Music Listeners

music with no floor and no angles (megamix 8)

A lot of music in one place: that's music blogging, baby.

444 - hemlock

I read the newsletter GUNKYARD from the NYC showpaper GUNK and they recently published a lyrical tour diary from Carolina Chauffe, who records as hemlock. It painted a gorgeous picture of house shows and transient existence: "this old morning, I get into a hot tub with a cup of coffee before even brushing my teeth, at one of the boys’ middle school girlfriend’s parents’ house. this sort of thing isn’t atypical." This lovely writing led me to listen to hemlock's album from last year, 444, which is a collection of re-recordings of songs originally recorded straight to Chauffe's iPhone. I think the album sounds like the writing: lived-in and intimate and a little restless.

partygirl's tour diary

Speaking of tour diaries, the Brooklyn band partygirl also sent out a tour diary to their mailing list as they made their way through the Southeast United States, and it was awesome. Another nice match between writing style and musical style—Pagona Kytzidis and the rest of the band play at the upper limits of emotion, complexity, and general genre-chaos and the tour diary mirrored that intensity: "en route to FLORIDA. i know i was sad yesterday - and i was earnestly sobbing in the van listening to queen II and sheer heart attack because how much this industry sucks ass and hurts and sucks the life force from artists but then you know we checked into our hotel in athens georgia and i cracked open my celsius i bought at a gas station on the south carolina/georgia border and claire and i stood in front of the mirror doing our make-up listening to live videos of barbra streisand and patti lupone and as the celsius started to hit me i insisted that we play cynthia erivo’s defying gravity in the car..."

Nora Nygard's Ableton sessions on Patreon

IEM heads will remember, maybe, the profile I wrote about Minnesota musician Nora Nygard and the release of her ambient album I Wish I Could See You, and grief, and isolation, and trying to break your computer with too many synth loops. I think Nora is an extremely talented musician (also an extremely good podcaster) and so I became a member of her Patreon, where she does stuff like share unlisted videos of Ableton sessions. As someone with zero music production experience (not counting the time I tried to make a Doja Cat mashup song) it's enlightening to get a peek at unfinished and in-progress music and what that actually looks like...especially filtered through Nora's 1 of 1 perspective. All for $1 a month, a steal.

a song about living in The Bean called "I'm Living (In The Bean)"

My college boyfriend was from Chicago, and that was fun for me. My northeastern austerity pairs well with Midwestern humility, plus I was exposed to Malört way earlier than the poseurs at the New York Times (I love drinks that taste bad). He once showed me the video for "Dennehy" by Serengeti, a song about a day in the life of a man living a particularly Chicago lifestyle: playing softball, mastering bratwurst cooking techniques, and loving the Bears, Hawks, (White) Sox, and Bulls. If you want to imagine college at the turn of the '10s, just rotate a 3D model of young people in skinny jeans huddling around a MacBook and looking at regional YouTube videos in your mind.

Anyway, someone sent "I'm Living (In The Bean)" to the IEJ Mailbox. It is a dreamy and dramatic synth pop song by Jaff Graffner, aka Jeff Graupner, who also plays in the Chicago band The Hecks, about taking up residence in Anish Kapoor's Cloud Gate sculpture, located in Millennium Park, in Chicago. "No floor, no angles / Rent free / Living in The Bean," Jaff sings. This lyric make me think about the logistics of living in a place with no angles. Would I go nuts? Or would it be soothing to ditch angles? Could be comforting, womb-like. You aren't really introduced to the concept of angles until you're born, and maybe that's when it all goes downhill. There's a karaoke version of this song too, nice touch.

the bridge on "As Long As You Love Me" by Backstreet Boys

I recently guested on the last episode of an epic podcast miniseries about the career of Britney Spears, a pop artist whose first music was written in Sweden in the 1990s. Doing this caused me to regress into another listening bout of Early Max Martin. Sometimes a dose of pure pop helps recalibrate the system. I hadn't gone full '90s Swedish Pop since I recorded a podcast about essential pop music book The Song Machine: Inside The Hit Factory during summer 2020. That was an interesting time. I was doing things like sitting in a camping chair in an alleyway near my house and drinking White Claw out of a pirate ship sippy cup (shippy cup) procured from a local mini golf facility.

