postcards from anferny

Musings from a word nerd.

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It's a wonderful ad.

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If your annual holiday tradition involves wasting much of your life watching wonderfully terrible Christmas movies, this Bingo card is for you.

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Ina’s still not letting up for the holidays.

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Ina’s back with tips to make your Thanksgiving go as smoothly as possible, even if it makes others uncomfortable.

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A. A. Milne’s “The Hours.”

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Best of 2017: 90 Songs You Need To Hear

It feels cliché to talk about 2017 as the monstrous entity that it was. Mostly because we all know it. That’s all we talked about all year. (And anyone who doesn’t see it as a series of obstacles probably has a very different opinion on what makes America and humanity great.) 

Luckily the music was good. Very good. Some of it was a reaction to 2017, but a lot of it wasn’t. It was just great art that dealt with politics on the personal level. Discussing love, loss, anger, gender, race, technology, fun nights, and oppression weren’t inventions of 2017--and some of these issues have been bubbling for long enough that the explosion was going to happen regardless. So there’s not much else for me to say that these great creators haven’t already done. 

My initial hope of doing 30 great tracks stretched and stretched...and so now we have 90 tracks. The first 5 are the ones tattooed on my heart. The next 25 are just so damn good I wanted to make sure you heard them. And the remaining are in alphabetical order just for the sake of ease. Below is the embedded spotify playlist too. 

1. Just Dancing – Sylvan Esso

The beginning of a relationship is the most visceral part because you have the rush of “firsts” with a person. “Just Dancing” looks at the reality of hopping from person to person (via dating apps) just to keep yourself in a constant state of early love euphoria. It’s a simple concept laid over a building dance track that is as exciting as it is rueful.

2. This Country – Fever Ray Who knew the protest song we all needed in 2017 would come from a Swede exploring her sexuality? Whether she’s talking about her native land or the U.S. or the world at large, Fever Ray (aka Karin Dreijer) lets a creepy synth trickle beneath her haunting voice until she exclaims “Free abortions! And clean water! Destroy nuclear! Destroy boring!” Leading to an unexpectedly cathartic “This country makes it hard to fuck!”

3. Pleasure – Feist You can always tell a Leslie Feist guitar moment. It manages to be aggressive and delicate, and that carries through every note of this title track. As Feist navigates the meaning of pleasure—is it personal or public? Natural or manufactured? It’s a heady topic built on a riff PJ Harvey would be proud of (not to mention the vocal range displayed here), all leading up to a clap along finale that sounds somewhere between defiant and exuberant.

4. Slow Disco – St. Vincent On her latest album Annie Clark goes big and personal, to varying degrees of success. But it’s no accident that the album’s highlight is a track that feels like the natural extension of her best work (think Strange Mercy meets Teenage Talk). It’s languid but weird in all the right places—including her own pitch-shifted vocals on an a funereal outro.

5. Ocean – Goldfrapp It’s been a long time since Goldfrapp went epic in the truest sense of the word. Early tracks like Utopia and Strict Machine were wildly different but had one thing in common: They were unrelenting in going big—and then even bigger when you expected them to back down. Ocean follows suit with a cinematic sound that closes the album on perhaps the darkest note of the band’s career. “I borrowed bones, I borrowed skin to save me from the hell I’m in.”

6. Make Love Stay – Blue Hawaii 7. Blood on Me – Sampha 8. The System Only Dreams in Total Darkness – The National 9. WWWater – WWWater 10. Dangerous – The xx 11. Build a Fire – Young Ejecta 12. Heatwave – Amber Mark 13. No Worries – Sarah Jaffe 14. Moving as One – LOYAL 15. Put Your Money on Me – Arcade Fire 16. Underwater – Millie Turner 17. Throwing Lines – Kelly Lee Owens 18. London – Maty Noyes 19. Disco Tits – Tove Lo 20. after that – yaeji 21. Someone – Anna Of The North 22. Glue – Bicep 23. Kids – LIA LIA 24. Lucky Girl – Fazerdaze 25. Flatline – Nelly Furtado 26. Everlasting Love – Sabrina Claudio 27. Deathless – Ibeyi (featuring Kamasi Washington) 28. On My Mind (Jorja Smith X Preditah) – Jorja Smith, Preditah 29. call the police – LCD Soundsystem 30. Baby – Tei Shi

