Black Metal 2, Pass Over, and Minor Feelings
Happy summer! Welcome to the fifty-second installation of The Q : your one-stop weekly newsletter of culture recommendations.
The Q is taking a little ~hiatus~ from Two Virgins for the time being to rest and recharge…but we’ll be back soon enough! Meanwhile, make sure to check out our past episodes and interviews here!
Album
Black Metal 2 by Dean Blunt
On Black Metal 2, Blunt almost completely drops his sung vocals in favor of a raspy mutter. Although voices often harmonize around him, Blunt always stays out of the fray. He anchors each track, becoming a somber narrator for the listener. On the track “SKETAMINE,” while Blunt mutters, “in the front, on the back, on the face, on the hip,” Joanne Robertson’s vocals whirl around him and his voice gets swept up in a cacophony of guitars and choral vocals.
Film
Pass Over directed by Spike Lee
When I saw Pass Over in the summer of 2018, 64th and King may as well have been another world. Steppenwolf Theater, which hosted Pass Over’s Chicago run that preceded its recent transfer to Broadway, is located in Lincoln Park, one of the whiter and wealthier communities in the city. This is reflected by the audience’s ability to purchase $100 tickets, as well as the older, white demographic the theatre is known for. Spike Lee’s filming of the production, streaming on Amazon Prime, combats the strangeness of this dynamic by choosing to frame the production through a special showing of the play that bussed residents of the South Side up to Steppenwolf’s doors.
Book
Minor Feelings by Cathy Park Hong
As a reader and writer who has a complex racial identity to navigate, I am always interested in how others manage to do so. Both inspired by AAPI history month and spurred on by my own curiosity, I recently picked up Cathy Park Hong’s Minor Feelings — a collection of the author’s personal essays about the emotions that marginalized groups in white America feel. In Minor Feelings, the Korean American artist and writer speaks of her own experience and uses them as an access point to talk about wider issues of racism and discrimination.
Playlist
Jacob’s “psychedelic trips for afternoon kicks” features Koushik, Dungen, and Kikagaku Moyo
Jacob’s favorite track: “A Day in the Park” by Michal Urbaniak
Description: “Instead of your ears thanking you after listening to this playlist, they'll be overwhelmed with chill vibes and turn into lips.”