Music
La Folie
Artist: The Stranglers
Genre: New Wave
Released: 1981
Description: fav tracks: how to find true love and happiness, golden brown
Volume 4
Artist: The Cowboys
Genre: Rock and roll, punk
Released: 2017
Description: love this band. have had the pleasure of seeing them in person many times now and each time they do not disappoint. vocalist has a similar voice to russell mael from sparks and emitt rhodes. really great blues-rock guitar playing over a generally Punk vibe
pom pom
Artist: Ariel Pink
Genre: Psych pop
Released: 2014
Description: for fans of the cure, the mothers of invention, and todd rungren. fav tracks: dinosaur carebears, white freckles
Strawberry Switchblade
Artist: Strawberry Switchblade
Genre: New wave, proto darkwave, proto twee
Released: 1985
Description: this album has been in my digital pocket since 2019, and I've enjoyed a few tracks off of it here and there, but something hit me in the last few weeks and I've been listening to it non-stop. it's sneakily genius - these gals were total beginners, but so incredibly melodic! fun fact their name comes from an unreleased orange juice lyric, and i've heard somewhere orange juice encouraged the girls to start a band in the first place. (though i can't actually find a source... who knows?) fav tracks: go away, ecstasy, deep water
Pet Town
Artist: Eerie Wanda
Genre: Folk pop with rockabilly influences
Released: 2019
Description: she's great! it's great! incredibly sleepy & comforting album made for long car rides home. fav tracks: moon, magnetic woman, sleepy eyes
Some Things Just Stick In Your Mind
Artist: Vashti Bunyan
Genre: Folk pop
Released: 1967
Description: one of the first singer-songwriters young madu fell head over heels for! oozing with romanticism and melancholy
Amaryllis
Artist: Mary Halvorson
Genre: Jazz
Released: 2022
Description: it sounds pretty close to how the album cover looks: spring time blooming in a pool of motor oil... on the moon! love to hear the zappa influences
Diamond Jubilee
Artist: Cindy Lee
Genre: Rock
Released: 2024
Description: unlike much else yet somehow everything i love
Violent Closure
Artist: GEL
Genre: Hardcore
Released: 2021
Description: does that cover art look familiar :D such a fun album
Suburban Lawns
Band: Suburban Lawns
Genre: New Wave, Proto Egg Punk
Released: 1981
Description: inventive freakish music that society slept on until the formation of egg punk, when curious listeners of bands like snooper, bb eye, and prison affair sought to trace back the roots of the sounds they were hearing. and good on them! cuz i wouldn't have found this band otherwise ^_^
Boneset
Artist: Diane Cluck
Genre: Folk
Released: 2014
Description: secretly on par if not surpassing legendary singer-songwriters like joni mitchell and judee sill. the way that both freedom and sorrow materialize in her voice and harmonize together is unmatched. i feel somehow both directly inside of and disocciated from her experiences, and it feels right! she knows how to craft and fill out a song with the sparsest tools available, even creating one predominantly acoustic acapella track for the album that manages to feel perfectly full. love you diane
Stars On E.S.P.
Artist: His Name is Alive
Genre: Rock
Released: 1996
Description: i have so much respect for this band
Iowa Dream
Artist: Arthur Russell
Genre: (Compilation Album) Folk, Disco, Pop
Released: 2019, recorded in 70's/80's
Description: i wish often that he was still with us. he had an extraordinary power and it is felt in his music. i have no idea if he knew that, or even cared about things like that. i used to play this every morning i opened the coffee shop i worked at in bloomington. never got old. fun fact: he almost joined the talking heads! fav tracks: wonder boy, sharper eyes, come to life, you did it yourself, i kissed the girl from outerspace
Spirit They're Gone, Spirit They've Vanished
Artist: Animal Collective
Genre: Psychedelia, Electroacoustic, Experimental Rock
Released: 2000
Description: medicine for the core
Geidi Primes
Artist: Grimes
Genre: Electroacoustic, Experimental Synthpop
Released: 2010
Description: incredibly autistic album and my go-to for wanting to feel inspired before opening up a daw
it was never meant to be heard by anyone nor did she think it would be so the authenticity meter is at or very near 100%. despite being probably some of the first music she ever created it captures very specific worlds within each song very well which is really impressive to me
Mummer
Artist: XTC
Genre: Pastoral Rock
Released: 1983
Description: legendary album by a legendary band. every track on this album evokes the most specific and beautiful imagery in my brain
Silent Shout
Artist: The Knife
Genre: Techno, Synthpop
Released: 2006
Description: TBD
Uncle Meat
Artist: Frank Zappa
Genre: Avant-prog
Released: 1969
Description: TBD
Thought For Food
Artist: The Books
Genre: Folk, Sound Collage
Released: 2002
