouth and blush. Her other hand goes to her belly as she grimaces.

“Are you… are you going to puke?” Eric asks, cautiously. She nods throwing a concerned look in his direction. He rises slowly out of his chair and eases her up out of hers by her back and arms. “You’re gonna make it,” he says, and worries about her for a moment as he flicks on the bathroom light. Had she thrown up in front of him before? He can’t recall. He supposes it’s no big deal, people vomit all the time. But perhaps this means that she is drinking more often or consuming harder liquor. His head feels fuzzy as he sits down on the rim of the tub beside her, kneeling on the wide blue mat in front of the toilet and hovering — a state of panic painted on her profile. He smooths her long mousy hair and moves to hold it back as she lets go of the drink and what little she had eaten that day. Eric makes a cool compress of a washcloth and places it on the back of her neck while he helps her up. She sighs thankfully toward him as he escorts her into the bedroom and gently down onto the bed. He turns on the bedside lamps turns off the TV and returns to the bathroom, realizing he'd forgotten to flush the toilet.

And then, there it is.

For some reason not even God might ever know, Eric sees something.

Whatever that sweeping genius is that Eric sees there in the toilet — in the tan gray swirling particle mass of his wife’s puke — it sends him careening back into the living room to snatch up the empty notebook. Not a moment spared, he opens the ream of paper and begins to write on the blank back of the cover. No time to be stunned or even reflect for a moment on how he'd spent hours just within the past week staring down empty lined pages, he furiously draws the pen across sheet after sheet, repositioning himself only when his ass becomes numb. Completely unaware of the not-so-pleasant smell that rises up out of the bowl in the other room and sat stale in the air, Eric writes and writes and writes and writes until eight that morning, filling the entire notebook and well into another.

✶

NOT LONG BEFORE NOON, MARIE WANDERS IN TO FIND HER HUSBAND sleeping in the fetal position on the floor with a bathroom towel for a pillow. Open notebook beside him, toilet still full. She shakes her head and crumples her nose at the smell, and reaches over her sleeping husband to flush the bowl. He doesn’t even budge as she leans up again to rummage through the medicine cabinet for aspirin. Marie washes her hands, smoothes her hair, rubs at the sleep in her eyes in the mirror. She turns back to him as he snores lightly, looking peaceful. She smiles as she shuts the light off and the door behind her, leaving him to rest.

When Eric wakes again late afternoon, he emerges from the dark bathroom and stands a moment. Dazed, he shakes out his writing hand and massages his neck. He glances thru his new work, bringing it close to him, looking at the shapes of words he is almost astonished he'd written. His brain alive with euphoria over the wrinkled texture of the pages. The slashes of ink. It isn’t finished though, his new story. And as he moves, in white socks soundless on the brown gray of the soft bedroom carpet, he puzzles over how the new complications can be resolved. The notebook and pen hit the floor together beside the bed as Eric crawls in under the covers and goes back to sleep.

It is around this very moment that Marie settles down on the living room floor, filling out applications and sipping on her first vodka of the evening while also casually skimming through brochures. As the late evening arrives, Eric wakes to the sound of the hi-fi floating into the bedroom, invading dreams that cling to his newly manifested characters. Rising groggily, the true volume of the stereo hits him.

Marie is dancing, drink in hand, and bumping into the furniture. The poor girl is on her fifth at this point, considerably well on her way to getting sick. Eric comes up behind her and with a gentle gesture removes the drink from her hand. She turns and smiles, wobbling, before she falls into his arms in an attempt to kiss him. He sets the drink on the coffee table and chastises her as he holds her. She only hums and laughs as they keep dancing. Eric moves to turn the LP over and pick up Marie’s school papers off of the floor when Marie, leaning dizzily, pulls on Eric and motions toward the bathroom.

“Okay, okay. You really have to watch how much you consume next time, honey.” They go together into the lavatory and Eric thinks only of purging his wife into betterment.

But then again, the very same thing happens. Staring into the bowl, Eric discovers ecstatic revelation.

Rummaging quickly for a new notebook in his desk, he begins to write just where he left off. Pausing only to place a cold compress on Marie’s hot neck and supply her with a fresh glass of water as she rests. Eric pulls another all-nighter in the bathroom, searching for the complexities and their answers in the offering given to him by his new throwing muse.

As his wife sleeps into the morning, Eric drives out to see his agent with his four completed notebooks.

“You didn’t even call? What’s the rush?”

“Put down whatever you’re doing. I need these perused by tomorrow. Man, I think it’s some of the best work I’ve ever done.” Eric tries to sound nonchalant.

“Wow, you didn’t tell me you were working on anything past that novella series.” The agent fingers the thickness of the notebooks.

“I completed the first one the night before and this one last night. I’ve been up since yesterday. Look, you really have to give me an advance on this. I know just where I’m going with it and it could be huge,” he lies.

“How much of an advance are we talking?”

