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✳ Listening

This month’s list includes revisitations and one recent discovery. I have a rule: If I repeatedly listen to an album for more than two months, I will buy the record. I own all of these records excluding Frank Ocean’s Blonde, which was never officially released on vinyl, because I have not stopped listening to them in the last year.

Album

Wet Leg “Moisturizer”

I discovered Wet Leg after hearing Mangetout on Heated Rivalry in late January. I can only listen to the whole album which to me is a sign of a stellar production.. It is appropriately horny, romantic, and ensures a good fucking time from start to finish. I immediately loved the first seven tracks except Jennifer’s Body. But through repeated listens, I can now say that I LOVE Jennifer’s Body.

I purchased a secondhand $60 subwoofer for my speakers to appropriately experience the vinyl record. I hope you enjoy this safe, hedonistic indulgence.

Album

Laurie Torres “Après Coup”

Apres Coup might be the best contemporary jazz album I have discovered in the last five years. It creates celestial sounds using piano, drums, and a synthesizer. It is a highly intelligent production because Torres merges technique with emotion while inviting the listener’s own emotions with every listen. If I had to pick my favorite, I’d say Interieurs. The track is short, leaving you wanting while also fully satisfying the senses. Marvelous! Feux Fuyants would make a beautiful movie score. And if you loved Eiko Inshibashi’s Drive My Car movie score, specifically, Drive My Car (Masaki), listen to Exit, the closing track on Apres Coup.

Album

Frank Ocean “Blonde”

If the artist formerly known as Frank Ocean (I’m kidding) never makes another album, I would be genuinely content because Blonde is a masterful album. Its release pioneered much of contemporary popular RnB music in the last decade. I still viscerally react to Godspeed and Self Control, but I am yet to articulate the emotions Skyline To and Close To You elicit 10 years later. I think the silence from Frank Ocean since this album’s release has allowed it to air out, materialize, and cement itself in every nook and cranny of popular music. You know you’re about it when a new song emerges with comparable but not quite similar sounds to Blonde. Some of them enter the region where Blonde resides but none has ever come into its neighborhood of excellence.

Song

Nina Simone “Mood Indigo”

This song is in my unfinished personal playlist titled, “You’ve got it in your soul.” I began assembling the playlist after hearing the song for the first time. It opens with an almost 80 second upbeat piano intro until Simone’s voice joins with solemn lyrics. While the song is about experiencing a type of blues she calls mood indigo, you cannot help dancing. It’s as if the song is an antidote to the mood indigo. I invite you to listen to the rest of the album.

Song

Les McCann “Burnin’ Coal”

If you are unfamiliar with Les McCann, here’s what you need to know: He is a masterful pianist who, alongside some other elite Afro American jazz musicians, invented the sound of contemporary jazz starting in the late 50s. You will see a lot of Les McCann in my library in the coming months because I found a bunch of his vinyls for less than $5 each at my local record shop last year. Burnin’ Coal is on his Much Les album and I cannot recommend it enough for people exploring Afro American jazz sounds of the 60s.

Similar to Mood Indigo, prepare for a little or lots of movement if you decide to listen while driving. Let loose!

✳ Watched

Moonlight, Barry Jenkins, 2016

When I think of humane depictions of queer life, especially Black American queer life, Moonlight comes to mind. Barry Jenkins, the film’s writer and director’s, adaptation of the unpublished play In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue by Tarell Alvin McCraney, is in a league of its own. Moonlight tackles themes of masculinity, sexual identity, misogyny interwoven in the interpersonal relationships of its central character Chiron in three acts. Young Chiron learns to suppress his emotions after multiple betrayals from adults he was supposed to trust including his mother who struggles with a drug addiction. The film’s climax is just as much of an emotional release for the audience as it is for Chiron. In the second to the last scene, adult Chiron tells adult Kevin, “You’re the only one who’s ever touched me.” The line carries Chiron’s transcendent sadness. We discover that the Chiron we meet at the beginning of the movie is the same one at the end. But it is the build up to that scene that gets me every time. Trevante Rhodes and André Holland dance with their dialogue and their uncertainty is palpable.

Moonlight features an exquisite ensemble cast. There isn’t enough praise for the continuity of each of the actors portraying Chiron and Kevin. Ashton Sanders and Trevante Rhodes succeed at portraying all of Chiron’s complexities and his suffocating silence in his teen and adult years. Mahershala Ali delivers a masterful performance and Naomie Harris as Paula is haunting. There isn’t a scene in this feature that doesn’t leave you with something. Even everything it leaves out is just as impactful.

The Chambermaid Lynn, Ingo Haeb, 2014

Since experiencing the versatile and magnificent Vicky Krieps on Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread, I have made considerable effort to watch more of her movies. The Chambermaid Lynn is weird and it is worth it. It triumphantly combines humor, while seriously tackling the topic of sexual identity with a thrilling storyline. Lynn is unlike any character I have ever watched—she is a mirror and a reflection of our exiled desires and explorations. I oscillated between being a little afraid of her, a lot of affection for her, and an overwhelming sadness. By the end Vicky “Creeps” has you reconsidering everything you thought you knew about sexual identity, presentation and the self.

Brokeback Mountain, Ang Lee, 2005

I first absent mindedly watched Brokeback Mountain in 2021. I did not remember what I watched or felt and I certainly didn’t remember anything serious about it because I was on my phone half the time. I was also uninterested in what I considered to be “trauma porn.” I was looking for visual queer media that did not end in tragedy for its central characters. I have outgrown this infantile approach and now know the difference between painful but severely beautiful historical reflections and what we call trauma porn. For example, 12 years A Slave is trauma porn but Toni Morrison’s Beloved is achingly magnificent with its mystical reflections and historical depiction of slavery.

I wore the emotions of the movie like a cloak. I even looked into acquiring the screenplay and reading the book. I have yet to do any of this. However, I have revisited the aftershocks of emotions in my mind. Brokeback Mountain is an earnest offering for understanding queer life in rural white America in the 60s. It does not support the agenda of queer presentism. Although it is devastating, it tells a hauntingly truthful story. I may never watch it again but it is safely tucked within reach whenever I need to revisit it in my mind.