Samia "Bovine Excision" • "Bovine Excision" is the lead single from Samia's forthcoming April 2025 album, Bloodless, set for release via Grand Jury Music. (via Stereogum)
Perfume Genius "It's a Mirror" • "It's a Mirror" is the lead single from Perfume Genius' March 2025 album, Glory, released via Matador Records.
I had every intention of writing about Nosferatu this week. It's a brilliant film, exquisitely crafted and executed on all levels. It's horror in the classical sense, bearing an unparalleled richness I've not experienced within the confines of the genre in quite some time. Earlier this week I bookmarked an article by Douglas Greenwood titled "It’s Pervert Winter," referencing the film, but reading it now, in the wake of yesterday's sad news, it's difficult for me not to do so through the lens of David Lynch's passing. The piece focuses on media described as "[doubling] down on mystery, and harbouring a willingness to stay weird and misunderstood." That is, if anything, one definition of "Lynchian."
This got me thinking more about the word "perversion" within the context of media and how that concept truly reveals itself through David Lynch's work; perversion: "the alteration of something from its original course, meaning, or state to a distortion or corruption of what was first intended." Certainly a caustic film like Blue Velvet resides in the realm of the perverse, but the idea of altering meaning through the corruption of concepts is what's now guiding this connection to Lynch for me.
Much of David Lynch's work reveals itself with an eye for a classic Hollywood aesthetic, overlaying a more sinister human experience beneath the topsoil of nostalgic charms. That feels true to me when considering 2001's Mulholland Drive, but isn't far off from why something like Twin Peaks continues to appeal to me. There's an aw-shucks-ness to the familiarity that bleeds through the show (or at least its original run), with Lynch leaning into the familiarity of the setting while simultaneously revealing dark forces at play beneath it. Even when all is well in Twin Peaks, something is always just... off. Also, it's hammy, but not hammed up for reaction. There's an ever-present distortion of reality, amplifying tropes such that they become both a mockery of reality and a perfect reflection of it at the same time.
For ages I've held an emotional tie to a book called The Trouser Press Guide to '90s Rock. It was one of the things that helped introduce me to a lot of great music in my youth, but I've never spent much time with it beyond skimming names here and there to find new (old) music. The whole thing is available online, but I've got the Bible-sized book at my desk here, and one of my resolutions this year was to start listening and reading my way through it (I'm updating Spotify and YouTube playlists with music that I'm enjoying along the way, in case anyone's curious in following along with me). I've got a long way to go before I get out of the "A"s, but an early rabbit hole I found myself in came from learning about the music of one-time Bad Seeds bassist Barry Adamson. The name wasn't familiar to me but when I began digging into his work, but his sound certainly was. Adamson scored several pieces for use in Lynch's 1997 film Lost Highway, but what's more is that you can hear a clear through-line between his work and that of Lynch's beyond that. The Trouser Press listing for Adamson likens his music to "crime jazz," which conjures the perfect feeling for what the sounds beneath Lynch's neo-noirs tend to inspire. They are the perfect couple.
This morning I was listening through Adamson's 1996 album, Oedipus Schmoedipus, which bounces between the bubbly and terrifying. I recommend anyone interested to start out with "The Vibes Ain't Nothing But The Vibes" or "Something Wicked This Way Comes," which each lend the day a fitting musical bedrock to consider Lynch's influence. In a 2016 Q&A with Dave Simpson of The Guardian, Adamson referenced a phone call he received from Lynch, which I implore you to read as if abruptly blurted out by the man himself, in all his nasally glory. "Barry. This is David Lynch. I’ve been listening to your music for 10 hours straight. I would like you to work on my new movie. I will send you a scene. Show it to no one." Other than being a perfect example of Lynch's offbeat manner of communicating, it also portrays an important aspect of why his work remains so endearing: its earnestness. Adamson's music, which also sways into the realm of "sinewy dance" and "smoky bossa nova," holds space for the subversive, but doesn't stray into parody. This is tonally consistent with Lynch's films, which never portray their exaggerated characters are as either caricature or subversion. They're neither. They're a perversion.
