January 2022 – chickfactor zine

January 9, 2022January 11, 2022

last of the lists!

image borrowed from Christen Press’ insta

Beatrix Madell: My top ten: soccer players of the year (this took forever, too many to choose from)
1. Christen Press
2. Alexia Putellas
3. Catarina Macario
4. Kristie Mewis
5. Katie McCabe
6. Alyssa Naeher
7. Sophia Smith
8. Jenni Hermoso
9. Caprice Dydasco
10. Beth Mead
Beatrix Madell is a 13 year old who lives in Brooklyn and loves music (playing and listening), theatre and film, science, and women’s soccer.

Erin Moran, A Girl Called Eddy
1) Love Goes to Buildings on Fire. Best book I’ve read about music since Viv Albertine’s Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys
2) Jim’s Organic French Roast Decaf
3) Get Back
4) Singing on Burt Bacharach’s latest record Blue Umbrella
5) SolaWave Skincare Wand. It’s a red light therapy/microcurrent thingamajig doing yeoman’s work trying to lift my jowls
6) Call My Agent! on Netflix. French, funny, smart
7) The ramen at Menkoi Sato, 7 Cornelia St. NYC
8) Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold
9) Tom Ford’s Lost Cherry. Not a film about a young boys’ journey from Milan to Minsk, but a perfume. Oh the almond-y/Vidal Sassoon shampoo smell of it
10) The Dodo on instagram

Janice Headley (KEXP, chickfactor): Ten Things I Liked in 2021 (In No Particular Order)
1) Season 3 of Stath Lets Flats (to be fair, my partner Joe did not like it AT ALL, so your mileage may vary.)
2) Zoom karaoke w/ west coast pals
3) The podcast Films to Be Buried With with Brett Goldstein
4) Huichica Music Festival (I now wish every music festival was held at a winery.)
5) Japanese stationery store niconeco zakkaya [263 E 10th St in NYC]
6) HBO’s Insecure
7) Glossier’s Monochromes eyeshadow sets (particularly in Heather)
8) Blake’s Hard Cider Strawberry Lemonade
9) Crying in H Mart: A Memoir by Michelle Zauner
10) Licorice Pizza (except for the unnecessary racist Japanese bullshit, and yes, I know Paul Thomas Anderson has a Japanese mother-in-law [Maya Rudolph’s stepmom], but that is still no excuse.)

Nancy Novotny’s top records
Rather than calling it a “best of” list, I’d say that these are the 30 albums & EPs (culled from a list of over a hundred favorites) that possessed something “je ne sais quoi, oh so very special”* for me. Your mileage, of course, may vary. In no particular order:
Merope – Salos (Stroom)
Andy Aquarius – Chapel (Hush Hush)
Meril Wubslin – Alors Quoi (Bongo Joe)
Blue Chemise – Flower Studies (B.A.A.D.M.)
Nathan Salsburg – Psalms (Quarterstick)
Vanishing Twin – Ookii Gekkou (Fire)
Conny Frischauf – Die Drift (Bureau B )
Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – DOST 1 (Bongo Joe)
Dummy – Mandatory Enjoyment (Trouble In Mind)
Richard Dawson & Circle – Henki (Domino)
Mdou Moctar – Afrique Victim (Matador)
Monokultur – Ormens Väg (Mammas Mysteriska Jukebox & Ever/Never)
Hawthonn – Earth Mirror (Ba Da Bing!)
Henry the Rabbit, Beatrice Morel Journel & Semay Wu – Songs of the Marsh (Moon Glyph)
Tarta Relena – Fiat Lux (La Castanya)
Grouper – Shade (Kranky)
Hamilton Yarns – Outside (Hark!)
Steven R. Smith – In the Spires (Cold Moon/Worstward)
Oddfellow’s Casino – The Cult of Water (Nightjar)
Dechmont Woods – November ’79 (Woodford Halse)
Blod – Missväxt (Grapefruit)
Midwife – Luminol (The Flenser)
Green-House – Music for Living Spaces (Leaving)
Doran – Doran (Spinster)
Various Artists – Incantations (Seance Centre)
Beautify Junkyards – Cosmorama (Ghost Box)
Shirley Collins – Crowlink (Domino)
Laura Cannell & Kate Ellis – October Sounds (Brawl)
Jonny Nash & Ana Stamp – There Up, Behind The Moon (Melody as Truth)
You’ll Never Get to Heaven – Wave Your Moonlight Hat for the Snowfall Train (Seance Centre)

