There is some telling symmetry on my list of the best songs from the past month. Two tracks openly wish death to an immoral man. Two others fantasize about falling in love using amusement park themes. All of them resonated with me during a time defined by crimes against humanity and a yearning for intimacy. It’s a wicked world, but it can’t stop us from singing.
1. John K. Samson – “Fantasy Baseball at the End of the World”
The former Weakerthans frontman uses sports metaphors to confess his death wish for our president, over gentle, sympathetic guitar.
2. Angel Du$t – “Turn Off the Guitar”
This side project for members of the hardcore bands Turnstile and Trapped Under Ice has become an unexpected pop juggernaut – “Turn Up the Guitar” is their boppiest effort yet.
3. Zara Larsson – “Love Me Land”
Love is an amusement park on this gobsmacked electro-pop earworm.
4. Aminé (feat. Young Thug) – “Compensating”
“It’s hard to admit that I’ve made my bed,” this Portland, OR, rapper shares on this track, where a sprightly marimba loop is as refreshing as the artist’s ability to accept blame.
5. The Chicks – “Tights On My Boat”
Natalie Maines delivers a viciously cathartic kiss-off to her trifling ex-husband, over wink-and-a-smile acoustic strumming: “Hey, will your dad pay your taxes now that I’m gone?”
6. Sylvan Esso – “Ferris Wheel”
Here’s another addictive summertime amusement park romance jam, this one literally pining for the chance to make out at the top of a ferris wheel on a hot August night.
7. Black Thought – “Thought vs Everybody”
In the same month we said goodbye to one of the founding members of The Roots – the perennially underrated rapper Malik B – his old foil Black Thought dropped an intense, chorus-less rap exercise that makes me believe he could battle the world and win.
8. Widowspeak – “Plum”
How is it that a simple chord progression, strummed in just such a way, can make me want to go for a drive in the country? This song was made for watching rolling fields go by, and feeling grateful for every one.
9. Kylie Minogue – “Say Something”
Ray of Sunshine #1: Pop legend Kylie Minogue has made an album called Disco. Ray of Sunshine #2: Its lead single heals through dance music in classic Kylie fashion – “Baby, in an endless summer, we can find our way.”
10. Pallbearer – “Forgotten Days”
The progressive doom cosmonauts in Pallbearer have returned with a new single, with the kind of giant, lumbering riff that could casually destroy your town.
11. Bill Callahan – “Another Song”
Bill Callahan just keeps on reveling in romantic domesticity, and it just keeps on making me cry: “As the shadows of the leaves on the wall / Grow and dissolve / Almost in time to our chests’ rise and fall / As we lay on the bed wanting for nothing at all.”
On the rare occasions when King sets his stories outside of Maine, it’s usually for a good reason. Duma Key is no exception. The author and his wife Tabitha began spending their winters in the Sunshine State in the late-’90s, after a falling icicle almost killed their dog. “We never really came to terms with the fact that we were rich” until that moment, King told USA Today. They got a place in Sarasota, a short drive over the bridge from islands like Siesta Key. Duma Key is a fictional place, but it is set off the coast of Sarasota. So when King writes about visiting tourists blasting Toby Keith and ruining his day, it’s safe to say that we’re reading the very real complaints of an honorary Floridian.
Wireman is only one of a handful of colorful-yet-haunted characters that populate this story, including the octogenarian art patron and wealthy heiress Elizabeth Eastlake, whose tragic family history is tied up with the ancient evil that resides in Duma Key’s ominous psychotropic jungle. Edgar’s wife and daughters play critical, life-saving roles, a vision of how post-divorce bonds can transcend bitterness. A boozy Tampa art critic steals a few scenes, and Edgar’s pseudo-assistant Jack is a lovable and supportive kid with a knack for keeping his boss sane. It’s a classic King strategy – make you care about people as they become closer and closer friends, and then seal that bond with a healthy dose of shared trauma.
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