Evening,
Welcome to first issue of Crow’s Nest. Thanks for subscribing or opening the link or however you got here. I’ll try to keep this brief (upon reflection, lmao) so here we go:
I’m gonna compile things I’ve been appreciating recently in these posts. Mostly music and tweets but anything goes tbh. I’ll do my best to concisely detail things as I dislike flabby prose. We’ll see what gets included each week.
Hit the buttons above if you’re intrigued, want more or want to tell others about this. Preferably both I’m bad at promotion.
I learned about Magik Markers when their new album came out. Sounds like an American The Dead C with a stronger emphasis on song structure. Apparently later Sonic Youth were really into them too. You can listen to the whole thing on streaming services but I’m not posting those when there’s Bandcamp for that.
-The latest Baffler was excellent with a strong focus on non-Western development. I especially enjoyed Rebecca McCarthy on deep-sea mining and fiction from Siddhartha Deb:
Then I saw the man accompanying the bull. Slight and bare-chested, he had long hair and a beard. His saffron dhoti was fading in color. The string of rudraksha beads on his neck were cracked all over. He did not seem equal to the magnificence of the bull, merely an unfortunate taken under the creature’s regal protection. Yet the insects were listening to him with rapt attention.
“Have you ever been aware of things in the future?” the man said. “Are you aware of the significance of your past?”
There was a murmur.
“Today, you can. Today, my companion, the one and only sacred bull in Bhopal, Maharaj, can look into your past and your future. Today, he can tell you how to break out of the jail cell of your time.”
Dry Cleaning have signed to 4AD. Looking forward to more from them:
Here’s the thing: Matt being real or not isn’t the point (thread)
It’s not fair to say the new Shit and Shine’s lead single is misleading as it’s Shit and Shine. But between that, the DJ Rashad sample (RIP) on Sheriff of Yates Hill, and the flutes on Chervette this is a quality listen.
Saw the link for this on Twitter and damn. The sound design that comes in on ‘Cruel Passion’ and ‘Sweet Man’ … Anyway this producer has literally dozens of other releases from the past few decades of doing this, need to dive in more
Can’t figure out the embed for this but Moonlight director Barry Jenkins chopped and screwed Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. If that sounds absurd to even fathom, let me assure you it’s tight
I read the New Yorker most of the way through each week, highlights from the latest:
-Louis Menand, ‘Wikipedia, “Jeopardy!,” and the Fate of the Fact’
-Shane Bauer on the Vallejo, California police department
-I’m not 100% sure of his overall status but the short story from Salman Rushdie was really good imo. Literally ends on a cliche but he makes it work.
The only way for the articles to be self-correcting is not to correct, to let the invisible hand do its job. Wikipedia is neoliberalism applied to knowledge.
Discovered these guys before the last Bandcamp Day, the percussion on ‘children of the valley of the wind’ really stands out. They also reached out to offer to send me a hand-painted postcard last week for no evident reason, 🥰
Very strong Björk vibes on this one
“Dubby downtempo w/Jaki Liebezeit on the kit”
“Dubby downtempo w/Jaki Liebezeit on the kit”
“Dubby downtempo w/Jaki Liebezeit on the kit”
“Dubby downtempo w/Jaki Liebezeit on the kit”
I picked up a box of ‘Maple Espresso Black Tea Blend’ at Trader Joe’s a few weeks ago and it’s not good. Tastes kinda like I imagine mulched leaves would? I really hope we don’t run maple flavor into the ground like pumpkin spice, though I’m seeing it subbed for sugar/simple syrup in drinks so I may be too late. There’s a good reason why another of Liebezeit’s projects named a song ‘Bring Me Coffee OR Tea’ and we should keep them separate. Anyway I’m still gonna finish it and got yet another different box as well there yesterday.
I’ve actually read multiple books in the past week (!) and my favorite of that bunch is Little Scratch by Rebecca Watson. I blazed through it hammered Thursday night and the poetry of it is so formally inventive and incredible, capturing the experience of being a young adult today that, just, see what’s below. So good I barely care about how solipsistic the premise is. (Not recommended for those triggered by sexual assault content.)
New one from Gidge is solid. Not as good as Autumn Bells but they took their cues from the landscapes of the Pacific Northwest and it holds up
me in college
I legitimately don’t recall where or who put this on my radar but I’m glad they did. The percussion goes excellent with the experimental electronics you could guess from the cover art
whenever I organically encounter the cat that crashed its bike, I’m gonna repost the cat that crashed its bike
One of my concert going regrets from last year is that I missed HTRK to see Black midi for a second time. I know, first world problems. Anyway I think it would’ve given me better clarity on their records and also this EP by a sibling rips.
There’s a 33 1/3 coming out next year on DJs do Guetto, a foundational compilation for the Lisbon dance scene that has torn shit up for nearly a decade (and longer outside the international club scene’s eye, no doubt). Excited for that, I hope we get a strong look at postcolonial Portugal as a whole in that. Spin something from Príncipe Discos if you haven’t recently too.
I don’t necessarily follow every artist I kind of like but not love well so sometimes stuff like this slips through the cracks upon release. At least I’ve given it a whirl now.
Speaking of Portugal, the leader of HHY & the Macumbas (another excellent group from the country) formed a new group during a residency with Nyege Nyege in Uganda. It lives up to its name, I’ll just say that
And to think the Gang of Four box set comes out next month
If you thought this was long already, brace yourself. I encountered the name Robert Turman on an Aaron Dilloway track I first heard earlier this year (which remains one of the brightest, most ecstatic things I can ever recall). Dilloway and Turman have also collaborated a bunch, and Dilloway also put out another group release recently featuring, among others, Andrew W.K. But the highlight of this axis has to be this 8-cassette anthology release of Turman’s earlier work. The most obvious comparison to that first track has to be Four Cut Jump. It will take a while to properly appreciate this bounty.
Hoping every audiophile I know makes some excellent additions to their setup this holiday season
If you’ve made it this far, congratulations, and thank you for reading. I’m not sure how often I’m gonna send these out (assuming I stick to this). Weekly? Bi-weekly? Monthly? If you’ve got a preference let me know, I’m on email and Twitter.
Here’s a bird from one of my walks recently:
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