Some podcast recommendations: 

OutKast's transformation from a stanky duo with sumfin to say to auteurs more than just opened my punk world to hip-hop, Big Boi and André 3000 prepared my ears for a lifetime of adventurous music. So when I heard my colleague Rodney Carmichael was going to interview André 3000 about his first album in 17 years, featuring — no kidding — flutes and Carlos Niño's LA jazz pals, it immediately made sense to me. I love this long convo between Rodney and Dré about creative freedom and earning your age, via NPR's All Songs Considered. 

I have admired, from afar, Fabi Reyna's work as the She Shreds founder as well as her own music as Reyna Tropical. She's the natural voice for OPB's Starting a Riot, which is equal parts riot grrrl explainer, reconciler and forecaster. You get some solid history from the folks who lived it, but also those who felt and were left out. I honestly would have listened to Reyna's extended Corin Tucker episode for another hour. 

Do these weekly-ish mixtapes satisfy y'all's cravings for Viking's Choice? I stepped away from essays and short album reviews because 2023 has been challenging, to put it lightly. But I have missed writing about psychedelic black metal, twee pop and all manner of loud, obscure and weird with regularity — basically, the stuff that's too fringe for my day job at NPR. So my question is an honest one: Do the mixtapes suffice? Does the BNDCMPR playlist tool work for y'all? (No, I'm not switching to Spotify or the like.) Would y'all take less mixtapes for more musings on music?

As it happens, today is Bandcamp Friday. I'll reserve my opinions on the latest Bandcamp drama (the acquisition by Songtradr and its subsequent layoffs) for folks IRL. So if you like something from this mixtape, click the buy button to support the artist. —Lars Gotrich

Stream the Viking's Choice mixtape via BNDCMPR. Follow my Bandcamp collection. Tracklist below:

I haven't been sleeping. The world is so much. But now is not the time to look away. I've been reading — history and news mostly — and trying not to despair about Israel and Palestine. This is when I turn to art, in order to make sense of grief. 

Our copy of Maman & Me, an Iranian American cookbook by Roya Shariat and Gita Sadeh, came in the mail yesterday. My dear friend Farrah Skeiky took the beautiful photos that accompany these heartfelt recipes — I've known Farrah long enough to know which ones were the most fun for her to style, and which felt most like home. 

Two poems about borders and waters:

Some favorite moments from Furnace Fest, in no particular order:

• Witnessing a teen girl's first stage dive. I couldn't help but notice that she plotted the course with her dad during Training for Utopia's set and, at the right moment, ran, lept, twisted mid-air and stuck the landing. One of us. 

• The smoove-jam improv nestled in the middle of Zulu's powerviolence set. A sweet and necessary reset to the day. 

• Mindforce vocalist: [In the most New York accent possible] This song goes out to my wife who I’d f***in die for! [band plays hardest song ever]

• Mindforce vocalist: This next song goes out to my enemies! I hope you f***in die!

• Late-night beers with new friends. 

• An extremely satisfying stack of pancakes from The Original Pancake House.  

• I don't remember during which set it happened, but the snarky stage dive judges (with cards numbering 1-10) gave someone who backflipped from centerstage and, this is important, didn't crowdkill feet first, a 15. Well deserved; it was amazing. 

• Biggest surprise: Ghoti Hook. These goofballs have written tightly-wound pop-punk songs that have held up better than most. Bonus: a kid in a banana costume in the circle pit. 

• Scowl's Kat Moss, in a shock of green hair, pogoing in a purple figure skating outfit, lookin' like The Joker on ice. (An incredible look and the most fun set of all fest.)

• Bob Nanna from Braid is… fit as hell? Honestly, good for you, dude.  

• Zao, a metal band I never tire of seeing live, closing with "To Think of You is Treasure an Absent Memory," which I haven't seen performed since 1998. (Unable to scream myself, I sang Brett Detar's emo part among the throng.) 

• A gray hair, perhaps in his 60s, just dancin' and smilin' his heart out in the pit for Silly Goose, a rap-rock band that can only be described as P.O.D., but dumber. 

• Ryan Clark, the weekend's ubiquitous featured guest, jumping on a Pantera cover with Living Sacrifice. 

• I’ve seen Turnstile in small- and mid-sized clubs, but not since its blow out. They are so ready for what’s next.

• MxPx, far and away, was my favorite set of the weekend. It’s ridiculous how many great songs MxPx has written. And still writes. Both 12- and 40-year-old me were beaming the whole dang time.

• A sticker from the Ninety Pound Wuss merch table — New Testament in the streets. Old Testament in the sheets — sorta summing up the band's whole antagonistic avant-garde crust-punk vibe. (Jeff Bettger guesting on a couple MxPx songs felt full circle, too.) 

• Having an emotional eureka moment during HolyName and, unable to find a quiet place to process, laying down on the grass as an aural clash of Youth of Today and some shoegaze band soundtracked my staring up at the night sky. 

Already have plans to rent a ridiculous house with homies for Furnace Fest 2024. See y'all next year. —Lars Gotrich

I've missed Harvey Milk. The Athens, Ga., band has been out of action for more than a decade now, but its sludgy, deconstructed WTF ZZ Top worship remains some of the most ridiculous and inventive rock and roll of my lifetime. What other band gives you drone-doom dirges, revved-up party rockers, soulful Thin Lizzy boogie and a Southern rock symphony over the course of its catalog? 

But Harvey Milk was also funny as hell, skirting the line between all-out bummer and winking absurdity — think of every great standup comic who gets maybe a little too real onstage, then add what seems like too many Jimmy Page solos, and that gives you an idea. Heavy in every possible way.   

Which brings me to Harvey Milk's front-to-back live cover of R.E.M.'s Reckoning at the 40 Watt in Athens, Ga., on April Fool's Day in 1993. This show's got some lore behind it: The cover set was unannounced, but (as happens in small towns) word got around. Some taper recordings are known to exist, but only Lance Bangs got a decent-enough sound. Michael Stipe was in attendance, too. "He probably thought maybe it would be a goof or something," Harvey Milk bassist Stephen Tanner said in 2014. "But [after] he pulled me aside and, I don’t want to say he was moved, but he was impressed."

KT and I just celebrated 10 years of marriage. I'm amazed at how this decade has deepened our love in beautiful, weird and difficult. What was meant to be a time of reflection ended up somewhat frenzied — various situations out of our hands made quiet moments hard to come by. Still, we managed to get out of the city and into a West Virginia cabin to cook, bathe in hot spring waters, take in the surprisingly fun Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem at an adorable one-screen theater and just… be. But my favorite moment, aside from spending time with my love, was floating in a tube on the Cacapon River. Chooglin, if you will. Rivers and lakes are my healing spaces, though sometimes I forget just how restorative their cool waters can be… but KT knows. Get you a partner who knows what you need to rest, then spend the rest of your life with them. —Lars Gotrich

Stream the Viking's Choice mixtape via BNDCMPR. Follow my Bandcamp collection. Tracklist below: 

Sunwatchers, "World People"
Hailu Mergia, "Belew Beduby (Live)"
Satoshi Suzuki, "助​手​席​の​Situation (Situation In The Passenger Seat)"
Matana Roberts, "shake my bones"
Lower Plenty, "Back to the Foldout"
Ananya Ganesh, "why doesn't it feel the way"
TALsounds, "Climbing"
SG, "Sentimental Guitar Dream"
Flooding, "Muzzle"
Bergfried, "May the Devil Pull Me Under"
Greg Freeman, "Colorado"
Chain Whip, "Hatewave"
H31R, "Backwards"
Assiko Golden Band de Grand Yoff, "Sama N​é​né"
Charles Gayle Trio, "Streets"
Felipe Orjuela, "Manos Limpias (Cuentas Claras)"
Oiro Pena, "Kaiju Kaiju"
Youmna Saba, "Akaleel أ​ك​ا​ل​ي​ل"
Wolves in the Throne Room, "Twin Mouthed Spring"
Fishbowl Prairie, "Suite for November"
Green-House, "A Host for All Kinds of Life"
Birthday Girl, "Check Up"
Sally Shapiro, "Rent (Pet Shop Boys cover)"
Tashi Dorji, "Iron Cloud"
Matmos, "Mud-Dauber Wasp"
Lástima, "Maldicio​́​n de sangre"
Chiens, "The Men vs. The Dogzzzz"
Capra, "Human Commodity"
Mingjia, "**_*"
Marina Herlop, "La Alhambra"
John Fahey, "Evening, Not Night (Pt. 2)"

