And The Band(s) Kept Playing
Doing my best to recalibrate my focus back to the music rather than the apparatus that surrounds it
Wednesday at Union Transfer, 1/17/2024
Where were you on January 17th? I was playing Stardew Valley when Eric sent me media reporter Max Tani’s post containing the Anna Wintour-signed memo announcing that Pitchfork would be subsumed by GQ. I looked at it, winced, and went back to playing before scrolling Twitter 45 minutes later to see the slew of layoff announcements, tweet-length elegies, and interpretations as to why this happened. A few short hours later, with a weird thought cloud clogging up airspace in my lungs, I went to Union Transfer with my partner Eric, an occasional Pitchfork contributor, to see the first show of Wednesday and Hotline TNT’s winter tour. It did not elide me that both bands received Best New Music accolades from the blog and that they helped fan both bands’ upward trajectories to the heights they’re seeing. That includes, of course, the time they gave Twin Plagues a 7.4, a high score that still managed to ruffle the feathers of people who thought it was a guaranteed 9. Not that it matters, but I think 7.4 is reasonable, if not even a tad high by their methodology. That’s coming from a certified Twin Plagues enjoyer and Tiffany Blue vinyl owner.
As we watched outlets like MTV News, Buzzfeed News, Bandcamp Daily and more either cease or (dramatically) curtail their operations/staffing, I felt like an outlet like Pitchfork might be vulnerable to downsizing, but nothing quite like this. The longtime independent blog that eventually came under Conde Nast ownership in 2015 started in 1996 and grew to be synonymous with music criticism as other outlets fell away or changed course, namely through their daily album reviews with accompanying scores out of a possible 10 point zero. While its journalistic focus has always felt ahead of the game on music, it felt especially potent in these past few years, with greater attention paid to music from the Global South and a dedicated hip-hop column. After years of music media rockism that even Pitchfork played a role in, it felt like someone in big media was at least paying lip service to global musical cultures. I felt personally illuminated in a way I haven’t in a while, even if the blog served as an imperfect discovery platform. After years of kind of treading water, I was discovering again thanks to not only their publications, but their writers, staff and freelance, who maintained their own online presences.
People much smarter than me have provided strong analysis as to why this likely happened (union busting) and what this means for the practice of criticism (nothing good), for the work of women and people of color in musical culture (less), and more. Even among people who lightly clowned on Pitchfork and its readership, there’s a general consensus (aside from people who want their definition of indie rock to reign supreme, as it might have, but not because of Pitchfork but, I think, because of Apple) that a desiccated Pitchfork isn’t good for music media at large. I look at my own inbox and see exciting promotions from noise artists, forward-thinking punks, extreme metal bands, and more, and wonder where the hell I can pitch any of them. While there are some places, the reality is that they’re dwindling, and the little money they can scrounge up isn’t going towards critics in the age of access journalism. This is the same media landscape that offered full-time positions to journalists who are fans of Taylor Swift or Beyonce to write paeans to both stars full-time when the staff writer job at a critical publication is nearly extinct.
On my end, as someone who contributes to a handful of sites and who pitched Pitchfork a grand total of 12 times (no luck, but onward we push), I’m struck to see the rest of music have to continue on even as coverage opportunities evaporate. Not only do the bands keep playing and recording and touring, but their publicists keep sending emails, press releases, private streams. We’re about to hear some of the best work from my favorites, like The Umbrellas, Moor Mother, Astrid Sonne, Waxahatchee, Ben Frost…the list is endless. That’s what I want to focus on again. I’m tired of approaching albums and thinking about what to do with them, other than celebrate them with what platform I have.
Over the last semester, my output shrank to once a month. This semester, I’m bringing it back up to twice a month. Then, I graduate from urban planning school in May. I will keep doing twice a month until I can’t handle it or feel like I can sustain more. I tried to make this a longform-only platform; truth is, I don’t always have a longread in me. I shouldn’t force that. Forcing myself to have those kinds of takes sounds like nonsense.
Either way, I speak for myself and a lot of fellow bloggers I admire, from Our Band Could Be Your Wife, Step One of A Plan, I Enjoy Music, Inbox Infinity, No Expectations, and literally so many more, when I say that shit feels so weird in music media right now and we are grateful for the little podiums we have to share our favorite media with subscribers. I never thought of myself as a person who’d have any. You’re an intrepid few.
Speaking of platforms: the plan, for now, is to migrate everything off Substack. This platform has a Nazi problem. It’s also, in all honestly, not as user-friendly on my end as I am told other platforms are. The good news: you don’t have to do anything. I can migrate you all over.
So what am I listening to? What excites me, musically, in 2024?
The Umbrellas - Fairweather Friend
Vintage-inspired jangle pop that lives in a twee neighborhood. I saw them play in late 2021 in Ohio; it was one of my favorite performances of the whole year at an otherwise not-great show. The new album comes out next week and it’s super, super satisfying. It’s an outstanding follow-up to their debut self-titled album, a true Slumberland Records knockout.
Moor Mother - The Great Bailout
I haven’t even heard this one yet. It drops March 8th and I’ve yet to ask for an advance stream. I’m too scared. Moor Mother, Kyle Kidd, Mary Lattimore, Raia Was, Lonnie Holley, Aaron Dilloway, Vijay Iyer and more all on one album…I just know this one is going to hurt me. Maybe you read what I wrote on the last Raia Was LP Captain Obvious; more importantly, you should listen to it. Same goes for everything Kyle Kidd has ever done, like their own solo album and Mourning [A] BLKstar.
There’s a nonzero chance that, if you’re reading this, you were really into ML Buch’s 2023 album Suntub, are excited for Erika de Casier’s next album, or are otherwise charmed by Smerz. There’s something going on in Scandinavian alt-pop that has acts all over the world calling in help to get that special something. London-based Copenhagen-originating Astrid Sonne has built a name for herself as the experimental violist of this bunch, and her upcoming album Great Doubt is totally, totally sick. “Do you wanna” is already one of my favorite songs of the year and I have no reason to believe it won’t be come December.
Gerycz/Powers/Rolin - Activator
Cleveland experimental is a very special kind of experimental, to me, and not just because I lived there for over 20 years. This trio — Jayson Gerycz, Jen Powers, Matthew Rolin — is one of the finest sets of instrumental collaborators this side of the Mississippi. Partially improvised and partially structured, Activator sees the bursts of drumming and swells of dulcimer reach new corners of beauty I hadn’t yet seen myself. This album is already out; let it wash over you.
Many know Dear Life Records for helping to break out MJ Lenderman and Florry to wider audiences. There’s little doubt that the rock, country, and other lyric-driven records that Dear Life puts out have a special appeal to the Heads out there. I really, really like to go to Dear Life Records for all kinds of instrumental music, too. In Armbruster, the sound art project of Troy, NY-based Connor Armbruster, they have something extremely special in Can I Sit Here. The composer distorted the shit out of his electric violin to create a sound panoply that sounds somewhere between drone metal and gentle ambient, weighty but not enraging, cathartic but not bloody. It is a warm, messy album written in the wake of death, and it feels like it. It feels contemplative and mournful. It feels, of course, reflective. It feels unbelievable.
Music exists. That’s what I’m choosing to believe, now and for however long it continues to do so.