The Retrographer, Issue 122 (January, 2 0 2 5)

Perfume Genius, Kathryn Mohr, AV Moves, Vanessa Amara, FKA twigs, Eterna, Sam Amidon, Domestic Drafts, Pigeon Pit, Benjamin Booker, and more!

Author

Charlie Kaplan
February 20, 2025

The Retrographer, Issue 122 (January, 2 0 2 5)

Bulletin:

With this issue, I have been writing the Retrographer for ten years.

There are precious few things I can say I’ve committed to for ten years and moved forward on my own initiative alone. I’ve spent longer than that caring for my relationship, longer than that protecting my health, longer than that writing songs. But many other things I care about - improving on my instrument, or playing in bands - relied on external propulsion or hung around without structure or method. Is writing like that too? Maybe less than I thought. I listen to music almost autonomically and pull my favorites together here. The Retrographer has always been the gallery off the main road I drive on listening to music: Once a month I pull over, put a few new things up on the walls, and keep driving. While it’s occasionally taken effort to keep the monthly cadence, it’s still on the way to where I’m going.

I love to write and I love to listen to music. If I never make myself write, I won’t; if I don’t archive the songs I like, I’ll forget them. The Retrographer tethers these two loves to one another and makes them float alongside me in my life as I drift toward my future.

When I started this newsletter, I thought I might make writing my job one day. I felt inspired by Rusty Foster’s Today in Tabs, Robert Christgau’s pithy Consumer Guide, and big longform review expeditions in Pitchfork. When I didn’t get a job like that, I realized a zine would give me the freedom to do that job without staking my self-worth and subsistence on it. Not a bad consolation prize.

Looking back now, the Retrographer represents a number of things I’m very proud of: the fecundity of my love for music, the industriousness and consistency of a practice that pleases me, a cultural tutelage that has sprawled out across many artists and styles. I’m always learning and seeking the spark of discerning taste in what I’m hearing. It’s given me a big library.

Looking ahead to it, ten years also seemed like a perfect time to take a break. I’ve written this newsletter at times I’ve felt deeply inspired and replete with songs I’m pained to cut to get down to ten, and at times when I was far too busy to, but still got it done. But this month, for the first time in the decade since I’ve started, I didn’t want to do it. Not because I’d lost interest in new music, or that I’m tired of writing. But because I had a baby.

Having a son filled me with joy I am thrilled to give myself over to. I will fill this little person’s life with music, old, new, and yet to be written. In the weeks ahead I thought to myself: I’ll take a break. I’ll return to this newsletter once it serves the equipoise of my life again. I didn’t think I wanted to make that space right now; It should be his.

So a few weeks passed, and I went back to work. My days were directed back to sitting and looking at a computer screen, or taking breaks to go for a walk or get my wife a smoothie while she nurses. And - warmly, familiarly - the desire to listen to new music came back again. It didn’t stand in the way, it just took its place again. Without really realizing it, a month’s worth of music appeared in a playlist and I had an issue to send.

When I talked to friends about having a baby, we had a shared, tacit sense that because it was a start of something big and new, it must necessarily be the end of some part of the old. I’d need to give up part of who I am as I give myself over to this newer, bigger, more important, more demanding, more serious, more real thing. I’m sure that’s true, but it’s not as clear-cut as I had implicitly assumed, or feared. I can’t stop being me any more than I can anticipate what the future holds. So I’m still here, and so - to my surprise - is this newsletter.

If you’ve been reading me for some or all of this time - thank you. My greatest hope is you’ve found some music here over the years that you’ve liked. My objective has always been to make it easier for people to find the music they love, even as they pass into phases of their lives where new music may not be as present or as vital. I’m among them: drawn to something else and happy to give myself to it.

Lastly, a word on new music: In every sense, it never gets old. The experience of hearing a song you love for the first time and knowing that, for however long, it’ll color your life and add dimension to it. It helps you feel feelings you didn’t know about, or remember things that didn’t happen to you. It equips you with tools to help you understand your present and recent past. It keeps the road ahead of you open. And that’s why it’ll never go away, for me or for anyone. While the name of this newsletter breaks down to “writing about the past”, it’s always been about the future.

Still here,

Charlie

Ten Songs for January, 2 0 2 5 | Listen to these songs on Spotify and YouTube

“It’s a Mirror”, Perfume Genius – By the time Mike Hadreas sings “It’s a mirror down”, you have already felt the deep, dark depths he probes; The misery and self-doubt after heartbreak leave him looking down, down, down, as low as the down-tuned acoustic guitars and rumbling cello arco playing whole notes under the verses.

