August in Review | Songs of the Week 08/25/2023

It's been a while, hasn't it? This Songs of the Month schedule has been a real learning experience—it’s freed up time, yes, but time I’ve spent more worrying about writing than actually writing. I’ve been mastering the art of kicking myself in the ass and getting things done, but as of now, I am only an apprentice, so cut me some slack. There are a few upcoming dream stories I have in the chamber, and I have a feeling I’ll be doing weekly songs more often (more on that later). For now, though, I have like, what, twenty songs to talk about? Okay, get comfy. Here we go.

August's Highlights

Swipe to see this month's songs!

There's a bit of a pattern here, isn't there? One thing that's been interesting about this process of focusing on monthly highlights has been realizing that though I recommend a pretty broad selection of artists, there's only a few I want to talk about extensively. And boy, I mean extensively. Open the floodgates, because I've been holding this in all August. Okay, that’s gross. No kidney infection, but I have to let it out.

EVICTED | Wilco Boy, I don't know guys... after coming down from another play-through of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, I'm getting nervous about Cousin...

Okay, let me reel it back in so we can start at the very beginning—I'm talking pre-pandemic, pre-Cruel Country, which was itself a hard-sell album for me. As I excessively detailed in my Songs of the Year for 2022, Cruel Country, Wilco's anti-country album, had a lot going against it in my book—aside from fully embracing the twang that inhabits my least favorite of Wilco's work (but is undeniably in their DNA), this album supposedly took the place of a slated art-pop album that the band shelved after the pandemic hit. Of course, like all of Wilco’s work, Cruel Country won me over with its subtly ornate soundscape, intricate lyricism, and some incredible live performances, but it’s still just a little soured for me for cutting that art-pop record in line. Can you blame me? Some of Wilco's best comes from art-pop or rock records, depending on what you think counts as "art" or "pop" or "rock" in the first place. This, I think, may have been my first mistake—not defining my terms. To be fair, I'd call a pretty broad selection of Wilco's discography art (or experimental)-music, but within that lies a spectrum—some albums, like Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, are emotional tour-de-forces with inventive and scatterbrained soundscapes; others, like Star Wars, aren't quite as emotionally flooring, but make up for it with their gleefully bizarre artistic choices. When it came to this ghost art-pop album, I was expecting something in-between—I'd always be disappointed if I thought every upcoming album would be Yankee Hotel Foxtrot 2, but after the corruption of an ongoing pandemic, I figured there might be more emotional range than the upbeat fun of Star Wars. In other words, I think I was expecting something akin to The Whole Love—as close to an art-pop album as I think Wilco has yet come, with both fun bubblegum and more contemplative experimentation. I guess I should be thankful that Wilco is still surprising me, though, because the first single from said art-pop album—Cousin—has released, and it's... none of these things at all.

You all know I'm far from a hater when it comes to even Wilco's worst—there's not a bad song in their catalogue, but a whole lot of it sounds just like this. There's no directional or aesthetic shift to "Evicted," even on repeat listens—to me, this could have come from any of their past three albums, especially Ode to Joy and Schmilco. To be fair, all of these albums are good—good enough that I listen to all three in full when I remember them, which is more than I can say for the majority of albums—but for as much as I'd defend them from the "wet rag" allegations, I'll admit they feel less like separate statements and more like slight deviations. As with the confused reception of Cruel Country, the relative predictability of "Evicted" has many fans asking, "I thought you said this would be art-pop." Well, that's not really a question, but maybe we should let frontman Jeff Tweedy explain himself, as he did recently on Starship Casual:

"I think it’s a pop record. Art-pop to be more specific. Not 'pop' as in 'pop'-ular. That’s not really up to us. [...] To me, pop music will always be the genre that people used to also refer to as “Bubblegum.” It’s sweet and seemingly meant for mindless consumption, but has a Trojan Horse-like power to transform minds and hearts."