While the Lost Highway soundtrack was probably the first avenue into Lynch's work for me in my youth (thanks the radio play Nine Inch Nails' "The Perfect Drug" and Smashing Pumpkins' "Eye" received) the first film I saw of his was probably Mulholland Drive. In college at the time, I surely picked it up from somewhere like a Wal-Mart, which is telling of the film's break-out success, despite its obtuse narrative and elusive storytelling. In the spirit of self-education I later watched Eraserhead and The Elephant Man, though both also failed to connect with me. They were all weird, sure, but I'm not sure I had a sense for what I was supposed to like about them beyond that measure. Many years later when I returned to Mulholland Drive, well into my 30s, I recall only just starting to feel like I could begin to appreciate it. In a 2019 Letterboxd entry I wrestled with how "aspirational" my motivation was for watching the film, which I suppose is something I still reckon with now.
"It’s weird we associate the entertainment That people gravitate toward with how big their brain is Where’s the line between seeking understanding And performing an exercise in personal branding?" -NAHreally "Smarter Than I Am"
Without realizing it, even just being generally informed about the work of David Lynch has become something of a short-hand for a bucket of traits that I tend to appreciate about people. Like, if you've seen any of his movies or can reference Twin Peaks, that's a fundamental tell about what kind of person you must be (cool, hip, interesting, sexy, intelligent, fill in the blank?). But so much of that is probably based in my own "aspirational" appreciation of his work, rooted in a personal sense of imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome is an outward projection of an inward feeling, right? Like, if someone is familiar with David Lynch's work, surely that's telling of the type of person they are, through to their core. So what do I have to do to make sure they think the same thing about me, so I'm not found out to be the unsophisticated fake I truly am? If I watch close enough, or read enough about the work, surely I'll understand it, and if I understand it, surely that will be telling of the type of person who I want others to think I am. No doubt, there was a bit of that going on subconsciously when I picked up that first copy of Mulholland Drive. The funny thing is, this over-intellectualization is counterintuitive and largely antithetical to the intention behind the works. The older you get, the more you realize, I suppose.
Maybe its a result of time helping soften the rigid corners of self-judgement, but I feel like I'm becoming more comfortable with finding satisfaction in the things I can't pretend to understand. About a year and a half ago I watched Lost Highway for the first time in a long time. I watched it with someone I was seeing, and surely I thought she was cooler for being interested in the movie. Likewise, I hoped she thought the same of me. But what was different about that viewing was how much I just enjoyed the experience of watching it, regardless of the surrounding context or any interpretation of what watching it might say about me. Its darkness wasn't something to be understood on an intellectual level, but merely felt, and to this day a shadow of appreciation encapsulates my memory of that experience. More and more, a fear of not having all the answers is morphing into a comfortable reconciliation with the unknown. Now thinking about it in these terms, any prospect that ambiguity might continue to supplant a perfectionistic drive for answers brings with it a point of hope. I don't tend to think of "hope" when reflecting on David Lynch's work, but maybe that's worth some reconsideration.
Last year was the first time I watched Inland Empire. In an obituary published yesterday, J. Hoberman wrote of the film that it "all but refuses to be a movie." Critical as that sounds, it's still a charitable in my estimation. The three hour stream of consciousness styled production is challenging all the way through, which felt driven less by purpose than a desire to identify the limits of what might be tolerated by his audience. To use the Andy Warhol quote, "Art is what you can get away with," and that comes to mind here not only with Inland, but as a sentiment which broadly underscores the brilliance of David Lynch. Ahead of an era where production companies are becoming increasingly invested in creating "content" for a casual viewing audience, Lynch worked to steer them away from such a development. But when he did so, he refused to beat anyone over the head with his intention, welcoming misinterpretation of his work from his audience and critics alike. In an Instagram post, longtime collaborator Kyle MacLachlan wrote that Lynch "was not interested in answers because he understood that questions are the drive that make us who we are." David Lynch enriched the medium by rendering our vocabulary to explain his work obsolete, and to the very end he got away with it.
