Something New (This Week)
Music, movies, and a video game for softies (me).
Happy we-don’t-have-to-think-or-talk-about-fake-awards-for-movies-anymore to all who celebrate. I’ve been having trouble sleeping lately, and have been easily slipping into dark and deep trains of thought about the many, many dark and deep things that there are to think about, presently and historically. As usual, I turn to artists and creators to help me cope, help me assess, help me learn, help me grow, and help me live. Here are a couple of things that helped me, this week.
Music
The Bygones - Glad
Due to a particular social gathering that I was practicing for and apart of this past weekend, I’ve been trained to keep an ear open for guitar-based lyrical music that includes simple flute interludes. It seems like Spotify also noticed that observation, and handed this new song to me on a platter. I can’t wait to hear more from this indie duo.
The Choir - I’d Rather You Leave Me
I was given this album through a playlist from Margeaux, a curator and TikTok creator, who Caroline Polachek called “the future of music criticism”. They are a wonderful TikTok follow, if you are on the platform, and an incredible follow on Spotify, where you can find dozens of long, wide-ranging playlists.
I don’t have any deep criticism or thoughts about The Choir, other than that I am a sucker for this era and style and recording quality of music, and this record scratches an itch that I’ve always had. It’s good vibes, especially for a week in which us here in Portland are finally about to feel again.
Richie Havens - Here Comes the Sun
An extremely rich and simple and energetic cover from an artist I had never heard before, Richie Havens, a New York born and Greenwich Village trained musician. There is such a warmth to the texture and tone of this, and I feel so fulfilled and satiated during and after listening.
Here’s 10 songs that I’ve liked, this week:
A Video Game
Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley
For reasons unknown, my algorithm and my eyes combined to find a trailer for this new Nintendo Switch (and other platform) game that dares to ask: what if a video game had good music and good vibes?
What is the game about? What do you aim to accomplish? What is a Snufkin? Who is a Moomin? I have no answers for you.
Will I be buying this game to introduce gentle, relaxing vibes into my ears and eyes? I have an answer for you: fuck yeah.
Movies
Saint Maud - 2019, director Rose Glass
To prepare for this week’s exciting new release, Rose Glass’s LOVE LIES BLEEDING, a mystery/noir starring Kristin Stewart, ___, and a fucked-up looking Ed Harris, I watched 2019’s SAINT MAUD, which was Glass’s debut feature. I’ve been thinking about the 2019 year in movies for many months now, about how it wasa peak of something, and how the industry was really firing on most of its cylinders, and how it was really building something special, before it all came crashing down, never to be the same. SAINT MAUD, a horror movie about “what if you really felt the presence of Jesus”, is representative of so many things of the time: the entire A24 aesthetic up to that point (dark, slightly comic, jarring, gross, all edited and colored and shot in a very similar house style). MAUD is in many ways a cookie-cutter experience, but Glass surely proved herself to be capable and sure-handed craftsperson within that milieu. It is a fine installment in the modern wave of horror we’re living in (a good one!), and I’d recommend MAUD to anyone who generally enjoys the genre, but I don’t know if it would/has converted any new disciples.
Regardless, I hope to see you in the cinema this weekend/next week for LOVE LIES BLEEDING. Text me!
Mean Girls - 2024, directors Samantha Jayne, Arturo Perez Jr.
Energetic, shiny, and way less interesting than the original movie, the new MEAN GIRLS musical adaptation is on Hulu now, and was a fine way to spend a weekday evening. It never grabbed me by the lapels (every shirt I wear has lapels, I’m literally only asking for things to grab me), but it mostly kept me off my phone, and had some memorable moments, with some cringe peppered in here and there.
My one real complaint, and ask for future movie musical productions: can we be better with our sound mixing and vocal recordings, especially when that is the entire point of the thing we are making? Why are the vocals in this musical so cold, so naked, so untethered from the reality of the environment? I could hear the breathy, stuffy recording closet that every song was made in, and every song performance, with big choreography and camera moves, felt dead on arrival, completely disconnected. It’s a shame.
Thank you, as always, for reading. Next week has a new music release I’ve been waiting for for while now, and I’m reading a new book and hopefully watching new movies and definitely spending most of my time lounging in the sun, the way a lizard would. I hope you find some new creative work to spend some time with this weekend, and I hope you find a nice rock to have some lizard time atop.
TTFN,
Bobby