Through this lens, "Evicted" starts to make slightly more sense—it's a light, bouncy, and occasionally glittery concoction with some fantastically self-effacing lyrics hiding beneath the surface (the satirical sort that always make me embarrassed of my own negative self esteem. Which is good, right? I mean, or is it?). There's a lot to like when you dissect the song, and a lot to like when you stitch it all back together, but in sum, I'm not sure it amounts to the love I was hoping to feel for this record. Then again, like most mature musicians, the work of Wilco can be incredibly convincing on second and third listens, so I'm sure I'll find something to love. With my expectations tempered, I can see Cousins turning out to be more unique than "Evicted" might suggest—if I'd heard "Kamera" off of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot first, I'd be missing so much more, after all. Plus, I really love the album cover, and the accompanying aesthetic Tweedy describes:

"This particular pop album, being largely recorded during said Chicago winter, adds a layer of frozen, sugary ice. Not cold, unfeeling ice. Pretty ice, so everything can slip around a bit and feel a little unsure of itself—a little less serious. [...] Like when I was a kid I used to think some candy was too pretty to eat. But I did anyway."

I don't know, I trust Wilco—I certainly owe them that much.

Pairs Well With: "Kamera" (Wilco), "Unchain Your Heart" (Silver Synthetic), "Wanna Feel It" (The Olms)

ANYTHING | Adrianne Lenker Crying because of Adrianne Lenker again, what's new with you? Trust me, I feel as much like a broken record as I sound, because it's been almost exactly a year since my lovely girlfriend first sent this song my way, and somehow, it found its way back into focus after months of forgetting it existed. Back then, I was in a pretty bad place mentally and felt trapped where I was physically, which sounds like a recipe for disaster with a live Adrianne Lenker grenade tossed into the middle. Even so, I listened to "Anything" and several other tracks from her solo album songs (we get it, you hipster) while making eggs every morning, not so much overcome by their emotions but soothed by their relative tranquility. Only with distance have I realized what a subtly powerful song "Anything" is—a hazy, heavy trickle of tainted memories and a desperate refusal to let go of the relationship strung between them.

I've thought a lot recently about how poetry is almost an essential ingredient for modern music when one isn't necessary for the other's survival. When I'm really stretching for something abstract and distant to worry about, imagine we are seeing the assimilation of one art form into another as an attempt for both to survive—sort of an endosymbiosis, like mitochondria and bacteria becoming eukaryotic cells—that might eventually co-evolve to a point where one cannot survive without the other. There are so many poets who aren't musicians and musicians who aren't poets making music with lyrics all the same, and I can't help but wonder if they only do so because it's the only way they know how—or if it's the only way they might find an audience that their isolated music or poetry wouldn't. No matter what happens in that department, Adrianne Lenker is one of those rare people whose poetry and music enhance each other rather than one propping the other up. "Anything" is a great example, carried by its tender guitar and deepened by its well-crafted words. Like, okay, check out the first lines of the song: "Staring down the barrel of the hot sun / shining with the sheen of a shotgun." Whaaaat? Isn't that crazy how she splits up the phrase "staring down the barrel of a shotgun" so that it's diluted, but baked into the otherwise serene beach scene being described? Isn't that, like, exactly how emotional tension intermingles with memories? This may be the best example, but every memory described here is delivered as fragmentary snippets of arguments within holidays; accidents veiled by happiness. One of the more beautifully imagistic stanzas, "Weren't we the stars in Heaven / Weren't we the salt in the sea / Dragging the newborn mountain / Didn't you believe in me?" was even garbled into Big Thief's subsequent album, "Dragon New Warm Mountain, I Believe In You," which was super fun to find. All of this subtlety makes the starkly straightforward chorus hit even harder:

"And I don't wanna talk about anything / I don't wanna talk about anything / I wanna kiss, kiss your eyes again / Wanna witness your eyes looking

I don't wanna talk about anyone / I don't wanna talk about anyone / Wanna sleep in your car while you're driving / Lay in your lap when I'm crying"

It's all so cathartic, so human, and even if it sounds like doomed desperation, something feels very romantic about it. This Steve Fisher cover, filmed by Lenker herself, may capture this candid rawness even more solidly—there's a reason so many try to artificially recreate the aesthetic organically on display here, with Fisher's unsteady voice, Lenker's whispered harmonies, and the grainy quality captured on an outdated camera. As overdramatic as it may sound, "Anything" and renditions like this epitomize what folk music should be—a reminder that, when all of our complex expressions and culture are stripped away, we're just small primates with big feelings finding beauty despite our limits.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/R6YRAUKczyw?si=HAVrLRBYnq1p_cEh

Pairs Well With: "Half Return" (Adrianne Lenker), "Jonathan" (Adrianne Lenker & Buck Meek), "The Book of Love" (The Magnetic Fields)

COCONUT | Harry Nilsson So, um, on the exact opposite end of the spectrum... you guys, I really hate admitting this, but I slept with a toad under my pillow and am now cursed to totally 180 on Harry Nilsson's "Coconut." Schmilsson really is a slippery slope—one second, you're justifying liking "Gotta Get Up" even though it shares an album with "Coconut," the next, you're justifying liking "Coconut" even though it's "Coconut." Seriously, I've caught myself finding excuses for why the horrible Jamaican accent in this song isn't all that bad, and I have to slap myself across the face to snap out of it. This song is offensive to my ears and my ancestry—why is it so good?!

