I was able to do two podcast episodes this month, after a long hiatus. I was doing them scripted in the past, and I just could not get my voice to a place that I fully liked, and this really sapped the energy that I had for the writing. But I've thrown out the concept of scripts going forward, and I think I am sounding much, much better. It's much easier to do these now, though now I'm struggling with finding satisfaction in my words. I think I'll get there.

The first episode was a best of 2024 show, and it didn't really have much of an impact on this listening data, since I mostly just focused on the songs that I was talking about when I was preparing, and I'm not tracking individual song data. It's just too noisy! And I like that I've carved out a space to escape my self-surveillance, I think it helps keep the monitored area more real. But yeah, I think I drew some fun connections in that episode, but I probably need to give myself more space to flesh them out better.

The second episode was much more predictive of what's showing up on top here, since it was all about the new music that has been coming out this month and impressing me, so I talk a bit about Ethel Cain, Konrad Sprenger, Zach Phillips, Myriad Myriads, Kouns & Weaver, Kaho Matsui, Voice Actor, and Patrick Cosmos. Though the Konrad Sprenger thing was really new to me when I recorded, and I didn't have anything of substance to say about it. But I think I've figured it out a bit more now! It's sort of like, when compared to his earlier album Stack Music, that one was unidirectional post-minimalism. But this new one is omnidirectional post-minimalism. I might be particularly invested in this interpretation, because I crave relief from the sense of an unrelenting singular bad direction in the world. There may be bias at play in my reading of this music. But I feel like I'm correct about it.

I also talked about the new Julek Ploski album that's coming out in February, because I got a promo copy and quickly got obsessed with it. It's so good! I contrasted it with some of his older stuff by saying that Hotel ***** would give me a constant awareness of the strength in the sound, like the way you could see a photo of a guy with a lot of muscles holding a kitten and even if that's a cute image and the muscles are not engaged, they're still core to the substance of the image. So it was like, even in the softer moments on that album, I had the muscles on my mind. But this new one is able to find moments of strength, but is also able to access muscle-free softness. I think I totally nailed it on that one.

I feel like I didn't have a fully developed opinion on the stuff from Kaho Matsui and Kouns & Weaver. I really wanted to tell people to listen to the music though, because I've greatly enjoyed having these albums. With the new stuff from Matsui, I talked about how the downcast pop style wasn't the type of the thing that I had a lot of context for, but her self-titled album from 2022 was in a familiar genre with intricate drum programming deployed as a pitch carrier, which could describe all sorts of other music that I've been listening to for decades. Through my extensive listening to that album, I was exposed to a distinct emotional capacity (particularly the second half), and this put me in a position where I feel like I could more easily jump into this new territory. But I should have also said something about how the music is so perfect for all these current moments where I am so thoroughly frayed. There's a particular scale and pace to the musical gestures on this album, which enables it to get into expressions of anger that don't come out as a show of force, they aren't providing a release of anger, I think it's more accurately described as a display. There is something I find really fascinating and incredible about depicting anger in this fashion, it doesn't seem easy to pull off. I recommend you check out the album so that you can see for yourself!!

And then also with the new Kouns & Weaver album The 1980s Country Songbook, an album with 30 songs that are all titled after popular songs from this decade and genre. The duo's music generally has a combination of ersatz timbres and surreal lyrics, producing a real, genuine fantasy. It's always a pleasure to hear something new from them, and this latest one is no exception. When I was talking about it, I drew a connection with an earlier album from them, The 1990 Cincinnati Reds (an album where each member of the team is the subject of a different song), since they both seem to be engaging with cultural figures that towered during the artists' youth. That's a really easy connection to make though, the first 8 characters of the title are basically exactly the same except for one number, so I don't think it's especially impressive that I did that. I should've done better at highlighting the way they contrast each other. I pointed out how the Cincinnati Reds took on a sort of mythological greatness in the lyrics, but with The 1980s Country Songbook, I got into a bit about how there seems to be some engagement with a "lower quality" assessment of the genre during this decade. But I think the difference runs greater than that. A lot of these musical fragments are just stories of occurences that seem unrelated to their titles, depicted moments that were implicitly shared with the music, without it being directly acknowledged. And I think this has a substantial impact on the experience, it's a peculiar sort of distance that plays so well with their sound. There is so much more that I need to consider with this music... even this bit of progress does not feel like I've done enough justice!

The other main release I talked about was the new single from Patrick Cosmos, who makes some really great IDM bedroom electronic type of stuff, with that "intricate drum programming deployed as a pitch carrier" type of thing that I mentioned earlier. I tried to demonstrate his progression and development as an artist by playing one of his older tracks, and then one of the new singles. But I don't think I made as strong of a case as I should have! In particular, on the new FNS001 track, there is this gradual escalation to the drums, building up to the moment at 2:30 when they really let loose. The patience and restraint really helps make that moment feel successful and earned! But I didn't really get that specific. Well, I'm making up for that now, I guess!

