Radiohead @ Madison Square Garden 7/27/2016
Burn the Witch / Daydreaming / Decks Dark / Desert Island Disk / Ful Stop / My Iron Lung / Climbing Up the Walls / Morning Mr. Magpie / Pyramid Song / Bloom / Identikit / The Numbers / The Gloaming / Weird Fishes/Arpeggi / Everything In Its Right Place / Idioteque / There There // Give Up the Ghost / Let Down / Present Tense / Planet Telex / Karma Police /// Reckoner / Creep

• This was my first Radiohead show in a solid decade. This wasn’t for a lack of interest in that time, only that circumstances didn’t work out and I’d seen them many times over between 1996 and 2006. The band remain as great as ever, though I have mixed feelings about the addition of Clive Deamer as a second drummer on about half of the set. Deamer mainly plays on material from The King of Limbs and A Moon Shaped Pool, and helps Phil Selway recreate the dense rhythmic patterns you hear on songs like “Bloom,” “Morning Mr. Magpie,” “Ful Stop,” and “Identikit.” It’s very impressive to witness, though it doesn’t work quite as well as it does on record where they can have more control over the edit and mix. A lot of the time this just sounds cluttered and distracting from the other elements in the arrangement. It’s also a questionable way of showcasing the new material, which aside from King of Limbs leftovers “Ful Stop” and “Identikit” are focused mainly on Jonny Greenwood’s string arrangements and piano parts, floaty guitar parts, and ample negative space. Songs with prominent string parts, like “The Numbers” or “Burn the Witch,” had those parts either transposed to another instrument or cut from the arrangement entirely, which I think cheated them somewhat. I wish they had sidelined Deamer for this tour and brought along a small string section instead.

• Radiohead have always been good about playing a mix of songs from throughout their catalog, and this show in particular included at least one song from all nine of their records. (This is fairly unusual, mainly because Pablo Honey material is only performed on special occasions.) The oldest songs felt like rewards and palette cleansers in this set, but they played them with so much energy that they never felt like pandering. The impression I’ve always had is that they are very proud of what they accomplished on The Bends and OK Computer and enjoy playing those songs, but have largely avoided working in that mode since because a) they have other things they’d like to accomplish b) they’ve already written so many perfect songs in that mode that it’s sort of unnecessary to go back. The difference between the latter day Radiohead songs and the old classics is not so much inherent quality as where they place the emphasis of their craft. The ‘90s material is very streamlined and melodic, and in the context of the King and Moon songs, they felt so much more dynamic. Given how much is going on in a lot of those newer songs, this is pretty ironic. But it is certainly possible to make a song so busy or fussy that it can become inert.

• This was the first time I’ve seen “Planet Telex” performed since 1997, and I was overjoyed to experience that as it may be my all-time favorite Radiohead song. “Telex” and “My Iron Lung” were played in part as a commentary on how bleak the world can seem in 2016. That chorus of “everyone is broken, everything is broken” was extremely cathartic, and Thom Yorke slightly changing the breakdown of “My Iron Lung” to “if you’re frightened, you should be frightened, you should be, it’s OK” felt very pointed and accurate in the wake of Donald Trump clinching the Republican presidential nomination. “Idioteque” also felt very of-the-moment in a rather unsettling way, but overall the darkest sentiments of the show were more like a shared sense of righteous anger and less about fear and hysteria. There’s a bit of hope in Radiohead now, and it’s clearly expressed in “The Numbers”: “The future is inside us, it’s not somewhere else…we’ll take back what is ours one day at a time.”

Radiohead “Decks Dark”

The first two weeks I had A Moon Shaped Pool were spent in Los Angeles, and the imagery of that city is now burned into my mind whenever I hear those songs. “Decks Dark” in particular reminds me of “June gloom,” and overcast skies over Hollywood in the morning. Pastel buildings, blue pools, and palm trees cast in grey light. Traffic and empty streets. I hear all of that clearly in this song’s eerie balance of stillness and restlessness.

“Decks Dark” is essentially the 2016 update of “Subterranean Homesick Alien,” but this time the aliens aren’t here to kidnap Thom Yorke and show him the beauty of the world from a distance, and their presence isn’t some secret he has to keep. In “Decks Dark,” their arrival is very much known as their vast spaceship has blocked out the sky, and everyone must go about their business trying to understand why and waiting around helplessly for something to happen – invasion, death, some transcendental experience, them just going away without explanation. This is a fantastic metaphor for undefined dread and depression, and feeling powerless in the face of everything you can’t possibly know or understand. But as dark as this gets, the most striking thing about it is how resigned it feels. What might have come across as terror in older Radiohead songs is rendered here as a cosmic joke with no particular punchline.

