Something New (This Week)
A cool song, two tough movies, and a new installment of a great YouTube series.
Turns out buying a car takes a lot of time and work. Who could have known? No big feature this week, though I have several drafts simmering right now. I did consume some fun new stuff this week, however, and I’m glad to continue a Friday collection post.
A cool song, a cool band
It turns out that people are still making shoegaze, and that the genre didn’t end with My Bloody Valentine’s 2008 record mbv. I started listening to the automatically generated Spotify playlist for the genre, and very quickly discovered this track. It’s got everything I love about the genre: the tension and diamagnetism of an upbeat tempo and bright sounds pushing against somber vocals and depressing chord progressions. I love how the percussion is singled out, and is so affecting. The song repeats every part of its structure, while varying the intensity and involvement of the drum kit’s patterns and tempo, which really lets you feel the value and place that percussion has in this kind of music. It controls the vibes, baby.
The entire (short) discography of this South Korean band is great.
Two new (to me) movies with the same sore spot
I saw AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER in IMAX 3D, and I saw 2017’s FIRST MAN on bluray on my projector. Both movies are technical marvels, AVATAR being maybe the most impressive and muscular spectacle I have seen in my entire life, just as the original film was. Both center on fathers trying to do the right things, and both barter with a currency I don’t have interest in: violence, trauma, and death, in specifically painstaking and torturous detail. It’s an attempt to create investment into the main characters’ stories and stakes, but it’s simply overwrought and mean. There are other, less volatile ways to get the viewer to lean into your story and its mechanisms without putting your sharpest knife into our chests.
I liked both movies, I just don’t know how I would recommend them, or who I would recommend them to. But I’m fine being stuck in a middling place with them, because if they had nothing of value to offer, they would have already slipped from my mind.
Old records from a new band
This is one of my favorite video series on the internet. A great way to see another side of performers that you like, and to find a bunch of music you may have never heard of before. There’s dozens of videos from all sorts of bands on their channel, and this one featuring ALVVAYS, who made one of my favorite records last year, has given me a bunch to listen to.
As always, I’d love for you to share with me what you consumed this week (that definitely includes food).
And of course, if you are new, and would like these to be shared with you directly, I highly recommend subscribing! It will send these straight to your inbox, or Substack app (which makes reading really great). It also helps me see what people like to read, so I can do more of that!
Back next week with thoughts on a filmmaker, an art style, and *extremely millenail sigh* America’s hottest new social media app.
TTFN,
B