Anthony Is Recommending: 9/29/23
I made the Center Of The Universe series of posts because I missed my college radio experience and wanted a self-imposed weekly deadline. But after the better part of a year, I think I’d like to try a format that’s more journalistic, centered what I’ve recently enjoyed rather than a Jim Ladd-style “musical head trip” I’ll delete in a week. So instead I’ll be updating a playlist every week or so with new-to-me music, annotating the latest entries with a post that also may include some nattering about other stuff I’ve been enjoying on the tube or elsewhere.
Iris DeMent, “Workin' On A World”
Workin' On A World is Iris DeMent’s first album since The Leftovers introduced her 1992 critical favorite “Let The Mystery Be” to HBO enthusiasts. Fittingly, the title track does for intergenerational optimism what “Mystery” did for joyful agnosticism. “I don’t have all the answers/ to the troubles of the day/ but neither did our ancestors/ and they persevered anyway/ when I see a little baby/ reaching out its arms to me/ I remember why I’m workin’ on a world/ I may never see.” It’s such an elegant, straightforward tonic against the vain, indulgent temptations of nihilism and pessimism that I want to play it for every adult with a social media account. Sadly, the rest of the album trades timeless philosophy for awkward, contemporary platitudes and MSNBC specifics to such an extreme I would only play it for Democratic Party poll workers over 50. Maybe 60. But two Unitarian gospel classics are more than I’ve heard from anyone else, and I still have to check out the ‘90s albums that made her name. There might be a third!
Fever Ray, “Even It Out”
Deathprod, “Composition 9”
Kali Uchis, “Endlessly”
Black Belt Eagle Scout, “Blue”
Orbital, “Day One (feat. Dina Ipavic)"
Rozi Plain, “Prove Your Good”
Skrillex, “Butterflies (feat. Starrah & Four Tet)”
Robert Forster, “Tender Years”
Kate NV, “oni (they)”
Slowthai, “HAPPY”
Yo La Tengo, “Tonight’s Episode”
Kelela, “Enough For Love”
The above are songs from 2023 albums that I already hailed in Center Of The Universe posts, and may well hail again at the year’s end. They deserve to be represented here, but I’m going to let my takes simmer in between. It sure does look my 2023 has been about spooky sirens and soundscapes, doesn’t it? I have a lot to catch up on, though. Maybe there will be a vibe shift!
Gina Birch, “Feminist Song”
While I Play My Bass Loud is technically the first solo album by Gina Birch of the Raincoats, she put out an album with a band she led called the Hangovers in 1998. I vaguely remember it being interesting in a very 1998 way, with loops and dub effects and whatnot, if less immediate than Birch’s contributions to the Raincoats’ reunion album Looking In The Shadows. Loud is impressively committed to the Hangovers sound despite the decades in between, and while also less immediate than her Raincoats work, it’s a mandatory listen for anyone wishing more post-punk veterans in their late sixties were unabashedly following their bliss. “Wish I Was You” is the most musically memorable track thanks to aping the Breeders’ “Cannonball” (again, it’s all very 90s), but “Feminist Song,” first released as a single in 2021, has the most memorable lyric, with a kicker that would make fellow sixty-something “warrior” Iris DeMent blush.
Giant Sand, “Center Of The Universe”
Damn, do I love this song. Neil Young should have gotten Howe Gelb instead of Daniel Lanois when he decided to get ominous with pedals and mixing tricks. You have to get some smirk in there to really get the spook, and this song has plenty of both. The way the distorted guitar coils under the ghostly Victoria Williams-led choir. The way “poor little universe caught a cough” co-exists with “never owned a house or a car, I’m just a renter.” It conveys the sense that you’re an ant in an unspeakably epic, shared experience, and your only job is to pay witness to the lightyears of beauty around you until you collapse back into it. Makes a great theme song, and it will make a great last track here.