“Take It”, Kathryn Mohr – It’ll be hard to not immediately think of Cat Power’s Moon Pix listening to Mohr, but it would be a mistake to see that as a demerit. She’s a necromancer of bad vibes, conjuring Chan Marshall’s elemental loneliness here the same as she does Thom Yorke’s on her “Horizonless”. An almanac of endless nights.

“Junior Recall”, AV Moves – It sounds a little cliche to compare anyone to Alex G now given how common the reference has become, but this song merges his two most common modalities: droning, lofi guitars, and skittering, otherworldly drum programming.

“Don’t Let This Feeling”, Vanessa Amara – It starts a little like a warped old VHS tape: Degraded drums, lead vocals stepping all over one another. But then when strings come in, this song suddenly seems like sage and ancient advice, encouragement from the past it hails from.

“Girl Feels Good”, FKA Twigs – There has been a lot of Y2K nostalgia in recent years, mining the slick, plasticky futurism of iMac commercials and the original Matrix soundtrack that has since been replaced by dystopianism and decay. What used to be futurism is now contrafactual escapism.

“Code Your Name With Feelings”, – A tincture of the times: The sense that the world you can see before your eyes is being lost, that the moments that pass before you are fleeting and few, and that the end will come suddenly and abruptly.

“Three Five”, Sam Amidon – Amidon is a venerable figure in folk music, coming up on two decades since his debut. Under the guidance of jazz saxophonist Sam Gendel, his traditional bent sounds both ageless and uncanny; modern yet out of time.

“Only the Singer”, Domestic Drafts – This is Andy Cush’s debut single, though it sounds bizarre to say that given how persistent a figure he’s been in music whether in his writing, his work with Garcia Peoples, and how fully-formed this music sounds.

“hot shower winter morning”, Pigeon Pit – This album has some of that bygone indie earnestness one might remember from Arcade Fire, Bright Eyes, or Neutral Milk Hotel. Here, it’s mellower, more open, yet still seething and boiling over with unbridled words and irrepressible feelings.

“SAME KIND OF LONELY”, Benjamin Booker – It’s the blast of highly fuzzed-out guitars that separate this song from being a classic torch song fit for Motown. But who’s to say you can’t slow dance to gunshots, baby cries, fire and brimstone?

MONTHLY

#118.5.2 “In a Little Bit of Time”

#118.5 “Edie Got Away”

#117.5 “Mescarole"

#116.5 “Cloudburst”

#105.5 “Country Life in America”

#105 August, 2023 | “Rockaway”

#104 July, 2023 | “Gas Station Bathroom”

#103 June, 2023 | “Talkin’ French” 

#100 March, 2023 | The Feelies, “The Good Earth”

#99 February, 2023 | Judee Sill, “Judee Sill”

#98 January, 2023 | Pink Floyd, “Meddle”

#96 November, 2022 | RIP TOM PETTY

#95 October, 2022 | Cannonball Adderley, “Cannonball Adderley's Fiddler on the Roof”

#94 September, 2022 | Sheryl Crow, “Tuesday Night Music Club”

#93 August, 2022 | D’Angelo, “Live at the Jazz Cafe, London”

#92 July, 2022 | Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, “Southern Accents”

#91 June, 2022 | George Harrison, “Living in the Material World”

#90 May, 2022 | The Wild Tchoupitoulas, “The Wild Tchoupitoulas”

#89 April, 2022 | Joni Mitchell, “Taming the Tiger”

#88 March, 2022 | Young Thug, “Barter 6”

#87 February, 2022 | Stephane Grappelli and Stuff Smith, “Violins No End”

#86 January, 2022 | Nas, “God’s Son”

#84 November, 2021 | Milt Jackson with the Thelonious Monk Quintet, “Wizard of the Vibes”

#83 October, 2021 | For Against, “Coalesced”

#82 September, 2021 | Pat Metheny, “Bright Size Life”

#81 August, 2021 | The Chicks, “Fly”

#80 July, 2021 | Allen Toussaint, “Southern Nights”

#79 June, 2021 | Novos Baianos, “Acabou Chorare”

#78 May, 2021 | One Direction, “Four”

#77 April, 2021 | Bob Dylan, “New Morning”

#76 March, 2021 | Ty Dolla $ign, “Free TC”

#75 February, 2021 | Ghostface Killah, “Fishscale”

#74 January, 2021 | Minnie Riperton, “Minnie”

#72 November, 2020 | Sufjan Stevens, “Seven Swans”

#71 October, 2020 | Common, “Resurrection”

#70 September, 2020 | Herbie Hancock, “Thrust”