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79.5 “ooo”

I have spent a lot of time immersed in music from the early ‘80s and late ‘70s in the recent past, and I can say with reverence, enthusiasm, and some minor degree of authority that this song could pass as a vintage mellow R&B cut from that era. There are some tells – there’s no analog aura to it, and I’m reasonably sure it was recorded and mixed digitally. But the keyboard and guitar parts have the right tone and style, and capture a feeling distinct to that era that’s often lost when contemporary acts do pastiche. I realize this can sound like I’m damning this song with faint praise, or judging it entirely on period accuracy, but I should stress that this is a gorgeous and well-crafted piece of music. There’s an odd blend of emotions here too – swirls of lust and longing, but also a strange sense of inertia.

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Half Waif “Nest”

Nandi Rose Plunkett has a lovely voice, with a crisp vocal tone and refined inflection close to that of Annie Clark on the first two St. Vincent records. She could easily get by on the sheer prettiness of her voice, but she resists that all through her first record as Half Waif, twiddling the knobs to warp the texture and shape of it at sometimes unpredictable intervals. The distortion she puts on her voice doesn’t fall into typical categories of vocal manipulation – it’s not chopped and screwed, it’s not pitched up into chipmunk soul, it’s not off-the-rack vocoder or AutoTune stuff. It’s much more interesting and distinct, and a bit like when a good guitarist comes up with a particular distinguishing tone.

“Nest” shifts gracefully between delicate minimalism and carefully layered harmony in a way that evokes the contours and textures of a metallic sculpture. I can’t listen to it without imagining it as a shape, or in some moments, an absence of shape.

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Body Language “Just Let It”

“Just Let It” falls at just the right spot on the curve of a trend that it simultaneously sounds fresh and nostalgic at the same time. This sort of bright and perky laptop indie pop has been going strong for over a decade now, but it’s still a young and developing genre. (Maybe we should have an actual name for it?) It doesn’t sound dated just yet, but there’s something in that main synth riff that takes me right back to…hmmmm…let’s say 2007? Maybe 2011? But regardless of chronology, the sound feels so joyful and young. I bet in the future, you’ll be hearing a lot of music that sounds a bit like this in tv and films to signify fun times in the late 2000s to mid 2010s. Maybe they’ll use Chvrches or Ellie Goulding or Purity Ring, maybe they’ll use this exact song. But it’s all that one specific and kinda ineffable ~feeling~, like the world is only lit with neon fluorescent lights.

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Schoolboy Q featuring Lance Skiiiwalker “Kno Ya Wrong”

“Kno Ya Wrong” has a diptych structure with a shift in tone so strong that it’s easy to forget the first half was in the same song once you’re deep into the second half. I favor the first part, actually – I’m a sucker for piano loops in hip-hop songs, and I like the feel of Schoolboy Q’s raspy semi-sung verse. But that shift is well-executed and the second half has a strange resonance that lifts the entire composition out of fairly conventional rap into a zone that feels less explored. There’s a really bleak sort of funk in that phase, like George Clinton music that’s a bit dilapidated and knocked slightly out of synch. I like the way it feels like entering a place that’s unfamiliar and alien, but totally familiar to the vocalists on the track.

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Anderson Paak “The Bird”

“The Bird” has a relaxed feel, but it’s not exactly chill. At ease, maybe, but not chill. This is way too focused to be chill, and a bit too earnest in its desire to introduce the singer and an album full of songs. Anderson Paak is laying out the details of his past like an origin story – interesting stuff, for sure, but not the meat of the plot. Outside of the album context, “The Bird” is a confident expression of “this is who I am.” The music sounds as lived-in as the details of Paak’s lyrics – the melodies are outstanding, but played with the laid back grace of a band that’s smart enough to give the song some space to move, but bold enough that the piano, guitar, and trumpet players all get their moments in the spotlight. I love the piano solo in particular: It’s an ideal complement to the low key charms of Paak’s voice.

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No Joy “XO (Adam’s Getting Married)”

One of my favorite things about No Joy is the way they imply dimension in their music. Sounds overlap and move apart like objects moving through space, and the lack of fixed position is disorienting and vaguely frightening. The vocals in “XO” are sometimes buried just behind a wall of distortion, or wailing just out of reach, or incredibly close and intimate. The song has the urgency and dynamics of rock, but the way the textures are cut together reminds me more of film editing than a live band performance. The cutting doesn’t distract from the main melodies – some of the strongest of No Joy’s career, by the way – but it does obscure and abstract the vocals in a way that’s more impressionistic than straightforwardly musical.

