1) Strand of Oaks, “In Heaven” / The cover of Tim Showalter’s latest is no accident. Since expanding his sound from something more spare and acoustic years ago, the Strand of Oaks leader has written songs that consistently scrape the sky. Showalter’s guitar anthems aspire to the starry canopy overhead and are made with a bit of its residue. “In Heaven” continues in, and further opens up, this direction; the songs here are vast and transcendent yet intimate and affirming.
2) Illuminati Hotties, “Let Me Do One More” / Sarah Tudzin is up to something special. The Illuminati Hotties mastermind sometimes refers to her sound as “tenderpunk”; the songs on her latest fit that and so many other bills. As whip-smart as anything you’ll hear this year, the set brilliantly displays Tudzin’s understanding of how the pop candy shell can protect an emotional, intellectually subversive center. Tudzin mingles opposites in a way that shows they’re not actually opposites; we are all made of these seemingly diverging instincts, just like her songs.
3) The music of Bruiser Queen / Revisiting the sound of this St. Louis duo this week, I was freshly impressed with the spaces Morgan Nusbaum and Jason Potter mine. Their records are named using phrases like “Heavy High” and “Sweet Static,” and the garage-rockers live vitally, viscerally between the implications of those terms.
4) Danny Caine, “Flavortown” / My two most recent poetry reads were a Rilke translation and this one from poet/Midwest bookshop owner/anti-Amazon crusader Danny Caine. I’ve never been more interested in eating boneless Buffalo wings in the house of the Lord. But I digress …
Caine’s poems often begin in the middling spaces of American life (especially as relates to what we consume), then leave the reader at a poignant pause. Here he finds the gravity in Guy Fieri, recites Waffle House liturgies, embraces the beauty in ordering “the usual” and learns to let the soft animal of his body love what it loves—even if that’s Cracker Barrel.
Caine’s work here is as surprising and soulful as ever. In one piece, he wonders if a ubiquitous Christmas song can coax out the elusive spirit of the season: “I know Mariah won’t save us / but when the intro turns / into piano turns into drums / turns into verse every time / I think she might.”
In another, he writes “What is / Christmas anyway if not the same / shit in a different year, thank God” and actually prompts you to say an “amen” at the end of this makeshift prayer. Caine proves yet again that he just might understand America better than it understands itself.
5) @ Sea podcast with Justin McRoberts and David Dark / Few people have affected my understanding of the lexicon of faith like @ Sea host McRoberts and his recent guest, David Dark. To hear the two men in conversation was a mind- and heart-expanding treat. These two creators and educators believe that every word matters (especially if you claim to believe in something or someone bigger than yourself), and they underline the love or diminishing that can attend the language on our lips. Especially if you follow Dark on Twitter, this pod is well worth your time. You might not agree with his approach to the platform, but this dialogue illuminates the intention he brings to each 280 character-rich moment.