Some notable singles:
Claire Cronin – “Bloodless” (Orindal)
Bas Jan – “You Have Bewitched Me” (Lost Map)
Constant Follower – “The Merry Dancers on TV” (Shimmy-Disc)
Large Plants – “La Isla Bonita” (Ghost Box)
Astral Brain – “Five Thousand Miles” (Shelflife)
Burd Ellen – “The High Preistess and the Hierophant” (Thread)
Dean McPhee – “The Alchemist” (Hood Faire)
Garden Gate – “Tarot” (Library of the Occult)
La Luz – “Tale of My Lost Love” (Female Species cover) (Numero)

Some notable reissues/archival anthologies:
Persona – Som (Black Sweat)
Aurita y su Conjunto – Chambacu (Mississippi)
Alice Coltrane – Turiya Sings (Impulse!)
The Doubling Riders – Doublings & Silences Vol. 1 (Btx3R/F01101/Exe)
Aunt Sally – Aunt Sally (Mesh-Key)
Alison Knowles – Sounds from the Book of Bean (Recital)
Oh OK – The Complete Reissue (HHBTM)
Kiko Kids Jazz – Tanganyika Na Uhuru (Mississippi)
Pamela Z – Echolocation (Freedom to Spend)
Kiri-uu – Creak-whoosh (Stroom)
Joel Vandroogenbroeck – Far View (Drag City)
Michèle Bokanowski – Rhapsodia / Battements solaires (Recollection GRM)
Michael Ranta – Taiwan Years (Metaphon)
Roger Fakhr – Fine Anyway (Habibi Funk)

Nancy is a voice actor, a sacred harp singer and a DJ at Freeform.

Gail chickfactor’s top things of 2021
Roy Kent
Dairon Asprilla
Sophia Smith
Queer Eye (why can’t they release a new season every week!?)
Sex Education
Another Round
Vegan BBQ at Pure Soul
You people
Creativity
Comfort (loungewear, noodles, bobble hats, blankets, flannel, umami)
My own culinary skills: I am a genius
Horsegirl, Billy
Rachel Love, Picture in Mind
The Umbrellas, The Umbrellas
Magic Roundabout, Up
Marisa Anderson & William Tyler, Lost Futures
Pearl and the Oysters, Flowerland
H.E.R., Back of My Mind
La Luz, La Luz
OneTwoThree, OneTwoThree
Damon & Naomi, A Sky Record
Silk Sonic, An Evening with Silk Sonic
Jennifer O’Connor, Born at the Disco

Sukhdev Sandhu’s best of 2021 list

Jens Lekman’s ‘Smalltalk‘ column appears irregularly on his website. It’s always quiet and wise. One column dealt with going bald. “What bothered me the most was the pressure to be proud of myself. It didn’t allow for a natural transformation. I remember people shouting at me, ‘Be proud. Take off your hat. You look great.’ But my face had just made a U-turn. What used to be a frame for the canvas that was me had disappeared. I wanted to mourn.”

Lots of friends spent lots of time in hospitals this year. In December I read an old History Workshop Journal obituary of Clive Goodwin (1932-1977), widower of English pop artist Pauline Boty (1938-1966) – “In America, whoever calls for medical attention for another person is responsible for paying the bill. Clive was killed by capitalism.”

A track on Dutch electronic producer Legowelt’s Pancakes With Mist LP – “Side By Side We Ride Against The Hordes of EDM.”

Ancient historian Robin Lane Fox’s gardening column in the weekend edition of the Financial Times. He’s been writing it for over 51 years and is unfailingly equable except for his dislike of gnomes.

Andrew Tuck’s wry and calming weekly essay on Monocle on Saturday radio show. Common threads: walking the dog, the weather (meteorological or otherwise) in London, how to be a good work colleague.

Wanting to give Gabriel (played by Grégory Montel) a long hug every time he lost a client in Call My Agent. And an extra can of whipped cream.

