When I say that the music in this third list is good, I’m not making an April Fool’s joke (never been in my nature). * 1) Adrianne Lenker – Bright Future (album) Any song addressed directly to a parent is bound to get me emotional. Always has done, and always will. I’ve seen my own… Read More What I Listened to in March (#3)
Happy Chinese New Year, folks! * 1) Joni Mitchell – Joni Mitchell at Newport (live album) I’d say I cry about once a year. I get choked up often, watching YouTube videos of kind deeds, or thinking about the ending to Everything Everywhere All At Once on occasion, but I only manage a sob on… Read More What I Listened to in February (#2)
I’m not someone who is particularly online anymore. In 2023, I cut a lot of social media out of my daily routine. Twitter (X), gone. Facebook, gone. Instagram, mostly gone. And, although cutting these sites out has definitely been beneficial for my mental health, it has meant I’ve had less of a finger on the… Read More What I Listened to in January (#1)
I’m ending my 2023 obsessed with an album from 2022, which I only stumbled across recently. It’s called Too Much to Ask by a band named Cheekface. I should’ve spent the past week or so catching up on releases I missed this year, but, I’ve become a certified Cheek Freak instead, and my music brain… Read More My Favourite Albums of 2023
You’d be hard-pressed to find anybody in China quite as passionate about punk and the underground as Alice Yuan is, which is hopefully made clear in this summer 2023 interview.… Read More In Conversation with: Alice Yuan of BORDERLESS (Event Promoter and Punk Guru)
I’m sitting down to type up this list, and there’s a prompt appearing in the WordPress text box, which I delete in order to write this sentence. It says: “Have you ever performed on stage, or given a speech?” The answer to that question, is yes, on both counts, but that’s not why we’re here… Read More My Favourite Albums of 2022
If there was a pop-punk-related list to be ticked off, August is Falling check all of the boxes on their long-awaited debut EP. Few bands in recent memory have been able to generate the buzz that August is Falling have without having ever released studio material. Hell, questions were starting to get asked as to… Read More August is Falling – the simple plan EP (Review)
The Baltimore band return from hiatus with hands up and arms out, and I return from my own hiatus to write about it. I should start here by saying that this music blog wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for Have Mercy. Let’s cast our minds back. It’s 2013, and I’m taking a gap year between… Read More Have Mercy – Self-Titled (EP Review)
Hey, long time no see, Internet. Here I am, re-emerging from my year-long hibernation to participate in the annual record recap/love-in. It’s been quite the year, but you already know that. It’s been a year for music too, which is something you probably also already know. Here are my choice cuts from the last twelve… Read More My Favourite Albums of 2021
As has become a yearly tradition (and the only thing ever to be posted on this blog anymore), here are my favourite records of the past twelve months.… Read More My Favourite Albums of 2020
There’s a lot that I’ve been grateful for this year, and I am happy to report that 2019 has been a pretty solid year for yours-truly (if not the world at large). I took up running, which meant I took up heavy music again, and I got slightly better at speaking Chinese, even if I… Read More My Favourite Albums of 2019
I told myself I wasn’t going to write an AOTY list for 2018. Then I read everyone else’s AOTY list, and I decided I would. Here’s an AOTY list for 2018. By no means am I saying, definitively, that these are the best records of 2018 – I’m just saying they’re my favourites. I’ve included… Read More My Favourite Albums of 2018 (Another AOTY List)
I don’t know how other to start this post than with the line: I went for a drink with a woman once. It wasn’t by definition a date, and I’m not entirely sure that we knew each other well enough at the time to even qualify as friends, but we went for a drink and,… Read More Answering the Question, Fourteen Months Late (On toe and My Favourite Song)
You’re probably reading this on a mobile phone; this probably means that the majority of your close family and friends are only a few seconds and several dial tones away. The entire world is resting in the palm of your hand, easily accessible regardless of the distance between yourself and those confined within. But, there… Read More [Bullet Music] The Wonder Years – Sister Cities (Album Review)
Featuring: Kacey Musgraves / Listener / Manchester Orchestra / Household / THE FEVER 333 / George Ezra / Hot Mulligan / Hayley Williams / Julien Baker / William Fitzsimmons / Macseal / Marietta / Wil Wagner / The Streets / Wolf Alice / Now, Now / Kasabian / Noah Gundersen / Black Foxxes / Gender Roles… Read More The CRM Monday Mix #4
Featuring: Franz Nicolay / Ben Marwood / The xx / Catfish and the Bottlemen / Broken Social Scene / Joseph / Fleet Foxes / Emily Yacina / The Menzingers / Owen / Trophy Eyes / Perma / The Smiths / Jessica Pratt / The Hotelier / Hot Mulligan / Stars Hollow / Grimes / Foxx… Read More The CRM Monday Mix #3
Featuring: awakebutstillinbed / Muncie Girls / itoldyouiwouldeatyou / Phoebe Bridgers / Looming / Free Throw / The Bronx / Every Time I Die / Nervous Dater / Harmony Woods / Noname / The Written Years / Hovvdy / Nirvana / The Smith Street Band / Conjurer / Slingshot Dakota / Casey / Animal Flag /… Read More The CRM Monday Mix #2
This afternoon I sat down to write a poem inspired by Kayo Chingonyi’s recent collection Kumukanda. It’s a wonderful debut collection, rooted heavily in a childhood spent immersed in music. It finds him laboring over mixtapes and old cassette players, spacing the seconds between songs to ensure smooth transitions and optimal exposure. I read it… Read More The CRM Monday Mix #1 (Something New)
50) Vagabon – Fear & Force 49) Lucy Rose – Floral Dresses (feat. The Staves) 48) Moses Sumney – Doomed 47) Smidley – Pink Gallo 46) Vasudeva – Take Away 45) Mount Eerie – Ravens 44) Glassjaw – shira 43) Eisley – Defeatist 42) Have Mercy – Drive 41) Adult Mom – Patience 40) At… Read More My Favourite Songs of 2017 (With Playlist)
It’s that time of year again. I went all the way back to January to pick out the one-hundred records that have made my 2017. Give it a read:… Read More My Favourite Records of 2017 (100-1)
Craig Reviews Music 