Julia’s list! You can check out all our Best of 2015 lists here. 1. Kamasi Washington – The Epic Maximalist, spiritual music for your jazz-starved soul. 2. Kendrick Lamar – “Alright” Is it the New Black National Anthem? Maybe. That’s history’s call. It was, however, the right song for a community dealing with the bullshit of 2015. […]
And, Starchild said unto us, “I look at him as a genre. Within the genre of Prince, there is so much to discover.” Out of the mouth of babes. Has a greater musical truth ever been spoken? Choose your heroes wisely, as Starchild has, and you too could end up signed to Ghostly and ready […]
Established in 2001, the Late Night Tales series invites musicians who might be best-described as “classy motherfuckers” to dive deep into their sonic collections and take listeners on a journey through the wee hours of the morning. When the outfit tapped Berlin-based pianist/composer/producer Nils Frahm for a contribution, what they got was less a compilation […]
Did you read From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler when you were a kid? The E.L. Konigsburg novel where the smarty-party Kincaid siblings run away and spend their nights in the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art, outwitting the security guards and sleeping in the historical furniture dioramas? Maybe you saw the TV […]
Blame it on the internet. Blame it on postmodernism. Blame it on the rain. “Curation” used to be the province of experts. To “curate” something implied a certain educated discernment, and the word itself tended to only pop up in art world contexts. These days, “curating” is just a slightly irritating way of saying “pick […]
Oy vey, my lady friends are a puddle of heartbreak and discontent this week. Between the prolonged adolescent fuckery of Tinder and your standard-issue commitment phobia, it’s a wonder anyone bothers looking for love of the lasting variety these days. I’d been reflecting on the pathetic state of the contemporary dating scene and the complexity […]
Fine. I give. Bandwagon jumped on. Chorus joined. Your 2015 Rock and Roll Dream Come True is here in the form of Melbourne-based Courtney Barnett. I had resisted writing about Ms. Barnett for the past few weeks as singles—truly outstanding, instantly arresting singles—from her upcoming album Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just […]
Deconstruct now. Ask me how. Who doesn’t love a good deconstruction? Strip away the layers. Examine each for their presumptions and intent. Reveal the order underneath. Granted you may not love diagramming a sentence or examining institutional hierarchies as much as this girl, but can you deny the pleasure of craft—seeing a master chef, designer, […]
The past couple of years have offered a nice corrective to women who received one too many mix tapes that opened with The Beatles’ “Julia” in the early 90s because, yes, they were named “Julia.” (Three and counting for this Julia. What can I say? I attracted sensitive, mix tape-wielding souls.) While arguably the greatest […]
Let’s talk about John Hughes movies. I used to have a theory that straight chicks of a certain age and indie-leaning disposition would always go to bat for Pretty in Pink (and Duckie!), while their dude-equivalents were all about Some Kind of Wonderful and Mary Stuart Masterson as Watts, in particular. I mean, they’re pretty […]