Dream journal: I'm on a street as it starts to crack open. Volcanic lava glows hazmat orange as it oozes through the asphalt. Everything and everyone is unsteady. Bodies float in the air, but I'm on the ground, searching for a copy of a split 7" — Low covers Rihanna's "Stay" and Shearwater does Frank Ocean's "Novacane." Instinctively, I knew that playing the record was supposed to soothe the Earth, that Alan and Mimi's harmonies would hug the tectonic plates back together. Not really sure how to feel about it / Something in the way you move / Makes me feel like I can't live without you / It takes me all the way / I want you to stay. 

"You are right. It does and will soothe the earth."

Miss you, Mim. —Lars Gotrich

Stream the Viking's Choice mixtape via BNDCMPR. Follow my Bandcamp collection. Tracklist below: 

Mannequin P*ssy, "I Got Heaven"
Mendoza Hoff Revels, "Diablada"
Vumbi Dekula, "Maamajacy"
Stars of the Lid, "Articulate Silence"
Deafheaven, "Vertigo (Remix / Remaster)"
Lync, "Pennies to Save"
The Native Cats, "My Risks is Art"
Urfaust, "Untergang"
Buri, "М​р​і​я"
The Keening, "Little Bird"
Alexia Avina, "NPD / Father's Day"
Wayne Everett, "Best Days"
Tenniscoats, "Cacoy = 囲"
Stomp Talk Modstone, "Kill for Me / Maelstrom Jam"
Baikida E.J. Caroll, "Forest Scorpion"
Fernando Oly, "Cheiro De Romã"
Thank You, I'm Sorry, "Autonomy Shop"
MONTY, "Oh Noble Farmer!"
Black to Comm, "Sleep Thy Plumage in His Sweetness"
Feeling Figures, "Across the Line"
The Feelies, "Rock & Roll (The Velvet Underground cover)"
Rosali, "Stuck Inside a Cloud (George Harrison cover)"
Low, "Stay (Rihanna cover)"
Erin Rae, "As We Go Along (Carole King cover)"
Shabazz Palaces (feat. Royce The Choice), "Binoculars"
Fat Tony (feat. B L A C K I E), "Don't Tap In / Confusion"
Tossing Seed, "When You Come Around"
Maria Elena Silva, "Love, If It Is So"
M. Sage & Zander Raymond, "It Is Isn't It"
Tom James Scott, "Blue Mist"
Fortunato Durutti Marinetti, "Lightning on a Sunny Day"
Ringfinger, "Viking Funeral"

Simply a photo of a church near our family's house at sunset. My neighborhood is quiet and unassuming, yet really knows when to turn on the charm. I hope y'all are well. Keeping this short as I've been editing a 5,000-word oral history on the last Sonic Youth show for NPR Music. I trusted Grayson Currin — someone who reports, writes and files from trails across America — to dig in sideways to this delicate story; we really turned out something significant about a band we (and many others) really miss. —Lars Gotrich

Stream the Viking's Choice mixtape via BNDCMPR. Follow my Bandcamp collection. Tracklist below: 

awakebutstillinbed, "airport"
Life Scars, "A Ty?"
The Lost Year, "in.on.ahead"
Daniel Villareal, "Sunset Cliffs"
My Heart, An Inverted Flame, "The Ever-Expansion"
Traindodge, "Face Thieves"
A Mourning Star, "Encased in Crystalline"
Moonlight Sorcery, "Vihan verhon takaa"
pušča, "r​ê​ve éternel"
Sign Libra, "Le Chat"
Del Paxton, "Up With a Twist"
Yelram Selectah, "Ya La Queso"
Sunday Compost, "Candles During the Day"
BAMBII (feat. Aluna), "Hooked"
Doug Beilmeirer, "Widows Mite"
Jon Collin, "Blues Confessional"
Joe Christmas, "While You Were in Spain"
Orbiting Human Circus, "I Cover the Waterfront"
Sylvester, "God Bless the Child"
Milliseconds, "Time and Distance"
Longings, "Can't Look Back"
Minor Science, "Contingency"
Tube Alloys, "Computer Love Again"
Monocot, "It Turns Around Again"
White Poppy, "One More Night"
Paavoharju, "Haihtuu"
Small Crush, "5"
Abism, "Venganza"
Les Rallizes Dénudés Cover Band, "People Can Choose"
Imperial Crystalline Entombment, "Of Blizzards and Banshees"
Bad Anxiety, "Cool Moves"
Broken Record, "See It Through"
Pauline Anna Strom, "Quiet Joy"

I can't fall asleep to music; my brain is too busy dissecting its melodies, textures and rhythms to fully rest, even if I find the music restful. As I've gotten older, sound has become more sensitive to my way of interacting with the world — deeper and engaged, but as a sort of earned and learned wisdom. (But also a mish-mash of too much and everything.) The opposite was true as a teenager: I could sleep to any music, including and especially metal — I assume that had more to do with my physical body's needs and less with analysis, but also just an underdeveloped (but not less true) form of viscera. 

So … Six Organs of Admittance's Sleep Tones — four, side-long ambient tracks composed for snoozing — was never going to have its intended effect on me. Still, though, I recently set the mood: low lighting, fluffy pillows, a chill CBD seltzer (Marz Elixir's highly recommended juniper fizz) and a comic (Batman Eternal — not exactly relaxing reading, but escapist nonetheless). Ambient tones drift quietly, but, to my surprise, somewhat quickly, never quite leaving the same space, broken apart by whistling winds and pulsing bass notes. There is a soothing sense of balance — a gentle, if incessant, shift that distributes the mind outward, yet brings you back into your own orbit. At the end of side 1, I hadn't fallen asleep, but felt the weight of blissful stasis; thankfully, the vinyl version comes with a locked groove on each side, so the lull just loops. —Lars Gotrich

Where are the weirdos in normal spaces? The death of Paul Ruebens, best known for his character Pee-wee Herman, took me back to my childhood in the early '90s, when weirdos didn't necessarily rule pop culture, but were a subversive texture woven into it. The Adventures of Pete & Pete and Ren & Stimpy aired on Nickelodeon; Tim Burton's gothy and campy Batman was a blockbuster hit; there's never been another Who Framed Roger Rabbit; and I wasn't allowed to watch The Simpsons or Beavis & Butt-head back then, but an undeniable pair of surreal stupidity on network and cable TV. 

Pee-wee's Playhouse, its reruns slotted between Saturday morning cartoons, feels especially wild to me, in retrospect. Nothing else on TV understood kid logic like this half-hour show — that you could be silly, but demanding of attention; that inanimate objects had lives of their own; that the world of adults was exciting, yet comically strange. Ruebens exploded the inner child, but specifically the ones whose imagination went beyond dolls and toys. 