Lotto in Reverse – Alex Lahey Some Mistakes – Anna Wise Paradise – ANOHNI Fire – Beth Ditto I Feel Alright - Mura Masa Remix – Bonzai, Mura Masa Country Girl – Boy Harsher 1UL – Danny L Harle Trees On Fire – DJDS, Amber Mark, Marco Mckinnis Get It Together – Drake, Black Coffee, Jorja Smith Heat Of The Night – Eat More Cake Go To Hell – Empress Of Falling – Forever Always Ascending – Franz Ferdinand Love You More – Fyfe No Horses – Garbage Kids (Ain't All Right) – Grace Mitchell 1986 – HÅN Controller – Hercules & Love Affair, Faris Badwan Godmanchester Chinese Bridge – The Howl & The Hum I Won't Judge – Jacques Greene Purple Feelings (feat. Rainsford) – Jerry Folk, Rainsford Love To Love – Jessie Ware Something Bout Our Love – JONES Al oeste – Juana Molina Sleepwalker – Julie Byrne LMK – Kelela Sleep Deprived – LÉON Leave the War With Me – London Grammar Wait For Me – Luca D'Alberto I'm Not A Disco – Maja Francis Sober (Over You) – Melis Tailwhip – Men I Trust Sleeping in My Own Bed – Morly 1 Night (feat. Charli XCX) – Mura Masa, Charli XCX Shouting at the Dark – The Mynabirds Cuffed – Nick Hakim Nobody – Niia 2 Good 2 Be True – Nite Jewel Off The Radar – Noga Erez Let Your Hair Down – Ouri, Mind Bath Choir – Perfume Genius Closer – POWERS Crocodile Tears – Ralph Sticky – Ravyn Lenae Dance With A Ghost – Sara Hartman Shine a Light – Shabazz Palaces, Quazarz, Thaddillac Kimono Hill – Sophia Kennedy Visions of Gideon – Sufjan Stevens Hands Up Head Down – Sure Sure Shake Em Off – Syd The Weekend – SZA Moonshine Freeze – This Is The Kit Further – TOPS Up The Creek – Tori Amos Fear & Force – Vagabon Falling (feat. Okay Kaya) – Vera, Okay Kaya Virtue – Vero I / You – vōx Bleed – WENS Stay for Real – Young Galaxy

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Well, they’re sticking to their list.

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The morning after always brings the hottest takes.

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Woke Ina is here for all your holiday hosting needs.

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My favorite scene from “Call Me By Your Name”

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I learned a lot about Photoshop--and myself--doing this. Necessity truly is the mother of invention. 

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Best of 2016: Albums

My ears were overloaded with great tracks this year--less so with great albums. But the albums I did fall in love with, I really fell in love with. Like we were in a Nora Ephron film and accidental pregnancies don’t exist love. I’ll quasi-rank the albums because I did love some more than others, but they’re not all comparable. The mood I’m in when I listen to Hopelessness is quite different than how I want to fell when I put on iii. So, below you’ll find the albums that stirred my soul* in one way or the other and a playlist of them all. (Except Jamila Woods’--which is linked below.)

*If I had one  

Roosevelt - Roosevelt

It sounds like plain fun on the first spin, but by the third you realize there’s a lot more emotion baked into these beats.

A Moon Shaped Pool - Radiohead

This album made me realize this band is truly making albums to express and challenge themselves and isn’t here to please anyone else--and somehow it’s some of their most pleasing work.

iii - Miike Snow

I’ve yet to figure out how the melancholy pop Miike Snow creates manages to get me in the feels like no one else’s does.