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Jamila Woods featuring Donnie Trumpet “Breadcrumbs”

This song seems to make two arguments: First, that memory is a flawed and fragile thing that could slip away from us at any time. Second, that memories are only tether to our shared past and must be considered precious things. Jamila Woods’ perspective skips around a timeline through the song, but the one thought that’s fixed to a future point is the request to leave her a trail of breadcrumbs to guide her back. Back to this moment, back to this feeling, back to this time and place. Back to this very well used Stereolab sample. Back to these lovely trumpet solos from Donnie Trumpet. Back to this feeling of connection with someone new that somehow seems to extend back to the start of her life. Back to a heartbreaking memory of her grandparents that is also so beautiful and kind and pure that it makes you believe in love.

Get the album for free from Jamila Woods’ Soundcloud page.

Sampa the Great “2 4”

The phrase “I had evidence of happiness” keeps poking out of this song like an unexpected thorn. Most of what registers in the vocal is boilerplate rap/dancehall – 2, 4, get on the floor – but the few lines around it build a lot of tension and make everything else about the song feel more defiant than fun. I love the way the chords skip on the beat, and the slowed-down vocals pop in to this threadbare arrangement to add a bit of texture, but go against the grain of the music in this oddly pleasurable way. It’s like moving against a tide, but maybe that’s the idea of the whole song.

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Negative Gemini “Don’t Worry ‘Bout the Fuck I’m Doing”

That title sets you up for something aggressive, right? I can’t say there’s no aggression in this song – that phrase is sung repeatedly, after all – but the anger and frustration is buried beneath a chill facade and a groove that’d be hypnotic if it weren’t quite so loud. It’s the sound of trying to seem like you’re perfectly fine when you’re definitely not, and embracing the idea “living well is the best revenge” when you’re not living well just yet. Negative Gemini sounds like she’s been put on the defense, and that tension suggests a messier and more complicated set of emotions than your average chillwave tune. I hear this and just wonder what the story behind it could be.

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Snoh Aalegra “In Your River”

Snoh Aalegra has a big brassy voice, but it’s only the second most striking thing in this track after the string arrangement, which trills and sweeps and swells like an old Hollywood score compressed into a tight three minutes. As epic as the vocal and strings get, there’s still a huge amount of space in this, similar to the balance of lonely nothingness and glamorous excess you’d find on ‘90s Portishead records. Aalegra’s vocal performance is stuck between here and there as well; she sings about romantic indecision with equal passion for both sides of her internal conflict.

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Maxwell “III”

The rhythm and chords of “III” set up a pattern of light tension and release that moves so quickly that your mind and body barely registers the tightness and only pays attention to the feeling of relief. It’s the perfect tone for a song that ties together feelings of lust and empathy, and addresses someone who is very familiar, but isn’t a romantic conquest just yet. As smooth as this song is, there’s a bit of gruff holler in Maxwell’s voice at points, and it steps up the passion without trampling over the delicate balance in the arrangement. He sounds like a man – a real adult man – and what you get in his vocal performance here is all the confidence that comes with experience, with just a touch of unashamed vulnerability.

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The Avalanches “Harmony”

The Avalanches’ new record is a pretty joyful thing, but it bums me out in that it’s a reminder of how rare and precious thing dense, complex sample-based music has become in this era. You still get some here and there, mainly on records by big money artists like Kanye West and Beyoncé who can afford clearances without any problem. But money and legal issues have made this craft incredibly impractical and ridiculously time consuming, and fashion moved away from the aesthetics of your Prince Pauls, DJ Shadows, Automators, and Avalanches. A lot of Wildflower sounds like it’s been sitting on a shelf for over a decade, but more like a bottle of wine in a cellar than something that wasn’t worth releasing back in the day. “Harmony” weaves together scraps of sunshine pop into something that’s even sunnier than the source material. There’s a lovely weightlessness to the sound of it, as though you’re just strolling around town hearing the bits from the song pass by on the breeze and it’s somehow accidentally gelling into a composition. It’d sound magical in any case, but this sort of music being fairly rare these days only makes it seem more so.

