Andy's Newsletter ✌️ Hello, is this thing still on?
And now, for something new.
Hi hi,
I’m a bit embarrassed that it’s been so long since I sent a newsletter. And instead of trying to explain why (parenthood, parties, practicing piano, idk?), let’s just move on and try something new, shall we?
Introducing: YR WEEKEND STARTS NOW, a brand new music discovery newsletter by Andy P. Smith.
Why start a music discovery newsletter? You could say it’s my own little battle against the robots, the algorithms, the TikTok dance dance revolution… But also, I absolutely adore music — listening to music, talking about music, going to live concerts, etc… and discovering new and excellent music is one of the best feelings in the world, like that first kiss or a roller coaster dip or a warm bath in a cabin in the snowy woods… that’s the beauty of music, really. It can make you feel… Music makes you feel, man…
Why Andy? As a writer, I’ve written about music and bands in books and editorials, and over the years, I’ve worked as a radio host, nightlife DJ, band manager, and underground venue owner. I’ll spare you my full CV . All of this is just to say that I’ve developed strong opinions (loosely held) on music: what’s good, what’s great, and what’s simply iconic, timeless.
Why now? Because music heals. Because music inspires. Because music is so damn human and real. Because I’m tired of Artificial Intelligence DJs and Spotify playlists that serve the same songs over and over and over. There’s a million reasons why but ultimately I’d like to spend some time finding and sharing music that feels important to me and hopefully it’s important to you.
What to expect? I’m going to send out one or two newsletters each week as I figure out my approach here. There will be links to music and music videos and maybe some industry news. And eventually I’ll add in some extended playlists, radio shows, interviews, and more. I’m going to keep the newsletter free to start and eventually, maybe, I’ll add on some premium subscription options. We’ll see how it goes! Thanks for sharing the journey.
So let’s get this show on the road! Below you’ll find my first dispatch as YR WEEKEND STARTS NOW and a long-forgotten draft of a 2023 wrap up that I never sent haha. Here we go! Your weekend starts now!
— Andy
PS I’ll likely be sending this on Wednesdays or Thursdays, like, when they weekend starts but I figured why not send something on Sunday to get things started. Thanks for reaching!
Something Tricky Herein: New Sludge from British Trip Hop Pioneer
Adrian Nicholas Matthews Thaws, better known by his stage name Tricky, is a British record producer, rapper, and founding member of early 90s trip hop collective Massive Attack. In other words, this dude has been making eerie, atmospheric music with spooky melodies and deep, textured beats for 30+ years.
In fact, 28 years ago this week, Tricky released his second solo album, Pre-Millennium Tension, a masterpiece of ambient, eccentric, and sinister arias recorded in Jamaica that’s so damn soupy on tracks like “Ghetto Youth” you can’t help but feel bowed down in the gooey, groovy sludge of this weighted blanket of an album weaved together by this troubled pioneer of trip hop.
Back then, The Village Voice ranked Tricky’s Pre-Millennium Tension the 9th best album of the year in their 1996 Pazz and Jop critics poll. (Beck’s Odelay ranked first, obvs.) And if you close your eyes while listening to tracks like “Christiansands” or “Bad Dreams”, you can feel both the Gen X angst of ‘96 and the strange prescience of what weird “bedroom pop” would come decades later with BIllie Eilish or Lorde. Of course, they’ll never have the dense, tense anger of a mixed race kid from Southern Bristol whose mother died when he was four, who was imprisoned at 17 for gang crimes, who survived the suicide of his baby’s mother… it’s dark, like, real dark.
Tricky’s latest album, Fifteen Days, dropped last week under the moniker Theis Thaws. This collaboration with producer Mike Theis and vocalists Rosa Rocca-Serra, Run Red Rambo and Lucy La Dusk, is the album we’ve all been waiting for. It’s sultry and ominous, like the soundtrack to the backroom conspiracies of secret lovers for a faux crime of passion.
More so, the first track, “Frozen Rivers”, is Tricky at his best: whispered non sequiturs layered over synths and bass-driven beats that undulate like weird molasses until you’re nearly drowning in the gutter under the thick shadow of an ever expanding universe. Like, whoa. There’s simply no one like Tricky.
Looking back… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I’m realizing now that I had drafted a newsletter earlier in the year and never sent it sooooooooo…. hey, why not share it anyway? Voila!
Here’s the 2023 CHRISTMAS IS OVER video and some highlights from last year. Yes, I am aware it’s August September October November, 2024.
If you’re looking for more of me throwing trees out the window, here’s a playlist of all (most?) of my CHRISTMAS IS OVER videos. Now, onto some of my favorite things from 2023.
🎞️ Favorite Movie: Infinity Pool
The best movie I saw in 2023 was Infinity Pool, Brandon Cronenberg’s haunting exploration of class privilege, hedonism, and ego death. Three things I’m really into! Also, yes, it’s David Cronenberg’s son at the helm here and he most certainly maintains the legacy and surreal violence of the Cronenberg canon.