they were calling it "a weird time to be alive"

Have you heard the song "As Long As You Love Me" by Backstreet Boys? Dubious lyrical premise, but full of lovely vocal harmonies, shimmering Cheiron Studio production, and Scandinavian melancholy. The bridge to this song is insane. A pure expression of romantic longing. Total melodic clarity and harmonic efficiency. But when you really think about the construction of the lyrics, there's something uncanny about them. Imagine standing in front of someone you know and saying, to their face, "I try to hide it so that no one knows. But I guess it shows...when I look into your eyes." This is perfect pop syntax. You can only say this kind of thing in a song.

So many people who have been on musicpulsestudios have put out great new albums...

...and you should listen to them.

Iffin (seen in IEJ going deep on My Bloody Valentine's Loveless) released Get Hung, Fascist (Bandcamp tags incl.:brittle pop, chambergaze functional punk). I love the way she layers her sounds, puts unexpected compositions together, and stays perfectly balanced between catchy shit and weird shit.

Riggings (seen in IEJ talking about coffee and comedians) released The Subject Was Faggots: A Mixtape (Bandcamp tags incl.: alternative, country, experimental). I feel like you should listen for yourself but this album hit immediately for me, I'm just locked in on what Amelia has to say and how she says it. Also it's for sale on Bandcamp for $6.66 and that's nice.

jak the act (seen in IEJ talking promo photos) released still not content, a collaboration with the U.K. rapper Bear., and it is wonderful vibey hip hop all the way thru. He even shouts out the Vivienne Westwood turtleneck he wears in his promo photos!

as a reminder, I love getting emails. Email me about the music you've been listening to, or any weird musical moments you've had, and I will publish them in the mailbag section of a future musical megamix blog posts...ienjoymusicblog [at] gmail [dot] com

From Preston: Negativland for our Negative Land

"Last night, I watched a great music documentary about the infamous band Negativland on YouTube called Stand By For Failure. Lots of great moments but towards the end they played a song called “True False” that I think you would enjoy. I can’t think of a better song for 2025, the intro would make for a great sound bite on TikTok. Anyway, have a wonderful day."

Molly says: if I listened to this song on psychedelics it would give me an attaque de panique. When the voice starts repeating "And we get into a loop which goes on forever" and the atmospheric music turns into a demented hand-clappy bop...oh boy. I'll have to watch the doc!

From Danielle: Remember Baz's Song?? Pepperidge Farm Remembers

"For whatever reason, I revisit this from time to time. Do you remember it? It was addressed to 'The Class of '99,' which was the year I graduated from junior high. Listening now, I get oddly emotional. 'Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth...oh, never mind.'

Molly says: "Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen)!" BOY OH BOY DO I REMEMBER. I was eight or nine when this came out. We used to be a proper country, we used to make fresh music specifically for the purpose of celebrating school graduations. What the hell happened? And who is going to make a UK garage remix of "Pomp and Circumstance" with clips of David Foster Wallace's "This Is Water" cut in at drops? Is is going to be me? The lyric I like most from "Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)" is Remember the compliments you receive / forget the insults. It's good advice but physically impossible for me to take. I remember everything, ughghghghgh.

From Charlie and Chris: More Music For Stressed-Out Cats

Last time on the megamix, I talked about playing Brian Eno ambient music for the cat we neutered and then oops adopted. He's been settling in nicely, meowing like an ambulance if he thinks you are about to feed him food, and otherwise taking a lot of naps in interesting places. And some folks recommended more music for taming wild beasts. Chris recommended a sorta-ambient Polish album, Ptaki's Przelot: "I sometimes play this album for my dog when he’s being annoying. It calms us both." Charlie (who has a good music blog) recommended Steve Reich's "Music For 18 Musicians." He also separately recommended the music of Tiga, not for cats but for people. Still might try to play Tiga for the cat when jauntier moods strike—it's pretty funky stuff.