I spent about 2 months terrified of the written word and stopped writing and reading anything that wasn’t One Piece or Jujutsu Kaisen but we are all the way back! Next time I promise this won’t just be about Asian people
yeule - softscars
I understand this is a bit of a poser take but unfortunately I really love this new wave of electronic-adjacent shoegaze revivalism. The angles that Parannoul or Jane Remover or any of their international contemporaries are taking to compress the analog artifices of shoegaze (no straight to tape here) into something flat and digital yet still massive could probably be the subject of a full book in itself.
yeule’s softscars is probably the actual logical endpoint of this wave of shoegaze / dream pop, something that’s rock star but also part Porter Robinson x Madeon and also part Joe Hisaishi (not kidding about the last part, “fish in the pool” actually just sounds like a Studio Ghibli end credit soundtrack). This music is sweet, decadent, and at least a little bit creepy, but isn’t that what the name “My Bloody Valentine” makes you feel too?
KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON (Martin Scorsese)
I’m not totally sure that this is a comp I stand behind holistically, but I felt this movie carried a lot of the same journalistic, almost slideshow-like qualities that OPPENHEIMER did. In both films, history is presented as inexorable, and events just become slides to be viewed in sequence.
Inherently, I think that approach in OPPENHEIMER excludes some emotional depth. We see the events that catalyze emotional change, sure, but obviously we know the endpoint; it feels like a closed circuit with no inputs. I think KILLERS is the same way sometimes, but its slow creep feels deeply and fundamentally tinged with evil in a way that transcends its format. At some times Leo and DeNiro choose portray that evil with caricature, but that approach plus a 200 minute runtime makes for a uniquely disturbing viewing experience. I can't recall a film that evoked this much dread in a long long time. Mf did it again!!!!
Silence by Shusaku Endo (and SILENCE (Martin Scorsese))
I felt this way after watching Scorsese’s movie — which I think is probably his most underrated, something only he could have made — and it’s been solidified by reading the original source material, but I think this might be the best story ever besides One Piece. It’s a little like Dostoevsky’s “Grand Inquisitor” which was an almost embarrassingly formative passage to me in college but Silence’s treatment of faith is deeper and more compassionate, and more pragmatic.
Yeat & Mariah Carey - “Stayed Together (blaccmass mashup)”
Wrote about this one here for No Bells:
blaccmass’s work here is the best kind of mashup: between artists I couldn’t even fathom having a conversation (please just imagine the Mariah Carey / Yeat linkup), both sides elevated, and signed, sealed, delivered to me via a Druski skit on TikTok. As Kieran recently noted for this very outlet, some mashups seem to imagine alternate creative futures for their unknowing, passive artist collaborators. While it’s almost impossible to extricate Yeat from his signature industrial sound, he does possess a lighter, more ethereal register (“Out thë way”), and blaccmass’s choice to pull out the floor here lets him really twinkle (twinkle he does!). When I think about this oppressive, dragging 2023 summer in a few years I think this song is what that memory will sound like: the hour or two of relief right after the sun dims, the temperature drops, and you can see the steam evaporating off of the asphalt into the stratosphere. This is Real Music!
Drake - “8AM in Charlotte” (Conductor Williams, Jason Wool, Mario Luciano)
Drake inhabits celebrity better than anyone in my lifetime and being one of the few high-profile rappers who is unironically dropping “listen to these #bars” singles is yet another reason why
jaydes - “stuck to script” (jaydes)
This is a perfect rap song, whirs into existence before being wound back to the producer tag drop like all the best SoundCloud classics. We reject modernity on this Substack
RYUICHI SAKOMOTO | OPUS (Neo Sora)
I write about this guy a lot because he’s one of my favorite artists across any medium ever but also because I have some really formative touchpoints with him across my life. For the first couple years of college I would’ve sworn up and down Jay Electronica was the best rapper alive and “Better In Tune (With the Infinite)” was the first time I ever heard a Ryuichi composition; a couple years later CALL ME BY YOUR NAME was one of the first movies I think I took seriously of my own accord, and Sakomoto is all over that soundtrack. It’s tragic to feel that we’ve reached the end of the road of in being able to appreciate his creative live in real-time, but appreciating it in retrospect can also be moving.
This movie is inextricable from its context — a son filming his father close to his passing, summoning up the last of his energy across several days for one last performance. There’s some meaning to be imparted to the track sequencing, which traverses some of Sakomoto’s most enduring and iconic works as well as more understated pieces from his last couple albums, but I think most moving are the moments his son Neo chooses to lets the facade briefly fall. He’s off-kilter occasionally, restarts an improvisation multiple times because he doesn’t find the right groove, tells the camera he needs a break because he’s pushing himself too hard. But then there are moments you can see him crack a smile too, like the climax of “Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence”. The cut-to-black before the credits over “Opus” is a heart-stopper, something I won’t forget for a long time.
Golden Kamuy by Satoru Noda
I’ve read 200 chapters of these manga in 4 days and definitely need help.
NOBODY KNOWS (Hirozaku Kore-eda)
I’m surprised to say I actually felt that this movie was cruel, so cruel that it makes me want to reevaluate all the later work (esp. SHOPLIFTERS and BROKER) that feel like sappier and more redemptive versions of this. This movie features the worst parent and perhaps the best kids I’ve ever seen in a movie, and somewhere at the intersection of those unreal portrayals is a contrived quality that feels unique to Kore-eda.
I would call it manipulative to create a movie like this, but what complicates this further is that it's based on a real story. Maybe that's the crux, though, Kore-eda's eye for the almost grotesquely saccharine and his ability to squeeze every drop of emotion from it to an extent that’s exhausting. When it works it works and I def be crying during these movies, but I can't help but feel like I'm taken along for a ride, too.