What we’re listening to, watching, and reading right now.

Kate O’Flynn views comedy and horror as “kind of the same thing.” Both are at their best when they surprise — a laugh or a scare that comes out of nowhere hits the hardest. That’s why, for the star of the new horror-comedy hybrid Widow’s Bay, mixing up the genres makes perfect sense — they heighten each other. “You’re never on steady ground,” she says. “Your guard is down, and you’re vulnerable to a laugh or a cry or a scream. It’s all up for grabs.”

Widow’s Bay, which starts streaming on Apple TV on April 29th, tells the story of the titular island, which sits off the coast of New England. It has a rustic small-town charm and also happens to very definitely be haunted. There have been countless myths and ghost stories since the town’s founding, along with a possible curse in which anyone born on the island can’t leave without dying. The town’s mayor, Tom Loftis (Matthew Rhys), is intent on revitalizing the island and turning it into a tourist destination to rival Martha’s Vineyard. But in doing so he ignores the very clear signs that something is wrong. In the first episode, for instance, a sinister fog rolls into town, but all Tom can think about is a visiting New York Times travel writer.

Before Coachella, Tomora wasn’t on my radar at all. It’s actually only by chance that I stumbled upon them — I opened the wrong stream because my TV was lagging like a MFer. I paused for a few moments, entranced by the two ethereal Nordic women banging on giant drums to a techno beat. I made a mental note to check them out the following weekend, because Drain was the priority (especially since the Sonora stage wasn’t streaming on weekend two). It was only later that I would find out that Tomora is a collaboration between Norwegian singer-songwriter Aurora and Tom Rowlands, one-half of The Chemical Brothers.

Suffice it to say, they were incredible, and I immediately checked out the record, Come Closer, after watching their week two set. Admittedly, the studio album can’t quite capture the ecstatic catharsis of the Coachella set (seriously, I need to see them live), but it’s still an incredible work. It’s a love letter to ’90s European dance music, dabbling in big beat, trip-hop, and techno.

This might feel like a somewhat obvious recommendation to some, but it flew under my radar until now. Alfred Bester’s The Stars My Destination (originally published as Tiger! Tiger! in the UK) is a 1956 sci-fi novel that some have cited as a precursor to cyberpunk. It’s a work I admit I have some conflicted feelings about, but one I think is well worth reading if you consider yourself a fan of sci-fi. It’s also well worth seeking out a physical copy, something I wish I had known before I started reading it in the objectively inferior ebook form that can’t capture the ergodic elements of the climax.

It’s hard to explain the plot of The Stars My Destination. At its core, it’s the story of a man who vows revenge on a spaceship — an inanimate object — after he is left for dead in the wreckage of another ship. But that doesn’t capture any of what the book is actually about. The plot moves so quickly, so much happens in this relatively short 250-page novel, that it’s difficult to keep up. It’s either a riveting breakneck thrill ride or a chaotic jumble of barely coherent events, and I’m still not sure which.

For obvious reasons, I’ve had Moon on the mind all week. So I was trying to figure out what I should recommend this week that would thematically fit. Brian Eno’s Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks is incredible, and if you haven’t listened to it, go do that now. But it also seemed a bit on the nose. Radiohead’s A Moon Shaped Pool also came to mind. But it also felt a bit obvious. Then I remembered Kate NV’s Room for the Moon, a record I had on repeat in 2020.

Russian artist Kate Shilonosova chases ideas across 11 tracks inspired by Russian and Japanese pop from the ’70s and ’80s, as well as children’s movies. This obviously leads Room for the Moon to indulge its most whimsical impulses. It’s a fairy tale rendered in snappy Talking Heads-esque bass, proggy synths, and reverbed drum machines.

Los Thuthanaka basically came out of nowhere last year to capture Pitchfork’s album of the year with their self-titled debut. Because it wasn’t available on streaming, it largely flew under the radar. I honestly kind of forgot about it until Pitchfork gave it the number one spot in its year-end list. In retrospect, I’m not entirely sure how, though. Los Thuthanaka sounds like nothing else. It’s joyous, jagged, and sounds like it’s being blasted out of a broken Bluetooth speaker in your neighbor’s backyard — it’s glorious.

The follow-up EP Wak’a turns down the tempo and smooths some of the sharper edges. It uses the same sound palette of blown-out speakers and sampled traditional Bolivian instruments that’s equal parts pluderphonics and psychedelic rock. But Wak’a is just as indebted to shoegaze. Its chord progressions and melodies are more wistful, the guitars drenched in fuzz and reverb. There are horns and keys that peek through the mix like half-forgotten memories of other songs.

