An Emo Recommendation List
my past month (in Mercury Retrograde, apparently)
The month of August was heavy.
From my closest friends, to social strangers— what’s in the stars! A stranger broke into my friend’s apartment while she slept doing nothing more than gaze for the unknown. Another is in the throes of her potential in-laws refusal of her into the family. Then this other friend unearthed long-term infidelity from their partner while away. To the Long Island boy at a Chinatown bar who gently handheld me down his rabbit hole of mommy issues: gaudy tattoos under turn-your-skin-green jewelry— a haphazardly shaved tendered souled man’d he was.
And, so, what happened to me? I thought about writing a full blown confessional but I’m not ready. I can’t make sense of it enough. Was it just me and my friends who felt this? Did anyone else go through an emotional worm hole?
Here is a recommendation list to trojan horse my Past Month of Emo.
Magda Spiro
I met Nicole Steriovski seven years ago when I modeled for Maryam Nassir Zadeh. She is one of the first fashion connections I made in the city, and one that continues to last. An artist in the way her mind moves and the work she puts out, her art inspired back then and continues to this day.
Magda Spiro is her brand. A collection of vintage designer and one-off gems. Now currently in Italy, focused on film and photography as well of her shop, her timeless eye is definitively focused within the feminine gaze. She elevated my tastes as an early twenty-something doe-eyed California girl with multiple paths ahead. Forever gratitudes.
instagram: @magdaspiro @nicolesteriovski
Connected over how disconnected we are to New York, there is a dearth of depth amongst us in our industry. The constant usage of people for an end goal isn’t our cup of tea. She says it’s all about resources and whether you have it or not which determines “success”. I say those who don’t achieve the success they desire because of constant comparison become a pale version of themselves, living in a state of perpetual anxiety.
But she loves fashion, film, art— as do I. How do we reckon? Maybe it’s time to uproot again to find out. Life opens up for me when I unknowingly create chapters. Is Paris calling? Since high school I envisioned an older future-life there. My newfound obsession with French New Wave cinema or perhaps a knowing I would be there one day as I knew of New York.
Nicole is on her way to Paris. See you there.
Delete Your Spotify. Go To a Record Store!
When was the last time you listened to an entire album? From start to finish—no skips. Did you actively listen? Partake in the experience?
I hate to admit I don’t do this much anymore. I also hate to admit it’s because I am detached from music. I don’t seek live shows like I used to in my twenties. In California I went to concerts, in New York I go to events. For the entirety of my life here, Spotify has been my sole mode of listening to music. But lately, it’s all come to a head.
Am I the only one exasperated from all the skipping and scrolling Spotify inherently encourages into its interface? How that dictates less intention and more consumption. Right as you delve into an artist/ album you may have otherwise fallen in love with in due time, you are distracted by a ‘Similar Artist’ suggestion in the algorithm. It scatters your attention and smears the art of listening to music so thin to the point of frayed connections and bad takes. We compromise quality for quantity. Is it worth it?
For an obscene amount of time I do not wish to state, I would press shuffle on my ‘Liked Songs’ and go about my day. Inevitably I’d skip and skip and skip, never giving most songs past a few seconds to show themselves. “Is this how I interact with music now?” said the small voice in my head. Or worse, listen to whatever prescribed playlist Spotify '“curates”. They are universally atrocious and arbitrarily mashed together by an algorithm that sees no difference between Caroline Polachek and Chappell Roan. There is.
Spotify is currently the number one streaming service with 30% of the market share. The catalogues of almost every musician ever on an app for $10 a month. How do musicians make money then? Short answer: they don’t. How does our relationship with music change when increasingly accessible streaming services that “algorithmize” data for their own Big Tech benefit target us so subconsciously and might I add viciously? Short answer: for the worse, but it depends who you ask.
This all leads me to the inherent evil of Spotify. Read Liz Pelly’s work. She can explain it better than I ever can. Specializing in “big music tech criticism” and how harmful those companies, especially Spotify, are to the music industry (particularly for those not in the one percent) and to our culture as whole. Her work has been a paradigm shift for me; the nail in the coffin to my Spotify subscription.
Ironically, Spotify does not care about music— they are a Big Tech company exploiting music for an end goal. A ‘streaming liminal space’ for their bottom line of corporate tech domination and expansion into god knows where else. These people are insatiable. Nothing is ever enough. Using up every musician they claim to support to feed their outsized, megalomaniac, unchecked corporate capitalism, greedy-handed end.
And they have no taste! Delete your Spotify, please.
