This newsletter has been in draft for a month, held in limbo thanks to the arrival of our first kid. He was born ten days early, fittingly on Father’s Day, and it’s been a blur of groggy happiness and an accompanying terror.
He and I wake up at 4 am, when I take him down to the couch so my wife gets a chunk of unbothered sleep. This is a stretch of endless YouTube videos, documentaries, cooking videos, microwaved coffee, and attempts to figure out what scream means formula and what means dirty diaper. The buzzing skinfeel of caffeine while it’s still dark out, like constant jet lag. And my constant companion, the creeping horror of climate change. Within the first week of him being alive, it was too hot outside to safely walk him around to the local coffee shop. Europe burned.
We pass a decades-old fallout shelter sign on a late morning walk, a reminder that people have been hoping for a better world for their children against the odds for all of history, whether it’s the threat of nuclear destruction or the end of Arctic ice. I mention it to my wife in hopes that it’ll clear up my anxiety, but it’s a small, passing consolation.
I text friends with kids, who also faced orange skies and record temperatures when their children were born. Loss is all around us as the present becomes increasingly strange and unfamiliar.
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Hope is a small, silly practice.
This newsletter is just collections of new songs and dumb links, but after a year plus of writing it, the work is really in the searching. The writing part is just a small bonus, a bump to my ego. Digging for new favorite songs, beating back nostalgia and a waning interest in exploring the unfamiliar new world.
Now this newsletter has a new purpose, to keep grounded amidst the onslaught of the future and be hopeful – maybe the best song I’ve ever heard still lies ahead. The joy of the present isn’t a given, and staying attuned to it is a muscle I need to keep strong, now more than ever for my kid.
A friend visited us with her toddler, and I saw him taste tomato sauce for the first time and saw his thrill at gnawing at a pizza crust. It was incredible to witness his joy at a new sensation.
When Felix took a routine hearing test at the hospital, I realized that sharing music with him is something I took for granted. Once he passed the test, I breathed a bit easier, but it’s a moment that’s stuck with me as I’ve worried about the future.
It’s a gift to get to show him the world, however diminished, and it’s on me to show him how important it is to practice hope, against all odds – even if that just means finding one new favorite song.
Anyway, clearing out some held-over tracks from when I originally meant to send this in July. I’ll be back to regularly scheduled programming next Tuesday – and as always, you can follow along on our playlists on Spotify and Apple Music, which update every Tuesday along with the newsletter.
Slowdive – Skin In The Game
Like Yo La Tengo’s excellent This Stupid World from earlier this year, Slowdive’s “Skin In The Game” feels like a masterclass in distortion for the new-school shoegazers. Like their s/t 2017 album, this is another unexpected late-career stunner: the song glimmers but never breaks a sweat, even as it glides between textures and buzzing melody.
Queens of the Stone Age – Paper Machete
This Queens of the Stone Age record has a weightier narrative than their usual “yet another collection of bitchin rock songs,” but the music doesn’t feel heavy – it’s perhaps their most buttheaded collection since Era Vulgaris, and it’s the better for it.
Jorja Smith and Nia Archives – Little Things
Nia Archives found the sauce for Jorja Smith’s latest single “Little Things,” shaking off the Impulse library cut tones and replacing it with pirate radio energy. I don’t know why Smith hasn’t done an album-length collaboration with Nia Archives – the vibe is so effortless that it could sustain 40 more minutes easily.
Guided By Voices – Romeo Surgeon
I’ve almost included a new GBV song in this newsletter at least 10 times, only to be cut at the last minute, but their latest LP Welshpool Frillies is quite excellent. Recorded live to tape, there are a handful of excellent jams amidst the usual torrent of content, and “Romeo Surgeon” hit especially hard for me. 40 years of GBV and it feels like they could go on for decades more.
The Hives – Countdown to Shutdown
The first truly fun and properly explosive Hives song since “Tick Tick Boom” – of all of the early 2000s bands to see making the rounds, these guys are the ones I’m rooting for most. They’ve always leaned more towards being workhorse entertainers than their peers, and in my opinion, the world is a better place with the Hives.
throwback
Backstreet Boys – I Want It That Way (No Goodbyes)
In 1995, the Backstreet Boys tried to rewrite Max Martin’s nonsensical lyrics to “I Want It That Way” and I’ve never been more eager to go back to gibberish lyrics in my life. The resulting unreleased track is all uncanny valley weirdness – it’s the exact same song and arrangement, but it’s just absolutely no good. I found the track via this Talkhouse conversation between NYC artists Sadie and Dominic Sen, who released an excellent new record Apparition a few weeks ago. Long live gibberish.