It’s rare for a movie to get technology right. And it’s even rarer for that movie to be a thriller or horror, where realism takes a backseat to scares and tension. But Red Rooms mostly gets it. Nothing takes me out of a film quicker than a tech MacGuffin that might as well be literal magic. Yes, the phrase “dark web” will always sound a bit silly, but at no point during its 118 minutes does the tech become a distraction.

It’s not the tech that makes Red Rooms great, though. It’s just something that could have easily tanked an otherwise excellent movie. What carries the film is the expert tension building by director Pascal Plante. The perfect slow-burn pacing. And the incredible performances by Juliette Gariépy as Kelly-Anne and Laurie Babin as Clémentine.

Last week’s recommendation, Sotomayor’s Wabi Sabi, has a very particular vibe that you don’t find in a lot of records. One of the few things it called to mind was 2022’s Topical Dancer from Charlotte Adigery and Bolis Pupul, which I ended up revisiting this week a lot.

The two records don’t seem particularly alike on the surface. But they’re both rough around the edges smash-ups of electronic and organic elements packaged for dance-floor abandon. The way the sounds and rhythms click together feels very much of the same ilk.

Shout out to subscriber N_Gorski for today’s pick. They popped into the comments on last week’s recommendation to ask what I thought of the new Sotomayor record. Well, I hadn’t actually heard it yet, but now I’m obsessed.

The group consists of siblings Raul and Paulina Sotomayor from Mexico City. Wabi Sabi is their first record since 2020’s Origenes, and it is pure joy. You can look back through everything I’ve recommended over the last several months, and “fun” is not how you’d describe most of it. But that’s what Wabi Sabi is — it’s fun, chaotic, and dancey as hell.

The opening notes of “Kravitz,” which kicks off Mabe Fratti’s 2024 record Sentir Que No Sabes, are lodged in my brain permanently. It’s not a showy album, by any means. But there’s something about the buzzing of her cello, plucked as you might an upright bass. The way the notes ring out before coming to an abrupt stop, fuzz still hanging in the air, set against a simple kick and snare sat firmly in the pocket. There’s something industrial about the way it all comes together, like a jazzy “Closer.”

Then come Fratti’s paranoid lyrics in Spanish about ears in the ceiling and someone listening through the walls, and the slightly atonal horn blasts. In the back half, the arrangement blooms with big piano chords, and the drums pick up steam. It’s the perfect opening to a record that sees Fratti taking her experimental impulses and working them into something that more closely resembles pop music, straying further from her avant-garde roots.

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Laurie Spiegel for the site. As preparation for the interview, I spent a lot of time over the last couple of weeks revisiting Spiegel’s records, most notably The Expanding Universe, her 1980 masterpiece that blends synth experimentalism with early examples of what would eventually be called ambient music, and algorithmic composition techniques. It’s a marvel that sounds both nostalgic and cutting-edge at the same time.

Tracks like “Patchwork” and “A Folk Study” dabble in the sort of bouncy arpeggios that beg comparisons to The Who’s “Baba O’Riley,” while “Old Wave” and “East River Dawn” conjure early M83 or Boards of Canada. The palette she draws from is buzzing with life and timeless, rarely dating itself in the way her later (also excellent) record Unseen Worlds does, as it occasionally dabbles in FM bells.

Let me just say that I highly recommend you go into Possession blind. Don’t watch a trailer. Don’t even finish reading this. Go watch it now over on Shudder, Criterion, or Metrograph. It’s also available through Kanopy or Hoopla if your library provides access. Then come back so we can talk about it in the comments. Though this probably isn’t one for the squeamish.

Warning: Spoilers ahead.

Often, I focus on recommending older media that isn’t currently getting a ton of attention. But this week, I can’t stop listening to the new Mandy, Indiana album long enough to even think about anything else. It’s early still, obviously, but URGH is my favorite release of 2026 so far. The band that I fell in love with on I’ve Seen a Way has found an entirely new gear.

Frontwoman Valentine Caulfield is even more uncompromising. Most of the lyrics are in French, but even if you don’t know what she’s saying, you can feel the contempt. On “Magazine” she’s spitting in your face as she seethes:

New York City got hit with a hell of a snowstorm last week. And, inevitably, when I’m watching the snow fall, wandering the oddly quiet streets after dark, people hiding inside and staying warm, I put on M83’s sophomore record, Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts.

