How do we feel about the click-baity subject line here? (Is it click-bait if it’s true? Something to think about). Happy Friday. This week felt both very long and very short. I have a lot of thoughts about the various densities of time but we can’t open that can of worms here. It turns out time both flies and stops when you’re spending 80% of your free time on the couch watching TikToks of women cleaning their all white apartments with $400 appliances and amber colored spray bottles of eco-friendly something or other. This is whatever the version of a recession indicator is but for my mental health.
Back to the subject line. It’s actually a lyric lifted from my favorite music release of the last week (and contending for favorite of the year): the song “P.U.N.C.T.U.A.L.I.T.Y.” by Issy Wood off her latest EP The Blame, Pt. 6. This is sort of my platonic ideal of pop - sexy, vibey music crackling with brilliant and surprising lyrics that, at every turn, go along with then against the feeling of the music.
The entirety of The Blame, Pt 6 is strewn with sparkles of wit and gut punches of honesty. (This is what I aspire to with my podcast but tend to mostly just land at dumb bitch who says “fucking” a lot). Like for example this bit from the song “Nothing”:
Could’ve sworn I was just
Starved but brave
In 2008
Sneaking a boy into my mother’s place
He’d kiss me and tell me not to say a word
I understood that I could be a source of shame
There’s a little sound just after this verse which sounds both like a laugh and a cry - perfect. Just perfect. I’m really enjoying how each listen through of this EP reveals new things to me. Some music is a blanket and some music is caffeine. Also I don’t want to COMPARE WOMEN (#notallwomen) but it did make me think of Lily Allen’s recent album. (Some men don’t know how to behave etc).
I enjoyed West End Girl (I do hear the way Wood is firmly within her lineage) and it was interesting to notice how Allen’s power lays in the brutal, blow-by-blow, “then this happened” style narration while I think Wood is playing with different paints (do you see what I did there? Because she is also a painter…). Namely bobbing and weaving, lulling you with her velvet, feline voice, then jabbing you with pointed lyrics and unexpected sounds. It’s so satisfying to listen to.
In other news, it looks like I’m coming to London again for a few weeks mid-December through the first week of January living out my Richard Curtis fantasies if anyone wants to invite me to anything cool, give me presents, or recommend things I can do with my family (who has the Paddington Musical plug???).
What (else) I’ve been listening to, watching, and reading this week:
MJ Lenderman covered “A Long December” at the Chateau Marmont for GQ’s Men of the Year party last night. (Reverse party reporting). Some men DO know how to behave (covering the Counting Crows/wearing tattered Replacements shirts). Starts at around 44:42.
In related news, I got to watch Counting Crows: Have You Seen Me Lately? the Counting Crows doc that I think comes out next year? It’s very good and features a star turn from my good pal Rob Harvilla, the best talking head I’ve ever seen.
Still listening to Rosalia’s Lux quite a bit - a different platonic ideal of pop (using this word loosely as hell), in which pop star communes with god! I recently listened to her on Fashion Neurosis with Bella Freud and she said so many incredible things. The one I wrote down in thick marker on a note above my desk is: “Risk is surrender.” Risk. Is. Surrender. I felt so moved by this sentiment. I’ve not stopped thinking about it since.
Glixen is a band I don’t talk about enough. I really love them. I’m particularly interested in the massive shoegaze revival that’s seemed to swell up in the last four or five years - is everyone okay etc. New song “Medicine Bow” came out today and it’s very good.
Bre Morell’s cover of “Black Milk” by Massive Attack. Bre is one half of my beloved Crushed (when will this bitch stop talking about Crushed, the answer is never babe), and was my guest on this week’s Massive Attack episode of Bandsplain and we had a wonderful time doing a tight twenty on Bristol’s history as well as discussing hot 3D is, my luteal phase, and then like 3ish hours about the music.
Another new Chelsea Hodson song is out. It’s called “Sleepwalker” and features Josh Klinghoffer on bass. I really like the vocals here; they have an almost child-like quality, the way Deal sisters often do. I can’t wait for the full album.
I’m late on this but Spiritual Cramp’s latest album Rude is super fun - a real grab bag of identifiable 70s UK punk and ska influences. The song with Sharon Van Etten is quite cool and I’m also partial to “At My Funeral” because the lyrics are amusing.
Blondshell’s companion album Another Picture is out today and it’s very up my alley (when will this bitch shut up about Blondshell the answer is never babe). Love the new single “Berlin TV Tower” (this bitch lives to ear worm), love the collabs - John Glacier, Gigi Perez, Folk Bitch Trio, and Conor Oberst (even though I famously have a giant Bright Eyes shaped blind spot), love all of it.
A reply guy DMed me a while back that I was giving strong “Trouble Every Day energy,” which I had to google. Trouble Every Day is a 2004 Claire Denis film starring Vincent Gallo, Tricia Vessey, and Beatrice Dalle (who I am obsessed with and whose hair and general sartorial vibe I often imitate). I was flattered until I watched it and learned that Dalle’s character has some tropical brain disease that turned her into a sexual cannibal. Thanks I guess! Even though I don’t generally care for horror movies (Chris Ryan said this doesn’t count as a horror movie) I found it very beautiful in a fucked up way. But I did have to watch an episode of Gilmore Girls after to placate my brain.
I also watched the first two episodes of the new Vince Gilligan show Pluribus on Apple TV. I’ve actually never watched Breaking Bad (it made me anxious!) but this shit is so up my fucking street. I can’t really say much about what it’s about without ruining the watching experience but it really reminded me of this book I read years ago recommended by a much older guy I was dating who I called the moon professor because he lived his life by the phases of the moon (I can’t even really get into this right now let’s continue). The book is called The RA Material: The Law of One in which this physicist in the 70s used a channeler to try to contact aliens and printed the transcript of the conversation. (It’s good!!!).
Lastly, as mentioned above the paywall, I’m doing Cameos again for the holidays. Over last weekend I had one drink and ended up making an eight minute long video responding to a woman who requested one pertaining to her apprehensions around turning forty. I’ll keep them up through mid December.
As always all the songs mentioned in this post live in the Fast & Loose playlist HERE
Yasi, London around the holidays is the best! No one is working and everyone is just is a general stage of sloshed. I have fond memories of drinking way too much of an ale called “The Merry Elf” and then seeing EMF in a club above a restaurant with what seemed like 50 of their friends (they definitely played “Unbelievable” at least twice).