No matter what you think of "Coconut," you have to admit it's a shocker that this, verifiably Nilsson's weirdest work, is also by far his most culturally significant. My first memory of this song was sung—sung not by Nilsson's recording, mind you, but some face in the crowd I can't even put a name to. Granted, Nilsson was far more prolific than I'd ever known, as I keep turning over stones and finding his work where I'd least expect it, but like... everything about this song screams "obscure b-side from the wrong side of the tracks." I should be afraid of anyone who knows these lyrics by heart, and maybe I still am, but it's far more pervasive than I'd ever thought possible, and that sort of gives me hope. Clearly, the masses were seeing something that I wasn’t, but for once, I think that's a good thing.

Even now, though, I there's a disconnect—I've heard this song described as goofy, and though I wouldn't say it's not goofy, I find it far more spooky. By nature of "Coconut" being a nonsense song (à la Jim Noir's "Car," a song you're far more likely to know), both its impossibly-looping lyrics and its discordant riff are almost repetitive to an incessant degree. Listening to this drunken story over lobby music gone sour makes "Coconut" feel like a humid dmv with yellowing walls, and somehow, I mean that in a good way. It's a masterfully unpleasant piece of music from the start, hot and irritating like fruit flies and overflowing trash, but the real fun for me comes when Nilsson's narrator starts to truly unhinge. As harmonies layer, vocals echo out of synch, and Nilsson's delivery gets more insistent, it sounds as though the song is entering an episode. By the time the percussion starts jangling and Nilsson is practically wailing for a doctor, I can't help but smile at how freaky the whole thing is—not some rasta pastiche, but a genuinely disconcerting freakout.

Pairs Well With: "Car" (Jim Noir), "Your Lips Are Red" (St. Vincent), "I Put A Spell On You" (Screamin' Jay Hawkins) [Reviewed 02/10/2023]

BIG IN THE WORLD / PLAYING FOR TIME | Shakey Graves Okay, I'm cheating again, but I couldn't decide which of the new Shakey songs I wanted to talk about, especially since my sister already reviewed "Big in the World" on her blog (check out her still-weekly songs here), but I'd be doing one a disservice if I only talked about the other. Like, did you guys ever feel bad for the other DVDs in the box set if you only ever picked one to watch, or am I just that emotionally intelligent? Anyways, Movie of the Week is shaping up to be a fantastic album, and everyone's excited about it—even the pretentious fans who are acting like they aren't upset Shakey has a different style these days. I would never be upset about that, though—never, not even if Wilco did it.

More than any of the singles so far, "Big in the World" feels to me like it fits the premise of Movie of the Week, the soundtrack to a movie that doesn't exist (maybe except for "Ready or Not," though that feels like it's from a wildly different fake movie). Despite being so musically malleable, Shakey's story, like his style, can't keep away from a few key signatures—life is short and precious, so take a chance and roll the bones, and some of us were built to roam, and big city college is a waste of time, and you can buy him a collar and tell him to stay but someone's gonna love the Wolfman one day... I wouldn't be surprised if Alejandro Rose-Garcia is a libertarian, just disappointed. Just kidding. I love you, Mr. Graves. In all seriousness, it's this cultivated (but still soulful) philosophical standpoint that makes his Shakey Graves persona such a charismatic character—a wild-west, train-hopping, vagabond with a fiddle (or, say, a MacGyvered suitcase kick-drum) who could absolutely carry a movie or five. These traits are so ripe for storytelling because there's already a story implicit in their existence—having such a sturdy sense of self in a world that tries to force you to be someone else is an archetypal conflict, and "Big in the World" follows this conflict to its natural next step. The music video sort of says it all, following a frustrated food photographer whose meticulous attempts to curate his subjects makes them both inedible and sometimes even less appealing. See for yourself:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/D1HZoxzK0Rg?si=LbpVlVwM0K-q_2Sk