Before Nicolas Fromageau left the band and Anthony Gonzalez embraced traditional pop song structures, saxophone solos, and teen angst, M83 released two albums of mostly instrumental music. The self-titled debut album is kind of forgettable, but the second one finds the French duo taking inspiration from the repetitive bombast of Mogwai and Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Dead Cities is a decidedly French twist on post-rock grandeur, building blankets of sound from drum machines, analog synths, and heavily compressed guitar.

Billy Woods has one of the highest batting averages in the game. Between his solo records like Hiding Places and Maps, and his collaborative albums with Elucid as Armand Hammer, the man has multiple stone-cold classics under his belt. And, while no one would ever claim that Woods’ albums were light-hearted fare (these are not party records), Golliwog represents his darkest to date.

This is not your typical horrorcore record. Others, like Geto Boys, Gravediggaz, and Insane Clown Posse, reach for slasher aesthetics and shock tactics. But what Billy Woods has crafted is more A24 than Blumhouse.

Things that H.P. Lovecraft was good at: Creating a mythos. Building atmosphere.

Things that H.P. Lovecraft was bad at: Writing dialog. Creating compelling characters. Not being a racist.

It’s the holiday season, and Christmas music is utterly inescapable. Look, I love Mariah Carey and Wham! As much as the next guy. But at some point, you get really tired of hearing the same handful of Christmas songs over and over again. So here are 10 suggestions to add to your holiday playlist that are hopefully a little less obvious.

There’s a long history of downer Christmas songs, from Dolly Parton’s “Hard Candy Christmas” to The Pogues’ “Fairytale of New York.” But there is no holiday song more guaranteed to bring the party down than “Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis”. The reveal at the end is the sort of thing that will have everyone putting the gifts back under the tree because they’re too depressed to open anything.

My introduction to Sudan Archives was the song “Nont for Sale” from her first EP Sink in 2018. I’ve been a diehard fan ever since. With each album, she finds new ways to sculpt the sound of her violin, contorting it in defiance of expectations.

Athena found her in conversation with it, leaving its timbre largely recognizable and organic, veering from experimental pop to more ambient passages. Natural Brown Prom Queen embraced the aesthetics of sound collage, samples, and modern R&B, blending her violin with more expressly electronic elements. The BPM has identifiable violin passages, but it fully embraces the more technological elements of Sudan Archives’ sound.

There’s an argument to be made that “the real monster is trauma” has become an overused trope in modern horror. Hereditary, The Babadook, and, much less effectively, Smile, are just a few higher-profile examples. But, if you ask me, few films have deployed this trope quite as effectively as the 2020 film His House.

The film follows Bol and Rial, refugees from South Sudan, played by Sope Dirisu and Wunmi Mosaku. Both deliver the kind of incredible performances that you rarely see in a genre film like this. It’s part of what elevates His House above the standard “haunted by trauma” fare. Mosaku, in particular, shows the sort of nuance and screen presence that in a just world would guarantee superstardom.

I have a tendency to space out. A lot. Whether it’s staring out the window on Amtrak or pausing at work to fixate on a blank spot on the wall instead of my screen, I often let my mind wander. When I was younger, I would often be derisively called a daydreamer, a space cadet, or just plain distracted. Obviously, one can be too absent-minded, but Bored and Brilliant by Manoush Zomorodi convincingly makes the case that letting your mind wander is not only essential, but a luxury we shouldn’t take for granted in our hyperconnected age.

Zomorodi is the current host of NPR’s TED Radio Hour, but she was also the host of WNYC’s Note to Self for many years. In 2015, she did a series of episodes on Note to Self focused on removing digital distractions and the benefits of boredom. Then, in 2017, it became a book. Bored and Brilliant: How Spacing Out Can Unlock Your Most Productive and Creative Self expands on those episodes, bringing in new expert voices, scientific studies, and anecdotes from Zomorodi and her audience from their own digital detox efforts.

There’s something irresistible about music that sounds as if it’s coming apart at the seams. The Black Dresses are masters of barely contained chaos. All of their records feel as if they’re in danger of collapsing into pure noise at any moment. But never have they so expertly woven the various threads of their sound — glitchy percussion, pummeling guitars, irresistible pop hooks — together as they do on Forever in Your Heart.

The Canadian duo of Ada Rook and Devi McCallion crafts something undeniably catchy from abrasive electronics, metallic percussion, death-metal screams, and off-key warbling. The opening track, “PEACESIGN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” jumps out of the speakers with such viciousness that the riff basically trips over itself before settling into a groovey shoegaze verse. When the riff returns, Devi screams, “Can we make something beautiful with no hope?”