A Seat at the Table - Solange

I knew Solange was amazing but I didn’t think the 4-year wait from the True EP could be worth it--and holy hell she proved me wrong.

AIM - M.I.A.

In some ways it’s M.I.A.’s most scattered collection, but it’s also refreshingly one that feels like she had a lot say and wasn’t just looking to ruffle feathers.

HEAVN - Jamila Woods

The rare debut album (

that’s free to download

!) that comes with a p.o.v., a powerhouse voice, and songwriting to back it all up.

If You See Me, Say Yes - Flock of Dimes

It’s pop but it’s also not afraid to wander off into the edges of other styles--with some of the strongest vocals you’ll hear all year.

Indigo - River Tiber

As moody as the album art looks but much more interesting than you’d ever expect.

Sleepy Hungry EP / Lunacy EP - Bonzai

These two EPs make one hell of a statement and make it clear Bonzai’s experimental techno-pop-grime-whatever are a force to be reckoned with.

Singing Saw - Kevin Morby

Good old fashioned songwriting never goes out of style.

The Colour in Anything - James Blake

Hooooow does he keep expanding his sound without ever losing his signature style?

Take Her Up To Monto - Róisín Murphy

She continues her experimental streak but manages to ground it in some of the original qualities that made her solo debuts so thrilling.

Keeping the Peace - Arthur Beatrice

Once again, they manage to pair stadium-filling vocals with polished pop/rock that no one else is able to do.

HOPELESSNESS - ANOHNI

No one else made music this brutally honest and unique, but I’m glad as hell she did.

The Dreaming Room - Laura Mvula

This is vibrancy that puts everyone else to shame.

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Best of 2016: Songs

2016: The year everyone dropped an album or dropped dead. Either way--SURPRISE!

My list ended up being all over the place. To the point that it felt impossible to actually rank them with any meaning. So I pulled out the 30 songs I thought were worthy of extra recognition and arranged them in order of how I think they make an interesting story (sometimes lyrically, sometimes aurally). And I wrote a few words for some tracks. I grouped the next 83 songs into one of the following categories (which are still pretty loose groupings, actually):

“Hi. I like pop.”

“Let’s drink Malört and pretend we can dance.”

“I haven’t cried enough lately.”

“Wanna hang out at my place?”

“There’s no logical time to play this.”

[A couple disclaimers: 1. An artist can only appear once unless it’s part of a collaboration. 2. Only songs on Spotify made this list. Which is why “Formation” isn’t on here. Though, I would only include the video edit because it’s superior to the album edit and it’s a crime she didn’t keep it that way.]

Here’s the full playlist, but look below to see the songs listed out (each linked to their own spotify URL):

1. Elizabeth Taylor – Clare Maguire This is a song that manages to minimal and also sweeping. Cinematic vocals that belong on the stage during the Oscars, a simple piano melody, swelling strings at just the right moment, and concrete lyrics come to together to evoke the glamour of Elizabeth Taylor’s golden era.

2. House For You – LOYAL

3. Radio Silence – James Blake Blake made his name on using the white space of the canvas, which made his songs so easy to remix, especially when he performed them live. “Radio Silence” sounds like he remixed his own song and released that version instead. The opening drum beat is deceptively simple and the final notes are of his own a capella voice--but in between is a deafening siren wail. Welcome back to the dark side, James.

4. Colours – Roosevelt

5. Trickle Trickle – Kill J

6. Stepping – Bonzai Bonzai’s an Irish artist who’s barely 20 but she’s assaulting your speakers like she’s lived a very long life and she’s had enough. Her disjointed beats are definitely in the PC Music camp, but she eschews the bubblegum veneer and instead dabbles in a polished grime no one else is brave enough to do.