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This is the ninth in my series of 1980s survey mixes, which are moving backwards in time from 1989 to the start of the decade. These compilations are designed to give more context to the music of the ‘80s, and give a sense of how various niches and trends overlapped in this cultural moment.

At this point we’re so early in the ’80s that most of the music will still have a distinct ’70s vibe to it, and the songs with strong ’80s aesthetics are totally fresh and forward-thinking in the moment. “Bette Davis Eyes” is a great example of this – it was written and originally recorded in the ’70s and you can hear that in the melody and sentiment, but the synth-heavy arrangement of the Kim Carnes version defines a very particular early ’80s vibe. I’ve never given that song a lot of thought until I realized it came much earlier in the ’80s than I had assumed, and now it strikes me a major turning point in pop music.

Thanks to Paul Cox, Chris Conroy, and Rob Sheffield for their help in compiling this survey. All of the previous mixes in this series can be found on this page. The 1980 survey – the final of this series! – should be ready around the first week of August.

DOWNLOAD DISC 1

Phil Collins “In the Air Tonight” / The Clash “The Magnificent Seven” / Blondie “Rapture” / Tom Tom Club “Genius of Love” / Rick James “Super Freak” / Kim Carnes “Bette Davis Eyes” / Soft Cell “Tainted Love/Where Did Our Love Go?” / Depeche Mode “Just Can’t Get Enough” / The Go-Go’s “Our Lips Are Sealed” / Daryl Hall & John Oates “Kiss On My List” / Squeeze “Tempted” / Rod Stewart “Young Turks” / Olivia Newton-John “Physical” / Prince “Controversy” / Funky Four Plus One “That’s the Joint” / Grandmaster Flash “Adventures on the Wheels of Steel” / Disco Daddy & Captain Rapp “Gigolo Rapp” / The Waitresses “Christmas Wrapping” / ESG “Moody” / Vivien Goldman “Lauderette” / The Specials “Ghost Town”

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Queen & David Bowie “Under Pressure” / Ian Dury & The Seven Seas Players “Spasticus Autisticus” / Bill Withers & Grover Washington Jr “Just the Two of Us” / Boogie Boys with Kool Ski, Kid Delight, and Disco Dave “Rappin’ Ain’t No Thang” / Stars on 45 “Stars on 45 Medley” / Stevie Nicks and Don Henley “Leather and Lace” / The Cars “Shake It Up” / Dead Kennedys “We’ve Got A Bigger Problem Now” / The Gun Club “For the Love of Ivy” / Elvis Costello “Clubland” / Wynton Marsalis “Sister Cheryl” / Muhal Richard Abrams “Du King” / Singers & Players “Devious Woman” / Brian Eno & David Byrne “The Jezebel Spirit” / Steve Winwood “Arc of a Diver” / Genesis “Abacab” / Gang of Four “To Hell with Poverty” / The Police “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic” / Kool and the Gang “Take My Heart” / Merles Haggard “I Think I’ll Just Stay Here and Drink”

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New Order “Ceremony” / Siouxsie and the Banshees “Spellbound” / The Cure “Primary” / U2 “Gloria” / Echo and the Bunnymen “A Promise” / The Pretenders “Talk of the Town” / Sheena Easton “9 to 5 (Morning Train)” / Kid Creole and the Coconuts “Table Manners” / Fela Kuti “Coffin for Head of State” / Afrika Bambaataa “Jazzy Sensation (Bronx Version)” / Diana Ross “Work That Body” / Yoko Ono “Walking On Thin Ice (Re-Edit)” / King Crimson “Elephant Talk” / DNA “Blonde Red Head” / Glenn Branca “Lesson No. 2” / Penguin Cafe Orchestra “Telephone and Rubber Band” / Lindsey Buckingham “Trouble” / Joe Walsh “A Life of Illusion”

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R.E.M. “Radio Free Europe” / The Au Pairs “We’re So Cool” / The B-52’s “Private Idaho (Party Mix)” / Black Uhuru “Sponji Reggae” / Maximum Joy “Stretch” / Teena Marie “Square Biz” / Donald Byrd “Love Has Come Around” / Patrick Crowley “Menergy” / Pete Shelley “Homosapien” / Van Halen “Unchained” / Mötley Crüe “Live Wire” / The Blasters “Marie Marie” / Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers “The Waiting” / Billy Idol “Dancing with Myself” / The Ramones “The KKK Took My Baby Away” / Minor Threat “Minor Threat” / Black Flag “Rise Above” / Mission of Burma “That’s When I Reach For My Revolver” / Stripsearch & Emily XYZ “Hey Kid” / The Minutemen “Search” / Taana Gardner “Heartbeat” / Bee Gees “Paradise” / Juice Newton “Angel of the Morning”

