Category: Nonfiction
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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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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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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…
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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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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 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…