#69 August, 2020 | Special Issue

#68 July, 2020 | Cam’ron, “Purple Haze”

#67 June, 2020 | Jorge Ben, “A Tabua de Esmeralda”

#66 May, 2020 | The Meters, “Rejuvenation”

#65 April, 2020 | Eddie Kendricks, “People… Hold On”

#64 March, 2020 | Thelonious Monk, “Solo Monk”

#63 February, 2020 | Cat Power, “Moon Pix”

#62 January, 2020 | Yusef Lateef, “Eastern Sounds”

#59 November, 2019 | Frank Sinatra, “In The Wee Small Hours”

#58 October, 2019 | Steely Dan, “Gaucho”

#57 September, 2019 | Bonnie Raitt, “Streetlights”

#56 August, 2019 | Daft Punk, “Alive 2007”

#55 July, 2019 | John Coltrane, “Interstellar Space”

#54 June, 2019 | Big Pun, “Capital Punishment”

#53 May, 2019 | Paul Simon, “Rhythm of the Saints”

#52 April, 2019 | Dirty Projectors, “Rise Above”

#51 March, 2019 | Kate Bush, “The Sensual World”

#50 February, 2019 | Sonny Rollins, “Next Album”

#49 January, 2019 | Sade, “Diamond Life”

#47 November, 2018 | Curtis Mayfield, “There’s No Place Like America Today”

#46 October, 2018 | The Blue Nile, “Hats”

#45 September, 2018 | Lucinda Williams, “Car Wheels on a Gravel Road”

#44 August, 2018 | Aretha Franklin, “Amazing Grace”

#43 July, 2018 | Teddy Pendergrass, “TP”

#42 June, 2018 | Dennis Wilson, “Pacific Ocean Blue”

#41 May, 2018 | Bobby Brown, “Don’t Be Cruel”

#40 April, 2018 | Amy Winehouse, “Back to Black”

#39 March, 2018 | Q-Tip, “Kamaal the Abstract”

#38 February, 2018 | Miles Davis, “In a Silent Way”

#37 January, 2018 | Beck, “Sea Change”

#35 November, 2017 | Slum Village, “Fan-tas-tic Vol. 1”

#34 October, 2017 | Steely Dan, “Two Against Nature”

#33 September, 2017 | Baaba Maal and Mansour Seck, “Djam Leeli”

#32 August, 2017 | Billy Joel, “The Stranger”

#31 July, 2017 | Big Daddy Kane, “Long Live the Kane”

#30 June, 2017 | Janet Jackson, “Control”

#29 May, 2017 | Steely Dan, “Aja”

#28 April, 2017 | The O’Jays, “Back Stabbers”

#27 March, 2017 | Wire, “154”

#26 February, 2017 | Professor Longhair, “New Orleans Piano”

#25 January, 2017 | Elvis Costello, “Live at the El Mocambo”

#23 November, 2016 | Erykah Badu, “Mama’s Gun”

#22 October, 2016 | Donald Fagan, “The Nightfly”

#21 September, 2016 | Aretha Franklin, “Young, Gifted, and Black”

#20 August, 2016 | The Dave Matthews Band, “Under the Table and Dreaming”

#19 July, 2016 | Clams Casino, “Instrumental Mixtape II”

#18 June, 2016 | James Brown, “Love, Power, Peace”

#17 May, 2016 | Ali Farka Toure & Ry Cooder, “Talking Timbuktu”

#16 April, 2016 | RIP PRINCE

#15 March, 2016 | Prince, “Prince”

#14 February, 2016 | Big L, “Lifestyles Ov Da Poor & Dangerous”

#13 January, 2016 | Bill Evans, “Live at the Village Vanguard”

#11 November, 2015 | Donny Hathaway, “Live”

#10 October, 2015 | Paul McCartney, “McCartney”

#9 September, 2015 | Talk Talk, “Laughing Stock”

#8 August, 2015 | B.B. King, “Live at Cook County Jail”

#7 July, 2015 | Miles Davis, “Filles de Kilimanjaro”

#6 June, 2015 | Joni Mitchell, “Hejira”

#5 May, 2015 | Kanye West, “The College Dropout”

#4 April, 2015 | MF DOOM, “Operation: Doomsday”

#3 March, 2015 | Bruce Springsteen, “The Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle”

#2 February, 2015 | Eric B. and Rakim, “Paid in Full”

#1 January, 2015 | Johnny Thunders & the Heartbreakers, “L.A.M.F.”

 

ANNUAL

#121 | 1 0 0 2 0 2 4

 

DECENNIAL

 

THEMED