1) The music of Sturgill Simpson / Progressively revisiting Simpson’s entire catalog for a forthcoming piece, I’m more sure than ever that he’s one of our most vital modern artists. Restless sounds spring from a grounded ethical and spiritual center, creating the rare storm that only comes as two powerful fronts collide.
2) The music of The Menzingers / I’ve craved keen pop-punk this week, which The Menzingers have provided—and then some. Their songs are smart, narratively rich, anthemic in equal measure.
3) Lava La Rue, “Starface” / This fresh set finds the British artist Lava La Rue grabbing handfuls of sound and fusing them together in a way that’s funky, catchy and perfectly bittersweet. La Rue shows off their star power in every measure. “Starface” really feels like the beginning of something remarkable.
4) Ann Powers, “Traveling: On the Path of Joni Mitchell” / There’s a reason I’ve referred to Ann Powers as the queen of all things music journalism. Powers’ new work on Joni Mitchell—a book that lives in the world of biography, while steering around its more hubristic pitfalls—is a wonder. The author informs, enlightens even, while minding and fully enjoying the spaces between myth and reality, distance and proximity, tenderness and resolve.
5) Jennifer Maritza McCauley, “Kinds of Grace” / In her latest collection, my friend Jennifer Maritza McCauley writes through and around expressions of tangible love, seasons of grappling with mental health, moments when a person knows they exist as both a perfect image of their family and someone wholly set apart.
As in previous collections, these poems are supremely musical, but here the sound expands. Sensual Latin dance rhythms and tender torch songs sit next to unsettling Penderecki vibrations and quietly resolving—and resolved—cadences. To sit with these poems, to bear witness to the sounds they make, is a privilege.