I often say these shows and movies warped my brain, but, the truth is, my brain was probably already warped! Pee-wee, the Petes and everyone else not only validated my weirdness but encouraged it. So it made me wonder where all that weirdness went. Yes, we can all go to our own corners of streaming and YouTube — Regular Show captures that spirit of silliness and Adventure Time grows more surreal as the shows progresses (and, honestly, is not for kids but teens and adults). Now that I've been a dad for a few years, I've noticed that childrens' programming favors sweetness or winky-ness — not bad attributes, really, just less adventurous. There was something special about flipping through the humdrum of cable TV — cooking shows, news and Leave It to Beaver reruns — and stumbling upon a talking recliner or a catchy song about log or "pipe!" The weirdos were all mixed up with the normies. —Lars Gotrich

P.S.: I'm on NPR's All Songs Considered this week, sharing new songs by Meurtrières, Sally Anne Morgan and Irreversible Entanglements. Listen wherever you podcast!

I proclaimed my love of sorghum syrup for Marissa's "ringing endorsements," so in the spirit of sharing, here are some more:

• I really like movies that won't shut up in my brain, so consider me baffled by Greta Gerwig's Barbie, ostensibly a two-hour commercial for toys masquerading as a feminist treatise. I didn't expect to cry? Or laugh at a Stephen Malkmus joke? But mostly I didn't expect a parallel between Barbie and Mad Max: Fury Road, my favorite movie of all time. Among the many themes that shook me in Fury Road was its multi-layered intersectionality: how feminism encompasses not just fighters and lovers as opposites, but working in tandem. That felt especially true in one of the last scenes between Barbie and Ken, where they both confront constructs of self and the systems they inhabit — no spoilers, but it immediately called to mind the relationship between Capable and Nux in Fury Road, in the empathy she showed the war boy who was literally born into a toxic masculine environment. Does Barbie solve patriarchy in doing so? Or even the movie's own matriarchal utopia? No, it's pretty down-the-middle feminism. Still! I'm thinking about it. 

• The Deadly Class comic book series ended perfectly, in my opinion, with uncertain futures for its cast of teenage assassins — each student (who didn't die) got their own unresolved cliffhanger, leaving the chaos to our imagination. So I wasn't sure what to think of a fourth collection that took these kids into adulthood, dealing with the horrifying trauma of their youth and, perhaps, the inevitable outcomes. Consider me satisfied, however, in how Rick Remender and Wes Craig weave the current cultural climate — particularly, American tribalism and commercialism — into where these stories intersect and a conclusion that's earned. 

• OK, yes, the motorcycle stunt, but the train sequence that follows somehow eclipses that outrageous spectacle in Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One. For the last 30 minutes, I gripped my seat and kicked my feet like a little kid. Movies! Still have that magic. 

• The Last Archive is a podcast that takes a long and winding road around history and how its consequences speak to us now. My old pal Ben Naddaff-Hafrey is currently hosting the third season where he's dug in sideways to Raymond Scott's pre-AI-terror generative music machine and Ursula K. Le Guin's Native American reckoning via sci-fi novels. 

• And now for some shameless self-promotion, my very own Barbenheimer (as Marissa suggested): I brought GWAR to the Tiny Desk and it's as silly and dumb as you'd hope for; I published NPR Music's annual roséwave playlist — six hours of bops, bangers and ballads for your summer soundtrack. 

Bands either got paid in cash or spaghetti — that was basically the deal when it came to church shows. When I first met Luxury, it was in a cafeteria attached to a youth hall somewhere in the Atlanta burbs. They didn't look particularly pleased about the arrangement, but exchanged polite hellos with me and a friend from a message board. We all ate spaghetti under fluorescent lights.  

But then Luxury did what they'd always done: recklessly rock the heck out of the space, no matter the venue. Riffs exploded from both sides of the stage at ridiculous volume, sass poured out of the band's crooning/snearing frontman and drums were hit with a John Bonham-like intensity. In 1999, Luxury had just released its third album, which was self-titled — something far more ambitious and studio-driven than the Britpop- and Dischord punk-obsessed output before. Radiohead's OK Computer had just come out two years prior, which felt like a challenge to anyone up for it. This small-town Georgia band had found its own way into beautifully tense sheets of sound and, for that reason among many, Luxury remains one of my favorite albums of all time. 

Still, though, there's something about the first two Luxury records — Amazing & Thank You (1995) and The Latest & The Greatest (1996) — that captures an unruly punk poetry that I haven't really heard since. The snarling sweet bite of "Flaming Youth Flames On," the waltzing bummer of "Bitter, Once Again," the slow build of "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" — songs seared into memory. So when the band asked me to write a few words about these albums for a pair of vinyl reissues via Burnt Toast Vinyl, there was no way I could say no:

If you're a good friend I haven't seen in a while who invites me to a thing, I will probably make it my business to go. So when Kim texted me on Saturday to ask if I was in Baltimore for Hell in the Harbor (a baby Maryland Deathfest, if you will), I briefly hemmed and hawed, then bought a ticket for Sunday. If you've been to Deathfest, the scale was far more compact, making it easy to see everything. The vibe was also super chill  — more folks in silly costumes, more teens, more chances to run into far-flung friends, more partyin'. After the outdoor stage finished up, the karaoke tent was a nice touch. 

Some scattered thoughts on Sunday:

• Cloud Rat's gear was misbehaving, so we got a clipped set — still, those three songs were freaking potent. 

• Pig Destroyer's transition from arty- to arena-grind really works for an outdoor stage, but I admit to some disconnect happening in the midst of J.R.'s dark poetry, the band's new electronics/hypeman and the curious onlookers shopping at Marshalls nearby. 

• Jesus Piece was the hardest band at the Harbor, no contest; its evil metallic hardcore is made for primal club mosh. 

• I never tire of Napalm Death live. I think this was my fifth time seeing these dudes who have been around 40+ years. Barney Greenway never fails to entertain and educate in equal measure. 

• Richmond's Inter Arma added a theremin player to its sludge/death/black/whatever metal, really amplifying the sci-fi/psych/prog undertones; it was so sick. 

• Literally enacted our own Heavy Metal Parking Lot, popping open nerdy beers and trading stories with new-to-me pals. Thanks for instigating, Chris. 

• I adored Sonja's Loud Arriver last year. Y'all, there was such triumphant energy, anger, beauty and lust behind these glammy and gothy songs live — the go-go dancer on top of the bar (a VIBE!) seemed to agree. Sonja should be opening for Joan Jett. 

• 7-Eleven hot dog burps are gross. 

• Best hair of Hell in the Harbor goes to Hulder — I wanna know her routine! (So much bounce!) I was on the fence about the music before, but convinced by the end of the set that Hulder's likely making some of the most compelling black metal right now. Gonna go back to the albums with a different set of ears.   

• For someone who hasn't written about metal consistently as I once did for NPR — too many reasons to get into here — it was humbling to have folks come up to Kim and me to share how inspiring our coverage was to them. I had no idea. That kind of thing always inspires me to reevaluate my priorities, so thank y'all for that. 

For all of its technique, theory and philosophy (or intentional lack thereof), improvisation is an extremely human conversation between people or the self, built and evolved from histories personal, political, cultural and cosmological. But also… it's not terribly complicated, just intuitive. That's why I love this roundtable discussion with members of the Bill Orcutt Guitar Quartet; in particular, this quote from Wendy Eisenberg:

The way I think about it: there's very rarely a chance in civilian life, you could say, to live in the world of abstraction and all the pleasures of that. When I improvise, I feel like it's the one place where it's accepted to use reference as abstraction, the way it feels when I learn anything. I improvise as a way to metabolize the world. On the other hand, the actual technique of that is basically just being hyper-observant and very quick to react, which has created a feedback loop where all I want to do is make absurd and really abstract references to everything else in my speaking life as well. (laughs) It started out as a way to feel normal in an abnormal world and became just a really abnormal way of living.

This, too, is generally how I think about music: a labyrinth of references that make sense in my brain. Explaining the connections isn't complicated, just doesn't always feel necessary — it just feels. 