— but your local record shop owner has taste and stories and tailored recommendations. Analog forever, the sound is unbeatable. Consider investing back in.
places recently frequented:
Superior Elevation Records
616 Grand St. Brooklyn, New York 11211
Specializing mainly in disco, soul, and house vinyls, I found this spot while dropping off mail in Williamsburg. Flyers for “Learn How To DJ at DJ School” or something to that extent plastered on the wall endeared me to them immediately. I found myself predominately in their “EuroWave” section as I am on a nostalgia kick at the moment: Kraftwerk, Echo & the Bunnymen, Gary Numan and Depeche Mode. Bands I grew up on through my first boyfriend.
Captured Records Shop
718 Manhattan Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11222
This place is loosely affiliated with Captured Tracks Records — infamous indie Brooklyn label of the 2000s Obama-era. “Same owner but sort of not same record label” is the answer I get from a semi-informed Gen Z record shop boy. The irony of him semi-unaware of such an influential label my friends and I fell in love with post-high school while working at said store was not lost on me. I am getting old.
They have a big selection of vinyls, cds and cassettes. More heavy on the “rock genre” and don’t walk too fast down Manhattan Ave or you will miss her.
I bought Fleetwood Mac— 7-inch EP with ‘Sara’ and ‘Tusk’
DIIV— ‘Is The Is Are’
Shoegaze & DIIV
Listen to ‘Bent (Roi’s Song)’ by DIIV while reading.
My first boyfriend listened to shoegaze so now I do forever.
His name was Logan. Mostly white, a quarter Mexican. 6’3. Private schooled werido. Capricorn too. I met him through my high school photography classmate and friend Tyler. He smoked American Spirit cigarettes and played bass with Tyler in the only local shoegaze band in town; everyone else was a metalhead.
A sub-genre of the independent alternative music formed in the late-eighties of UK and Ireland and more pointedly influenced by the post-punk movement— this is shoegaze. With distinct sounds of heavy reverb, “a wall of noise”, drowned out vocals to the point of illegibility— an ethereal, albeit loud and harsh sound comes crashing through. An ocean wave of emotions filling your sensory perceptions to capacity. Even if you’ve never heard of the term shoegaze, most know the album ‘Loveless’ by My Bloody Valentine? ‘Souvlaki’ by Slowdive?
It is my adolescence. Pure bottled distilled nostalgia. For the sensitive types who leaned European. The misunderstood “emos” who didn’t love the fandom and flair of My Chemical Romance, but The Cure’s effused goth aesthetic rung truer. To whom a pop-punk phase in middle school was gradually supplanted by the discovery of post-punk in their later teens where thoughts moved more freely and questioning the system was ardently defended.
I will love this music forever but I forgot for too long.
I found shoegaze again in the comment section of a YouTube video at two in the morning, two weeks ago and the dam of nostalgia burst violently through. More specifically the Brooklyn band DIIV under the aforementioned Captured Tracks Label. Founded by Zachary Cole Smith in 2011. Part shoegaze, part dreamy-pop, part ‘just indie’. Cut their teeth, had their salad days in the Williamsburg, Brooklyn music scene of the time. ‘Indie darlings’ of their era.
I first found DIIV at eighteen while lying in bed with Logan as we listened to their then newly released record ‘Oshin’. The album cover on his phone, him so intently invested, his twin bed we often squeezed ourselves on to fit our long limbs is seared into my brain as a core memory. And then my second boyfriend Marco had it on vinyl. Perched amongst his others on the dusty grand piano he never learned to play but had for tactile connection to the things he held in high regard. A complete analog head.
Unbeknownst to me, this band has followed me throughout my life.
So at two in the morning, two weeks ago I found them again after almost ten years of New York City DJs and house music taking its place with a new album out and show in a few days at the Brooklyn Paramount. Purchased on the spot. Hard not to take signs like these lightly.
The Fillmore, San Francisco 2015
DIIV played a show I emotionally reference to recapture the feeling of euphoric presence devoid of adult expectations. I was twenty-two, freshly moved to the Bay and my friends from back home came to the city to catch the show with me. They were raw on the edge of their sophomore album. Louder, heavier, more alive than their recordings— a proper rock show. Not the light indie fodder fair I expected from bands of similar elk. (The one and only time I have moshed.) Like a tsunami washing in, filling every crevice. As if the crowd was moving in one frequency. A full sensory experience still to this day not felt.