But in addition to this stuff that I talked about on the podcast, I've also been listening to some of this new stuff on Sawyer Editions, particularly this debut album from Kari Watson. I still have no idea what to say about it, but there is something that has captured my attention about it, but the something refuses to budge from the corner of my eye, and every time I try to look closer, it just shifts to the new corner. I don't want to rush it, I'm sure whatever I want to say will reveal itself in time. And then I also have been listening to a lot of the new Sarah Hennies album inspired by trans voice training. Since I am a longtime fan of Hennies' work, and since my website is the only website that covers experimental music and also has an experimental trans voice training tool to generate improv prompts as a way of circumventing the dysphoria that can get triggered by hearing failure within your own voice, and then on top of that, I also do a podcast where I desperately want my voice to communicate the correct gender... you can rest assured that I will have so much to say about this music. It's really good!

There were also some Erstwhile releases that came out for early download, from Kevin Drumm and Vanessa Rossetto. I am eager to hear these as well! But money is tight, and so I priortized the one that seemed like it would have the greatest personal relevance. I will be hearing those other two soon, you can be sure of that.

One of the other major presences in this month is a slight excursion into classical music. I always get intimidated by the genre, I never want to compete with any of the expert listeners, but I have fun with it. I switched over to injecting my estrogen a couple months ago, and I've started to really get into the ritual of the weekly process, and it seemed like a fun idea to soundtrack is with some classical music. And it was! Getting everything put together and then putting hormones into my body while listening to this makes the whole experience feel very special. I am absolutely going to keep doing this kind of thing. I'm just kind of poking around without too much of an idea of what I'm doing, like a while back I'd found out that one of the samples on Keith Rowe - The Room Extended is from a release by Ricercar Consort, and I think rice is really cool, so the name stuck out to me. And everything I've heard from them has seemed to be well played and recorded. So right now I'm mostly just poking around through what they've got, but I'm also looking generally at Bach, because his stuff seems neat, although it could be that I just recently watched The Nightmare Before Christmas and I'm deriving some kind of extra satisfaction from discovering the influence.

All the rest of this new music has been treating me quite nicely as well. I checked out that Hugo Largo album because of Philip Sherburne, and I feel like a lot of other people did too? It had a fun tie in with all of my recent listens to The Kinks - Face to Face via that cover of Fancy, that was really nice. And I had a few other oldies in the mix, but I was mostly focused on the current stuff. I am extremely grateful to have these promos from OHYUNG and the Patrick Shiroishi & Piotr Kurek collaboration (it still blows me away that I get sent previews of amazing music like this!!), I'll have more to say on them both when we get closer to the release dates. And then I was also given some codes for recent releases from tsss tapes, and I mostly have focused on this Tetsuya Nakayama album. I'll also have more to say about that one at a later date too, because it has such a good use of energy. Like the design of the album as a whole is just so subtly satisfying. And I'm also just going to throw out a recommendation for the releases from Etre Ensemble and Ale Hop & Titi Bakorta, those two are really great. If you need some convincing, you can read John Parry talking about the former at Backseat Mafia and Ben Cardew talking about the latter at Pitchfork.

As far as older music goes, I mentioned in my best of 2024 episode that my wife and I have been listening to a lot of The Kinks, Fennesz - Endless Summer, and Wire - 154. We're still doing that. There's a lot of things that have continued on for a while here... I still love to workout to Lorenzo Senni - Sacco Matto. I still like to put on Joshua Abrams & Natural Information Society or Dustin Lorenzi's Natural Language when I'm feeling really stressed out, and it's just a coincidence that they both have Natural in the artist name, they have a lot of significant differences and are appropriate for different times of stress, because the Dustin Lorenzi album is more for when I need to be brought down, and the Joshua Abrams stuff is more for when I need to slow down. These are important differences. If I tried to play one when I needed the other, it would be a mess.

The one new development is that I was turning to MGMT's self titled album a fair amount. I never really listened to the band much, but they've been growing on me in the past year, and this is the one album from them that I haven't really spent much time with. It's fun seeing them do the MBV cosplay with A Good Sadness. I'm not quite sure why this band is resonating with me so much lately. I think their most recent album gave me an idea that their songwriting is aiming for a world of dominant smoothness with the presence of personal roughness as something that tries to exist within the space rather than transcend. Maybe? I'm not entirely sure if that captures it, but that's as good as I can get for now.

There was a lot of other great stuff in here too, like anytime where I'm listening to Dawuna, Nick Storring, Velocity Girl, Dewa Alit, and Jako Maron, I'd say that's a month where I was making some excellent decisions for how to spend my time. So I'm glad about that, at least. Music is the best.