Author: Travis Shosa
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Power In Tenderness: On Lyn Rye’s Soft Blood
Lyn Rye | Soft Blood | Self-released | September 2022 A heart-stopping collection of songs with a gentle melancholy that weaves between uplifting melodies and droning basslines, Soft Blood – the new album from Lyn Rye – hangs between dissonance and harmony, toeing the line of altered emotive ballads. Crushing and delicate vocals hover above contemplative verses with diverse…
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In for a Scare: On John Sara’s The Poet Who Cried Monster
John Sara | The Poet Who Cried Monster | Alien Buddha Press | January 2026 | 86 pages Until recently – probably about two years – I would’ve described myself as “poetry-skeptical.” It’s strange to think about now: sure, I’d certainly found value and enjoyment in the odd collection or isolated poem here and there. Crush spoke…
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Joshua Tree
I was sitting on my backpack, on the shoulder of a stretch of two-lane highway down which, just then, no traffic was coming, when I saw, in the brush on the side of the road, after I’d been doing nothing but gazing in an abstracted way in the direction of the sky and the landscape…
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Hot Wolfman Summer: On Wolfmanhattan Project’s Summer Forever and Ever
Wolfmanhattan Project | Summer Forever and Ever | In the Red Records | October 2022 Accelerating through a landscape of collapsing, parasitic social media conglomerates, as well as a fractured record industry and its hype cycles, with tires on fire and leaving tread, the Wolfmanhattan Project emerges like the beautiful bastard grandchildren of Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Bo…
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Turn Back the Clocks
The river is the river is the river. This & other reassurances. When I stared so hard at the string lightsmy vision softened to sparkling butter. Surely, by 27, you outgrow suicide. Another season spent in the arms of my mother. Another apology too smallfor the enormity of my mistakes. When I was little & sure of my place. Cat-like on…
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The Rooms Yet to Be Opened: On Kane Parsons’ Backrooms
Kane Parsons | Backrooms | A24 | May 2026 | 110 minutes The overall concept of the Backrooms started off as a simple picture with a caption that was posted on 4chan back in 2019. Its placid yellow backdrop has turned into a cultural phenomenon, eliciting unfamiliar curiosity towards the empty rooms and locations that…
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Grindin’ on Island Time
I never glided a blade across skin but instead inflicted harm in my sleep. Always grindin’ from 9-5 and in leisure timebecause father trained me to,and I followed suit obediently. Odd. An anomaly, remarked the dentist when evaluating my destruction ofa custom mouth guard device.Unheard of, in such a short time. Only once, a TMJ patient fully…
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Chris Knox, The Godfather of Dunedin Sound
Any appropriate representation of Chris Knox runs the risk of devolving into a string of superlatives. So let’s devolve. Born and raised in New Zealand’s southwesternmost city of Invercargill, Knox migrated to Dunedin for university in 1970, dropped out within a year, and essentially fumbled about the college town experimenting with sex, drugs, and alcohol…
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Clarity In the Haze: On Clearbody’s Bend Into a Blur
Clearbody | Bend Into a Blur | Self-released | June 2023 It’s been a strange few years as Clearbody’s navigated names and traversed genres. Their earliest material – released primarily under the name Dollhands – shared shoegaze’s affinity for thick walls of feedback but fitted them around songs that were essentially emo tracks. 2020’s One More Day moved away…
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Argentinian Dreamscape: On Tuka Wav’s Proshect I
Tuka Wav | Proshect I | Self-released | January 2022 Tuka Wav’s debut EP, Proshect I, is a beautiful collection of four ambient dance pieces interspersed with calmly delivered vocals. Drawing upon elements of Aphex Twin, Boards of Canada, Tame Impala, and Yves Tumor, Tuka crafted sombre and understated songs between 2020 and 2021 in the corner of their home…