Laura Barton’s impossibly sad account of travelling to Greece during the pandemic to begin a round of solo IVF. She wrote it in 2020, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it in 2021. “For a week I feel truly pregnant. And then suddenly I do not. One day I wake to feel a tangible distance between the synthetic hormones and my own body. I do not tell anyone. Instead I walk down to the water, stay out far beyond the mandated hour. I marvel at the flicker of tiny fish moving between the boats in the harbour. I look at the bright yellow tangle of fishing nets, the deep pink of wooden shutters, the distant mountains, snow-peaked against the bluest sky.”

Pallavi Aiyar’s The Global Jigsaw Substack. Aiyar writes about China, about cats, about travel. She’s also, unfashionably though not necessarily incorrectly, in favour of cultural appropriation. “As a writer, and as a person, I’ve desired to stretch my identities; to be supple. The imagination’s work is to bend and twist around the policing of boundaries— political, religious, gastronomic, temporal. The writer, the reader, or any curious person, really, has a proclivity towards inhabiting the past and the future, as much as the present. They extend themselves beyond their ethnicity, gender, colour, sexuality, and empirical experiences to imagine other lives in other places and times.”

Belatedly discovering the writing of Jewish educator and children’s rights champion Leila Berg (1917-2012). Her autobiography Flickerbook (1997—and republished last year by CB Editions) is a funny, raw, diaristic account of coming of age in the 1930s—“Fancy Joan Littlewood and Jimmy Miller getting married! We all talked about it. Fancy concentrating all that spikiness together, and having double-spiky agitprop children!”

As always: Everything But The Girl, Night and Day; The Style Council, The Paris Match; Blueboy, The Joy of Living. But also: Shelleyan Orphan, Beamheart; Steve Beresford, Vous qui passez sans me voir; Time Is Away on NTS Radio. And and and – all of Kings of Convenience’s first LP for 12 years, Peace Or Love. Sad, tender, bitterly gorgeous.

January 2, 2022January 2, 2022

Jeffrey Underhill (HoneyBunch, Velvet Crush) pays tribute to a few artists we lost in 2021

Photo of Jeffrey by Gail O’Hara / Portland, OR, 2021

susan anway: I’m presently listening to the wayward bus/distant plastic trees cd for the 1000th time – give or take a hundred. it’s the first magnetic fields collection that I fell in love with, and the record I’ve shared the most with close friends and passersby.
(back in the day, I think I bought a handful and gave them away in an effort to impress its brilliance upon everyone I could.) susan anway’s voice was a huge reason why.
like many fans, my introduction to the band probably came via the “100,000 fireflies” single. not long before – or after – I saw the ramshackle orchestra that was the magnetic fields live band at the time, with stephin singing. I remember really enjoying them, well enough to buy the cd when it became available and was completely blown away by the songs, the instrumentation, but most of all – feeling deeply moved by susan’s voice. she had the perfect mix of sweetness and world-weariness – so well-suited to the diversity of songs. it would be impossible for me to pick a favorite vocal performance from this record – all of it: the mournful appalachian ballads (“tar heel boy”), the synthetic disco pop (“tokyo a’ go-go”)…resonates equally. there’s magic in the songwriting and recording for sure – but for someone i’ve never met, the impression she left on me is deep and long-lasting.

michael nesmith was the singer of my favorite monkees songs (“don’t call on me” & “what am i doing hangin’ round”) – but I never heard those songs when I was young. the song of his I knew and loved best for years and years was his 1970 single “joanne.” I think mainly because I’ve always loved melancholic & melodramatic songs and singers – that song affected young me as much as anything by roy orbison. I don’t remember exactly how i got there – but at some point I discovered his 1972 album, archly titled and the hits just keep on coming. life is full of little sonic discoveries that leave you wondering how you had not heard a thing before now? from the haunting opening chords of “tomorrow & me” to the stomping closer “roll with the flow” – it’s a packed record in every way except for the instrumentation, featuring just michael and pedal steel player red rhodes. a record full of deep observations and seemingly simple songs that in a fairer world, would be given equal reverence to gene clark, or gram parsons’ best work.

Read our 2011 interview with Susan Anway, which was only published after her death in September here.