Whether considering the song or video, where do you start when describing something like "Come to Daddy" to anyone unfamiliar? Or Aphex Twin, in general, even? For me, I suppose, it might not actually be with his music at all, but with another track from someone else within Aphex Twin's creative orbit: "Come on My Selector" by Squarepusher. My memory isn't great, and the timeline is likely off, but I think that song was what prepared me for Aphex Twin, such that when his music arrived, I was as ready as I could be for it.
This fragment of cultural cache sounds strange, now that I'm putting words to the page, but when I was growing up the music video channel we had ran clips sprinkled among ad breaks that regularly exposed me to music I'd never otherwise have found on my own. These weren't commercials themselves, per se, but brief interstitials merely reiterating what channel we were already watching - which, in this case, was the Canadian equivalent to MTV called Much Music. Slivers of music videos served up exotic new options to watch out for elsewhere on the channel and Squarepusher's "Come On My Selector" was one that grabbed me by the ears and commanded my attention. The closest thing I might've had to parallel sound would've been through someone like Goldie's work, but at that age I'd never heard anything like "Come On My Selector" before. I don't think many had. And later, when seeing the full music video for the song, I'd never seen anything like it, either.
IMDB's one-liner for the video explains it as "A girl and her dog escaping from [an] Osaka mental institution," but there's little to be said which couldn't be better understood by watching it yourself. Musically the song is jagged, rigid, fast, and maybe even a little obnoxious, but it's also wonderful. The music video complements the sounds incredibly well and was directed by Chris Cunningham. Cunningham's work was new to me, but he'd previously worked with Aphex Twin on "Come To Daddy," and followed it up with the maximalist 10 minute horror-satire, "Windowlicker." I say that "Come on My Selector" was a gateway to "Come to Daddy" despite being released after it, only because that's how I recall the timeline: "Come On My Selector" was followed by Aphex Twin's "Windowlicker," which - as memory serves - lead to an uptick in plays of "Come to Daddy" in the channel's rotation, which is where my journey began. It doesn't matter, really. This article could well be about "Windowlicker" as the influence it had was roughly the same. At times memory is as flexible as it is fragile.
In 2010 Pitchfork praised "Come To Daddy" as the best music video of the '90s. "Darkly comic and just plain dark," they wrote, "Chris Cunningham's tale of television unleashing hell in a dilapidated housing block plays like a gothic graphic novel, an ADD-riddled version of Village of the Damned, and an H.R. Giger-designed haunted house. All at once." (As a sidebar, I had no idea until I was preparing this article that Giger created a pair of sketches inspired by "Windowlicker." Neat.) Along with any talk of Giger's connection or influence, in my mind, is an inherent bridge between the visuals of "Come to Daddy" and the Alien franchise. This only makes sense, recognizing that Cunningham served as one of the principle effects artists for Alien 3, setting him up to design the hellscape that was later unleashed in the darkly atmosphere and twisted "Come to Daddy" video.
A little context goes a long way in terms of expressing how impactful this video was for me. Consider some of the most played music videos of 1997 and names like Puff Daddy, Jewel, Will Smith, Spice Girls, and Chumbawumba come to mind. Then, as if summoned by a demon, a music video channel unleashes the nightmarish squeals of "Come To Daddy" to be scattered among these in the same rotation. In discussing another track of his, Richard D. James (Aphex Twin) once said, "I wanted to make something so fast that they’d just think, 'What the fuck?!' It sounds pretty normal now, but at the time… you couldn’t dance to that, no way." That was about "Digeridoo," but it could easily describe this song in my estimation, as well. We'll never know how many thousands of "what the fuck?!" moments "Come to Daddy" no doubt inspired.