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Duran Duran “Girls on Film” / Lene Lovich “New Toy” / Lizzy Mercier Descloux “Lady O K’Pele” / August Darnell “Christmas On Riverside Drive” / Miles Davis “Shout” / Esther Williams “I’ll Be Your Pleasure (Larry Levan Mix)” / Frankie Smith “Double Dutch Bus” / Marvin Gaye “Heavy Love Affair” / Luther Vandross “Never Too Much” / Lionel Richie & Diana Ross “Endless Love” / Christopher Cross “Arthur’s Theme” / Air Supply “The One That You Love” / John Lennon “Woman” / Rickie Lee Jones “We Belong Together” / Al Jarreau “We’re In This Love Together” / Joan Armatrading “No Love” / The Psychedelic Furs “Pretty In Pink” / Split Enz “History Never Repeats” / Eurythmics “Never Gonna Cry Again” / Jandek “Feathered Drums” / Emmylou Harris “Evangeline” / Rodney Crowell “Shame on the Moon” / Willie Nelson “Angel Flying Too Close To the Ground” / Bob Dylan “The Groom’s Still Waiting At The Altar” / Shakin’ Stevens “This Ole House” / Def Leppard “Bringing On The Heartbreak” / Loverboy “Working for the Weekend”

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The Rolling Stones “Start Me Up” / Rick Springfield “Jessie’s Girl” / Journey “Don’t Stop Believin’” / Quarterflash “Harden My Heart” / Smokey Robinson “Being with You” / James ‘Blood’ Umer “Where Did All the Girls Come From?” / The Commodores “Lady” / Quincy Jones “Ai No Corrida” / Meat Loaf featuring Cher “Dead Ringer for Love” / Stiff Little Fingers “Go For It” / Adam and the Ants “Stand and Deliver” / The dBs “She’s Not Worried” / Gary U.S. Bonds “This Little Girl” / X “The Once Over Twice” / Neil Young & Crazy Horse “Shots” / Wipers “Youth of America” / Romeo Void “Myself to Myself” / The Adicts “Hurt” /The Adolescents “Amoeba” / Aneka “Japanese Boy” / Altered Images “Happy Birthday” / Orchestral Manoevres in the Dark “Souvenir” / Pointer Sisters “Slow Hand”

DOWNLOAD DISC 7

Laurie Anderson “O Superman (For Massenet)” / Kraftwerk “Computer Love” / Cybotron “Alleys of Your Mind” / Earth, Wind, and Fire “Let’s Groove” / Funkadelic “The Electric Spanking of War Babies” / Grace Jones “Pull Up to the Bumper” / Kool Kyle “It’s Rockin’ Time” / Material featuring Nona Hendryx “Bustin’ Out” / Electric Light Orchestra “Hold On Tight” / Was (Not Was) “Out Come the Freaks” / Minimal Compact “Statik Dancin’” / Heaven 17 “(We Don’t Need This) Fascist Groove Thang” / Bruce Cockburn “Fascist Architecture” / Rosanne Cash “Seven Year Ache” / Tom Verlaine “There’s A Reason” / Patti Austin “Symphony of Love” / The Blue Nile “I Love This Life” / Comateens “Nightmare” / The Jam “Funeral Pyre” / Joe Dolce “Shaddup You Face”

DOWNLOAD DISC 8

Joan Jett and the Blackhearts “Bad Reputation” / The Replacements “Takin’ A Ride” / Agent Orange “Too Young to Die” / The Lyres “Buried Alive” / The English Beat “Doors of Your Heart” / Eddie Rabbitt “Step by Step” / Alvin Stardust “Pretend” / The Neville Brothers “Fire on the Bayou” / Coati Mundi “Me No Pop I” / Yarbough & Peoples “Don’t Stop the Music” / The Jacksons “Can You Feel It” / Spandau Ballet “Chant No. 1” / The Moody Blues “Gemini Dream” / Klaus Nomi “Total Eclipse” / Central Line “Walking Into Sunshine (Larry Levan mix)” / Dinosaur L “Go Bang!” / Billy Bang Quintet “New York After Dark” / The Manhattan Transfer “Boy From New York City” / David Byrne “What A Day That Was” / TSOL “Silent Scream” / Carl Wilson “What You Gonna Do About Me” / Deniece Williams “Silly”

