This list is an attempt to uncouple my mind from the last year. That sounds odd but all I mean is to release myself from the manufactured obligations of what I feel I should have written by now. The runaway-train cycles of the universe lost me a month already but I feel I've eased back into good rhythm now. I've found one can measure this quite well through my 'read, watched' list, which I will almost certainly come to resent as time wasted, justified or not, but the outcome is, for better or worse, these objects are meaningful to me. Anyway the point of this preamble is this list will be almost all half-remembrances and reveries of experiences. In a way the ability of these pieces of art to follow me in these ways is the actual signifier of their quality. But I doubt I will have much insightful to add and going back and excavating them would use time I'm not sure I want to offer so thoroughly to the past right now. That is to say, these pieces are all excellent and you should read / watch / listen / whatever to them, even if in spite of my own clumsy remembrances.
Book;
Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Joan Didion
I picked this book up after hearing about Joan Didion's death, may she rest in peace, and finished it not long after. I am afraid to admit it the object that has descended deepest into the memory of pure emotion tempered, I must admit to the palest colour, but so were Turner's best watercolours. Didion had a command of the English language, of the construction of a sentence, as one of my other great loves, Virginia Woolf, had that makes myself feel completely idiotic in the best possible way. But still profoundly emotional and profoundly contemporary. Her work has an insight, and perhaps this is sacrilegious in literary circles but I don't run in literary circles, that feels, in a sense that dispels comparison of quality or perspective, not dissimilar to that of David Foster Wallace. It is definitely something I desire nearing the end of his bibliography. I'm sure, tunnelling out of my current restriction I have created of finishing my backlog, I will immediately read much more of her work and I'll have something more intimate to say, but the memory of this book has not left me.
Album;
God Save the Animals, Alex G
I started listening to Alex G after hearing his work in the score for We're All Going to the World's Fair, which is an excellent film and only loses a place on the list because I can usher you towards it here. I am honestly unsure why this album rises above everything else I listened to from the year but it does feel correct. I will try, in vaguest terms to explain why and that is because it feels 'strange.' It isn't antagonistically harsh, there were certainly weirder records and its quality isn't gained in opposition to these positions, but it does feel free to follow every off-kilter impulse before returning. The lyrics trudge through the dark before they reach any light. There is a strange beauty to this rhythm that really manifests in the whole. Plus there great playing throughout, some good tunes, and 'Miracles' is singularly gorgeous.
Film;
Memoria, Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Now this is a fun addition to the list because even by the time credits rolled, the film was far from a tangible image in my mind. I was about half-way through before I realised there were supposed to be english subtitles, Tilda Swinton's character is not a native speaker so I don't think it's absurd, and though they were present for Swinton's character's conversation with dreamer I came out more lost than I begin. And yet its images, its intention, its breadth have been lodged in my mind ever since. And for film predicated on a single sound, it is amazing how viscerally that first boom is able to strike you deep in your gut, even on my unimpressive television speakers. The irony is not lost on me but I really wonder how that was layered in sound design.
Television;
The Rehearsal, Nathan Fielder
I lucked out with this one as truly the less said about it the better. I've been following Fielder since Nathan for You and his work just keeps rising along that trajectory. Instead I will just briefly recommend a few other things; How to with John Wilson is produced by Nathan and just as fun at following things to their strangest points and still coming out the other end, The Bear was really great and understand that a static single take can be even more effective than a crazy oner, though it did both, and the final season of Atlanta, a show I always thought could go on forever, was incredible and its commitment to always go for the punchline instead of the didactic point was never broken. I think its esteem will only grow with the years.
Music Video;
Time Warp, Perfume / Sunset, Caroline Polacheck
We get two for this one because I get the make the rules. A-chan, Kashiyuka, Nocci, and Mikiko and Nakata do it again. I fully got Perfume-pilled last year so, in a sense, this video stands in for that as well as the album that didn't take a position above. All the videos from this cycle are great, and I have to give a special mention to the choreography of 'Spinning World.' This video also inexplicably felt right to include over the others and the neat trick of it, which seems obvious in hindsight, is playback at different speeds within segments of the track. Plasma as a whole is a great record because, though it feels like a tour of all of Perfume's previous best sounds and the lyrics are certainly concerned with the past, it doesn't feel overly sentimental.
As it seems with all Caroline songs at some point I reached a point where it just looped constantly. The video itself does some really expressive and pretty things with simple feathered masks, an effect I didn't think would work until I saw it executed perfectly. It's definitely something I'll have to steal. Perfect keys are out!
Live Performance;
Ichiko Aoba at Royal College of Northern Music, Manchester
This performance absolutely floored me. I can only recommend you see her if you get the chance. It was one of those magical moments when a single voice can just hold complete command of a room. It made me forget myself in ways that unfortunately so rare. My thoughts could fall in, I could momentarily lose focus, and yet I could still be happy. The music was so beautiful.
I want to draw special attention to one very small moment. Aoba did a gag with her hand as a spider or maybe something like a soot-sprite crawling around her equipment; she did all the sound effects herself. The rhythm, the timing, and the sound were sublime like a perfectly animated cut. It only reinforced my belief that I've got to do something with puppets one day.
I hope you find something in here like I did.
~Honeycream