7. Marijuana – Zebra Katz, Kashaka

8.  All Night (feat. Knox Fortune) – Chance The Rapper, Knox Fortune I don’t think I got more excited to hear any other song randomly in a club or bar this year. The actual story within the lyrics is bittersweet, with Chance furrowing his brow at all the hangers-on coming out of the woodworks now that he’s famous. But it’s packaged in the catchiest rhythm of the year, and literally no one else has ever worked “fart” into a song so perfectly.

9. Phenomenal Woman – Laura Mvula If Mvula were a bigger name, this would have been everywhere in 2016. It’s the kind of celebratory song that could’ve fallen down the “Here’s your fight song, ladies!” trap, but she’s too smart for that. Most artists would’ve belted the song but she effortlessly unleashes it and invokes old-school soul and 80s keyboards with a finesse no big stage player is doing. Plus, in a year where music got testy--and for good reason--there’s something beautiful about a song coming from a joyful place.

10. Shape Shifter – Lera Lynn

11. Alaska – Maggie Rogers

12. Swim Me (feat. Yaeji) – Ellie Herring, YEZI

13. Semaphore – Flock of Dimes I was never a huge fan of Wye Oak, but this project from their lead vocalist (Jenn Wasner) is the melancholy synth pop I didn’t realize I missed. An ode to long-distance love, among other things, the song warms your heart and breaks it a little, too. “I can tie my own laces / find the solace I seek in other places / but I cannot need you more / too far gone for the semaphore”

14. Real Life – Arthur Beatrice

15. “ Burn the Witch – Radiohead Maybe it’s because it’s the catchiest song on the album or because it was the first new Radiohead music we’d heard in 5 years--but this song rises above the rest of their glorious album. It might also be that the song became painfully prescient by year’s end. Although the song has been kicked around for 15 years, it finally came to play this year, with a video directly alluding to the UK’s xenophobic treatment of refugees. This was before Brexit and Trump’s victory. Looking back, it’s hard to think of more ominous opening lyrics than “Stay in the shadows / Cheer at the gallows / This is a round up / This is a low flying panic attack.”

16. Obama – ANOHNI Diss tracks don’t come more blunt nor emotional than this. When the year began I was dreading Obama’s departure. Post-election I’m comatose with sadness. So it feels weird to be so in love with this electro-dirge lamenting Obama’s broken promises and policy decisions. Yet, it’s a valid argument I and many of his supporters still have. ANOHNI’s main gripe is the disillusionment of supporting a would-be savior who ended up going after Chelsea Manning, a whistleblower or traitor depending on your worldview. Even if you disagree with her, ANOHNI’s blunt lyrics feel so sharp, and the bass line so rumbling, you can’t help but be moved. I would also say this is the winner for “no other song in 2016 sounds anything like this” award.

17. Lost Boys – Still Corners

18. Go Off – M.I.A.

19. Nostalgia Del Futuro – NOIA If one voice is making the sex with your earholes, it’s this one. End of story.

20. Make It Up – Shura

21. IOU – Annabel Jones

22. Ashes of Love – Danny L Harle, Caroline Polachek This one’s easy to figure out. Harle’s a king of producing dancefloor tracks, and Polacheck’s soon-to-be-defunct group Chairlift makes the best radio hits that never get played on the radio. It’s like the dancefloor equivalent of Oscar bait, except it actually works.

23. Augustine – Blood Orange

24. Blk Girl Soldier – Jamila Woods This takes the award for unapologetically taking on current events without remorse. Woods is celebrating black womanhood, enumerating the ways society has let down women, black citizens, and humanity in general, and reminding you that she’s not going anywhere. The vintage vibe and laid back delivery can make you miss how fiery and necessary the words are.

25. I Have Been to the Mountain – Kevin Morby A white dude’s take on the police killings of black Americans is not something I expected to make for good music--not in a year when black voices took center stage in the national dialog. Yet, Morby managed to pen an ode to Eric Garner that captures the frustration those of us watching on the news felt. Except Morby goes all in. “That man lived in this town / ‘til the pig took him down / and have you heard the sound of a man stop breathing?” delivered next to the biblical allusions and soulful backing vocals that make clear all hope is not lost--but things sure have gone to tell.

