A friend who’d never heard Pharmakon once asked me to describe her music, and the best I could come up with on the spot was “body horror.” That may not be a recognized musical genre, but I still wouldn’t know what else to call it; it’s aural Cronenberg. Some might try to roll Pharmakon up…
“Only Tomorrow” – My Bloody Valentine
22 years elapsed between My Bloody Valentine’s iconic second album Loveless and their third, MBV. 22 years is an insanely long time. It’s longer than the duration between “I Want to Hold Your Hand” and John Lennon’s four-years-posthumous album Milk and Honey. To find themselves in MBV territory, The Wrens would have to wait another…
“Two Weeks” – FKA twigs
If I had to pick one song to represent 2010s music for future generations, I’d probably go with “Two Weeks.” There’s that particular minimalist ambience that became so prevalent after Kanye’s 808s & Heartbreak; the processed synth throb perfected by James Blake and Arca (who plays it here); the underlying trip-hop beat over rhythmic, pitch-shifted…
“The Ballad of the Costa Concordia” – Car Seat Headrest
Francesco Schettino was at the helm of the cruise ship Costa Concordia when it struck a rock off the coast of Tuscany in 2012. He abandoned ship – he claimed he accidentally fell into a lifeboat, oops! – and then he hid in a hotel while a massive rescue operation took place. 32 people died,…
“‘Tis a Pity She Was a Whore” – David Bowie
We lost David Bowie on January 10, 2016. It would have been less of a shock if we’d lost him years earlier. After a series of middling records and ambitious tours throughout the ‘90s and early ‘00s, Bowie suffered a heart attack in Germany, then quietly receded from public life for most of the following…