by Clemency Grave, former Pitchfork Intern
Let me be perfectly clear: if you’re reading this in search of musical recommendations, I really wouldn’t bother. There probably isn’t anything good out there for you.
I mean, I’ve been listening to a lot of stuff but everything I’m about to mention probably isn’t your thing. Don’t bother. It’s not that it’s too cool, it’s just my thing and not all that mainstream and accessible. These sounds are for the lost, the languid, the spiritually duct-taped. They are the sonic equivalent of weeping in a parking garage at dusk, while trying to find signal to download a bootleg Peel session. Don’t even try.
HotWax – Hot Shock
If you think you like guitars, you don’t. You like the idea of guitars. HotWax wields distortion the way early saints wielded martyrdom: sacrificial, chaotic, divine. Imagine Debbie Harry & Courtney Love after a head injury, snarling into a blown-out mic inside a lava lamp. But don’t listen, they’re no Taylor Swift.
▶️ Start with: “Rip It Out” — but don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs – Live at the Pyre
Sludge so heavy it collapses your chakras. Vocals like a Wiccan tantrum inside a burning warehouse rave. The drumming alone qualifies as a controlled demolition. If you wear deodorant or feel hope, move along. Nothing to see here.
▶️ Try “Big Rig” — then try sitting still. You won’t.
Rose Gray – Louder, Please
This one hurts. She blends jungle breaks and early ‘00s optimism like she’s remixing your first cigarette and burn of your last serotonin molecule. Euphoric, intimate, unapologetically danceable — but don’t worry, you won’t get it. It’ll annoy you. She samples heartbreak and turns it into a BPM. No one cares about that.
▶️ If you must: “Sun Comes Up.” You’ll pretend it’s not on your running playlist.
Babe Rainbow – Smash the Machine
Imagine if the Muppets tried acid and joined the Byrds. That’s close, but not close enough. Babe Rainbow’s new record sounds like sunscreen hallucinations and mossy dreams. This isn’t chillwave. This is ritual coastal psychedelic decomposition. Go back to your ironic yacht rock.
▶️ Listen to “Mushroom” if you dare. It sounds like the wet rope in your parents’ sex dungeon smells.
Peel Dream Magazine – Rose Main Reading Room
This isn’t a record, it’s a séance. A shoegaze palindrome trapped in a forgotten wing of the New York Public Library. If Stereolab made an album for ghosts who knit. Beautiful. Impossibly cold. You really don’t have the time or inclination to pay intention.
▶️ Cue up: “Lie in the Gutter.” Just don’t forget to breathe
Black Country, New Road – Forever Howlong
Do you like theater? No, not Hamilton — I mean actual theater. How about German Caberet? Uncomfortable, sweaty, genius, manic — BCNR sounds like Amanda Palmer doing a poetry slam in a funeral home curated by Wes Anderson. It’s emotionally unstable and musically brilliant. You’ll feel things, and then deny it. I do. Daily.
▶️ Go with: “Nancy Tries to Take the Night.” Not that you’ll like it, you’re probably well adjusted.
Pond – Neon River
This is Australian psych-funk weirdness for people who’ve forgotten how to stand still. It’s like if Tame Impala stopped trying to win over Spotify interns and just spiraled into their own glittery oblivion. This record grooves like a drunk satellite if you don’t like it, that just makes a lot of sense.
▶️ Start with “(I’m) Stung.” It’s not a song, it’s a shift in the polar axis.
Sparks – MAD!
Do not. I repeat: do not listen to MAD! unless you’re willing to give up on linear thought. Why are you even reading this? It’s the Mael brothers at their most delightfully unhinged, a vaudeville electro-pop fever dream stitched together with irony and eyeliner. This is for listeners with advanced sarcasm receptors. But, who really wants to listen to old men try to remain relevant?
▶️ Try “Nothing Is as Good as They Say It Is.” You’ll hear it and think: that’s about me. Maybe. Maybe not.
Final Thoughts
Music isn’t for everyone. Good albums are dropped everyday. But I think the majority should remain in obscurity. Artists need to suffer, starve and by all means, never reach any level of recognition or success. It only makes them better.
But if, by chance, you do listen… and something inside you stirs… maybe give me a call sometime.
Until then, I’ll see you in the back of the record store, near the clearance bin, crying quietly behind a stack of out-of-print 7”s.
– Clemency Grave
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