Read Theresa Kereakes’ tribute to Mike Nesmith here.

January 1, 2022

Tracy Wilson’s best-of 2021 list!

Custom Trish action figure made for Tracy by Jen Lemasters

Two spectacular birthday presents are the inspiration behind my 2021 end of year list. My husband surprised me by commissioning Jen Lemasters to create Trish Keenan and Laetitia Sadier action figures. These thoughtful, one-of-a-kind gifts are the highlight of a year otherwise filled with tedious monotony. I began the pandemic channeling my stress into genuine productivity. I flourished for a spell, however the one note feeling of chronic emptiness crept in late summer and stayed. I realized only recently that I have been quietly grieving for the death of our collective loss of life. Not just the very real people who have passed away during the pandemic, but for all of our own lives that evaporated in March of 2020. In truth, this year was hard.

Custom Laetitia action figure made for Tracy by Jen Lemasters

Miraculously, music has continued to offer me a meaningful connection to the world at large and create a bridge to my prepandemic self. Music and friendships forged over the past two years, remind me that there is still plenty of good in this world. This has made a hard year, gratefully much softer.

Circling back to my end of year theme, I wanted to share 10 artists (in no particular order plus a playlist of even more music) that I as a fan of Broadcast and Stereolab, have really enjoyed this year. Opalescent with their rainbow array of influences from around the world and multiple decades, 2021 was a VERY good year for fans of retro-futuristic pop.
Wishing you all love, joy, kindness, great music, and good health in this year.

Astral Brain – The Bewildered Mind (Shelflife)

Beautify Junkyards – Cosmorama (Ghost Box)

Cobalt Chapel – Orange Synthetic (Klove)

Kit Sebastian – Melodi (Mr Bongo)

Vanishing Twin – Ookii Gekkou (Fire Records)

Dummy – Mandatory Enjoyment (Trouble in Mind)

Tara Clerkin Trio – In Spring (World of Echo)

The Mind – Open Up the Window and Leave Your Body (Lumpy)

Jane Weaver – Flock (Fire)

KCIDY – Les Gens Heureux (Vietnam)

Chickfactor EOY Tracy Wilson · Playlist

Tracy Wilson runs bi-weekly new music newsletter Turntable Report and the online shop Courtesy Desk. Also check out her series on RecordCollectHER insta account!

January 1, 2022

Corvair’s top music doc binges of 2021

Since we couldn’t play this year or go to hardly any shows, we watched a lot of late night music documentaries to get our fix. These were our favorites, unranked.

THE VELVET UNDERGROUND (2021)
Heather: Todd Haynes made something so exuberantly creative here. It hits the head and the heart simultaneously. It’s fascinating to me that Lou Reed knew he wasn’t naturally a great player or singer but was sure he was born a rock star. And he kept making great records long after he won the argument.
Brian: I love art, and I love artists. Sometimes artists can be too arty doing art for art’s sake. I appreciate some of VU’s droney soundscapes and simple & rough pop songs but for the most part this documentary reminded me that this band is pretty terrible and Lou Reed seems like a snob.

STEELY DAN – AJA: CLASSIC ALBUM SERIES (1999)
Brian: This is a master class on how to nitpick and tweak until something is absolutely perfect. This goes against what many rock bands believe is the proper approach to recording and writing but Steely Dan proves that being mind blowingly anal and fighting for a vision can produce something sexy and brilliant.
Heather: This blew my mind. Michael McDonald’s weird backing vocals on “Peg” (“foreign moo-vee!!”), all the wildly different parts they auditioned for each song. Fagen and Becker muttering commentary over each other like an old married couple. The weird celeste in “Deacon Blues.” I don’t think there’s a song that captures the wiry feeling of a 6AM solo cab ride into New York better.

AIR STUDIOS – UNDER THE VOLCANO (2021)
Heather: The ambition of AIR Studios was crazy. It was supposed to be on a moving sailboat but alas George Martin settled for a remote island and they had to roll the massive console in on logs. Recording there seems like the most immersive studio experience ever–and Duran Duran hated it, which says a lot about them. And then the Earth swallowed the studio with back-to-back natural disasters–it’s pretty biblical.
Brian: This satisfied my itch for more behind-the-scenes footage of studio work in remote tropical places. I’ve always fantasized about being locked up in a faraway place with nothing to do but record. One thing that stuck out was how much writing was done in the studio by many of these bands. Ah, the lost art of slowly creating new material while the studio racks up a massive bill that the label will pay, then take out of your royalties.