The visuals for the music video are one thing - which absolutely fed my still developing taste for dystopian sci-fi/horror - but the song might be what's had the greater lasting impact on me. In a way, I think it helped usher in an open-mindedness toward industrial that hadn't yet developed because… how could it have? I hadn't been exposed to anything like that and had little to no exposure to anything industrial-leaning aside from Nine Inch Nails or Ministry's "Jesus Built My Hotrod" to that point. (I'll add that to this day, I'm a big fan of the Dillinger Escape Plan cover with Mike Patton on vocals, which one could argue might even be a better version of the song; at the minimum it provokes an equally sinister feeling to the original.)
What's more with this, whether I'm thinking of "Come to Daddy" or "Windowlicker," is that they both helped introduce me to Aphex Twin, who has since become one of my favorite musicians. The double-album Drugks later followed (by way of mail-order via Columbia House... or BMG, I forget), which I tried my best to make sense of as a college freshman. These videos also guided me backwards into the albums and EPs that preceded them. File-sharing was the avenue that allowed further exploration at the time, but once I gained access to more music I became blown away by the otherworldly range of sounds that came from this one single mind. How could the same person who "irrevocably" reshaped the face of ambient electronic music create this just a few years later? What an absolute genius.
[This article is part of Best of the Best - an ongoing series reflecting on and ranking my favorite music and movies.]
David Cronenberg's eXistenZ stands as my earliest memory of a distinct brand of cinema: body horror. I don't even know if it's right to classify eXistenZ as "body horror," as much as just "Cronenbergian." Like, certainly, injecting a weird little gaming device into an oozing, infected physical port installed and located on a human's body isn't not-not body horror, but to me that's just Cronenberg being Cronenberg. If I'm looking at something like Wikipedia's definition of the phrase though, which refers to it as "a subgenre of horror fiction that intentionally showcases grotesque or psychologically disturbing violations of the human body or of another creature," the description certainly aligns with parts of eXistenZ; parts of eXistenZ and much of The Substance.
The Substance is a body horror film through and through, but not merely in its use of absurd, maximalist on-screen mutation and disfiguration, but also in the "grotesque" manner which it characterizes the ideas of a "better" self, beauty, and self-actualization. In those ways, however, it might be as much an existential horror film as it is a body horror one.
The performances throughout are brilliant, but what continues to rattle my saber after watching it isn't the disturbing nature of any of the on-screen images, as much as the messaging behind them. The film focuses on toxic beauty standards and aging, but also the proliferation of a certain brand of unquenchable insufficiency. In the case of the film, this feeling characterizes the state of Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore), who - through aging out of her peak years as a fitness model - is introduced to a means by which she might course correct; a means to a "better self" - The Substance.
Elisabeth is provided a vial containing a liquid of mysterious origin which is claimed to cure her of her predicament. In reality, it doesn't revitalize her skin, cure wrinkles, or erase age spots, however. Instead it uses her body to generate a new self, a younger self, her ideal self - Sue (Margaret Qualley). I suppose if you haven't seen this and are following along here, whatever I'm writing probably doesn't quite add up... more specifically, The Substance separates Elisabeth into two people, distinct consciousnesses who are to share the act of actually being conscious. They are to each exist, seven days on, seven days off. When Elisabeth is awake, she is in charge. When Sue is awake, she is in charge. They should not be awake at the same time, however, and must never forget they are not two separate people, but are one. Always remember, you are one.
In time, Sue's dominant abuse of her time creeps the two halves out of compliance with The Substance's guidelines, resulting in rising levels of conflict between the two halves: One which feels the other is holding them back and one which feels they aren't being respected as part of the whole. I was listening to a podcast recently which referenced this split as an analogy for addiction, particularly mentioning a scene in which Elisabeth binges on food, which then impacts Sue's body the next day in a rather body horror-y way. This visually depicts the consequences of one state of mind influencing another, but I don't think the scene reflects addiction, necessarily, as much as themes of self-rejection. Sabotage is often borne of guilt and shame and jealousy, and when caught in a trap of such feelings, sometimes the best way to escape is to do damage to the source. Feeling better isn't the point so much as feeling different is. Any consequences are for future me to deal with.
