Caitlin Wolper is a Brooklyn-based journalist and poet whose work examines culture, music, identity and more. She's written articles for the New York Times, Rolling Stone, Vulture and others, and her poetry chapbook, Ordering Coffee in Tel Aviv, is out now via Finishing Line Press. She gets very excited about music, line breaks, and memes on Twitter at @CaitlinWolper.
Up until now, Michelle Zauner's albums as Japanese Breakfast were mired in grief. It's more than understandable: They were written in the wake of her mother's death. But while Psychopomp (2016) and Soft Sounds from Another Planet (2017) mourned her mother's cancer and passing—both depicted in harrowing detail in Zauner's new memoir, Crying in H Mart, where she also reckons…
Matt Berninger is a self-proclaimed optimist—which, given his songs, might come as a surprise. Best known as a vocalist and songwriter for GRAMMY-winning indie-rock standard bearers the National, Berninger’s lyrics are often mired in reptilian fantasy or drunken exploration; there’s a flickering television or a stiff drink, a miscommunication or a revelation. Similar malaise follows in his side projects, from the…
An announcement cuts through barroom chatter. In Spanish, a woman welcomes the crowd warmly, preparing them for the song ahead—at the end of a hallway, they’ll open the door of forgotten memory. If you don’t speak Spanish, you’ll still catch when she names the composition’s theme: "Your most vivid nightmares." From there, "Pageturner’s Rag" dissolves into a ragtime overlapped with conversations;…