I really need to stop reading f***** up comics before bed — they give me surreal and stressful dreams. Zak Sally's Sammy the Mouse is set in a Dr. Suess-ian wasteland where both its characters (drunk and depressed takes on ahem more famous cartoons) and architecture (a bar shaped like a giant baby?!) are unstable and untrustworthy. The Twin Peaks-ian atmosphere is grim and full of page-to-page WTF, but also darkly funny, as an unknown force escalates the absurdity to pull the titular mouse out of its ennui — Waiting for Godot's namesake as a sado-masochistic nihilist, jabbing its god-like finger in your ribs. Zak's artwork is grotesque, yet vivid — some scenes made me recoil with horror, others made me gawk in wonder. (And if Zak's name sounds familiar, he was the bassist for Low, one of my all-time favorite bands, from 1994-2005. He currently fronts the AmRep't rockers The Hand.) I just devoured all three volumes, which you can buy as a bundle, over a few days, which was a mistake for my sleepytime. —Lars Gotrich

P.S.: I'm on this week's episode of All Songs Considered, sharing new music by Julie Christmas, Hayden Pedigo and the Rắn Cạp Đuôi collective. I also gush about GRAMMOFON - MISSIONEN, a 328-page book filled with 777 (!) private-press album covers of the Christian music scene in Sweden.

Stream the Viking's Choice playlist via BNDCMPR. Follow my Bandcamp collection. Tracklist below:

Caption: Spectators is a NSFW webcomic by Brian K. Vaughan (Saga, Paper Girls) and Niko Henrichon (Pride of Baghdad). On the surface, it's a pre-post-apocalyptic story about sex, violence and voyeurism that — it should be noted — is quite graphic and unsparing. The opening pages are rough, so if a mass shooting is a barrier to entry, this won't be for you — I almost checked out myself. But what happens in the aftermath is quiet and lonely, as our main character becomes a ghost to witness our thrills, despair and humdrum. Spectators, then, becomes something different, a meditation on human connection in an overwhelming culture of disconnection. The first 150 pages are available to download for free; year two is in production now. —Lars Gotrich

P.S.: If you're new here, hi! I got a bump in subscriptions over the weekend. The Viking's Choice newsletter sends out two different types of emails: every-other-week mixtapes with a short intro about what I'm reading, eating or drinking; short essays on music. Happy to have you here!

Stream the Viking's Choice playlist via BNDCMPR. Follow my Bandcamp collection. Tracklist below: 

The photo above was taken by me, not a professional photographer, with a slightly busted camera phone at Rhizome, a beloved community space in Washington, D.C. That's Jon Mueller (Pele, Collections of Colonies of Bees and Volcano Choir) behind a series of gongs, bells and bass drum. He performed a version of The Future is Unlimited, Always for a small, but rapt audience — an exercise in existence, drifting between spatial tones while floating on reverberating gongs. Loud, calm, spirit-filling music. —Lars Gotrich

Stream the Viking's Choice playlist via BNDCMPR. Follow my Bandcamp collection. Tracklist below: 

Arthur Russell, "The Boy with a Smile"
Halim El-Dabh and Ron Slabe, "Cirrocumulus"
African Head Charge, "Microdosing"
JARADA, "Me and You (Will Tear the Regime Down)"
KA'TZON LA'TEVACH, "Accomplice for Destruction"
PLEAZURE AND PAIN, "Dead Words"
DJ Finale, "Pitschu Debou"
Graham Lambkin, "Limp Test"
ShrapKnel (feat. AKAI SOLO) (prod. Kenny Segal), "Slick Watts"
7F0, "Healing Sword"
KC Rae, "Blockbuster"
Carl Stone, "Morangak"
Aidan Baker / Stacy Taylor / John Colpitts, "Trydydd"
Anna St. Louis, "Phone"
Daisies, "Goin' in Circles"
Cian Nugent, "Pass the Time Away / How the Time Passes"
Asher Gamedze, "Sometimes I Think to Myself"
Kinlaw (feat. Yao Bobby), "Effected Signaller"
Nathan Micay, "Fangs"
Baskot, "Esh 3arrafak? (You Know Nothing)"
The Ophelias, "He Cried"
Brontez Purnell, "Jaboukie"
PYREX, "Neptune"
Maxine Funke, "Call on You"
Ted Leo, "Coming Back to Bloom"
Alex Sadnik, "Donna Lee"
Naomi Yang, "Never Be a Punching Bag for Nobody"
Shirley Collins, "High and Away"
Shizuka, "Lunatic Pearl"
Danny Paul Grody, "Light Blooms"
Godflesh, "Nero"
Morgul Blade, "Beneath the Black Sails"
Maya Ongaku, "Nuska"

In an effort to reorganize Viking's Choice, I'm gonna try to parse out the regular features — the mixtape, the (hopeful return of the) Viking's Choice 6-Pack, the new By the Fruits series, the occasional listicle/essay — in separate spots instead of cramming one or two together. Maybe it'll help ease production flow so I don't feel pressure (all of my own making!) to write long intros to mixtapes or feel like I need to have a mixtape attached to a completely unrelated essay. I dunno! But here we go. I leave y'all with this mulleted roller-skating wonder from Iowa. —Lars Gotrich

P.S.: The original painting above is Synapse and Separation by Judith Lindbloom, a gift from my mom for my 40th birthday (it came in a frame, just needs a mat). I've only known Lindbloom's work for a few months, but have felt an instant connection since. She's had quite a life. You can find more paintings — and even buy them for reasonable prices — on her estate's Instagram profile.

Stream the Viking's Choice playlist via BNDCMPR. Follow my Bandcamp collection. Tracklist below: 

In 2003, I heard a WUOG DJ spin "Terminus," a sidewinding cyclone of music that finds the nexus of knotty post-hardcore and string-swept post-rock over a euphoric, apocalyptic 10 minutes. A "Marquee Moon" for moshers and concert hall smashers alike. Unfortunately, Unwound is one of those bands that had just broken up as I'd gotten into them. (Mineral was another.)

A couple decades and four Numero Group box set reissues later, it's been thrilling to read reports of Unwound's recent reunion shows that have stretched from the west coast (Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, LA) to the midwest (Chicago) to the east coast (New York and Philly). I'd never been to Philly's Union Transfer; it used to be a Spaghetti Warehouse, which checks out: tall ceilings, wooden bars, warehouse-style rafters (we had a Spaghetti Warehouse in Atlanta growing up… I once took a girlfriend there because I am fancy like that). I saw lots of old friends from my UGA/WUOG days (some of whom live in Philly now, others who traveled), plus Scott Hatch from Burnt Toast Vinyl. The vibes were up.

Here are some scattered thoughts on Unwound's March 15 show at Union Transfer:

I turned 40 years old today, so lately I've been thinking about experiences that set roots. Here's the start of an occasional series called By the Fruits: short essays on 40 pieces of music that have changed (and continue to shape) my life. Given the right conditions and the spirit to receive, a song, an album, a performance or even a single note can plant a seed that's fed by friends, faith, musicians and history; to quote Larry Norman, who will inevitably be featured here, "I opened the mouth of love and I found a wisdom tooth."

We start with the series' namesake.

What I'm podcasting, comic-book reading or tweeting lately:

Podcasts: WHYY's The Statue, a short-run podcast about the statue from Rocky III, its uneasy place in IRL Philly history and what makes a monument (and who decides); Radiotopia Presents: Bot Love; WYPR's Essential Tremors, especially the Carl Stone and Mary Halvorson episodes; NPR's White Lies; Aquarium Drunkard's Transmissions, especially the Beauty Pill episode. 

Comics: One-Punch Man by One; Heavy Liquid and 100%, both by Paul Pope; Best Wishes by Mike Richardson and Paul Chadwick, a surprisingly sweet rom-comic about wishes and chance from the writers of 47 Ronin and Concrete, respectively. 

