Prayer for Peace
Jenny Hval, Grails, Stanley Cowell, Viagra Boys, Steve Albini's closet, New Terminal Optimism, the inauguration of COSMOS and more required reading!
Howdy y’all, I can’t believe half the year is gone. This acceleration is driving me nuts. We neede to collectively slow down.
Here’s what I’ve listened to in these last 2 weeks:
♩JENNY HVAL: (Indie Pop) Y’all know Jenny Hval’s one of my favourite artists in the world. The Norwegian indie-art-baroque singer-songwriter, a unique talent, graces the world contemporaine with another wonderful album, a testimony of our times. Please listen.
♩STANLEY COWELL: (Free Jazz, Cosmic Jazz). Recorded in 1974, a cosmic solo piano album blending jazz with classical, African, and Eastern influences. I hadn’t heard of him before, but he’s the co-founder of the coveted free jazz label Strata-East. First time on vinyl, and the piece names this week’s newsletter.
📖 COSMOS: One of the finest festivals of our times, Utrecht NL’s Le Guess Who has their brand new newsletter on Substack, with their first edition covering my home town Istanbul. Titled “I am Listening to Istanbul, My Eyes Closed”, named after a poem by Orhan Veli, a prominent poet from the early 20th century, they bring together an artist and a DIY community talking about the underground punk scene, the political turmoil, and how the DIY communities are flourishing in the oppressive Erdogan regime. GG LGW, now announce the lineup of this year please!
♩VIAGRA BOYS: (Punk) Sweden's premiere punk rock dadaists Viagra Boys are back in business. "I found a crouton underneath a futon, mama said I couldn't eat, cause all my teeth are gone!". Also watch Viagra Boys delivering the goods @Coachella 2025.
📖 Over at First Floor, Shawn Reynaldo has two timely pieces about the injection of capital into electronic music. First one was a criticism of this NY Times piece heralding that Dance Music was booming.
The second one published yesterday is a brave piece against Sónar or better yet its parent companies Superstruct Entertainment / KKR, a mammoth investment company, who has taken ahold of -wait for it- 80 festivals and brands (including Boiler Room, Field Day, Awakenings, DGTL and Mysteryland, Brunch Elektronik, elrow).
“Regardless of how one feels about what’s going on in Gaza and the larger question of Palestine, it seems clear that Sónar’s course of action is emblematic of a different problem, one that I do feel qualified to speak on: the endless intrusion of corporations and investment capital into culture.”
This is exactly the same problem re: Spotify/DSP’s algorithmic & capitalistic intrusion into the music scene, this is why all the dance music festivals have converged to the same melodic techno artists. To sell tickets to the lowest common denominator, the path of least resistance to sell festival tickets for billion dollar investment companies. This is the defining fight of 2020s for the future of music. Please read, inform your friends and possibly boycott these capitalist festivals.
♩GRAILS: 2025 has been good, with my A-tier bands releasing new material! Miracle Music sounds like the lost soundtrack to a X-Files season; having shed the earlier more guitar-based Stoner Rock sound for a psychedelic electronic sound (reminiscent of Lilacs & Champagne). I’ve just went through it in one take, and it’s a seamless cinematic journey. Have to listen to it in one go!
♩It seems Steve Albini’s estate has a closet sale every week. Via Pitchfork.
“Steve pursued many fields of interest, and most of them are represented somewhere in his collections,” reads the website’s description. “All items purchased are accompanied by a Certificate of Authenticity from the collection’s administrator, Byron Coley, and the proceeds are directed towards Steve’s estate.
♩OK, it took me a while, but here's a new edition of my Terminal Optimism playlist, the culling of the last 2 months or so. Mostly 2025 material from El Leon Pardo, Jenny Hval, Ariel Kalma & Asa Tone, Immersion, Joseph Allred, Lael Neale, Ezra Furman, Zeloopers, Yagya, Snapped Ankles, DJRum, Matthew Herbert, Jabu, clipping and more..
2 hrs of ambient/folk/americana/hip-hop/electronic/indie for your listening pleasure.
♩Apple Music
♩If you haven't stopped using Spotify yet...
(Unfortunately, Substack doesn’t let us embed Apple Music)
♩I know I told you I’m trying to get rid of social media, but there’s always some great content to be found, and I can’t do it, unless we all do it.. Here’s producer Luxxury’s podcast with Diallo Riddle, this time focusing on the archaeology of the famous Dawn Penn song..
📖 Over at The Side People, one of my oldest contacts from the Music Internet of pre-social media days, Matt Merewitz has a long read derived from himself, the Confessions of a Jazz Snob; there are a lot of artist name drops here to check!
I was becoming the kind of snob who romanticized an era that likely never existed—a time when musical merit alone supposedly opened all doors. A purist fantasy. In truth, jazz has always been shaped by charisma, style, and myth-making.
♩Let’s end this edition with another (shame shame) Instagram goodie, some lovely footage of a noticably young Madlib & MF Doom.
As always, if you like what you hear, share it with like-minded friends.