1) Wilco, “Cruel Country” / I can’t possibly be objective about Wilco’s records at this point; each sounds like sitting across from an old friend for a long-overdue catch-up. The band’s latest concerns itself with the usual subjects/suspects—American decline, the stupid and stubborn nature of real love, the inherent need to connect—yet does so through some of Jeff Tweedy’s strongest and most wrenching lyrics in recent memory.
There’s zero reason to believe this is the last Wilco record (especially at the rate Tweedy’s been turning out songs) but if for some reason it were, it would be a fitting finale. Tweedy converses with listeners in a way that feels gentle, affectionate and whole. It’s an album-long sigh of relief and resolve.
2) The music of Ben Folds / No one asks me, but if they did, I’d tell you Folds is my generation’s Brian Wilson. His pure pop songcraft frames a peerless blend of sarcasm and sadness that never fails to feel authentic.
As will happen from time to time, I disappeared into Folds’ catalog this week—from his landmark work with Ben Folds Five (ups to Darren Jessee and Robert Sledge, two of the great, underrated musicians of our time) to playing a dozen different live versions of the solo staple “Not the Same.” Whenever I become lost in Folds’ music, I tend to find something of myself there.
3) Dehd, “Blue Skies” / I’m loving the continual evolution of this Chicago trio. The band’s latest seems raw upon first listen; but that pure, unapologetic rock and roll energy masks a refined sense of melody and dynamics. Listeners who never got over the Pixies’ heyday owe Dehd a few spins.
4) Mieko Kawakami, “All the Lovers in the Night” / I knew Kawkami’s work suited me from page one, which houses an (almost painfully) exquisite answer to the question “Why does the night have to be so beautiful?” From there, the Japanese novelist offers an unadorned yet deeply soulful account of a woman whose loneliness threatens to envelop her. Every day feels like night and another version of the earlier question stands ever before her: Is there beauty to be found in this endless night?
5) Phil Christman, “How to Be Normal” / I’ve admired Phil Christman’s essays for years now; I enjoyed the pleasure of interviewing him in light of his last book, “Midwest Futures,” and was pleasantly surprised when a quote from that piece ended up on the back cover of his latest.
With “How to Be Normal,” Phil gets in my head in ways his work never quite has before. Anyone who knows his writing knows this is no “how-to” text (no matter how hard the title winks); rather, the book thoughtfully plumbs various states of being, the ways we accept ourselves and act in the world. The entire text sings to you quietly, but I was especially moved by Phil’s chapters on faith. Consider a passage like this:
I don’t want to abandon Christ because he occasionally fails to act as my personal mood improver. And my tradition tells me that there are things I can know about God by enduring through these dry periods. It’d be nice to find out whether that’s true. I can’t do that without staking the one life I have that it is.
That’s as good a working definition of religion as I have right now. And with these sentences, Phil states something I’ve long known, but in language I couldn’t quite muster; his terms make the notion feel like a revelation, as if I’m hearing and understanding it for the first time. That might not sound like much, but it’s one of the highest compliments I can pay any writing. And Phil does that time and again here.