It's the year 2008. Pop singers didn't release albums on cassette. Vinyl was a cult artifact. CD-Rs were still an acceptable format for scuzzy punk bands and even scuzzier noise projects, often hand-stamped, stuffed into an irregular-sized envelope and with spraypaint so thick you could still get high from its bubbly coat. One day I'll write a love letter to the underground circa 2004-2011 (an arbitrary span of time that makes sense to me), one that not only informed my taste but taught me how to love sound beyond sound — music meant to wrack, mutate and transform the body. 

So, of course, I ran a noise label: Thor's Rubber Hammer. By far, the best-selling album was a 2008 split between Talibam! and Wasteland Jazz Unit. It was the first of three proposed LPs in a series called Ecstatic Jazz Duos, documenting less of an awkwardly self-coined term and more of a thrilling movement in free jazz and improvised music with roots in punk, noise, psych-rock and prog. (The second volume featured Chris Schlarb's I Heart Lung with the virtually unknown-but-rad DWMTG on the flip. The third volume was never released for a myriad of reasons, money being one, but — and I think this is first time I've ever announced this — the split would have had been the Italian duo Valerio Cosi & Enzo Franchini on the A-side, then New Yorkers Jeremiah Cymerman & Matthew Welch on the other. At one point, a Mary Halvorson duo was set to replace Valerio — long story — but it was not to be.) 

Cincinnati's Wasteland Jazz Unit has always been a duo bent on total destruction. Hijokaidan and Borbetomagus are the blown-out touchstones — woodwinds shredded through sheets of distortion and feedback. But more than screech and scrawl, WJU's a visceral, gut-heaving experience — you can hear the veins bulging from Jon Lorenz (saxophone, electronics) and John Rich (clarinet, electronics) as they blow venom into their horns… and wraiths emerge. Fifteen years ago, this is why I wanted WJU to be the caustic foil to Talibam!'s goofball prog.  

What was the first music you ordered from a catalog? If memory serves, I sent away an envelope of well-concealed cash (LOL) for three CDs: Succulent Space Food for Teething Vampires by b-movie horror punks Blaster the Rocketboy, Boot to Head Records Sampler #1 and Statement by Australian hardcore band Ceasefire. This would have been around 1997 or 1998 when I was in high school, desperate to get some bearings on underground punk without too many resources in the suburbs of Atlanta. After weeks of waiting, a package came with the CDs and a Boot to Head Records catalog, which sent me down a rabbit hole that I've never been able to climb out of.

In-person record stores remain my favorite way to stumble upon something unexpected, but I've learned to tailor the music mailorder experience to both satisfy and challenge my tastes. Here are some of my go-to online shops, some of which happen to be IRL record stores, too.

A couple notes: One, I've purposely left Bandcamp and Discogs off this list; both are crucial to my digging, but are really thousands of individual shops. I'm looking for a singular — or a like minded collective — curatorial voice. And two, I've only included U.S.-based stores, mostly because my budget can’t handle international shipping on the regular. But I want to shout out Boomkat, World of Echo and upcomer Hot Salvation — I regularly scope their picks (and plunk down the cash if they’re the only ones that carry a record I crave).

Christopher Guest should make a mockumentary about DIY punk shows. Broken and borrowed PAs, a Punk in a Kilt, a sound guy about to burst a blood vessel from stress, an octogenarian in a Boy Scout uniform (shout out to fingerstyle guitarist Max Ochs), a seemingly endless strand of "special guests" who were actually just old friends and their new projects — on Sunday, when The Hated finally hit the stage late and played past midnight, we were convinced that we now occupied the community hall at the Earleigh Heights Volunteer Fire Department. At least this was the suburbs; there was a Safeway around the corner. 

The Hated was one of the handful of late '80s Annapolis, Md., bands (see also: Moss Icon) that lived just an hour outside D.C., but managed to make a scene uniquely its own. Numero Group recently put out a reissue, but The Hated had always been an IYKYK handshake among punks. 

Not growing up around here, I only came to The Hated 3 or 5 years ago, but did a double take once I read the line-up: Daniel Littleton? As in, Daniel Littleon of Ida?! The soft, sweet-voiced folksy indie-rock band I have loved dearly for two decades? He was in a kickass band that foretold the triumphant punk swerve of emo? I hoped against hope that one of the "special guests" at the show would be a reunited Ida — Elizabeth Mitchell was even in the crowd. Alas, no Ida. But in one of many minor revelations throughout the evening: The Hated's acoustic songs were absolutely proto-Ida. Daniel and Elizabeth's androgynous harmonies were an extension of Daniel and Erik Fischer's acoustic caterwaul, just at a lower volume. Your voice never really leaves you. 

When I started putting together a personal year-end list back in November, I kept finding myself drawn back to moments not just in albums, but across comics, podcasts, the few movies/TV shows I found time to watch and, more importantly, in my own life. 2022 almost felt as relentless as 2020 in our household — we lost loved ones (my aunt/godmother, my last living grandparent, our dog Cocoa Bean, my dear friend's mother, Low's Mimi Parker), experienced upheavals in routines and spent some months in financial uncertainty. This is not all to mention what happened in the world — from Russia's invasion of Ukraine to the Supreme Court's overturning of abortion rights to what seemed like daily mass shootings (and little accountability). 

But friends left jobs to start record shops or have babies or move to cities they'd always dreamt about. There were new starts: my wife's job, my kid's school. And, as you'll read below, I had revelations about music and myself — often found in sweet moments with family — that proved just as crucial to how I heard the year. 

For those new here due to the year-end Viking's Choice episode on NPR's All Songs Considered or my recent appearance on Morning Edition talking about Straw Man Army, hi! My newsletter missives usually aren't this long; in fact, I'm figuring out what I'd like to do with this space in 2023. 

All music from the past speaks with the present to inform the future — these reissues and archival projects just so happen to have been released in the calendar year 2022 ... and I loved them quite a bit! This list is unranked and, yes, there is a BNDCMPR playlist of music that can be found on Bandcamp. 

Keeping this intro short, but wanted to name some new-to-me favorites found in thrift stores and record store bins (non-reissue discoveries and all that): Shania Twain's Come On Over, Céline Dion's Let's Talk About Love, Heart's Heart, Calypso Rose's Action is Tight, Damien Jurado’s The Horizon Just Laughed, Sleepytime Trio’s Memory-Minus, XTC’s Nonsuch and Judee Sill's self-titled debut and Heart Food. 

I was also ecstatic to write liner notes for two albums that were pretty pivotal to my teenage years: I Am the Day of Current Taste by Roadside Monument (Tooth & Nail / Burnt Toast Vinyl / Capitol / Unoriginal Vinyl) and Super Deluxe by Morella's Forest (Lost In Ohio). Hopefully, I can find more projects like these in 2023! —Lars Gotrich

Before his provider basically forced him to switch a few months ago, my Bolivian father-in-law had a dumb phone, which meant he was the target of incessant robocalls … and, y’all, he answered them all. He began to respond in Quechua (his native tongue) or pretend to be a despot. At some point, he got my adorable kid in on the game and she'd yell whatever she wanted. We're not quite sure what phrase got lost in translation, but during one such robocall, she exclaimed:

Guacamole Christmas!!!

And then hung up. Now that's just what anyone in our family yells for seemingly no reason at all. 

Y'all ever listen to a piece of music and think: I don't know WTF this is, but it's unscrewing my brain in the best possible way. Scott Walker's The Drift, Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe" (no, really!) and Boredoms' live show at the 9:30 Club — these experiences tapped into the unknown in ways I could not articulate then, only absorb through over-sensory osmosis. 

