Author: Travis Shosa
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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,…
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Tim Cleans His House
Tim had spent three entire days cleaning his 1,200 square foot house, during which he did six loads of laundry, washed a sink full of dishes, and gave his kitchen and bathroom the complete scrub down. On the fourth day, after this impressive start, he decided to tackle the biggest task, the one he was…
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Two Poems by Hayden Nielander
Death Rock Classics Can’t fuck in candlelightNo more kept watchingMy shadow A kitchen’s A machineOf your psyche Did you hear meIn the detached garagePainting myself in cut-off shorts Look at my faceIn the microwave doorDefrosting the light in my eyes I’m calling you from the bushI’m calling from fromYou are like yeah hey what Heard me…
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Big Country, Small Origins: On Turbo Pastel’s Turbo Pastel
Tubo Pastel | Turbo Pastel | Midwestern Records | October 2023 Country music has long struggled with identity. To combat the perverse gyrations of Elvis Presley, Music Row gussied up country’s twang and lavished the production with strings and choirs, a style which became known as the Nashville sound. With the softening of the 1970s, the genre…
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Striking Gold: On Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Digger
Alejandro González Iñárritu | Digger | Warner Bros. Pictures | October 2026 | 129 minutes Digger is a spiteful film. It hates oligarchs most obviously, but as it proceeds, the disdain extends to film producers, bystanders, lip service blowhards, humanity as a whole (but Americans especially), and Adam McKay. It is less surprising that people walk out…
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Cerebral Shadow Stealer: On Dottie’s thief
Dottie | thief | Self-released | October 2022 Dusk falls across the shifting black hills, a neon red glow emanating from the sky above. Gothic hallways line pathways through a frozen wasteland, and a soft sustained voice coated in reverb echoes from every surface. Dottie’s new album, thief, steals a listener’s mind and drops it into a new world where the…
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A Faceless Portrait: On little image’s SELF TITLED
little image | SELF TITLED | Hollywood Records | May 2023 The conceit behind the self-titled record is obvious: this is the purest distillation of a band’s sound. For Dallas’ little image, calling their sophomore record SELF TITLED makes sense. It’s their first record in five years, both a reintroduction and a reinvention. It also feels like an entirely…
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Olivia and the Reflecting Glass
In 1936, about a year after my wife died, I enjoyed a brief liaison with a lady novelist. Now, when I use that old-fashioned term, ‘lady novelist,’ I am in no way intending it in the pejoratively paternalistic sense in which was sometimes employed in the past, referring with disdain to bored women who churned…
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No Ducks
The summer after my high school graduation, I saw Noah’s Ark. Though naturally, it no longer belonged to Noah, but instead to a woman named Phoebe, Phoebe Collins to be exact. I don’t know if the Ark was passed down to her ancestrally. If I had to guess, probably not. Will was driving when we…
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A Chase That Never Stops: On Na Hong-Jin’s Hope
Na Hong-Jin | Hope | Plus M Entertainment | September 2026 | 156 minutes At some point in the 2010s, the action blockbuster market started to shift. Not to say that there are no franchises or arthouse films that can present the setting of the action genre with a grand display, but the practices and…