This got me thinking more about how we're nurtured to manufacture such a level of crisis in our own lives, a perpetual cycle of insufficiency. Think about how many people approach New Year's traditions, for example, segmenting themselves off by way of calendar turnover; shunning the old in favor of the new. Come January 1, our Sues are permitted control, weaponizing resentment against the old self for all such sins which stand misaligned with this new vision for a "better" self. I know in my past this has shown up as a new gym regiment or diet - all actions, intentions, and motivations installed to rid oneself of one's lesser self, in some way. A byproduct of the split between the old and the new is typically guilt, anger, and shame though, if the actions of these two selves fail to work harmoniously in support of this new way of living. It's funny that the same desperation which inspires the moonshot attempt at turning over a new page is rarely implemented with regard to nurturing a sense of self-compassion, grace, and understanding. What a difference we might see if such traits were valued more highly than a firm ass or bulging biceps?
In Elisabeth and Sue's case, this escalates into a wild scene of self-violence, culminating in a deformed and grotesque final state being unveiled to an audience of disgusted onlookers. This, to me, was (director/writer/producer) Coralie Fargeat bringing about Frankenstein in the most Cronenbergian of ways, begging a question of whether the hyper-gore witnessed on screen was any more or less disturbing than the emotional chaos which fueled it. What bothers me isn't on the screen but within myself. When Sue is revealed, she is presented in a comically hyper-sexualized manner, representing a reprehensible level of empty vanity, but it's not like I was thinking to myself "No, please stop. Don't show any more of this garbage!" A part of me remains hooked by the surface level appeal of it all. While I can intellectually demonize Sue, on some level I've also bought into Sue's value and the rejection of Elisabeth. A part of me says she is better while another part is disgusted by the admission. The same sort of conflict appears in my own life, as I grapple with my own aging. Some days I reject what I see in the mirror while others I don't. If my memory is correct, eXistenZ focused on the expansion of the self into the digital space, a separation between the life and the lifeform. The Substance, however, asks what to do when both halves of the self are fundamentally incompatible, and what's to make of the paradox of living through such a scenario. That's the true horror of it all.
The past couple weeks I've been returning to bits and pieces of the new compilation Aphex Twin released called Music From the Merch Desk (2016-2023). Largely as Aphex Twin, though also from a smattering of aliases ranging from AFX to Polygon Window, Richard D. James has become of my favorite artists, and certainly one of my most listened to, so a new bucket of music like this is a welcomed gift. Aside from bouncing around within this new 38-track collection, however, I found myself inspired me to trace when and where I was first introduced to his music. It has to have been one of the Chris Cunningham-directed music videos, be it for "Come to Daddy" or "Windowlicker." It's weird to think about a teenage me latching onto these videos, not merely for their subversive visuals but for their otherworldly sounds. Weirder yet, how that person became this person.
A while back I remember seeing a video from writer Jason Pargin spelling out a reason fans (and creators) of horror are drawn to it, particularly the most extreme of its sub-genres. The concept of escapism in this arena, he says, serves as a means of wish fulfillment. He doesn't mean that people who watch or create horror want to commit crimes or see horrific images in real life, but that we wish the nature of terror wasn't as banal as it is, fueled by people who look and act so normal that they can get away with it for decades. We want our horror to be the sort of monsters and demons, not of what it is in reality. The Substance is as heavy as it is for me because of how the nature of horror is expressed through self-rejection; it's too close to reality to feel like fantasy. Aphex Twin's music, on the other hand, doesn't take on a feeling of horror (though those two videos mentioned fit the bill), but it does serve as escapism. There's nothing natural about it and its artificiality is what might be what finds me regularly returning to it. Some days the last thing I want is more reality.
