nitpicks: dissecting my listening history
or, my picks in music from the past few months
thank you to Jacob Kaufman-Shalett for the very clever title for this new thing I’m trying called nitpicks, where I write about some things i really like, or some things i don’t, probably. in this installment, i will be talking about music i liked.
i fear that this first part is going to feel like when you read a recipe and the author spends four pages talking about her mimi before you get to the recipe, so if you don’t want backstory, just music, that’s cool and i give you permission to scroll. i sort of can’t imagine there’s a person who reads this blog who both doesn’t give a shit about what i have to say about myself but does care enough about my music taste to read this, though. so if that’s you, send me a text for research purposes. i’m fascinated by your mind palace.
it’s goblin season, which means that the goblins in my brain are in their ripest, most disgusting state. this makes it really hard to do anything, which means
i’ve been really struggling with sleep for reasons that date back to my birth;
i have a hard time eating, cooking, watching, reading, or listening to anything at all unfamiliar, which means i’m spending copious amounts of money on Just The Fun Part with pistachio cream and i’ve relapsed on fanfiction; and
every time i walk outside the ground is wet with melting snow, so my brain has convinced me that somehow, it’s all piss, every last drop, and it’s getting into my shoes and traveling all the way up my body to my hands, and every time i touch my mouth i’m consuming small but lethal amounts of street piss, killing me not so quickly that it’s painless, but not so slowly that i still have time left.
this happens roughly every february.
what’s different about this february is that for the first time i am actively trying not to hit rock bottom. i am much more used to self-sabotaging until things get bad enough that i decide “ok, this needs to be over” and can somehow harness the momentum from hitting rock bottom to bounce back. instead, i'm clinging, untethered, to the side of a rock face and trying to make incremental movements toward the mountaintop, like alex honnold, if free solo were about trying to become a person who can walk on a wet sidewalk without twitching.
how am i doing this? exposure and response prevention. right now, my most doable and consistent exposure is intentionally listening to unfamiliar music and just sitting in the discomfort of not knowing what comes next musically. it’s small, but it helps — tolerating the discomfort of not knowing what the chorus will sound like will hopefully lead to tolerating the discomfort of not knowing exactly how much street piss i’m interacting with, and then basically i’m home free.
i have a couple strategies of finding new music — i have a Spotify blend with my siblings; i have a collaborative playlist with my friend, musician Archer Joy; and i try to add albums to my spotify library like a to do list. SO. here is some of the music i have enjoyed from my few months cliffside clinging. here’s to grip strength and endurance. hope you guys had a nice february and are finding ways to move through goblin season.
wet leg - moisturizer (album)
i didn’t get onto the wet leg train when “chaise lounge” and “wet dream” were taking off, but i’m on now, i think. i found this album because of the masterful montage in ep 2 of heated rivalry to “mangetout”, but the rest of the album is also really good. i’ve been looking for some grimier music (distorted guitars, crash heavy drums, big belt/yell moments, etc), i think because the calm stuff has been unsettling me lately. this definitely scratched the grime itch. “pokemon” is less grimy but still very fun and i think that the chorus — you wanna go for a driiiiive — is such an earworm. i really enjoyed this album as a project. it felt cohesive to me and like the songs all needed to be there. some very fun vocals on this album and some really cool instrumentation.
some favorites: “CPR”, “catch these fists”, “pokemon”, “u and me at home”
FORAGER (artist)
Archer put me on to FORAGER with their song “Edgewise”. i’d describe their music as imaginative — lots of dreamy synths; chromaticisms; groovy bass lines; key, tempo, and time signature changes; interesting riffs. i’m realizing in writing this how hard it is to write about music. it feels dumb to just say i like it very much, they make a lot of unexpected choices that make you lean in rather than leaning away but that is just the truth. it’s the kind of music that i find myself listening to over and over just trying to learn what’s happening in a certain place. the kind of cool musical moment i want to dissect and figure out how it works. i’m a big fan, and i USED TO BE a top FORAGER scholar on Genius but then they blew up crazy style and now I’m only 17th. such is life.