Charlie Valentine, who records as No Home, has now done this to me twice. First on 2020's Fucking Hell, and now on Young Professional. They make industrial spiritually-punk-without-sounding-punk bedroom-pop music that haunts with an uncomfortably close intimacy. Synths belch with droning absurdity, drum machines clatter, shitty amp guitar riffing makes raw black metal bands sound like wimps, wobbly four-on-the-floor beats swim in rain puddles — this is music set off its axis in order to wake up the senses. On Young Professional, Valentine is our Virgil through the hell of capitalism, their voice howling, moaning and mumbling in keys that only seem to exist in their void.  —Lars Gotrich

P.S.: This will be the last regular newsletter of the year before Best Music of 2022 mania kicks into high gear at my day job. But do expect my own personal year-end lists at some point, and maybe a Christmas playlist, Viking-style.

I first heard Mimi Parker's voice in 1999. 

It began with an oh — clear, warm and sustained like a fuzzy pedal organ at an old church. Then a la la la — slightly more staccato, yet still inviting, a complementary contrast to the la la'd yowl of Alan Sparhawk. The song was built on three chords, short phrases and wordless murmurs that mount a steady, snowy climb — slow and hymn-like, but somehow punk. 

We'll call it Starfire, who will know? (Ohhhh)

For the life of me, I cannot remember lyrics to songs, even those I've heard hundreds of times. Ask my high school musical theater teacher, old choir directors or anyone who's been in my car — the words do not come correct. Verses are jumbled and lines take on unintended alternate realities, but mostly I just mumble something made-up. One time the vocalist for a hardcore band shoved a mic in my face and I just screamed nonsense back — it's not my job to know the lyrics to your song! 

Except when it is my job: in Halloween cover bands. For almost a decade — broken up by four years to have a kid, then the pandemic — I've gotten together with the same group of folks to learn songs by Jimmy Eat World, the Smashing Pumpkins, Gin Blossoms and Carly Rae Jepsen. Then we play the annual Halloween show organized by the Washington, D.C., indie/punk scene, with proceeds going to charity. Some of the best nights of my life have been at these cover shows, like when Rena from Bacchae essentially fronted Give for the most raucous Rage Against the Machine set I've ever seen. 

I play records around the 3 year old and she has questions/opinions. From my notes app, A-L on Vashti Bunyan's dreamy and delicate 1970 debut Just Another Diamond Day. 

It's a little like science. 

Does her have animals?

Tracy Chapman's self-titled debut was in the tape deck, Sadie Dupuis' new poetry collection (Cry Perfume) was read in starts and stops and glasses of a Norwegian singer-songwriter's sparkling white wine were fizzing. There was a clear view of the mountain from the back porch, still green, but verging on fall colors. I've shared my love for this West Virginia getaway before: a simple, one-room cabin owned by family friends, just a short walk down to the river, with no cell service or internet. We cook, we hike, we restore. (But mostly we cook.) 

But about that wine. Sondre Lerche, a shapeshifting crooner whom I've liked (even loved) over the last 20+ years, paired a new album with two varietals of natural wine. I brought along a bottle of his Cuvée PATOS to sip. It’s light and floral on the nose, so the experience was all in the flavor and carbonization. Crisp, yellow apple smacks the front, but there’s a grassy gin aftertaste — like an upscale Fresca cut with Sprite. The bubbles were the most fun, though: teeny, persistent little guys with just a little bite (a light ginger beer comes to mind), but not gassy, which is why I tend to avoid sparkling whites. As wine does, the flavor deepened over the hours, bringing out those ginger notes with a delicate, syrupy sweetness. 

I swear this not a Pivot to Influencer, but I do genuinely like to curate experiences around food, music and drink; it's my love language! —Lars Gotrich

Roadside Monument never made the same record twice, but it was I am the Day of Current Taste, released in 1998 just a few months after they first broke up, that captured a nervous and nervy chaos. This was craggy and mathy noise in tune with bands like Don Caballero and Rodan, but also invoked the rock and roll bombast of AC/DC and Van Halen. I'd never heard anything like it then or since; the album ripped open new portals of thinking for Teenage Lars.

I’ve written about Roadside several times over the last 20+ years — on my own turn-of-the-millennium fansite, via webzines, for NPR Music and now… as liner notes for a vinyl reissue of I am the Day of Current Taste (presale starts today at 1 p.m. ET via Burnt Toast Vinyl and Tooth & Nail). I interviewed the guys — Doug, John and Matt — and got some great stories not only about the album's creation but their struggle to be understood by an underground scene that stuck up its nose about Roadside’s associations (Tooth & Nail Records and “Christian music” more broadly) and inscrutable sound. 

This project (completed in late 2020) started a wave of liner notes commissions — Sixpence None the Richer’s This Beautiful Mess (now in a second pressing), Morella’s Forest’s Super Deluxe (due sometime this fall), Psychic Temple's Plays Planet Caravan (out Oct. 21 via BIG EGO) and another I can’t mention, yet. I grew up loving and learning from liner notes, so to document these crucial albums has been incredibly rewarding. I’d like to mention that my bestie Marissa Lorusso edited all of these — she's got a sharp, yet tender eye that's proven necessary to the process. 

Typing by thumbs from vacation just outside Asheville, so forgive any typos. I’m visiting the folks and hoping to visit the Moogseum, the Asheville Pinball Museum, a couple breweries, maybe take in Man…Or Astro-Man? live at the Grey Eagle. But mostly I’m off email and hanging out with the kiddo. 

Various this and thats: 

• I’ve written the liner notes for Psychic Temple’s Plays Planet Caravan! Out Oct. 21 via BIG EGO, it’s the spiritual follow up to Plays Music for Airports wherein Chris Schlarb and pals filter a cult tune — then Brian Eno, now Black Sabbath — through a cosmic jazz prism. I ended up talking to to Chris a loooong time over the phone, some of which made it into the text, but I’d love to publish an edited Q&A. We have some different tastes — though we have gone long on Sonny Sharrock, Don Cherry, Joni Mitchell and King Crimson — but we’re always on the same wavelength when it comes to what draws us to music. 

• What I’ve been reading: Night Moves by Jessica Hopper; Mary Wept Over the Feet of Jesus by Chester Brown; Paper Girls by Brian K. Vaughan; Do a Powerbomb by Daniel Warren Johnson; Thor by Jason Aaron; Sex by Joe Casey; Kicking & Dreaming: A Story of Heart, Soul and Rock and Roll by Ann Wilson and Nancy Wilson (audiobook). 

• What I’ve been watching: From the Source (Whole Hog episode), Beavis and Butt-Head (the new series), Matty Matheson videos on YouTube, Tiny Desks from the early days in preparation for our 1000th (!) concert. 

Raymond Byron's Bond Wire Cur was already on my list of albums to recommend this week. ESP-Disk' had sent a copy that I finally placed on the turntable and there was his unmistakable voice, just under a different name. It'd been almost a decade since I'd thought about Ray's music — or since he released any — and was happy to hear it again. 

I knew Raymond Byron as Castanets and Raymond Raposa, as a member of the free-jazz group Create (!) and an early part of the Asthmatic Kitty roster. I saw him play an intense, but powerful solo show at the Caledonia Lounge in Athens, Ga. I debated which Castanets album was better — Cathedral or First Light's Freeze — with college radio friends. He made music that lived in cloudy regions, but rooted in old traditions. 

Y'all ever get tired of music nerds telling y'all how getting into music was different back in the day? Yeah, me neither. Liner notes, zines, cable access shows, blind buys, VFW halls and later message boards, chat rooms and P2P networks. It's all word of mouth, in one form or another — the most obnoxious orators spitting out snobbish takes on what's worth your hard-earned cash. 

If memory serves, which gets fuzzier every year now, Damien Jurado was recommended to me on one of the message boards I used to infrequently post via 56k modem, likely Slacker 66. I may have even bought a CD copy of Waters Ave S. through Slacker 66's mailorder, but do remember a handwritten note that accompanied the package: This one's special. Great pick!

Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe made me giggle for 87 straight minutes. (Heh heh he said "straight.") Subplots are sorta rushed to the finish line (heh heh he said "finish"), but minor quibbles aside, it's the funniest movie I've seen in a long, long time. It does a lot with very little, generally over-delivering ("deliver") on a profoundly stupid premise.  

Do the Universe confirms, though, that Beavis and Butt-Head movies have always had a sharper eye towards satire than the TV show. Case in point: the boys walk into a gender studies class on a college campus — the conceit alone was so rich and absurd that I started to snort-laugh as soon as I realized what was about to happen. But then Mike Judge does the thing he does best: as the class confronts and educates the boys on white privilege (with Tig Nitaro voicing the professor!) and a white dude in dreads interrupts a Black woman, the boys' takeaway is to abuse their white privilege. "Step aside, please! We have white privilege." The boys snatch fries and cake out of the school cafeteria, loot the campus store and attempt to steal a cop car before crashing. "We're subverting an existing paradigm!" Beavis exclaims in a self-awareness too smart for his character. 

One reviewer called this scene "anti-woke," which is such a deep misunderstanding of, well, pretty much everything Mike Judge has produced. (Heh heh he said "deep.") Judge doesn't really pick sides (or "both sides" issues), but pokes (heh heh) at the absolute absurdity of social constructs while showing empathy for the persons at the very butt of the joke. (Heh heh he said "butt.") —Lars Gotrich  

Sometimes you listlessly tweet about wanting to hear a Pedro the Lion song done in the style of Jawbreaker, and then someone makes it on his lunch break. —Lars Gotrich

Viking's Choice 6-Pack

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Born in the North, raised in the South by the grace of God. My family moved to Georgia when I was 7 years old and, within days, I knew I was home. Drawn to the slower pace of life, accents (of which I sadly never had), humidity and the double-edged sword of Southern charm, I knew I was in the right place. But it was soul food that sealed the deal, particularly the fried chicken, coleslaw, mushy string beans and ambrosia salad of church picnics. 

Didn't take long for me to get into the more peculiar culinary delicacies of the South: grits, tomato and mayo on white bread, chitlins, pimiento cheese, collards, fried whiting, okra, oxtail. Every one of those dishes warms my soul. I took a silly quiz online that seemed to suggest all this food was weird, but this stuff is like sweet tea to me. 

But boiled peanuts? Well, I thought they tasted like hard snot. 

Summer pro-tip: Lemon pepper is underrated. Applied liberally to unbuttered chicken, the seasoning has persisted in American cuisine as an oven-baked, dried-out crunch of bitter acid. A tragedy. Lemon pepper was made to swim in fat, then seared in fire and smoke. Wings, yes, are the primary vehicle — especially if you are lucky to live in an area that serves them "wet" — but on salmon and broccoli, the sour acid of the lemon cuts across butter with the subtle sting of peppercorn and smoked char. Add a lil sugar to the lemon pepper mix to caramelize, and the grill is lemon pepper's true calling! Vegan friends, slather with Earth Balance on tofu and chopped Vidalia onion, sear on a flat skillet or grill basket. Pairs well with a (very) lightly sweet white wine. —Lars Gotrich

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In Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould, the world-famous concert pianist visits a truck stop. Behind sunglasses and under a large trench coat, the waitress asks if he wants "the usual." Then he listens. Chatter overlaps with the usual restaurant clatter before he tunes into a middle-aged trucker nearby telling a story about a young hitchhiker, a Québécois either dictating his order or his memoirs, a shady pair of pool players. Gould's ears pick up rising intonation and slowing tempos in speech, and gently conducts the seemingly disparate conversations with the tip of his index finger. As Gould's breakfast of scrambled eggs, salad and orange juice hits the table, Petula Clark's "Downtown" playing from the counter radio returns. The composition ends. 

On Sunday, after a long bike ride with my family, I spread out on a blanket by a lake, covered my eyes with a bandana. Several gaits of runner passed by — heavy, light, fast, squishy. Muffled Spanish from a park bench 50 feet away. "... gratuitous sex scene…" The whoosh of bike tire tread. Birds sing. Crickets drone. Celebraaaate good times, come on! A toddler cries in the distance. A preacher on the radio: "I desire to be humble…" Huff. Puff. Rustle of leaves. "Papa!"

How rare to sit still, listen and conduct the air. —Lars Gotrich

At the end of 2017, I was feeling pretty raw about the state of things in the U.S.: rising fascism, threats against women's autonomy and immigrants' safety, white supremacy run rampant — we barely had a glimpse of what was to come. 

Not much felt good that year, including music, but I found some safe retreat in the quiet that could be found. I wrote a comic about that desperation — connecting the calm and the caustic — intended for NPR Music's year-end coverage. My brilliant friend Robin Ha, then between graphic novel projects, agreed to illustrate. 

For a number of reasons, the comic never published. But I never stopped thinking about its essential idea: Quiet can be as restorative as it is destructive, especially for someone who struggles to articulate their feelings. So here is the script for the comic, sans illustrations that never came to be, plus a playlist of tracks featured. Revisiting now, the panel directions could use some work and I'd likely change the structure a bit, but otherwise I've kept the original text here. (The watercolor painting above is a collaboration by Robin Ha, my daughter and me, unrelated to this project.) Only a few friends have read the comic before now; I'm thankful for their encouragement. —Lars Gotrich

We'd been craving paletas — and Mexican snacks generally — ever since we vacationed in CDMX years ago. Sweet, spicy and sour chamoy creations, corn chips drenched in pickles and sauces, mango everything. It's become my ideal comfort outside soul food, which, thankfully, Mid-Atlantic Seafood satisfies my Southern hunger now that I've lived away from the South for 16 years. 

Just recently I came across a Mexican ice cream and paleta shop just over the D.C. border in Bladensburg, Maryland. We've only been there thrice, but the women who run La Neveria Michoacana already know my daughter and me by sight. A-L always wants strawberries and cream, which honestly is some of the best I've had, but so far I've tried pistachio, black cherry & cream cheese (incredible!), mango with chili, Oreo, tres leches, rice and milk (basically horchata), pine nut, tamarind… I MUST TRY THEM ALL. — Lars Gotrich

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Flowers bloomed, raced and spun across the floors and walls with a digital gust of wind. The room spun, but didn't. Children ran, skipped and hopped to keep pace with the pixels. Adults — in altered states or just naturally dazed — sat still to keep from toppling over. There's a bar to watch the spectacle above, though alcohol seemed unwise. 

Artechouse specializes in immersive installations built on multiple video projections and spatial audio. PIXELBLOOM is the latest exhibit, taking advantage of D.C.'s cherry blossom festival with a floral-forward program. It's Instagram-friendly, which I have nothing against, and visually stunning — a good space to zone out for one-hour timed entry. 

But if I'm going to submerge my senses for an hour, I want the audio experience to match the overwhelming visual. The music was so inconspicuous and inconsequential that it didn't need to exist — literally an aural wallflower, which might as well have been generated by an algorithm (and likely was). I kept thinking about how harpist Mary Lattimore, synthesist Suzanne Ciani or (to support a local) cellist Janel Leppin could bridge the gap between ambient sound and visual narrative, however abstract. Or, you know, go full-on arena drone a la Boredoms, if ecstatic immersion is the goal. Felt like a missed opportunity, but hey, if Artechouse wants me to DJ a night of euphoric flora jams, hit me up! —Lars Gotrich

Some loosely organized notes on a recent Pedro the Lion gig at the Black Cat in Washington, D.C.:

• Burly, but bruised — never have I met a guitar tone that reflected both its player and its person. David Bazan's a big guy with a big heart and, in recent years, has come across a murky-colored fuzz (that's not too fuzzy) befitting his sad-coyote howl, especially applied to chunky chords. 

