I literally cannot stop listening to Drums of Death. Eusexua came out this week and “the promo is promoing” or something. I live next to Washington Square Park and earlier this week there was a huge sound system set up that was blaring the title track at full volume. The comparisons to Brat are inevitable; it’s interesting that our edgier pop princesses (Twigs and Charli as the clubby elders of Olivia, Sabrina etc.) are releasing capital-C Concept Albums. It reminds me of when people started going out again after the pandemic and suddenly everyone had a new haircut, aesthetic, weight class, sexuality etc. It’s also interesting that Brat and Eusexua were both born from Charli and Twigs falling in love even though both albums depict the archetypal bright lights big city fuck me give me a cigarette party girl lifestyle.
Anyway, Drums of Death is doing this year what the 365 shygirl remix did last year. Michael DJed my birthday party in October and I was so desperate to have him play it that we both searched the recesses of the Internet for a version that was high quality enough for his USB (I think that’s how it works, I don’t know, “I’m just a girl” etc). Luckily the remix album officially dropped two weeks before my birthday so he was able to play it five separate times over the course of the evening and everyone was happy. I wonder if Eusexua will bleed into the summer but only time will tell.
One final thought: I would be remiss if I did not call out how absolutely mind-blowing it is that the woman who wrote Drums of Death nearly married the man in the below image who wrote the below song. In another world I’m a chain-smoking fly on the wall watching them interact in a flat in Hackney.
This has been my attempt at music journalism. If you’d like to read something credible you can redirect yourself to Anthony Fantano.
Caring about things is scary and that’s actually fine. I’ve been a writer since I could read but I’ve only really identified as one for the last year or so. In middle school, high school and college I “wrote for fun.” In grad school I was an “MFA student.” After I got my MFA I was “a content and brand strategist who was also shopping around a manuscript.” After I got an agent I was a “content and brand strategist who does writing stuff on the side.” Last summer I took a big leap of faith and became “a writer working on a book of essays and freelancing on the side.” Before I jumped, I liked the safety of having one foot in corporate America and one foot in writing; it meant that I didn’t have to fully commit to either, that I could continue to fantasize about how Good I would be if I really threw myself into something I loved. Now I have and sometimes I feel terrified by the knowledge that I am (very nearly) fully dedicating myself to something I really care about, but I am doing it.
I used to only go to writing events if my close friends or one of my top three favorite writers were reading. I was afraid to do anything more than that because I thought that if I immersed myself in this world I loved, it would only highlight how much it would hurt if it didn’t work out, if I wasn’t actually Good. But now I’m in that world all the time and I honestly don’t care if it’s cringe or if I’m more or less successful than the person sitting next to me, because I’m happy.
I ordered a sample pack of the Discothèque perfumes and they’re really good. I spent a lot of my 20s trying to figure out how I could keep the train wreck parts of myself alive without overpowering the parts of me that were healed. Perfume, clothes, and music work well. These are all very “air thick with heat, one pulsing beat, soft leather and sweat” — I didn’t even write that, that’s literally the copy from my favorite of the scents, Dark Imagination, which is sadly sold out so I’m going to have to conserve the sample as best I can.
There’s part of a sexy poem I wrote below the paywall. 😈
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