I haven’t donated plasma since February I’ve been in a relationship since January 4th I went from not being on speaking terms with my father to being able to call him occasionally. I went from being on speaking terms with my mother to shaking and shutting down anytime she sends me an email or text. I was in Boston Massachusetts for weeks at a time , I am in the same messy bed-stuy apartment I was in last year and plan on staying for as long as the rent doesn’t get raised. I played a show with one of my favorite musicians of all time and she sometimes will like an instagram post of mine.
The year always starts in January and this last January I wrote a line for an EP of twee pop songs me and my girlfriend made that “the days just drip off the arm of the arm of the year” I don’t necessarily know what every line means when I write them. I spose you can measure a year in graduated cylinders of sweat if you sweating is often a part of your days labor. I work with my hands, I work with my arms. I am working New Years Eve tonight. At the end of the day all I know is that that phrase was circling around my head for the week prior which means it must mean something. That and “the year” rhymes with “King Lear.”
Brat was a cultural force in communities that I am often lumped in with during converstation, however they are communities I often do not have contact with. Gay something queer something. I listened to a couple handful of records from the rateyourmusic.com top list for this year and only responded to the Cindy Lee record Diamond Jubilee which is a masterpiece. Now at the end of the year I hear people describing it as “mid.” I don't feel a need to defend Diamond Jubilee to these types who don't understand the countless human reasons some records might be better for having “skips”, I mostly just think less of the person's character afterwards.
For my better or worse I viewed -Music This Year- as in opposition or defense of brat. My opinion of brat is that it’s a fine record but a step back for miss xcx creatively. I would say a step back that reflects an international recursive cultural move. Trump re-elected, trad-cath hipster assholes,an international resurgence of fascism. I don’t feel the need to say miss xcx is a fascist at all, or if you like her record you are a fascist, but I do feel the need to say that Brat was definitely ready for a climate primed to shift conservative. The Phish of dance music (I went to a Phish show for the first time last night and found many parallels to brat themed party nights in Brooklyn).
I grew a lot this year, I am a musician who thinks too much about music, doves still crowd my fire escape in the winter, Anne Carson is still right about everything. Today I touched myself to imagining a boy proposing marriage to me for half an hour.
Generally I have realized is that what makes a “great” musician or an artist to me is someone who creates a language defined by both their body and mind and works exclusively in that language. What I love is how the American population express their natural life and while I’ve never left the country I don’t believe I will ever live anywhere else.
Okay . That’s words. Here’s sounds
Lucy cooper b handy is a Massachusetts heart throb whose naivety shines as much as his deft control of pop elements. Volume 9 is his most consistent record to date which is saying something considering how many he’s done and how good they all are. His palette of drum sounds and samples will be understood as groundbreaking in 15 years. Michael Hurley, sweet child of mine, all sampling is proof that the future is in our ability to understand the qualities and deploy our history. Really What we learn from Lucy is that a language’s simplicity is its strength. What we learn from Lucy is that a kiss from a cute boy would be exciting.
Through the fire and the flames by corn is Scotty Malcolm’s latest release. His catalogue has ballooned this year with Through The Fire and The Flames standing out to me as the most heart breaking release. The childish or adolescent tone that you get from Lucy you can find in Malcolm’s music with a sort of collegic bachelor life shading. Songs about drinking with your friends and thressomes and Mario kart were all released this year on previous records under the names “American ninja warriorz" and "Acid Minion". Through the fire and flames has plenty of funny moments like his previous releases but it can perhaps could be described more as a dramaedy than a comedy as the earlier records from this year. Malcolm is heart broken, slightly world weary, and is explaining it to us plainly via messy 4 track mastery. The truth he has is that “she’s out of my life but she’s still in my mind everyday” and that's as simple and clear as anyone can state that situation. Honestly the novelty of Malcom’s emotional range is no small part of what I love about this release.
If you can’t write That soft underbelly feeling of a song like “waiting for th day” and also something funny and anthemic like “brandons threesome story ” then sorry but you will never win the big bake off.
Shame music 2 by Lex Walton is a record of covers of her own music from 4 years ago. A 2018 “Twin Fantasy” by car seat headrest if you will. Like Toledo, Walton updates the material's forms and sonic palettes to create a comment on both her life in the past, her life in the present, and the nature of sharing excessively personal art. That last aspect's exploration is a continuation from her 2023 album “I WANT YOU TO KILL ME” in which her mental health history and specific details of her past and present relationships are relayed in excessive detail and then measured against what it even means to relay and measure such a thing.
Shame Music 2 continues in this vein, but develops the longer compositional forms that “I WANT YOUT TO KILL ME” explored with songs “10 thousand friends..” and “Southland Tales” to a sharp edge. Sharp edges of building crescendos and sudden drops and crying monologues that don’t necessarily cut you but remind you of where you have been cut before. And that’s the thesis of the work. That “shame ain’t too much if we share it” shame being yes shame, but also myriads of horrible feelings that we must find confirmation for in the music we listen to. She still has the shame she had during the making of the 2020 shame music but the addendums show what she has learned while carrying the shame this long. “Every moment is precious, that we have been one this entire time if you can believe that” is usually only something you need to say out loud when you forget it. I could write enough about this record to fill a book but what seems important right now is how she develops her use of the word “you” in pop music . “Southland Tales” on "I WANT YOU TO KILL ME" first made note of the power of “you” to mean multiple things in the context of a pop song. Shame Music 2's “Take Me Away From This Corpus Christi Parking Lot's” last refrain repeats “I love who you are and I love who you become” the listener knows this is her at 20, her at 24, and we also instinctively know this is us. And that’s what pop music is about. Makes you into us back into you.
Okay enough about my girlfriend.
I am losing contact with some of my old friends. Messages get sent and no replies are returned. Ex girlfriend's don't want to be friends anymore and it's my own damn ragamuffin fault sometimes. This happens , I am grateful I have new friends who take their places in my life. Live and learn. To another year of living and learning and music and death to Israel.
