Warp + ECM
A piece on the commonalities between the Warp and ECM labels went up today at Artforum. I’ve been working on it for a year and I’m real happy with it. If...
the albums of the teens
Decades are enormous and insubstantial, like office buildings. How can you see? You have to cross the street and unstick from the day. You have to let go of...
music in 2019
This is an overview of music criticism I wrote for Bookforum, a list of ten pieces built to accompany the Penman column. This is a review of Unsound 2019 I...
Ian Penman + Ariana Reines
Two pieces came out this week. First, there is a review of a new collection by Ian Penman I wrote for Bookforum. It is about Penman’s career, specifically,...
helicopters + hair
Live television is unforgiving. The acoustics in halls built for filming are awful, the camera angles and lighting are out of your control, and the pressure...
A.S. Frere + Moritz Von Oswald + Mark Ernestus
Last week was the thirty-fifth anniversary of my grandfather’s death. The New York Times obituary is here and represented below. My grandfather lived in...
NTS + Rosalía
I want you to have the best possible weekend. Here are some suggestions.Listen to NTS every morning. I use their iOS app most of the time. (There are also...
Rozi Plain + Burpin' Horses + Jermaine Derpy
I don’t have much in the way of habits. I have everything in the way of habits. I want my habits to increase in utility. Today, I’ll ride my bike down to...
A Summer of Listening, Part 3
When I got home, in the middle of June, I decided to listen to one band for the rest of summer. (This plan lasted for a week.) I chose King Crimson because I...
Ric Ocasek + Shaun Cassidy + Tom Scholz
It makes sense that someone born in the 21st century would think music fans from the Seventies were dumb. How did you not know that half of Heatwave was...
A Summer of Listening, Part 2
Music in the psych ward was a relief. I drank it all in gratefully, even when it was just someone howling along to “Simple Man” (which I hate). It was not...
A Summer of Listening, Part 1
The most popular song on Unit B3 was “I’m Blessed,” by Charlie Wilson. By popular, I mean that two different patients asked for it. On Sundays, Diana took...
Feathers + Lizzy Grant
The playlist here corresponds to Feathers, one of the twenty-odd chapters in Flux Cake (FSG/MCD, TK). From the text: A feather implicates both bodies. A...
Hiroshi Yoshimura + Akiko Yano
Here’s a guest post by Sadie Rebecca Starnes (whose paintings are also fantastic, so touch that link):A few years ago, I used music from Hiroshi Yoshimura’s...
A Service-Oriented Robyn Post
ONE. I made a playlist. I listened to Robyn for three weeks straight, which isn’t unusual, except that I listened to the albums I don’t like. My Truth is...
Robyn + Brenda
The phrase I settled on was “club dancing.” I don’t think other people say it but I haven’t checked. For a long time, club dancing was my favorite way to get...
Roberto + Jean-Luc
On Sunday morning, I texted Roberto a photo of my ninety day coin. He sent back “love u.” I hadn’t seen him in ages. I biked between meetings until the...
Walmart Rat + Grape Lady + Lil Medic Beats
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I Thought I Was Taking Medicine
This piece was first published in July of 2018 by Popula. In the year since, I’ve watched people in drug treatment facilities being moved from opioids to...
Redlining + Barry Biggs
Is CitiBike a solution or a problem? A report commissioned by New York Communities for Change and carried out by McGill’s School of Urban Planning, using...