VMP Magazine

To start, there’s the formal constraint of naming your record after one of Gertrude Stein’s least accessible works. But then again, when were Broadcast interested in legibility? Tender Buttons, the band’s third and arguably final record, delights in opacity and in the kinds of kindness Stein writes about in her book of poems. “Out of kindness comes redness,” she writes, “And out of rudeness comes rapid same question.” In other words: prose that, while not exactly easy to parse, unlocks something in you.

Before it was bastardized by Instagram, a conversation pit was synonymous with bachelors looking for a good time. Picture this: a serpentine, neutral-colored couch in the center of a sunken living room. There’s a table (preferably marble, Danish teak will also do), and on the table, an ashtray, a cocktail, a tube of lipstick. Maybe some blow on a hand mirror. AIR, the project of Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoît Dunckel, started off making the kind of music that would soundtrack one of those rooms. You know: legs up on the table, swirling your drink around and listening to something easy.

Photo by Tom Hines

Off the coast of Cape Cod lies a small uninhabited island called Veckatimest. The little island is covered with lush vegetation: soft wispy trees and tall grass, sand and pebbles. It is home to birds and bugs, to little fish that swim softly and serenely beneath the cool waters of the Monsod Bay. The island is a physical space, but for the band Grizzly Bear, it is also a state of mind. Veckatimest is the name of the band’s third full-length record, originally released in 2009 on Warp Records. It is a stunning piece of music, one that catapulted what was once frontman Ed Droste’s bedroom project into something far grander and more publicly lauded than the band could’ve ever imagined.

Photo by Zackery Michael

Thanks to PornHub, XVideos, Nabokov and countless pop culture moments, no one really calls their dad “daddy” anymore. It seems kind of pervy. It’s the kind of thing one might say to a partner in bed while their wrists are tied to a post, not something you’d write on a Father’s Day card. When Annie Clark, otherwise known as St. Vincent, unveiled her latest record, Daddy’s Home, it was only natural to assume she was talking about daddies in the kinky context. Her 2017 record, Masseduction, was full of sly and sexy reimaginations of ordinary things and people. There were plenty of nurses in latex mini dresses, nuns smoking Marlboro Reds, and teachers using rulers not for their intended purpose. Daddy’s Home is different from Masseduction. Like anything Clark’s released in her decade-spanning career, this is a sexy record, and a sardonic one. But it’s also an homage to her actual father, who went to prison for financial crimes. It attempts to be her most personal piece of music yet.

Photo by Jen Rosenstein

In the back of Sharon Van Etten’s “Edward Scissorhands” yard sits a studio dappled in California light. The artist, who spent years living in New York, decamped to Los Angeles in the fall of 2019. She needed more space. Living in a one-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn with a small child was challenging. The dream of a backyard called to her. When she came to the West Coast to visit musician friends, she noticed how they all had enough room to spread out and make art. So, she decided to try it out for herself.