some favorites: “fastest alone”, “split lip”, “pomeranian”, “fuji or a trek”
luvcat - vicious delicious (album)
i don’t even remember how i got put on to this album, but there was a day in the past couple months where I just listened to “alien” on a loop. there’s something in that song, some sort of drug, i think. the syncopated bass. the bridge (beam me up / to the blackened night above / beam me up / wanna kiss, wanna fall in love / beam me up / say the stuff i’ve been dreaming of / ‘you always have been one of us’). the final chorus (it’s one! of! a! kiiiiind!). i love this song. love it DOWN. “blushing” has a similar incredible stretch of bridge into final chorus. i think i find those sort of moments really nice when executed well — a slightly different iteration of a chorus we’ve heard already, a new option, a changed lyric, a repeated line. it’s a good payoff. luvcat does it well.
some favorites: “alien” (!!!!!), “love & money”, “blushing”, “matador”
blondshell (artist)
i think i first heard of blondshell because Katie Gavin mentions her in the MUNA live album (i have to assume she opened for MUNA that night but i have never verified that). i have especially loved “kiss city” this winter, because it has a shimmery quality that hardens into grit for the later choruses, which is kind of exactly what i need. a sort of slow dance into jump-scream-singing that i find delightful. for exposures i listened to blondshell (deluxe edition, 2023), but i’ve been poking around in her other discography as well and i just really like her voice.
some favorites: “kiss city”, “cartoon earthquake”, “salad”, “berlin tv tower”
florence road (artist)
i found florence road because i was listening to Djo’s cover of Haim’s Gasoline for Live a Version, and this song came on after. i know i know i KNOW this is a cover of a phoebe bridgers song i already like a lot, but this still COUNTS as unfamiliar because I STRUGGLE WITH COVERS especially when i already like the original. why fix what ain’t broken and all that. but in this cover, florence road maintains all of what i loved about the original while managing to add their own uniquenesses and subtleties — a little riff on “one” in the first verse; a voice crack on “pouring rain” in the first pre-chorus; an artful wail in between lyrics on the last, most urgent chorus. i have listened to less of their discography than i would like, but what i have listened to, i have really enjoyed. i love a belter, i’m realizing — i love a vocalist who can really, full-throatedly belt in a way that underscores the emotion in the music. also, i really love the cover art for “miss”. so.
some favorites: “georgia (triple j Like A Version)” “miss”, “goodnight”
spill tab (artist)
i listened to “by design” on a loop for like a full day a couple weeks ago because i was trying to figure out the time signature for the little acoustic breakdown in the last half of the song. i decided (with Archer) that there’s an added 5/4 measure in the middle of it, and that that was why i couldn’t figure it out for such a long time. one thing about me is i’m going to hold a song between my teeth and shake it back and forth. i am going to try to suss out what the hell is going on structurally with it. “by design” has two distinct parts — a dark, echoey, synth-heavy section, and a more muted, pulsing, acoustic section. spill tab has a lot of good ones in their discography, but this particular round i focused on their album AngieAngieAngie, which is the deluxe of their album Angie. good shit!
some favorites: “by design”, “roamer”, “angie”, “eating heartbreak” (this one is a feature on a cosmo’s midnight song but still very good)
billie marten - dog eared (album)
i don’t remember who put me on to billie marten either. i’ll admit i did the same thing with “feeling” that i did with “by design”, which is to say, i texted archer and said hey can you send me a voice memo of you counting out this section? i can’t figure out what’s going on here.
i guess i like a song that has a little bit of a challenge, a nugget of something a little beyond my knowledge or music theory skills. it has the added benefit of me getting to talk to my friends about music and hearing them explain something they understand better than i do.
i don’t have much to say about this album besides that billie marten just has such a nice voice — clear, rich, and gentle all at the same time. i also desperately love the album art for this one. would recommend a listen. it’s a good cooking album, a good cleaning album, a good just hanging out and enjoying the day album.
some favorites: “no sudden changes”, “feeling”, “leap year”
this is all i have for now, i think. i’m hoping i’ll be consistent enough with my exposures that i’ll have more of these soon, but in the meantime i’ve been asking friends to send me three albums to listen to so that i have stuff in my back pocket. i’m hoping march sees me through to easier times, but if not, i’m hoping march just sees me through. thank you for reading.
xo char