Hannah's Musical Encounters - April 2025
People often ask how I find new music, so this is a new series I'm trying out. I don't really do much different than most critics (and I don't travel into the depths of Bandcamp as much as I should anymore), I just pay attention, whether it's an Instagram advertisement or the credits of a producer I admire.
One Last Time - Kayla Silverman
HOW I FOUND IT: Instagram ad (!)
RIYL: The 1975, Taylor Swift, Chappell Roan
I’m a defender of Tortured Poets Department, but I can never quite defend the production. Yes it’s supposed to sound disembodied, it's just inexcusable if you're handing a project to Serban Ghenea and it sounds like it’s playing from 3 rooms away. This sounds much bigger than anything on TTPD, and I found it from an Instagram ad. I also think of the 1975’s all-timer shoegaze ballad “About You”, but if Carly Holt’s verse was the entire song. Silverman’s “I’m burning salad, I’m tossing pies” is a delightful lyric! It turns out I’m possibly opening for her soon??? so in the spirit of Passover and the last name Silverman, it’s beshert that I stumbled across her.
Phantom Cock - Ameokama
HOW I FOUND IT: Social media mutual
RIYL: Garbage, the Prodigy
Aki McCullough is a longtime mutual, I really admire her work as a mastering engineer and former member of the “post-scramz” band Dreamwell. I was blown away when I heard this latest track from her – this song is a level of gender I can’t even begin to describe. A trans woman boasting “my phantom cock is bigger than yours”? And it’s set to massive late-90s electric rock that slowly gets sludgier as it goes along? It’s a blast, and McCullough’s technical experience ensures it’s only as overwhelming as she wants it to be. (Which is to say: very.)
Gnaw - Shallow Alcove
HOW I FOUND IT: mastering engineer Elaine Rasnake (who’s mastering my next singles)
RIYL: Charlotte Cornfield, Jensen McRae
My first thought was that Sara Barellies would kill to have written this. Any songwriting balladeer throughout the decades would, from Carole King to Charlotte Cornfield. Yet, I don’t think most of them would start with “I’m pulling out my teeth/I’m gnawing off my own leg”, lyrics gritty enough to keep the song from full adult-contemporary schmaltz. This is a song for people who grew up on that genre and wish it grew up with them. Scoops Dadaris’ arrangement, too, is well-constructed - it’s easy to imagine an entire string section, but the woodwinds (which remind me of Raybody) are even more devastating. One of the best nuts-and-bolts ballads I’ve heard since Billie Eilish’s “What Was I Made For” two years ago.
My GF H8s Me - Chlothegod
HOW I FOUND IT: mixing engineer Nathan Boddy's credits
RIYL: Doechii, Lola Young, Rachel Chinouriri
Take Doechii’s theatrical energy, mix it with post-punk guitars and bitcrushed drum machines, and you get this gem from Chlothegod. “My GF H8s Me” is a clever and genuinely funny portrait (“you think I’d killed both her cats!”) of a dysfunctional relationship, with the restless, nervy energy I love from a lot of younger musicians. Delay spins! Guitar countermelodies! Call and responses! There’s no empty space in this song, and that’s to its benefit. The ending, where Chlothegod and Chlothegirlfriend sing in opposite channels, is a tour-de-force – the kind of thing that in hindsight feels so obvious I can’t believe no one’s done it yet. I also highly recommend her newer song "What's So Funny", I'm just picking this one because I heard it first hehe