While I really quite like the food photographer metaphor, the whole "rock star torn apart by the cost of fame" thing immediately made me think of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. Well, not immediately—at first, I wasn't sure why, but I knew on my first listen that this song could've been a 70's Bowie b-side, and serendipitously, the themes fell into place. Now, I wouldn't want to be out here spreading misinformation on the internet, but if you're willing to indulge in the word of a YouTube commenter, I was giddy to discover that @worthbaker2994's experience at a recent Shakey Graves show actually validates this. Supposedly, before playing the song, Shakey told a story about how he dreamt about a David Bowie song that, when he woke up, didn't actually exist, and he scrambled to write it down as fast as possible, which gave us "Big in the World." In semi-Shakey Graves spirit, this is the truth I choose to believe—I'm a sucker for these kinds of stories, as with one of my favorite classical pieces ever, Tartini's "The Devil's Trill Sonata," because the music feels somehow more sacred, like it was sourced fully from a place awake artists can only ever dip their toes into. Dream-Bowie or not, this song has both his spirit and Shakey's in spades, and you know I'm a sucker for both.

"Big in the World" Pairs Well With: "Lady Stardust" (David Bowie), "Everybody's Talkin' [1971 Mix]" (Harry Nilsson), "In the Meantime" (Spacehog)

Musically, however, "Playing Along" is my favorite of these two. Though I may have less to say about it thematically, I think it's a blast, even if Shakey slips in "JK LOL" into the lyrics (I'll let this one slide, Rose-Garcia). Lyrically, it does return to his core "wild man stuck in a tame world" concepts, but with a far more uneasy feeling akin to a sinister favorite of mine, "The Recipe." It may be a slow burn, but I can hardly describe even the intro as slow—it's a sparkling, slithering setup that keeps me entranced until the tempo picks up. From there, it's all of the Shakey Graves hallmarks I love—harmonizing with himself doing very high and very low voices out of synch (goblin man) and an almost funky jam that I had the pleasure of seeing live without even knowing it at the time. Though it may not have as punchy of a message as "Big in the World," this song is such a blast to listen to, and is really ripe for a good needle-drop as well.

"Playing Along" Pairs Well With: "The Recipe" (Shakey Graves), "Lovesick" (Lisa Germano), "Sister Midnight" (Iggy Pop)

SON OF NYX | HozierI'm far from the most qualified Hozier meteorologist, but truly, the last thing I expected from his new album Unreal Unearth was to be choked up to an instrumental that sounds like the river Lethe (that's not self promotion, but this sure is). Sure, the guy deals in expressing himself through the high drama of mythology, that's his whole thing, but for whatever reason, I don't always dial in to the emotionality of his music—even when the words are spectacular. So, to be moved to near-tears by a Hozier instrumental... you can see why I was blindsided here, right?

In context, "Son of Nyx" functions less as an intro but an interlude (though I'd still say this would be badass to open with at a show, just as the lights dim), sampling some songs that have passed and some to come in these ghostly, hissing flashes across the somber melody. To me, this piece's backbone—a haunting piano, probably an antique—sounds like plodding, tired oars across a grey, lazy river as figures pass through the fog. This made sense in my made-up context, because at first, my girlfriend and I thought "Nyx" was in refrences to the Nixies (or Nix) of germanic folklore, which is a mermaid-like spirit of the river. After some research, I realized this Nyx is, in fact, the Greek goddess of night. In a way, though, we weren't so off-base, because the son of Nyx is Charon: the ferryman who guides the dead to the underworld across the river Styx. So, I mean, wrong river, wrong spirit, but who's counting? As bad as that Lightining Thief movie was, one image that has always stuck with me from childhood was the river of lost possessions, hopes, and dreams that snakes through the underworld, which instantly came back to me with the whispers of previous tracks here. No matter how your brain visualizes this mournful soundscape, it's the sort of despair that captures exactly what a breakup album should. "Son of Nyx,” in some ways, sounds worse than death—it sounds like grief, like tainted memories and fading worlds, too. It would be the perfect opening track to an apocalypse movie, and I never thought I'd say this, but it reminds me a lot of Nine Inch Nails's remix of "The Frail" for Things Falling Apart. I have yet to listen to Unreal Unearth in full, but here's to more surprises from Hozier—I'm all ears.