26. Capsized – Andrew Bird

27. Midnight – River Tiber

28. Moth to the Flame – Chairlift

29. Thunder – ELKI

30. Welcome To Earth (Pollywog) – Sturgill Simpson

And now the rest:

“Hi. I like pop.”

Into You – Ariana Grande

Start A Riot – BANNERS

1973 – Beth Orton

Daylight – Boyboy

Just Like Me – Britney Spears

Last Dance – Dua Lipa

Us – Anna Of The North

Love Wasted – FRAME

Turn It Around – HAERTS

Walls to Build – Kllo

Teenage Craze – KLOE

My Trigger – Miike Snow

Stressed OUT! – LION BABE

What If I Go? – Mura Masa

Fool to Love – NAO

Sexual – NEIKED

You Don’t Get Me High Anymore – Phantogram

Be Apart – Porches

Principle – Ronika

Satellite – Sara Hartman

The Greatest – Sia, Kendrick Lamar

I Just Wanna Dance – TIFFANY

So Good – Warpaint

On Hold – The xx 

“Let’s drink Malort and pretend we can dance.”

Subways – The Avalanches

Sally – Bibi Bourelly

Feel Like I Do – Disclosure, Al Green

I Don't Love You – DJDS

Smoke & Retribution (feat. Vince Staples & Kučka) – Flume, Vince Staples, KUČKA

It Means I Love You – Jessy Lanza

Fade – Kanye West

LITE SPOTS – KAYTRANADA

Baby Are You In? – Kristin Kontrol

Tan – Lafawndah

It Girl – Mister Wallace

At Night (I Think About You) – MNEK

Oh – Mt. Si

it's different for girls – of Montreal

Randomness – Olga Bell

Mutant Brain – Sam Spiegel, Ape Drums, Assassin

“I haven’t cried enough lately.”

Opposite House – Cass McCombs

Good to Love – FKA twigs

Death Dream – Frightened Rabbit

In Colour – Fyfe

If I Lost You – Garbage

Still – Liv Dawson

Into You – Low

Morgan, I might – Marit Larsen

Deliverance – RY X

No Woman – Whitney

Bare – WILDES

“Wanna hang at my place?”

Cool Out – Matthew E. White, Natalie Prass

Had To Feel Something – Cosima

Freaking Out – Dena

What's Up – Ekkah, Dâm-Funk

Sober (feat. D∆WN) [Malory Remix] – et aliae

To My Soul – Jerry Folk

Lauren – Men I Trust

Mastermind – Róisín Murphy

Doubt (Summer Edit) – Shallou

Because – Smerz

Shimona – SX

Loveless – Wild Ones

“There’s no logical time to play this.”

Girl Next Door – Brandy Clark

'Tis a Pity She Was a Whore – David Bowie

Nikes – Frank Ocean

Sweetest Girl – Eleanor Friedberger

A 1000 Times – Hamilton Leithauser + Rostam

Young, Latin & Proud – Helado Negro

Rising Water – James Vincent McMorrow

Island – Klangstof

Caught Up – Lil Silva, Cosima

Wings of Love – liv

I Don't Wanna Be Funny Anymore – Lucy Dacus

Happy – Mitski

Something More Holy – Morly

Atomic Number – Neko Case, k.d. lang, Laura Veirs

The Wheel – PJ Harvey

Cecile – Pumarosa

Cranes in the Sky – Solange

Borders – St. Beauty

Second Nature – Stalking Gia

Myth – Tsar B

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Happy Thanksgiving.

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¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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September 21

Me: It’s the first day of fall!

Newscaster: Today’s high will be 89°.

Me: 

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Children’s books that should exist.