BEATLES – GET BACK (2021)
Heather: We just finished this the other night, and it took us 6 viewings, but it was edifying, a balm for my black and withered heart. The love between John and Paul is so palpable. I wept through the final rooftop concert because Double Fantasy era John was my first love.
Brian: I loved this so much. It was too short!!! Now I want so badly to see detailed footage of bands recording my favorite records. Let it Be is my least favorite Beatles record, yet I gained so much respect for every member of the band. The working relationship, brotherly love, and work ethic these guys had, all while eating toast. They were sloppy when they were allowed to be and perfect when they needed to be. And I’m happy to know that so much of the drama between Yoko and them was just hype.

PINK FLOYD – LIVE AT POMPEII (1972)
Heather: My whole life, I could never sit through this–instant narcolepsy!–but it is in fact awesome and so weird. David Gilmour is an angel; he exudes a steady grace. Roger Waters strikes me as the kind of guy who’d come up to you at a bar just to mock your shoes.
Brian: I’ve seen this many, many times since my first viewing as a 16 year-old peaking on some stuff I tried for the first time. It was a religious experience. The scene of David singing at the end of “A Saucerful of Secrets” brings tears and chills to this day–I think this is the most perfect male vocal ever recorded, as well as the most amazing video of a male vocal performance. I love this part so much I completely stole it for a song in 1999, two years after Radiohead stole it for “Exit Music (For a Film)”.

BEE GEES – HOW CAN YOU MEND A BROKEN HEART? (2020)
Heather: I do not know what celestial channel Barry Gibb’s spiritual radio is tuned to, but it is the rarest of talent. Also Robin’s voice–what is that? I love Idea or 1st era BeeGees but this made me reconsider Main Course as a pretty cool inflection point. Plus I love watching stuff about sibling bands because I was in one for a long time; it can be painful to make art together when you have the exact same wounds.
Brian: I liked learning much more about the early Bee Gees and how they got sucked into the world of disco. I feel the film tried to overhype their place in disco, but I walked away not thinking that they helped create a movement, but rather appropriated it and sold it out. It makes me wonder what they would sound like under the influences of today’s popular music. Ugh.

Brian and Heather from Corvair (photo courtesy the band)

ZZTOP – THAT LITTLE ‘OL BAND FROM TEXAS (2019)
Heather: I always thought ZZTop was what happened when three pervy unwashed uncles formed a band. But I was wrong. They are unwashed pervs who also are singular musicians. It gives me great pleasure to imagine them playing a small bar in Texas way back when and the crowd realizing how fucking good they are after about 3 minutes and just losing it.
Brian: It’s so satisfying to see this band perform and learn about their beginnings. They’re much more artistic and weird than people give them credit for. One of the best live bands on earth, and one I still listen to on cassette in my old Chevy van whenever I’m making a run to the dump.

THE SWEET – ALL THAT GLITTERS (1974)
Brian: These guys are simply amazing. In some ways one of the best rock bands ever. Each player was immensely talented and could sing. They put on incredible shows and took control of their management and trajectory. Very underrated. Watch clips of their old stuff!
Heather: I was surprised to learn that the Sweet started as a boy band. I remember reading years ago that Motley Crue idolized them–and it really showed in their early bubblegum Satanism.

WOODSTOCK ’99 – PEACE, LOVE AND RAGE (2021)
Heather: Neither of us could sleep after watching this, it was so dark. The Korn Era totally defiled “alternative” music. This movie was mostly just watching shitty people be inspired to be way shittier, to a very shitty soundtrack. Happy New Year everybody!!!!!
Brian: I really believe that the rage Fred Durst tapped into with the crowd was the seeds of the Trump presidency. Only instead of burning food carts and port-a-potties, they grew up and lit America on fire.