Margaret Glaspy “Situation”

It feels strange that I haven’t heard more songs about resenting unsolicited advice in all these years. Margaret Glaspy’s guitar parts in “Situation” are wiry and tense, and seem to tangle around the melody like string becoming a knot. She doesn’t sing so much as spit out her words, and the lines are blunt, confrontational, and completely unambiguous: “You don’t know my situation / we’ve had at most one conversation / you haven’t got a clue / so don’t tell me what to do.” It’s a perfect little dagger of a song aimed at the neck of some condescending even if potentially well-meaning person who doesn’t have the self-awareness to realize how insulting they’re being. When I hear it, I wonder how often I’ve been that person, and feel guilty for it. I can’t imagine what this song must feel like for the person Glaspy wrote it about. You just know they’ve heard it and felt the sting of recognition, right?

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Pip Blom “Truth”

There’s a part of my brain that hears Pip Blom’s songs and starts running a scan of my memory to figure out where I’ve heard her rhythms and chord progressions before. It’s all Alt-Rock 101 stuff, so it’s like — is that “Polly”? is that “Song 2”? is that some PJ Harvey thing? But this doesn’t get in the way of Blom’s songs, which all have immediate earworm hooks that benefit greatly from the blunt force of these simple chords. There’s a physicality to this music that you get from all the best ‘90s rock – she makes you feel the gestures and movements of playing the guitar, the impact of a snare hit, the raw sensation in your throat you get from using your voice the “wrong” way. She puts you right inside the anxiety of the song, and keeps her language as blunt as the rhythm so all the lust, confusion, self-doubt, and resentment in the lyrics are delivered to you entirely undiluted.

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Melkbelly “Elk Mountain”

Melkbelly is remarkably fully formed for a band with only a couple singles out: a very defined guitar aesthetic; good melodies; a strong sense of urgency in everything they’ve produced. Guitar parts in Melkbelly songs are constantly moving – snaking around the beat, scraping against the groove, making hairpin turns just after you’ve settled into a rhythm. “Elk Mountain” does all of those things and more in four minutes, setting up a tension at odds with the vocal, which is basically a one-sided stoned conversation with some weirdo kid named Rusty. The details of the lyrics are surreal and unsettling, but sorta deadpan and matter-of-fact. By the end, she’s singing in this soft wordless angelic tone, and it’s hard to remember exactly how you got there because everything else went by in a blur.

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Jay Som “I Think You’re Alright”

“I Think You’re Alright” stars off in a way that does not signal in any way that a good guitar solo will come later on, and when it does come it’s slightly startling even after hearing it a few times over. It feels small and intimate in a way that doesn’t often result in wordless catharsis, but the decision to switch gears like that at the end is satisfying and refreshing. It also feels right as the aftermath of lyrics that express great affection for someone, but seems to be dialing things back every step of the way to avoid sappiness and vulnerability. She’s laying out a fantasy of love and intimacy, but it’s full of fucked-up bits, and the “I love you” is downgraded to “I think you’re alright.” That solo lets loose all the buried feelings. It’s not especially graceful, but it’s exactly right. If only we could just blurt out wordless feelings in regular life, right?

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Amy O “Canteen”

“Canteen” sounds cheerful but also a bit nervous, as though every beat and melodic turn in it is guided by a quiet ever-present anxiety. Amy O’s lyrics call back to childhood – the very first line is “elementary school was a breeze” – but that sentimental imagery is laced through a song that otherwise deals with some ill-defined relationship that’s both enticing and terrifying. She sings about how “love is a spider,” and she’s getting stuck in this person’s web, and while that metaphor isn’t exactly obscure, the way she uses it makes everything about having a body and emotions seem icky and alien. But it is kinda weird to just be passive, right? To just give yourself over to someone else’s whims, and not really know what to expect from moment to moment.

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Angelic Milk “Rebel Black”

Angelic Milk is music made by a Russian teen who seems to be obsessed with a romanticized concept of the angst-ridden American teenager. There’s several layers of irony to their project, but it’s not enough to obscure a genuine feeling. “Rebel Black” is built out of references, but they’re largely gestures to feelings in other songs and movies, not direct swipes from anything in particular. It’s more about what it’s like to imagine moments in your life the way they might be told in a movie, and willing your life to be more like that grander, more sentimental version of the experience. Edit out the boring parts, punch up the dramatic bits, and make everyone and everything much prettier, but keep things just raw enough to feel convincing.

Buy it from Bandcamp.