• Never mind that Bazan wasn't actually the one playing guitar onstage at Black Cat — that would be Erik Walters, his most consistent live band member of late — but Pedro the Lion is David Bazan; other musicians are sympathetic extensions of his wrought songwriting and sound world. Still, though, Erik conjured some serious ghosts from that guitar. 

• Pedro the Lion's had quite the revolving door of supporting characters who, by David's own admission, have left due to his need to control the situation. David did mention, however, late into the set, that Erik and Terence (the drummer whose last name I do not know) are the best working relationship he's had in a long time. That was nice to hear. 

• After years of isolation, when audiences are itching to be entertained — a lazy, passive engagement with live music — Pedro the Lion's subdued set felt quietly subversive. Except for "Indian Summer" (the oldest song on the setlist) and "Quietest Friend," Pedro the Lion kept to brooding songs that ruminate on the human condition, which… is David's whole thing, yes, but I've seen some pretty vicious Pedro the Lion performances over the years. This was not that. David wanted us to sit in sadness with him, even if, over the show, he brightened up by the sheer act of playing in front of people. 

• Over the last 20+ years, I've seen Pedro the Lion — and various iterations — at least a dozen times: In Atlanta, in D.C., at the Tiny Desk (where I happen to work), in the cornfields of Central Illinois (yes, at the Cornerstone Festival); as Pedro the Lion, as Headphones, as David Bazan, as the short-lived Paperback (touring with Starflyer 59); with full bands, solo, accompanied by an "iPod bass." I'd really like to see Lo Tom — his no-frills rock band with members of Starflyer 59 and Velour 100 — someday. 

• For an audience choosing this particular brand of bummer — in a venue surrounded outside by skimpily-dressed 20-somethings in various states of inebriation — on a Saturday night, something felt particularly nervy as David asked folks to mask up. To the audience's credit, I did see a lot of masks go on afterward, but still, others stood stone-faced as David essentially begged for his livelihood. When David performed "Hard to Be" solo, an unmasked man standing next to us, who'd just witnessed something real and vulnerable from a musician he presumably admired, sang along: And why it's hard to be / Hard to be, hard to be / A decent human being. The disconnect was loud, and has been ringing in my soul since.  

• David played a Tom Petty cover ["Walls (Circus)"] solo; I never know where to start with Tom Petty, but I should listen to more Tom Petty. 

• My bestie Lyndsey and I missed the opener — Oceanator, whose new album I like very much — because we hadn't seen each other since she became pregnant. We needed to hug it out and revel at in-person conversation in the midst of 14th St. bustle. (But y'all should listen to Oceanator.) For that same reason, we also missed Pedro the Lion's encore so Lyndsey could catch a ride back home; I figured David, also a dad, would understand. ("Bands With Managers" apparently ended the night.) 

• When I got home, I made myself a sandwich out of leftover BBQ brisket. Not quite a late-night slice, but felt like one. 

—Lars Gotrich

This is my burger, give or take a topping: Bun, mayo, pickles, cheese, patty (maybe two), tomato, lettuce, bun. In that order. Add-ons can be nice — who am I to refuse banana peppers and special sauce a la In-n-Out — but ultimately detract. If you've ever watched George Motz's Burger Scholar Sessions, then you understand my commitment to Burger Essence. (I'm still working on my smashburger game, but I'm pretty good on the grill, if I do say so myself.) 

Stunt burgers are trash. Lately, IG's algorithm has punished me with slovenly odes to excess. Patties stacked five and six high. Cheese and god-knows-what sauce oozing from every pocket like puss. A goddam piece of fried chicken. A full order of onion rings (OK, I actually really like an onion ring or two as condiment on occasion). Point being, stunt burgers serve nothing beyond the 'gram, and two bites in, it's a soggy mess. 

Generally, I don't yuck someone else's yum, but y'all… stop with this foolishness! Let the burger shine. —Lars Gotrich

Gern Blandsten is closing up shop after 30 years. I can't speak to the label's imprint on the New Jersey indie rock and punk scenes, but GB proved crucial in introducing east coast bands like Chisel, The Van Pelt and Liars to the world — the cock-rocky Rye Coalition even got caught up in major-label shenanigans, ended up back on GB for its fourth and last album, produced by Dave Grohl.

Right now, the label's shop is selling 5-10-25 CD mystery boxes for cheap; it's physically painful for me to deny such a fun deal and potential for new-to-me discoveries. I'm still making my way through the 25-CD grab bag, but have fallen hard for 2006's All Your Things Are Gone by Boston's Victory at Sea. I'd completely missed out on this band in my formative indie-rock years, but everything about Victory at Sea would've hit all of my college-age buttons: emotional, but gutsy songwriting; bursts of proggy bombast; ship-swaying rhythms; left hand-heavy piano pounding in place of bass guitar; a guitarist/singer who maybe smokes or drinks too much whiskey and just has the most devastating quips (see: "It's not your birthday, it's your funeral / What a shame / 'Cause the gang's all here and we're toasting your name"). Just take a listen to "The Letter" and tell me Mona Elliott didn't sing Patti Smith songs at karaoke bars until the wee hours of the morning. —Lars Gotrich

Viking's Choice 6-Pack

Foo Fighters' "Everlong" is a song measured in chills per minute...

from the hushed opening and distorted guitar strums;
to the moment Dave Grohl first whispers, "Hello, I've waited here for you," trailing the word "everlong" with a knowing whimper;
to the first appearance of the guitar's exclamation-point doot-doot-doot counterpoint;
to wonder, and the drum's quickening rat-a-tat response;
to the windmill-chord chorus, hanging onto "forever" with suspended animation; 
to the doot-doot-doot's sung by Veruca Salt's Louise Post at 2 a.m., lore shared by this TikTokker.

Released in August 1997 as underground punk and emo overtook my alt-rock interests, this song — which followed the perfectly-fine-yet-still-grunge-hanger-on single "Monkey Wrench" — felt like none and all of those things. Instead, "Everlong" was a middle path garlanded with emo's soft-loud dynamism — of course, Sunny Day Real Estate bassist Nate Mendel had become a full-time Foo by this point — and a stadium-ready bombast that wasn't afraid to bleed. It was the first time I really took notice of Dave Grohl's "new band." 

On a recent trip to rural Virginia, we brought along a cheap kite that'd been buried deep in the recesses of a closet. Having not flown since childhood, I was immediately struck by the kite's similarities to improvisation — that you respond to the changes in dynamic, pace and power the same way a musician acts and reacts within a group setting. You don't need to know all the mechanics to find the feeling in the push and pull (though that knowledge would certainly help), but the feeling finds you in the gusting shifts of wind and sudden dead air. I now find kiting immensely satisfying, though my skills (to continue the improv theme here)  are basically noise kid who discovers Anthony Braxton for the first time. Here's to more windy days to make visual music. —Lars Gotrich

Viking's Choice 6-Pack

Follow my Bandcamp collection. Stream the BNDCMPR playlist!

Some professional news: After two years producing it, I'm now the host of the Best Music of the Month podcast from NPR's All Songs Considered! Basically, I gab with NPR Music staff and contributors at the end of every month about the "best" — no, I don't like that word either, I'm working on different framing devices — albums and songs released within the past 28-31 days. It's not quite the long-dreamed-of Viking's Choice podcast, but I've been wanting to stretch myself for quite some time, so this is a significant foot in the door. You can listen to my debut as host on NPR-dot-org or wherever you do podcasts — some of y'all may have even heard the episode carried on your public radio station!  

Some personal news: It's my birthday, and I planned to take the day off to catch a matinee in a theater and laze about, but my kid got me sick, so now I'm gonna watch a movie on my iPad and sleep. I'm also off social media (Twitter, in particular) for at least a week — need to regather my mental wellbeing after a rough few weeks from the world being as it is. Take care of yourself and others, y'all. —Lars Gotrich

Viking's Choice 6-Pack