But for some reason, I can’t find anyone else who’s seen the damn movie. Too weird? Too spooky? If you enjoyed Triangle of Sadness or Parasite but also like surrealist horror, you’ll love Infinity Pool. Tbh this film makes Triangle of Sadness feel like a Saturday morning cartoon. And Parasite is incredible, truly in a league of its own. But as pleasantly disturbed as I was after Parasite, I was equaled if not more very much pleasantly disturbed, distressed, upset after watching Infinity Pool. If you know me, you know that I like nothing more than a movie that really fucks you up. Five stars.
📕 Favorite book: Tinkers (but you knew that already)
It was published in 2008, but I still feel like the best book I read in 2023 was Tinkers, but I already wrote a bit about that here. I also read Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow and thoroughly enjoyed it but also that was published in 2022. Also, did you know that Zevin sold the movie rights in 2021 before the book was published for a whopping, cool $2 million? Incredible.
I’ve been bouncing between George Saunders short story collection Liberation Day and the recent Nobel Prize winner Jon Fosse’s magnum opus Septology. Both are fantastic in much different ways, which is why it’s nice to move back and forth between them.
To say Fosse’s writing in Septology is stream of consciousness is an understatement, like saying the bananas foster is fruit. His writing is so immersive, enveloping, you completely lose track of your own thoughts. It really feels like you’re inside someone else’s head. And in this case, it’s the head of an elderly Norwegian painter and devout Christian as he goes about his (seemingly) mundane life.
And goddamn Saunders has done it again. Hell, just the title story of the collection is enough to make you squirm and squeal with shock and awe across the entire emotional spectrum. And he does it so concisely, without bravado or showmanship, the craft is incredible. He’s a bladesmith. And the story itself will stab you countless times with knives forged from dark truths about class (again, yes), imperialism, artificial intelligence, terrorism, Custer’s last stand, and the (forgotten? perverted?) art of storytelling.
🎸 Favorite music (that isn’t Phish): LA LOM
Well, I’ve already gone off about Roisin Murphy. Otherwise, I gotta say the best show I saw was LA LOM at The Sultan Room in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Man, these guys got it — a three-piece Cubanismo vibe that somehow sounds both old and new? I guess you’d call that timeless? Yeah, man, they’re fucking timeless, and I love it.
Also I loved the Death Cab For Cutie / The Postal Service show at MSG… It’s wild that so many of these personally formative and highly acclaimed albums are *gulp* 20 years old now. Just to name a few, in addition to Postal Service’s Give Up: Transatlanticism (duh), The Black Album, Hail to the Thief, Elephant, Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone? (a true masterpiece, imo), Chutes Too Narrow… the list goes on.
🐠 Favorite music (that is Phish): Phish
In 2023, I saw the band Phish perform 12 times. Every show was awesome and I’m more than happy to chat with you about the highlights of which there are many: Philly “Carini”, MSG “Life Saving Gun”, etc. For this newsletter, I just wanna share a bit about the “Gamehendge” set from New Year’s Eve because it was nothing short of spiritual.
I mean, sure, Phish is a cult. But what happened at MSG on NYE was wild — 20,000 fans singing along for every word, gently weeping, like followers of some doormat of sports team winning the championship against all odds, like I imagine some midwest megachurch sparing no expense for the Christmas Eve show with song and dance and lights and aerialists and puppets — Phish NYE 2023 was a collective celebration and release, which I think will forever be considered a career peak, a crescendo that marks a culmination in ways that — oh, whatever. You had to be there, man.
🐢 Favorite art: The Embrace and LSD World Peace
The installation, The Embrace, was part of the exhibition Embrace the World from Within at Faurschou New York (in Greenpoint, Brooklyn) and was just a wild experience. From the gallery:
“In Miles Greenberg’s performance The Embrace, two blinded performers sit atop a large rock, isolated in a glass cube. Meeting for the very first time, the two remain locked in a perpetual intimate embrace, gradually coalescing into one sculptural form. The amalgamate of the two figures is reflected from below by a pool of saltwater. Overhead, a steady drip of fresh water quietly feeds into the reservoir below, disrupting the reflective surface. The two waters fuse invisibly, like an estuary enclosing the couple’s feet.”
When I say this was the strangest, most startling work of art I’ve ever encountered… trust me. And I used to have some dude show up at my parties who rolled himself up in carpet at the foot of the bar where people would stand on him. Suspension shit, bloodletting performances, sex shows… let me tell you, this installation topped all of it. Two blinded strangers embracing on a rock in a pool in a plexi cube? C’mon. ::chef’s kiss::
That’s all, folks!
Just had to rip the bandaid off this dusty newsletter. Hopefully you enjoyed it a little bit! Let me know if you watch Infinity Pool, I’d love to hear what you think!
I’m going to send another newsletter real soon about 2024 haha so stay tuned!