I’ve been on a Nardwuar kick of late and after watching his recent Andre 3000 and Chappell Roan interviews, ended up digging back into a few memories from his past work. In particular, I revisited a 2011 TEDx talk he gave, which found him adding some context to his role as interviewer and TV personality. The part that stood out to me was about an awkward run-in with a Canadian politician and a remark made to him from security at the event, “... And immediately I thought of the Latin term — and I’m not sure if I pronounced this right or not — 'voluntary non fit injuria'. Which basically means if you go to a punk rock gig where people are slam dancing, you might get hit.” In context, he was talking about the risks inherent to his style of journalism, which he's come to accept as a fundamental aspect of stepping into such an arena. It got me thinking a little more about all the areas of life I unwittingly overlook the consequences of my own actions, but also some of the little victories that are easy to overlook. If you're not much for large crowds, even mustering the nerve to go to the punk rock show and stand among a room full of strangers can be a hell of a victory.
The role Nardwuar maintains isn’t one he developed overnight, nor is it something I’m sure he was immediately comfortable with, himself, but it’s one that absolutely works. Thinking back to all the ways in which he took a beating along the way (for every Snoop Dogg there was a Henry Rollins) and how all those awkward embarrassing moments might have otherwise added up, it's kind of a wonder he survived the decades it took him to become an overnight success. In many ways though, those challenging moments are critical to the broader acceptance of his creative vision; the failures along the way are what helped Nardwuar as much as anything.
Recently in conversation with The Creative Independent’s J. Bennett, Kim Deal (you know, of the Pixies & the Breeders – that Kim Deal) talked about her perception of “failure” as a driving theme on her new album, Nobody Loves You More. “To me,” she said, “failure reads as: At least you fucking tried it, even if you got fucking beat up because you were in the fight to try something. There’s something really sweet and endearing about somebody who got their ass kicked.” Surely there’s a relationship between success and any outgrowth of “personal character” which might result from one’s failures, but that sort of “success” is the sort usually best understood long after the fact. “I can look at all the little failures of my life,” Deal continued, “but that’s not what I think about. I read it as, ‘Oh, you look so cool all beat up.’”
A couple months ago I was wondering aloud about the process laid out by the band Japandroids with their final album. I haven’t gone back to see if this changed, but at that time they were really just done with it all: The album was recorded, released, and relinquished – set free to signal the band’s conclusion. And once that was done they were done. This got me thinking, “When creating a work, does the creator then owe it to that piece – even if only as a sign of respect – to market it to one’s fullest capabilities? Like, as a creator, in promoting a work you’re honoring that effort and that creation by putting it in front of as big an audience as you can, maybe?”
"Without promotion, something terrible happens... Nothing." -P. T. Barnum
Above any of those other Nardwuar interviews mentioned earlier, I'd recommend watching this video with Doechii. (I also suggest her Tiny Desk and Late Show performances.) I'm late to the Doechii bandwagon, but am I ever into her album Alligator Bites Never Heal now that I've heard it. The release showcases a wild range of sounds and styles, but the track that's been on repeat for me is "NISSAN ALTIMA." Not only does the Childish Major beat provide a foundation for Doechii's precision laden flow, but its pace accentuates her rapid-fire delivery revolving around sexually explicit lyrics aimed squarely at leveling out objectification by creating a counterbalance to the historically patriarchal genre's long history of misogyny. With the release, the MC and singer has proclaimed herself on a quest to become The Best, and it's tracks like this one that would put her in that sort of conversation, in my opinion. That said, that sort of thing almost feels counterintuitive to her abilities. Like, why even put yourself into a conversation that includes others when on any given day you're actually one of the few people in contention to be labelled the best at what you do?
Success isn't really a binary thing, right? Rarely does it always mean the same thing for the same person all the time in every context, and I think this is particularly true when considering success surrounding a creative pursuit. As Kim Deal continued in that conversation, she talked about the intention of and inspiration behind the cover art for her album, which reveals itself to bear a sense of reconciliation with failure. By her explanation, it represents “a doomed voyage,” picturing the musician cast adrift, accompanied by a flamingo, an amp, her guitar, and a vision; even if she never reaches her desired destination, at least she fucking tried.
