Related Recs

🎵

Spirit of the beehive‘s new album

Listened to this the whole thing today on my break at work and I can’t describe the feeling of it. It was a good feeling but also a strange one. A good strange feeling. i love how every project is so different from the one before it.

@ion_know_

Aug 25, 2024

🌀

alaska by northern picture library

a year ago, a girl i was going out with recommended this album to me, after i heard the song "Insecure" while we made out in her car. a year later, we don't really talk anymore, but i finally listened to this album all the way through... and i loved it so much that i felt compelled to text her and thank her profusely for the recommendation. i kept my text to her short and sweet, but i have a lot to say about this special album. i'm jewish, and though i'm not a religious person, i've been thinking a lot about religion lately and what it means to me. growing up, i went to synagogue with my family for the high holidays, and i didn't particularly connect with any of the scripture in this sterile environment. throughout college, i was involved in an alternative jewish space that welcomed everyone as they were and centered social justice, and we hosted events where we got to share food, space, songs, hopes for the future, etc. now that i'm not in college, and not living with my family, i'm figuring out what religion means to me at an individual level and how it affects the way i interact with the world around me. it's been years since i've been to a synagogue, but i try to go to concerts as much as i can, because music means the world to me and experiencing it in a live setting, in community, is sacred... and by sacred, i mean that it commands your full attention, it swallows you whole, forces you to let go. i haven't experienced this album in a live setting, and because northern picture library have since disbanded, i likely never will. but the other day, after smoking some weed, lighting some candles, laying on the floor in almost complete darkness, and playing this album on my noise-cancelling headphones, i saw god in my room. every sound on every song envelops you completely. the vocals, the harmonies, the organ, the field recordings, the synths, the guitars, the lyrics... everything is perfection in its purest form. the mix makes it sound so close to you, yet so far away. the overexposed album cover feels incredibly fitting, with every song making up a sliver of a bright and beautifully blinding heaven. and it doesn't surprise me at all that the length of this album is an angel number (1 hr 11 mins). i can't remember the last time i was this moved by an album. it solidified my desire to, one day, go to divinity school and do extensive research on the many religious qualities of music; i still have loans to pay, life to live, and lots of music to listen to, but i'm excited to go down this rabbit hole one day. it's kind of funny that i've come to this conclusion honestly, considering that the girl who recommended this to me is majoring in religion, and i never thought i would want to study religion at an academic level. i guess this is just a testament to how everyone you meet, and especially everyone you care about (or have cared about), are woven into the fabric of your life, no matter how long they're a part of it. what goes around comes back around... life is a spiral! i hope you take the time to listen to this album and let it move you. i can't promise you'll see god (we're still getting to know each other), but i guarantee it'll restore your faith... if not in god, then in yourself <3

@memoryquilt

Oct 1, 2024

🎶

22° Halo - Lily of the Valley

22° Halo’s Lily of the Valley is a collection of songs written by Philly-based songwriter Will Kennedy during his wife Kate’s treatment for a very rare brain cancer. For full transparency, Will and Kate are close friends of mine – Kate’s treatment was a tremendous weight on my chest, and the news of her cancer going dormant was one of the high points of recent years for me. This album hit me hard as hell knowing the people behind it. But the more I listen, the more I marvel at the specificity and universality of what Will achieved here.   What makes Lily of the Valley such a remarkable album is the graceful confidence Kennedy presents these delicately intimate moments with. It’s incredibly difficult to write confident, commanding songs about such immense uncertainty. My jaw would drop at the sheer chutzpah of the recurring lead guitar on album opener “Bird Sanctuary” – it sounds like This Heat playing Thin Lizzy! And these are somehow the first notes we hear to set the stage for Kennedy’s recollections of some of the most precious, intimate moments of his relationship? It’s incredible.  This propulsive feeling sustains throughout the album. “Orioles at Dusk” is anthemic and climactic in an almost literal drive-into-the-sunset sense, and the closing, titular track could throw a crowd makes me want to beat the air with my fists. That an immense tenderness can remain at the forefront of songs with such electric energy, rather than something masked by the music itself, is a big part of what makes this album such a wonder.  I hate to use a word like “juxtaposition” but it really is this juxtaposition that got under my skin the first time I heard this album and has kept me coming back for 3-5 listens per week since then. If I heard this album without knowing the backstory, without paying attention to the lyrics or knowing Will or Kate, I would still place it as a new high point in the jangle pop canon. It’s how effortlessly Kennedy can get you to sing along with a song about the terror of watching the person you love most endure chemo that makes this a truly transcendent record.  The lyrics are bracingly beautiful and generously specific. The songs sometimes take on a stream of consciousness quality, as if Kennedy is remembering moments both painful and uplifting in the same thought and listing them out as they arrive to him. The moments where Kate accompanies him vocally are among the most moving I heard this year. Kennedy has an uncanny ability to shed off self-consciousness in his music without ever demanding the listener’s attention. He is beautifully articulating a truth too deeply, painfully human to present as anything other than that; the truth.

@clarke

Dec 30, 2024

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Top Recs from @clarke

⭐

@tyler on npr morning edition :')

“Using the social media app feels like a slower, less chaotic, and more intimate version of twitter. You’re prompted to answer questions like ‘what did you read last week?’ and a small group of friends chime in. There’s no algorithms or popularity contests.” round of applause for tyler

@clarke

Feb 6, 2024

🤠

bill callahan

“i woke up on a 747 flying through some stock footage of heaven”

@clarke

Feb 9, 2024

☕

saying "my cup runneth over" when you spill your coffee

positive reframing

@clarke

Feb 1, 2024