So given my storied history with the band, it took no convincing to go to their Brooklyn concert, but I told myself to temper my expectations. I am not likely to have the same experience twice. You only get those experiences when you least expect them. A wide-eye innocence is key. And I smoked a nug carried over from a week ago wedged in my cigarette holder moonlighting as a wallet. I was not present. I was neurotic. I cannot to this day give an accurate assessment of the show. I was too in my head. But thank you to the sweet twenty-year old angel from California who walked up to me in the crowd complimenting my Target earrings. She invited me to hang out with her and her boyfriend (I went to the concert alone). We talked about our history with shoegaze and DIIV. I gave them that old person talk on how I’ve been into this since college. They mentioned Whirr and Nothing. Two, now prominent, shoegaze bands. I regaled them about my story on how they both played a show in the backroom of my hometown record shop ten years ago because the owner was their friend and mine too. They were little angels that blessed my night. The kids are all right.
Though the last thing I expected was an emotional tailspin this concert would send me down. Down a path of youthful nostalgia. The next day walking in the rain. Crying. Heading to Captured Tracks Records. Finding ‘Is The Is Are’ on vinyl. Asking the Gen Z record boy if they had Pale Saints in shop. They did not. Crying. Going to Superior Elevation and purchasing nothing but eighties Eurowave vinyls. The next few weeks to this day feeling a sense of alienation and disconnection from everyone around me. Where are all these emotions coming from? Now that I am older, these feelings usually shake after a few days but it was a ride that would not let up.
It was as if my twenty-something self tapped me on the shoulder. Wanting to have a conversation with me. Curious about this older girl living in New York City pursing the life she always wanted. I am her and me right now at the same time. Though they feel separate too. I still don’t know.
shoegaze recommendations:
Drop Nineteens album ‘Delaware’ (1992) — ‘Kick The Tragedy’ track is a standout.
— I can never listen to this band without thinking of Tyler.
Whirr album ‘Around’ (2013) — only four songs, listen to the whole thing. From my neck of the woods, Modesto, California. I saw this album live. No words just feels.
DIIV:
Listen to their entire discography chronologically. A continuous story of the band and their journey as artists emerge.
Their debut album ‘Oshin’ (2012) is their lightest, poppiest album. A very digestible introduction. Time capsule of late 2000-early 2010’s Brooklyn music scene.
‘Is The Is Are’ (2016) is arguably their most emotional album as founder and frontman Cole grapples with addiction masquerading as recovery in a sprawling 17 track record. Though admittedly it’s been hard getting through the entire thing as it stirs up emotions I’m unsure even lied within. ‘Bent (Roi’s Song)’ is my favorite and apparently his too.
‘Deceiver’ (2019) sees them back together after a healing hiatus with a heavier, lean into more shoegaze sound. Though admittedly I was unsure on first listen as it is a departure from their earlier stuff. Take your time with albums made with intent. They always reveal more with every listen. Now it is on repeat.
‘Frog in Boiling Water’ (2024) is their latest and first concept album on the decay of late-stage capitalism. It is definitely their most mellow sounding record as it was originally more electronic based. I would argue it’s a visual album in many ways. Sounds even better live. Just go to a DIIV show.
“We tell ourselves stories in order to live.” — Joan Didion, ‘The White Album’ 1979
I once had a guy tell me I was “so emotional”— it never felt pejorative actually, more so an observational admiration. How in tune I am to my feelings in the moment I suppose. I ran into a fling this month on the anniversary of our breakdown wearing the very t-shirt he promised multiple times to return and held as ransom until the bitter end. That shirt belonged to a lover in Paris who made love to me better than you ever could, baby. You might as well have been rocking my Paris thrifted heart-embossed gold hoops you also promised to give back. Fuck you, pay me. Those were my favorite earrings.
This angel sent me a text which allowed redirection. To turn these feelings into a story. Was it Mercury Retrograde all along? My down beaten path of nostalgia ended right as the retrograde too. Coincidence? I did some digging and came across sentiments of August being a doozy.
Whether it was divined by the planets and stars or just an inexplicably hard end to summer, the story I tell myself is no one is an island. Everyone experienced some heavy shit this past month. We all self-isolated too, thinking our problems were in a way self-inflicted. I felt blocked from reaching out and communicating to friends I normally would have as I felt unwanted and a burden. I also knew they were going through the motions too.
Isolation and disconnection were two words that spun around my head. My phone died and I left it that way for almost a week. It was great in so many ways but I avoided when I needed to confront instead. The first thing I did once I crawled out of this hole was reach out to friends I missed and set a hard line in the sand on date and time to reconnect. It is important to cultivate alone time with yourself but equally as important to build bridges to relationships and communities. How is everyone doing? Do you feel more optimistic about September? Do you want to talk about it?
The emotional wind tunnel of the past month is still not understood. I want to lean into not figuring it out right away. Let go of my control over constantly having to “understand things”. To acknowledge they exist without over identification. Answers reveal themselves in due time. Do not death grip insatiable desires of knowing.
I still don’t know and for once that’s okay.