Description: listening to this when i was 12 by courtesy of my older brother was probably the first time i thought of the relationship btwn noise and music. it was really jarring and i didn't fully get it but i enjoyed most tracks and acknowledged how it managed to pull more emotion out of me than most other things i was listening to at the time and i think that's because when you have tracks that are vague enough in lyrical content but intense enough in chaos/sound/aesthetic it can just rip anything and everything out of you. cool stuff
The Mollusk
Artist: Ween
Genre: Experimental Rock
Released: 1997
Description: TBD
Judee Sill
Artist: Judee Sill
Genre: Orchestral, Folk
Released: 1971
Description: TBD
Steve McQueen
Artist: Prefab Sprout
Genre: Sophistipop
Released: 1985
Description: TBD
Film
Daisies
Director: Věra Chytilová
Genre: Avant Garde, Slapstick Comedy, Czech New Wave
Released: 1966
Alice
Director: Jan Švankmajer
Genre: Fantasy
Released: 1988
Alice in Wonderland
Director: Yefrem Pruzhanskyi
Genre: Animation, Fantasy
Released: 1981
Forbidden Zone
Director: Richard Elfman
Genre: Musical Fantasy
Released: 1980
TV & Anime
30 Rock
Creator: Tina Fey
Genre: Comedy
Released: 2006
Fleabag
Creator: Phoebe Waller-Bridge
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Released: 2016
Madoka Magica
Creator: Magica Quartet, Gen Urobuchi
Genre: Magical Girl, Dark Fantasy, Psychological Horror
Released: 2011
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Creator: Hideaki Anno
Genre: Mecha, Psychological Drama
Released: 1995
Higurashi: When They Cry
Creator: Ryukishi07
Genre: Horror, Mystery
Released: 2006
Bakemonogatari Series
Creator: Nisio Isin
Genre: Fantasy, Supernatural, Psychological Drama
Released: 2009
Description: if you put a gun to my head and said "WHAT IS THE GREATEST ANIME OF ALL TIME" i would probably start crying for one and THEN i would pick this over neon genesis evangelion. it has everything i could ever want in it including a metric fuckton of extremely likeable characters with genuinely interesting arcs and never-ending existential dialogues that mostly end on a comedic note. also plays with extremes of japanese mythology and anime tropes simultaneously; this anime is like a weird frankenstein of the two as a result. and it's long as hell, AND it's easy to watch. it's good TV and good art rather than sacrificing one for the other and basically i like that a lot
Katanagatari
Creator: Nisio Isin
Genre: Adventure, Historical Fantasy
Released: 2010
Code Geass
Creator: Ichirō Ōkouchi
Genre: Mecha, Military Drama
Released: 2006
Description: rewatched recently and season 1 is some of the most Goated anime i have ever seen. season 2 takes a weird path and feels more formulaic overall but it is definitely not bad. just kinda feels like a different writer with a fundamentally different approach took over or something
Gurren Lagann
Creator: Kazuki Nakashima
Genre: Mecha, Adventure
Released: 2007
Books & Manga
Emanon
Author: Shinji Kajio, art by Kenji Tsuruta
Genre: Science fiction, Seinen
Released: 2006
Solanin
Author: Inio Asano
Genre: Coming of age, Seinen
Released: 2006
My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness
Author: Kabi Nagata
Genre: Autobiography, Coming of age, Josei
Released: 2016
Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou
Author: Hitoshi Ashinano
Genre: Science fiction, seinen, iyashikei
Released: 1994
Near to the Wild Heart
Author: Clarice Lispector
Genre: Fiction
Released: 1943
Machinal
Author: Sophie Treadwell
Genre: Play, Drama
Released: 1928
Poems New and Collected
Author: Wistawa Szymborska
Genre: Poetry
Released: 1998
Description: i had "Life While You Wait" taped to my bedroom wall for over a year so that's a good sign
The Book of Form and Emptiness
Author: Ruth Ozeki
Genre: Fiction, Magical Realism
Released: 2021
Description: i really adore the way this book plays with form and also the way that the author just added slavoj zizek as a character for some reason
Orlando
Author: Virginia Woolf
Genre: Fiction
Released: 1928
Too Loud a Solitude
Author: Bohumil Hrabal
Genre: Fiction
Released: 1976
Lolita
Author: Vladimir Nabokov
Genre: Fiction
Released: 1955
Hot Milk
Author: Deborah Levy
Genre: Fiction
Released: 2016
Description: i love the plot with the protagonist's mother but i totally sludged through the rest of the protagonist's relationship arcs. some saucy scenes in here though as well as some memorable lines
Coventry
Author: Rachel Cusk
Genre: Essay Collection
Released: 2019
Video Games
Disillusion ST
Developer: Rick Tempest
Genre: Horror
Released: 2017
Description: Basically i love mel with all of my heart
Undertale
Developer: Toby Fox
Genre: RPG
Released: 2015
Milk inside a bag of milk inside a bag of milk
Developer: Nikita Kryukov
Genre: Visual Novel
Released: 2020
Yume Nikki
Developer: Kikiyama
Genre: Adventure
Released: 2004
Non-fiction
The Question Concerning Technology
Author: Martin Heidegger
Genre: Philosophy
Released: 1954
One-Dimensional Man
Author: Herbert Marcuse
Genre: Philosophy
Released: 1964
Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism
Author: Frederic Jameson
Genre: Art history, cultural theory
Released: 1991
Looking Back: Memoirs
Author: Lou Andreas-Salome
Genre: Memoir
Released: 1951
Being You: A New Science of Consciousness
Author: Anil Seth
Genre: Cognitive Science
Released: 2021
How Music Works
Author: David Byrne
Genre: Memoir
Released: 2012