“A grand. I'll come for it late tomorrow when you finish these manuscripts.”

“No kidding!? Okay, okay, by tomorrow. I trust you, Eric. I have a notion you may actually know what you’re doing with something this big. Good luck.”

Eric goes on his way, stopping before home to pick up groceries. He even, perhaps not entirely on a whim, picks up a bottle of alcohol and arrives to meet Marie who is diligently watching a science special on television. After Eric puts the groceries away and retreats to his desk to open a fresh notebook in an attempt to write on where he'd left off. He entertains a few ideas, but they are mediocre. He can’t seem to resolve the parts of the plot he needs to move the narrative along. It is at this time that he becomes almost absurdly discouraged at the fact that he’d flushed the toilet that morning. Marie’s well-placed hurling was serving up brilliance left and right for him, but as he tries to recreate or further it, everything begins to blur together.

Eric puts his pen down and joins Marie in the living room. He sits down on the floor beside her in the big chair and puts his head in her lap. She smiles at him and pats his hair. She isn’t drinking tonight and Eric sighs, feeling torn about this and conflicted further about feeling so conflicted! As they let the television glow escort them into the quiet evening, Eric mulls over what he might do. He would go see his agent and pick up his advance and read back over his work — all those magnificent words that had rushed out to meet him. The sweet brilliance, now etched there. He possesses a terrible confidence that he might re-write the whole thing again, right now, if he wanted. He just can’t go past the last point. He’ll have to wait and see…

✶

THE FOLLOWING DAY, ERIC SLEEPS IN WITH MARIE UNTIL LATE. The recent activity has exhausted them both. In a way, it is strange to be in bed together. Their different lives pausing here on the same schedule. Evening comes, and with the return of the manuscripts followed by much praise from his agent, he drives home thinking again of the great story developing within. It practically makes his mouth water. He stops in town to mail an application for Marie and joins her at home where she is cleaning out the pantry and flatware cabinets. Wiping down the surfaces and moving with a quiet diligence, applying herself as best she can to the task.

It is here that Eric begins to propose his insidious experiment. He sets to cleaning up the kitchen with Marie and then plops her down at the tiny round breakfast table. He presents the thousand-dollar check as proof of his work. She gazes in wonder at the thing, distracted while her husband pours two drinks for them.

“Let's celebrate this work and what it could mean for us! Finally a book deal and we can get a house and say goodbye to this cramped apartment! I can help you with school expenses, things will be better!” He raises his glass with aplomb and she moves to clink hers against his. He takes a sip and watches carefully as the potent drink fills her nose and throat; she winces a bit, coughs, coming away from the swallow. “Guess I made them a little strong, huh?” Oh well!”

He moves to throw back another big swig. Marie, too, gulps again. His wide smile comes down at her timid gaze while he encourages her to consume more and faster. If she can just toss her cookies again, just once more, for the sake of art, he can finally finish this grand opus that his pen itches to put down, so he thinks. Over these last few days it became a fantastic yearning. An exciting ache to want to finish and finish well this work; to complete it perfectly and wholly with no loose ends. Is it now possible?

Marie’s well-placed hurling was serving up brilliance left and right for him, but as he tries to recreate or further it, everything begins to blur together.

He smirks as the recesses of his brain contemplate just how it came to this, how to begin and finish a piece of such magnitude, the kind he’d never even fathomed before — stuff of epic proportions — and to do this he has to ogle at the regurgitations of his wife’s belly and bowels floating in a porcelain bucket? He takes another gulp and observes Marie’s confused countenance.

“Oh, it’s nothing, I’m just thinking about the story,” he placates. Looking down, he sees her glass is empty and it makes his eyes pop. What swift finesse with which she consumed the large cocktail! “Want another?” he eagerly suggests. She stares into the bottom of the glass in one hand, her chin resting on her other palm. She shrugs and smirks, offering the glass over to Eric in affirmative as he gets up from the table.

Marie accepts the invitation unwittingly to again become her lover’s throwing muse. Her weakened stomach and liver move her, three drinks later near midnight, to place offering in careful increments to the white water waste tank. Without fail, illumination descends on Eric, quickening his mind and pen into action. It is almost as if all of Eric’s words are there already; why hadn’t he thought of them before? He frantically copies his thoughts. Marie stumbles out clutching her ravaged midsection. Eric fails to notice, so immersed is he in the work he longs to finish.

Deep into the morning, he completes his sixth notebook. His body had begun to ache with yearning for rest when he hears a desperate sound. A sinister gurgle and heave emerges from the throat of Marie as she lay in the bedroom, poisoned by the liquor she had consumed. She begins exacting the last breaths of her dying consciousness on the mattress. The sound alarms Eric immediately. He realizes he doesn’t even check on her or care for her before she collapses. He rises instantly and switches on the bedside lamp. Her face is pale, her lips a twinge of blue, her body unresponsive. Hurried and near panic, Eric dials for an ambulance, which arrives shortly carrying paramedics who attempt for a number of minutes to revive Eric’s dead spouse to no avail.