Pairs Well With: "DVD Menu" (Phoebe Bridgers), "The Frail (remix)" (Nine Inch Nails) [Reviewed 04/28/2023], and for an extra shocking transition, "Special Cases" (Massive Attack)

Two-Sentence Mentions

...because you all liked the One-Sentence Mentions so much last month, I thought to myself, "what's better than one sentence?"

In all seriousness, this list before you is probably why I'm going to move away from this monthly review schedule—so many of these songs are just too good to constrain to one sentence (or even a scandalous two), and I'm doing both themselves and myself a disservice by skimming over them. Lord knows I do my best to cram a thesaurus into every sentence I write (hence my disgustingly-overworked posse of commas, m-dashes, and parentheticals, to the horror of union leaders and high school english teachers alike), but at a certain point, we're all just missing out on enjoying cool music, right? Plus, song pairings are too time-consuming to do for all of these, but some pairings just come naturally, but then mentioning them in context only takes up sentence space? I don't know, man. Me when I have to write under the restrictions I specifically put into place to make writing easier:

SPUD INFINITY | Big Thief Okay, horribly misrepresented by a sentence limit, exhibit A. Wait, that one doesn't count. Shit, that one doesn't count either. Shit! Okay, let me start over.

"Spud Infinity" has become one of my favorite-ever Big Thief songs; a goofy, transcendental track that has no right, and therefore every right, to be as profound as it is. With its jangly twang and fiddle backing a laundry list of lyrics along the lines of "When I say celestial / I mean extra-terrestrial / I mean accepting the alien you've rejected in your own heart," "Spud Infinity" almost sounds like a sillier take of Dan Deacon's "When I was Done Dying" [Reviewed 3/31/2023]—a take that can only be done justice followed by the hardest jaw harp solo you'll ever have the pleasure of hearing.

MARY | Supergrass So, I think we've previously discussed that Supergrass can do no wrong, but believe it or not, that's something I'm still coming to terms with. Though "Mary" may not match the feverish, muppety enthusiasm of Supergrass's usual cotton-candy-and-cocaine rock, I've recently learned to appreciate the slower (yet still off-kilter) pace of this song and its strange vocals.

PRIVATE LIFE | Oingo BoingoAnother spooky, sharp, and sardonic song from Oingo Boingo, fantastic down to its A+ delivery of the word "night" at 1:27. Boy, this Danny Elfman guy sure seems precocious and observant of the human condition... I don't know, it's just nice and refreshing to find an '80s icon who wouldn't masturbate in front of a female coworker multiple times and then fail to pay the settlement for said sexual harassment charges, you know?

INTERLUDE / ORLANDO | Leith Ross Speaking of chilling instrumentals on pop albums, while these two tracks sit inseparably back-to-back on Ross's new album "To Learn," I'm (as usual) far more fascinated with the instrumental itself than the hit song that follows it. "Interlude" is such a beautiful, bleeding watercolor of on-and-off harmonies that puts a lump in my throat like TV on the Radio's "Staring at the Sun" or Ed Harcourt's "Here Be Monsters" [Reviewed 01/27/2023].

MOTOSAKA | Co-Pilot Unsurprisingly, Alan Roberts (AKA Jim Noir) and Leonora Wheatley's collaboration as Co-Pilot has been a technicolor blast, and just when singles "Swim to Sweden" and "Move to It" [Reviewed 07/28/2023] seemed unbeatable, blossoming tracks like "Motosaka" made their debut album Rotate a gift that kept on giving. A lot of reviewers have painted Rotate in all sorts of space-based adjectives, and while few songs ever truly sound alien or even futuristic to me, "Motosaka" has such a neon sound that I can't help but call it sci-fi—maybe a little Cowboy Bebop "Papa Plastic?" Breaking my rule to say, as usual, support Co-Pilot on Bandcamp.

ALONE IN KYOTO | Air Alright, that's enough scary instrumentals. Have a nice one.

