Author: Travis Shosa
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What In Carnation?: On Rob Savage’s Other Mommy
Rob Savage | Other Mommy | Universal Pictures | October 2026 | 93 minutes When the preview trailers for Other Mommy included two Johnny Depp vehicles and an AI commercial for Fanta, I thought I had been appropriately prepared for the cinematic experience I was about to endure, but not even a high dosage of Carfentanil could’ve…
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The Soothing Terrors
What can I say? I was broke. I was desperate. Fear clenched, hunger clawed. I fantasized about zesty, tangy, double-size tacos. My home was grime. My car was rot. Suicide beckoned, fondly. It caught up to me on the scuzzy streets. It was the chummiest demon. It put its arm around my shoulder. Relief, it whispered.…
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Yearning Amidst a Fleeting Future: On Katie Pruitt’s Fools for the Fleeting
Katie Pruitt | Fools for the Fleeting | Rounder Records | September 2026 In her newest album, Fools for the Fleeting, Katie Pruitt starts off the soft smoulder of “Matching Tattoos” with the line, “Burnt our future to the ground.” While it refers to Pruitt’s reflection on a relationship close to being torn apart, it…
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A Rare Racket: On Mengers & Progreso Nacional’s VS.
Mengers & Progreso Nacional | VS. | Self-released | October 2023 Have you noticed that everything seems gallingly fucked? Wars are raging, the economy is floundering, digital media has unraveled into TikTok fluff, and AI has apparently given up world conquering Skynet schemes in lieu of a surrealist art career. And while a grubby music review certainly…
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Adventures In Introspection: On Frances Chang’s Psychedelic Anxiety
Frances Chang | Psychedelic Anxiety | Ramp Local | February 2024 Psychedelic Anxiety, the second album from Brooklyn-based DIY musician Frances Chang, is dreamlike in a way that we often misattribute to cloudy, lazily drifting tunes that don’t really go anywhere. To “dream,” instead, is to look inward, intensely and confusedly, and hope to glean some small…
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The Hidden Enemy: On Paul Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers
Paul Verhoeven | Starship Troopers | TriStar Pictures | November 1997 | 129 minutes With the benefit of nearly 30 years of hindsight and a world of context, it feels downright silly to consider that Paul Verhoeven’s 1997 cult classic Starship Troopers was ever considered anything other than a clear satire of the military industrial complex and…
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The Dizzy Thing
I had a vision when I was spinning you in the living room. You were two and I was 32 and my body functioned like an axis, twirling you around and around as you squealed with delight. We were doing the dizzy thing. In the reflection of the TV screen, I watched you grow larger…
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The Wizard of Wivenhoe: On James Sharp’s The Jangling Man
James Sharp | The Jangling Man | Sharp Film | December 2022 | 83 minutes The Jangling Man is the latest attempt to document the life and artistic output of jangly DIY pioneer and rural poet Martin Newell. It takes the form of a mix of interviews and live performances with the subject himself, plus a wide range…
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Hitting Pause
There are moments likethe first flush of a shower.hot thoughtlets sprayingin anonymous cascadeover a fallow pausein a constricted mind,savoring the absenceof import or consequence. Ed Ahern resumed writing after forty odd years in foreign intelligence and international sales. He’s had about 700 stories and poems published so far, and fifteen books. He works the other…
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Breadth of Breath: On Pale Lungs’ Pale Lungs
Pale Lungs | Pale Lungs | Self-released | January 2023 It seemed like Pale Lungs might never come. Tennessee’s Pale Lungs went quiet shortly after the release of their excellent Grow Towards the Sun EP in 2018. And, in a way, they never really came back – the Pale Lungs on display on their debut LP is more introspective, more ambitious,…