A Screaming Song
A mixtape for meeting the noise.
This Is All There Is
It’s been a hell of a month. I feel like we’re all just mentally walking a tightrope. I highly recommend disappearing to the desert with your friends and reminding yourself that the world is beautiful and the communities we’ve built will keep us whole. We’re all we’ve got, but we’ve also still got Joshua Tree.
This month’s mixtape is probably not for everyone. Could it be my least popular yet? I don’t know! Maybe! It’s a collection of metal, hardcore, screamo, etc. I’ll explain more below.
What I’ll say is, if you don’t like the first song, you’re probably not going to love the rest. But I hope you approach it with a curious mind, even if you skip around or have to revisit an old mixtape this month. We’ll catch you on the next one for sure.
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And hey, if you like it, why not share the mix or this newsletter with a friend?
A Screaming Song
Created for meeting the noise.
*****
The world has been kind of fucking awful for the past year or so. The American political climate is depressing. The climate disasters keep mounting. I spent the past year on Instagram watching parents mourn their dead children and children mourn their dead parents in an ongoing genocide. Any of these things is enough to knock you out mentally, but all of this stacked on top of each other is spiritually eviscerating.
I don’t mean to fan the flames of our collective despair, but you can’t stew in silence or ignore it.
Sometimes, even when the world is offering very little in the way of mercy, you’ll also just have a bad day (work, relationships, a series of minor inconveniences). It is in these moments that my head feels chaotic, like an ocean churning in a hurricane. I can’t think straight. I can barely see straight. My mind is trying to solve a million problems at once, and the chatter feels insurmountable.
In the physics of sound, two identical sound waves aligned separately can cancel each other out and result in silence in a phenomenon called destructive interference. This makes sense to me. Sometimes you need to meet the noise in your head with an equally powerful noise in your headphones just to get some peace and quiet. I need to hear the way I’m feeling, a scream to silence the echoes, so I can validate and process my emotions and thoughts.
My friend once shared this Maurice Sendak illustration (that I’ve adopted as the cover art for this month’s mixtape) from a book by Ruth Krauss: “A screaming song is good to know in case you need to scream.” Sometimes you need to scream, and that’s exactly what this mixtape allows. It is a collection of metal, hardcore, screamo, grindcore, and more. It is the auditory version of a rage room that will hopefully provide some catharsis.
This may not be your cup of tea, and that’s fine, but maybe you want to dip your toes in. Here are some highlights:
Deafheaven - “Brought to the Water”
Black metal meets soaring post-rock guitars. If Explosions in the Sky got a singer that wore black and never needed a lozenge. It’s worth getting to minute 4 in this song for one of the most beautiful and invigorating moments in music I’ve ever heard. If I’ve had a bad day at work, this soundtracks my subway ride home.
Counterparts - “Whispers of Your Death”
This is the only song that makes me cry, and it does it almost every time I listen. The singer was told that his beloved cat was dying, and this is his meditation on those feelings. If you’ve ever loved a pet, this will get you right in your gut. The cat lived, which makes the song all the more beautiful to me. The chorus goes:
It's hard to breathe without you sleeping on my chest
Sick and withering from the whispers of your death
Forever your savior, as much as you are mine
And for that I promise to protect you
Until the day I die
I love my cat.
Chat Pile - “Why”
An honest and plain examination of America’s homelessness epidemic. A fitting expression of rage and confusion at our societal failing. People probably don’t often look to this music for empathy, but you’ll find it here.
Songs like these help me feel sane during times of extreme noise. They help me get through today, so I can look toward better tomorrows, which will come. I hope they help you.
*****
Love you all. Hope you enjoy!
Join Me: Yeah Yeah Yeahs @ Beacon Theatre, Tuesday, July 29th, 8pm
Kristin is a huge Yeah Yeah Yeahs fan. She saw them many years ago at Kings Theatre and raved about the experience. I was very jealous.
She just bought us tickets to see them at Beacon Theatre, which should be incredible. They are titans of the NYC scene that defined my high school experience, and this is a big one off the bucket list.
RIYL: Meet Me in the Bathroom, 00’s New York Rock and Roll, recontextualizing high school fandom as time tested high art
Check out one of the greatest songs ever written, “Maps.”
Some Other Things That I Love
(that you might love too!)
Common Side Effects - Let me contribute to the chorus of praise that this show is receiving. It’s funny, beautiful, thrilling, and timely. It is a great example of using animation to tell a story in a way only possible with this art form. Get on board with season 1, because it’s been renewed for 2 already.
Federico Fellini - Every year when Kristin is away working her film festival, I take the opportunity to do a deep dive into a director that I haven’t really explored. This year, I watched 5 films from the Italian master. Every single one was incredible in different ways, and I think you probably can’t go wrong. It’s hard to miss his influence on some of the greatest film directors that followed in his wake.
Stars - I spent a weekend in Joshua Tree a week or so ago and found it so spiritually renewing. I got a little emotional looking up at the night sky and thinking “big cities have decided not to see this.” Man, the universe is really something, and it’s great to be reminded once in a while. (I still love you, big city.)
