J Chrysanthemum’s “Selling My Blood”: Chillwave for an Un-Chill Time
We all have our own nostalgic weak spots. We have songs or musicians or genres that are tied so strongly to a certain time and place that the mere act of listening to it feels like an anachronism; the music may not be bad, but it’s so of its time that you can carbon-date it […]
“Too Happy” by Similar Kind: Tackling Mental Illness with Honesty and Hooks
We’re approaching four months in quarantine, and if you want to be very optimistic you can say it’s been a learning experience. For better or worse, I’ve learned a lot of things, some major, some minor. For instance, I’ve discovered that I can go for weeks at a time without wearing socks. I’ve discovered that […]
Yasmin de Laine on “Hope Forest”, True Crime, and Australian Gothic
To Americans, the stereotypical view of Australia is rife with the sort of imagery you might find in an Outback Steakhouse commercial: kangaroos, Vegemite, friendly men with big hats and Crocodile Dundee accents. But Australia is a country with a rich culture of its own, and that culture often has shades of the Gothic and […]
The Sunflower Thieves Play a Heavenly Game of “Hide and Seek”
There is nothing that feels safer than falling asleep in the back of a car. You may not be in bed, you may not be lying down, you may not even know where you’re being driven to, but you’ve put your trust in whoever’s driving, and you let the soothing monotony of a long road […]
“Catches Me Tonight” by Cole Supple: Charming, Timeless Pop
When “Catches Me Tonight” started playing, I didn’t know if I would like it. It begins, you see, with the jaunty strum of a ukulele, an instrument that has become a hoary indie cliche. While the ukulele is obviously an important instrument in Hawaiian music, and even outside of that setting every instrument has its […]
FAYYE on “She”, Her Favorite Movies, and the Power of the Piano
On her website, English singer-songwriter FAYYE describes herself as someone with a lifelong passion for the piano. She started exploring melodies on the keyboard from a very young age, and she found herself enamored by the possibilities those 88 keys provided. “There was something about the resonant fullness of the piano sound that I loved […]
A.O. Gerber’s “All I’ve Known”: A Beautiful Search for an Impossible Truth
“Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes.” Walt Whitman wrote that, in “Song of Myself”. I quoted that line in part because I am the kind of insufferable music critic who starts an essay by quoting Walt Whitman (one day I’ll quote Emerson, just to see […]
Carey Clayton’s “Everything Passes”: An Open-Armed Hug of a Song
Until recently, I didn’t find much comfort in the phrase “everything passes”. It’s not that I didn’t believe it–it’s pretty difficult to deny–but rather that “everything passing” was what troubled me in the first place. I’m a naturally anxious person, and I’m comforted by consistency, by what you can rely on every day no matter […]
Chatting with Maya Lavelle about “HOBO”
The video for Maya Lavelle’s fascinating new song “HOBO” comes with an eye-catching parenthetical: “picnic with a real bear”. That’s not something you see every day, especially not in an indie pop music video, so I watched and listened to see if it delivered the goods. I’m pleased to report that there is still some […]
“Prom Night Blues” by NRVS LVRS: Teenage Angst in IMAX Proportions
I didn’t go to prom in high school. I didn’t have a boyfriend or a girlfriend, for one thing, and my two best friends at the time were occupied with their own significant others. (I’m still friends with one, while the other has become an extremely online quasi-libertarian who I don’t talk to anymore.) Even […]
