23 Wednesday: Bleeds

We dated for six years; we were best friends; we watched each other grow up. We had broken up a month ago. I’m poking roadkill with a stick. Making it twitch.

Karly Hartzman in as essay in Vulture 25.10.08

Yeah, all you voyeuristic lovers of Fleetwood Mac style inter-band drama will love how singer Hartzman broke up with guitarist Jake “MJ” Lenderman during the making of this album. I’m not going to write about that, because I don’t know these freaks and I don’t want to speculate on what sordid, perverse shit that these big celebrities are into. Yet, if Jake Lenderman wrote a Tweet ten years ago that I really objected to, I’d probably get a good 2k words complaining about it? I’m difficult to predict, I’ll accept that.

(L-R) Jake Lenderman, Karly Hartzman

Hey, hey, hey! I didn’t post that photo to make a cruel joke! I have never made a cruel joke on this website, and don’t intend to start now! I have never made any joke! I take all of this far too seriously! If you’ve ever found anything on this website amusing, then that was entirely unintended, and what you’re actually doing is laughing at me struggling with my evidentially moribund mental capacity. So, way to be ableist, jerk.

In a bottle spit dip and tell dirty jokes

24 No Joy: Bugland

Shit, I just did a big State Of The Genre Address concerning IDM in my Ninajirachi review, didn’t I? I was kinda planning to do a similar takedown to fucking Shoegaze in this review, but now I worry about repeating myself. Because I am an artist who is constantly re-evaluating my craft. If I was putting the Necessary Evil countdown into the Necessary Evil countdown it would come out on top every fucking year. This list is basically my annual check of my artistic competition, and I always find them lacking. But I nonetheless appreciate their efforts.

I wrote a song for you And all the things you do

26 Wet Leg: moisturizer (sic)

What the actual fuck? You’re from the fucking Isle of Wight! What’s this rogue ‘Z’ doing in the album title?? Moisturiser, please! What would King Arwald say, the last pagan king in England and last king of the Isle of Wight? You really think that’s going to break you in America??

Actually… top 50 album in the US…? That’s… not to be sniffed at at all…

OK, carry on, you obviously all know what you’re doing.

You wanna fuck me, I know, most people do

27 Clipse: Let God Sort Em Out

This is culturally inappropriate.

Wow. I am so impressed. This is quite an astonishing achievement after all this time. It’s actually really refreshing and – dare I say it? – inspirational for someone so long in the game still able to surprise us. The fact that I – Alexander Franchise-Palmer – can still highly rate this album despite the very public feuds that Pusha T and I have had in the past, is an incredible show of maturity and commitment to my unbiased reporting. Maybe there’s still hope left for us all?

“a website”: I have a name, you know??

And by showing how I’m actually the bigger man and appreciating how some things in life are some important than silly little rap beefs (which Pusha’s and mine most definitely was), this all kind of means that I won the feud, doesn’t it?

So, erm, yeah, suck it, Pusha T, choke on my hairy balls.

you were checkin’ boxes, I was checkin’ my mentions

28 And So I Watch You From Afar: Jettison

Put your minds back, if you will, to that wild and crazy year of 2022. We were all young fools, grooving to hip new tunes like Running Up that Hill and sending a lot of Tweets in the format “She’s a 10 but she pronounces ‘Uncut Gems’ like that“. America was still led by the 143 year old Joe Biden, as his mushed brains slowly seeped out of his ears, while the glorious UK was more ably managed by the strong and stable government of Boris Johnson and then Liz Truss and then Rishi Sunak. Oh, and, erm, A coup d’état in Burkina Faso removed Roch Kaboré from power and the prime minister of Peru, Aníbal Torres, resigned. I hate how I only ever mention politics in the UK and US as well, don’t worry. Heidi Klum dressed as a worm.

Russia invaded Ukraine, an obviously horrendously violent act that luckily the rest of the world were dedicated to end as quickly as possible in order to save untold innocent lives, and to ensure that the skyrocketing energy prices wouldn’t harm working class people worldwide for long. Russia were also banned from all international sports competitions and – most damningly – disqualified from Eurovision. That was only fair enough, as any state partaking in similarly violent actions would undoubtedly be treated the same. Nick Cave even cancelled gigs in Russia, because he is a man of strong and consistent principles. Incredibly, Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars and the Queen died in the same fucking year!! Maybe you’re too young to remember, but the internet just could not with all that shit! We all had so much fun, that the owner’s of capital obviously couldn’t let that happen, and by the end of the year Elon Musk had bought Twitter for a laughably inflated $44 billion. Because he is, never forget and incredibly thick cunt.

I made an offer

29 Jenny Hval: Iris Silver Mist

We used to be human but now
We are resin
We are powder
Scattered all over
Touch
Touch and get burnt
Get moved

You Died

Some people bring happiness by arriving; others by leaving — and a few only by dying

Anon

I still haven’t decided how glad I am that Charlie Kirk got shot.

As a wrestling fan, I do appreciate him wearing white knowing that he was going to get colour, but that is a completely separate thing.

I told you I was going to talk about this, don’t act all surprised

30 Oklou: choke enough

Right we need to start with some important points:

  1. It’s apparently pronounced ‘OK-Lou’. If you struggle to remember this, just imagine that you agreeing with the former Dinosaur Jr frontman that his later work with Sebadoh was actually up there with his best. I have, however, heard Oklou themselves not really give a shit how you pronounce it, because they lack fucking conviction.

2. Their real name is actually Marylou Vanina Mayniel, which, I dunno, sounds a bit like

No?

(;´༎ຶٹ༎ຶ`)

31 Los Thuthanaka: Los Thuthanaka

We all agree that is was William S. Burroughs or maybe Miles Davis or maybe Thelonious Monk or maybe Charles Mingus or maybe Frank Zappa or maybe George Carlin or maybe Martin Mull or maybe Lester Bangs or maybe David Byrne or maybe Steve Martin or maybe Elvis Costello or maybe Laurie Anderson who first coined the phrase “Writing about music is like dancing about architecture”. I’d like to formally call that out today, and to officially deign William/Miles/Thelonious/Charles/Frank/George/Martin/David/Steve/Elvis/Laurie out as a grade A bullshit artist. You don’t dance ‘about’ anything, you utter cretin, you dance to things. What if I write about a holiday I had? Would that be like playing darts about synchronised swimming? Was that food review I wrote like building Lego about the Paris Climate Accord? When Pablo Picasso painted about the Spanish Civil War, might he as well have been trellising a fence about Celeste speedrunning?

You’re full of shit William/Miles/Thelonious/Charles/Frank/George/Martin/David/Steve/Elvis/Laurie!!!

Not you, Lester Bangs, you’re alright. He was probably making a similarly good point to the first paragraph of this post. Many consider Bangs to be very much the Alex Franchise-Palmer of his day.

The Queer People-Medicines Are Here

32 yeule: Evangelic Girl is a Gun

OK, let me get this out of the way first: ‘Evangelic Girl is a Gun’ (scream at the sun, cry when you come) is an absolutely fantastic album. Look, up there, ☝️, it’s the 32nd best album of the year. The whole year! Do you appreciate how impressive that is?? Do you know how many records were released in 2025?? More than a hundred!! To finish number 32?? Wow, great work, yeule, what a great album you done produced!

I’m just making all this very clear, as I’m going to spend a large part of this post slagging the record off a bit. Have you ever heard of a concept called ‘context’? Am I going to have to explain that to you as well? Yes?? Listen, I don’t really have time… Here’s a video on A Level Context Analysis, maybe that will help? I’ll wait for you to finish.

This is MY match!