PROTECTION | Massive Attack I have to say, it's a huge shame that I hadn't started writing Songs of the Week during my massive Massive Attack attack during the pandemic—Mezzanine and Heligoland are both amongst my all-time favorite albums, and once I've given them both a long t-break, you all will be hearing much more about them. Next to such masterful, musical giants, I wasn't sure I understood the huge hype for a simpler song like "Protection," but after many listens, its eerie but soothing sound has really grown on me (though I'm still disappointed that, unlike the live version, this one doesn't sample Young-Holt Unlimited's cover of "Light my Fire" à la "A Roller Skating Jam Named 'Saturdays'").

GONNA GET TOGETHER | LeroyHey. Whatcha tryin' to say to me?

MULTIPLY | Dora Jar As much as lyrics like "feeling naughty / with a dash of spice" normally make me want to step into oncoming traffic, Dora Jar's (get it?) unique and talented vocals combined with a super interesting riff make this bedroom pop song undeniable for me. My girlfriend (who sent this my way) and I have been trying (and one of us failing) to hit some of the notes in this song, so for now, you win, Dora.

THE SHUFFLE MAN | Robyn Hitchcock For whatever idiotic reason, I've never been much of a Robyn Hitchcock guy, but I've been reconsidering my stance after my mom sent me his truly bizarre new album Shufflemania! (you can take or leave the exclamation point, but I'm taking it). I'm a sucker for gaudy album covers, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion levels of self-promotion, Russian Blue cats, and dubiously trustworthy characters referred to as _____-Man (especially if that blank word is Bubble), and "The Shuffle Man" has them all—goddamnit, it's exactly as beautiful as it sounds.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/TpIJozC8f1Y?si=fX1qSNEosd2iVKbm

SPIDER-WOMAN (GWEN STACY) | Daniel Pemberton If it wasn't for these damn color schemes (mewhenIhavetowriteundertherestrictionsIspecificallyputintoplacetomakewritingeasier), I'd have talked about Across the Spiderverse's inspired soundtrack so much more, so if I had to pick a favorite, Spider-Gwen's stunning theme just barely scrambles to the top. Boldly scrapping Gwen's generic punk leitmotif from the first movie, Daniel Pemberton whipped up one of the most magical superhero themes I've heard in years, capturing a breathless and weightless agility I haven't felt since pretending to be Robin at elementary recess.

GOD BLESS | Lamb My toxic trait (as if there's one) is that I'm constantly wanting to find trip-hop like Massive Attack's, but Massive Attack's trip-hop is so masterful that I'm even skeptical of other trip-hop classics like Tricky and Portishead. That puts Lamb in a pretty bad position, but after hearing the fluttering synths, upright bass, and tight beat of "God Bless," I'm pretty much sold—this one's an eerie earworm I'm actually glad Apple Music recommended.

MUSIC FOR BOYS | The Suburbs And look, I'm no Apple Music recommendations guy, but sometimes something catches my ear—okay, usually it's an eerie earworm, but that can mean a lot of things, right? In this case, it's a sketchy sample that I can't seem to locate advertising some smelly youth camp backed by droning, nervous vocals and an almost ska jam somewhere between Madness's "One Step Beyond" and Les Claypool & The Holy Mackerel's "Highball with the Devil..." also a little bit of Spoon's "Carryout Kids," and Half Japanese's "The Answer Is Yes", I can't turn my pairing brain off.

GHOUL POWER | Menace Beach One of my first (and favorite) recommendations from the now-defunct A Song A Day, Menace Beach's crunchy, punchy punk song sporting a plastic monster finger puppet on the album cover is exactly what you'd expect from a song called "Ghoul Power," so all of my ghoul-haters, get out of here before things get ugly.

Art(s) of the Week(s)

FROZEN FLOWERS | Azuma Makoto Used for the cover of Wilco's upcoming Cousins, this seems like an excellent visualization of this album's tone.

[?] | [?] Unfortunately, I can't find any attributions for this piece I saw at the Kirkland museum way back in 2020. If anyone can find who painted this wonderfully eerie fairy dance, please let me know so I can give proper credit.

STYLITE ALTARPIECE | Eden Seifu I saw this one at the Frye museum in Seattle and immediately knew I had to share it one of these days. People so often say that raw art comes from simplicity, but this piece is as loud as they come and still hit me.

D.O.A.XL 2012 | Daniel Richter While I saw a different Richter piece at the Denver Art Museum's "Disruption" exhibit, I was really taken by the action in this particular painting, which almost accentuates the faceless heat-vision paranoia of Richter's other work. Also, the single hand pointing is pretty scary, man. Good stuff.