JUDAS PRIEST – BRITISH STEEL: CLASSIC ALBUM SERIES (2001)
Brian: My favorite album by one of my favorite bands of all time. Yes, I grew out of heavy metal when I was 16 but I will always love this band and album. Rob Halford is perhaps the best rock singer of all time and the production on this record is astounding. I love that they recorded in Ringo’s house and used his cutlery to create the clanking “metal” sound on one song. Every single song is great and this doc, though cheesy and slow, gives much insight into that.
Heather: I cried a LOT because I can’t watch Rob Halford without projectile crying. He is incandescent with Love– for his audience and the world. Our friend got us great seats at a Priest show a couple years ago and Rob changed outfits like 8 times. He truly loves what he does!

Find out more about Corvair here!

January 1, 2022January 1, 2022

the best of 2021

Daniel Handler: Best breakfasts I had in 2021

Huevos Rancheros, Pork Store, San Francisco CA

Cream-cheese icing cake, unknown shop, Oxford UK

Kimchee fried rice, Robert’s house, Boonville CA

Leftover flank steak, fried eggs, homemade tortillas, Air BnB, Napa CA

5-minute egg, rye toast, off-season strawberries, home in SF

Peanut butter toast, my sister’s car after various ocean swims*

*most frequent

Clare Wadd’s Books I Read in 2021: the ones I loved and the ones that will stay with me
1. Dreamland, Rosa Rankin-Gee
2. I Belong Here: A Journey Along the Backbone of Britain, Anita Sethi
3. Small Pleasures, Clare Chambers
4. The Doll Factory, Elizabeth Macneal
5. My Rock ’n’ Roll Friend, Tracey Thorn
6. Skint Estate: A Memoir of Poverty, Motherhood and Survival, Cash Carraway
7. Fake Accounts, Lauren Oyler
8. The Pursuit of Love, Nancy Mitford
9. Mort Sur La Lande (Vera), Ann Cleaves/Claire Breton
10. Pirenesi, Susanna Clarke
With apologies to the boys as none of them made the cut

Beth Arzy’s Top 13 Records
The Shop Window, The State of Being Human
Lancashire Bombers, Into the Sun
Wild Billy Childish & CTMF, Where the Wild Purple Iris Grows
The Umbrellas, The Umbrellas
Massage, Still Life
Hadda Be, Another Life
Reds, Pinks and Purples, Uncommon Weather
Swansea Sound, Live at the Rum Puncheon
The Jazz Butcher, The Highest in the Land
The Catenary Wires, Birling Gap
Durand Jones & the Indications, Private Space
Chime School, Chime School
Shoestrings, Expectations
Beth plays in The Luxembourg Signal, Jetstream Pony, Lightning in a Twilight Hour

Michael Azerrad’s Ten Best Vegetables and Fruits of 2021
1. Snap peas
2. Peaches
3. Ramps
4. Borlotti beans
5. Corn
6. Small russet potatoes*
7. Heirloom tomatoes
8. Golden Russet apples
9. Lion’s mane mushrooms**
10. Red Boston lettuce
* Higher skin-to-flesh ratio
** Yes, I know they’re technically not a vegetable or fruit.

Gilmore Tamny’s Chronicle of Things of Note 2021 List.
1. I started talking to myself more, drinking my coffee black, painting in earnest, eating lots of wavy potato chips, wearing eye makeup (per resolution 2021), and getting up at 5:30 a.m.
2. Turns out, I like ambient/ASMR video. There are a lot of crackling fireplaces and candles. Are the auteurs morally obligated to show responsible fire safety? I found this question more central to ethical code than I would have thought.
3. I drank coffee and made a to-do list at about 6:00 a.m. while watching a pre-recorded video of myself drinking coffee and making a to-do list about 6:00 a.m. on youtube as part of the Non-Event TV 24-Hour Fundraiser
4. I decided I wanted to grow my hair long at least once before I croak, whether it is flattering or not.
5. I enjoyed hearing Mero (of Desus and Mero) describe watching the Jan. 6 insurrection.
6. My tomato plant grew and grew and grew and finally produced one single chestnut-sized tomato.
7. Cottagecore? Hmmm.
8. I need a soap dish and discovered in resulting search I have a fairly narrow and inflexible idea of the soap dish I want.
9. Was on the receiving end of possibly the dirtiest look someone’s ever given me. No threat, –just weary disgust.
10. After watching and reading about secret societies in history, I tried to figure out a way to talk about secret societies without sounding credulous. Harder than I might have thought.
11. I found a good gingerbread recipe. Works very well with substitutes to make it vegan.
12. I discovered a friend was named after the Hawthorne story “The Old Stone Face.”
13. Learned: always close the door – car door, outside door to your building, your own apt./condo door – and lock it behind you (watch enough true crime—you’ll take my point). Stalin was involved in a bank robbery. My cat doesn’t just want me to throw any toy—but a specific toy—bouncy ball not wool ball, rattle mousekins not stuffed mousekins, etc. Hull isn’t where I thought it was. Lenin and Trotsky were Freemasons.
14. Sciatica.
15. While practicing genuine gratitude for having a roof overhead, union job, good human friends, and cat friend, I stopped smothering my distress to death with gratitude.
16. Miriam Toews’ book Fight Night is great.
Gilmore Tamny lives and works and frets in Boston, MA.

