This week’s playlist features a posthumous release from DMX, new albums from Bachelor (Jay Som), Lou Barlow, Moby, black midi, Max Richter, Shannon McNally, Jorge Elbrecht, L’Orange / Namir Blade, Dave Holland and more, singles from Sofi Tukker, Nina Simone, Bleachers, Katy Perry, Yola, Julia Jacklin & RVG, plus a few cuts from the boxset Get On Board The Soul Train: The Sound Of Philadelphia International Records Volume 1. [Spotify]
“I’d go so far as to say that I think Dylan’s voice is rather beautiful. No one will confuse him with the far more powerful and polished singers whose voices seem to have been touched by the divine — Dylan’s is utilitarian by comparison. But over the years, he’s done a lot with not much, finding new ways to be expressive, evocative, downright gorgeous within the narrow vocal range the musical gods gave him. Other singers sound like they came straight from heaven. Bob Dylan is the master of the colloquial and the conversational — he sings the way you and I do.” [Inside Hook]
“The person you think you used to be has gone, and is never coming back,” Nick Cave wrote in his weekly newsletter. “The idealized impression of your past self that your present self competes with is a mirage. Every moment you live is a rapid and shocking abandonment of the last version of yourself. You are forever ‘straying from the person you used to be’. You are an autonomous entity coursing through time, moored only to the eternal now.” [Red Hand Files]
Politics
This: “it is not actually possible for any reporter to avoid stating ‘views’ or ‘bias.’ All reporting, like all language, cannot help but be based on contestable ideological assumptions. As journalist David Roberts argues, ‘If we so much as propose a physical world containing enduring objects, we are beyond just-facts to cultural posits, theories meant to help us order those data and predict future experiences. The minute we use language we enter the realm of metaphor and narrative.’” [The Week]
Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest man, wants a bailout. [Vice]
Misc.
All 15 of these bizarre statistics are indeed crazy but few are actually surprising to anyone who is involved in any way with real estate, especially if you thought about buying a home since March 2020. [Digg]
Follow Brian on Spotify for weekly playlists. For a while, we’re going to try occasional mailing lists and best-of-the-past-few-weeks playlists to not overwhelm you. See you soon!