At the hospital, Eric grasps the graveness of the situation for some time among the ringing white walls and humming fluorescent lights. Forgetting himself, he contemplates a cab home to retrieve his manuscript, to begin to edit and revise. The writing he has produced has begun to mean more to him than his glorious wife and muse herself in her broken state! For shame! Eric catches himself, damns himself for his shallowness and distractions. He begins to cry out, stomping down the bloodless hallway he grows increasingly despondent. Confused, disheartened, and extremely anxious, Eric shivers as a doctor invites him back to see Marie one last time before she will be sent to the morgue. After a moment in the eerily silent ER, Eric begins to softly recite his apologies over and over, and he climbs up to lay beside Marie. What had just happened? His whole soul aches for her to come alive, to be returned. For clocks to reverse and time to be kinder.

✶

HE LEAVES THE HOSPITAL NUMB, waltzing slow into the streets fresh with rain, and walking down sidewalks and gutters soaking with puddles. The cold wet world awakening his flesh to goosebumps under socks and slacks. The sky sinks from creamy blue to the color of a rock as Eric finds himself standing in front of the liquor store on the heaviest afternoon of his life. He stands staring, knowing intrinsically his responsibility to his writing. Now more than ever with his muse gone, Eric has to make a choice and it seems the only clear solution is to work for himself, as he’d always done in the time before Marie... can he remember how?

Marie’s favorite was vodka. With four handles of the cheapest brand, two in each hand, Eric carries them and himself up steps back into the cold apartment. The foreign footprints of the paramedics’ boot treads still visible on the sandy carpet. Eric realizes again how he will be alone in this place — truly alone — for he knows he can usher no one in who will inspire him. No one can be as true and faithful to him as his beloved late wife. He stands in the open doorway until the draft from the hall sends a chill over his neck.

He enters then, and finds he can not stop moving. He switches on all the lights and plays records over the muted TV. He pours the alcohol over ice and takes his first gulp — squinting out tears not only for to ease the burning taste. He cleans up the bedroom, vacuuming and restoring the bedclothes, and moves into the bathroom. The toilet remains unflushed. It serves to be the most shocking remnant of Marie. Eric chokes back the salty tears in his eyes and throat grotesquely, while he reaches for the flusher to say goodbye. Gathering himself from the floor as he weeps, he hugs close to him his latest companion — the sixth notebook.

Shutting off the lights, he moves back into the living room. He turns up the stereo, grabs his drink and sits down at the kitchen table to review his continued manuscript. On his third vodka, he stumbles back to retrieve his first two notebooks and begins to read from the beginning on. The story keeps getting better and better to him, more intense with each read. Over half of the first opened bottle in his belly, he now wants desperately to finish what his deceased muse had helped him thoughtlessly begin. Discovering in his desk a recently purchased oversized notebook, it is with an almost perverse determination that Eric keeps on, through the alcohol and the tears, when his stomach jumps and what he is hoping for finally manifests itself.

Feeling the adrenaline fuel the certainty of his muscle’s push, the pain in his gut begs the acid and the drink burns their way back up and out of his throat and mouth. He wretches and spits and whimpers over the bowl. Thinking of his wife in the same position, burning and enduring in the same way — a way that now Eric promotes and induces for the both of them. It had begun — Eric’s last chance for validation. The kind of closure he longs for is the kind that will move him to visualize on his own that generous expulsion of the fabulous world of interconnected and compelling tales that dear Marie had given him through her secret disclosure. Wit of a kind so pure it killed her. His intellectual translation of it is no good. He’ll have to adopt it — to perform the ritual in its original form.

He catches his breath and leans up over the edge of the porcelain altar, eyes filling with the sight of only translucent swimming bubbles and a few tiny half-digested shapes of particle matter. Leaning back, gasping against the tub, Eric expells his sighs of despair and relief.

He focuses and sees nothing there. He can not be reconciled.

He is not his own muse, and never can hope to be.

He flushes the toilet without even taking a second look. This last swirling mass without message is gulped and kept down. The commode did the thing that Eric could not.

Silence surrounds him as he moves back into the living room. The recording is over, the TV remains muted. Eric switches off light after light until it is just him and the TV and his new notebook in his lap — empty pages he longs to fill with almost anything other than the beautiful story that robbed him of another kind of beauty.

Night progresses until almost morning. The slanted colors from the glinting box and the chair what held him sees his words only half as well as he himself can. Catatonically, Eric finally drops the notebook to the floor. He has officially abandoned the belief that a writer's path can make him immortal. Now he believes only in the power of a cold reality. The kind which delivers a muse at the expense of a life.

#Roberto Nickson #barf #the written word #nothingness #wellspring #muse #corrupted #damage #caregiving #wasted #television

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