Mike Slumberland: The list nobody wants… my top new jazz/jazz-adjacent records of 2021
1. Nat Birchall – Ancient Africa (Ancient Archive of Sound)
2. Tara Clerkin Trio – In Spring (World of Echo)
3. Emanative & Liz Elensky – The Volume Of The Light (Home Planet)
4. Sam Gendel – Fresh Bread (Leaving)
5. Makaya McCraven – Deciphering The Message (Blue Note)
6. Natural Information Society – Descension (Eremite)
7. Sons of Kemet – Black To The Future (Impulse!)
8. Emma-Jean Thackray – Yellow (Movementt)
9. Rosie Turton – Expansions and Transformations: Part I & II (no label)
10. Wildflower – Better Times (Tropic of Love)

Angelina Capodanno’s 2021 lists
(Team CF, also Sony Music / Legacy Creative + Packaging, Brooklynite, Destroyer’s #1 fan)

My favorite 2021 albums:
1. Hand Habits – Fun House
2. Bachelor – Dooming Sun
3. Cory Hanson – Pale Horse Rider
4. Wednesday – Twin Plagues
5. Colleen – The Tunnel and the Clearing
6. The Mountain Movers – World What World
7. ANIKA – Change
8. Dry Cleaning – New Long Leg
9. Dummy – Mandatory Enjoyment
10. Painted Shrines – Heaven & Holy

Plus 13 more albums I liked a lot:
Nightshift – Zoe
The Goon Sax – Mirror II
Pip Blom – Welcome Break
Lewsberg – In Your Hands
Kiwi Jr – Cooler Returns
Mdou Moctar – Afrique Victime
Jane Weaver – Flock
John Andrews and the Yawns – Cookbook
Caleb Landry Jones – Gadzooks Vol 1
Snapped Ankles – Forest of Your Problems
Weak Signal – Bianca
Goat Girl – On All Fours
Circuit does Yeux –io

Favorite Concerts
Yo La Tengo Hanukkah + Low + Fred Armisen @Bowery Ballroom
Yo La Tengo Hanukkah + 11th Dream Day + Joe Pera @Bowery Ballroom
Young Guv @ Cat’s Cradle Back Room
Sweeping Promises @ Cat’s Cradle Back Room
Wet Leg @ Baby’s All Right
Mdou Moctar @Motorco Music Hall

Favorite things I watched:
PEN15
The Velvet Underground
The Wire
The White Lotus
Syracuse’s surprise Sweet 16 run in the 2021 NCAA tourney
The Card Counter
Insecure
Curb Your Enthusiasm
Breaking Bad

Favorite things I read:
But You Seemed So Happy – Kimberly Harrington
Love and Trouble – Claire Dederer
Empty: A Memoir – Susan Burton
Blow Your House Down – Gina Frangello
Somebody’s Daughter – Ashley C Ford
Sleepovers – Ashleigh Bryant Phillips
Detransition, Baby – Torrey Peters

Favorite Podcasts
The Experiment
Let’s Talk to Lucy
The Devil’s Candy: The Plot Thickens
Radiolab – Mixtape
Ali on The Run
Running Rouge
Shattered