Ryan Schreiber is a Williamsburg-based writer who is perhaps best known for founding the music journalism powerhouse Pitchfork. He served as CEO and EiC of the iconic publication from it’s inception in 1996 until 2019, a few years after it was acquired by Conde Nast. Like many others, P4K introduced me to countless bands over the years, so it was a damn shame to hear that it’s being folded into GQ after all this time. These days, Ryan is working on a memoir titled WEIRD ERA, curating his weekly new music playlist What’s Good, and most recently, building an artist management agency called xtra/credit. One of the artists he’s working with is Anastasia Coope, a Jagjaguwar signed psych-folk artist in NYC, and her new single is one of my favorites this year. Lucky for us, Ryan is here to tell us what he’s into.
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Every great once in a while, on Sundays, my boyfriend and I decide to treat ourselves to a small bottle of sake, shared in slow-sipping fashion throughout the day. It is so cute and ceremonial and, counterintuitively, restorative af. There’s something peaceful about the practice of filling tiny ceramic cups with a nice junmai daiginjo and pairing your sips with a good read. I love to take a heavy wood cutting board into bed and repurpose it as a miniature pouring table.
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As a Gen X-model human, I love watching old garbage movies from the haziest corners of the pop-cult periphery: ‘70s grindhouse slashers, apocalyptic ‘80s sci-fi, politically incorrect legal thrillers from the ‘90s and ‘00s where Michael Douglas is a bougie, cutthroat executive (and also somehow the victim). Tubi has them all, free (with commercials obv), for your low-stakes, ambient viewing pleasure. Beyond its immense cheeseball catalog, the UX is sturdier and more functional than most of the top-tier, paid-streaming apps. It has never been so easy to just throw something on.
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I adore music zines. Always loved them. I don’t mean full-on glossy magazines, though I love those, too. I mean the handmade, typewritten, toner-smeared kind made out of printer paper and staples and a burning desire to participate in a tradition of creative writing, interviewing, art-making, and whatever other form of creativity one feels like stuffing into its pages. At the moment, I’m obsessed with a few: Hallogallo, which is run out of Chicago by Kai Slater (of the bands Lifeguard and Sharp Pins) which just published its 10th issue featuring an interview with Stereolab’s Laetitia Sadier; Love Injection, a long-running club culture zine by NYC’s Barbie Bertisch and Paul Raffaele; and Shadow Wolf, the handiwork of Holland-based electronic artist Legowelt.
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It’s rare to read sharply worded, negative reviews nowadays, and I get it. Writing (and publishing) negative criticism can feel like the most thankless, isolating work in journalism. Few writers are eager to subject themselves to torrents of internet backlash or risk access to artists’ camps, especially to further a form often said to be outmoded by the general populace. But, as many have persuasively argued, it is essential— and perhaps now more than ever, given its diminishing presence in media.It‘s been a relief lately to see younger voices like Constantly Hating (Substack), Antiart (Instagram), and Gabi Belle (Youtube) emerge in new outlets, offering sometimes clumsy but always entertaining takes. Nothing satisfies like a warranted pan backed by a well-argued thesis. It lends color and character to the author, raises stakes and standards for artists, and catalyzes necessary discourse. It also helps frustrated listeners feel seen (and see each other).
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If you’ve got an old iPod, CDs, CD-Rs, or other dead-format music libraries stuffed in a closet or storage somewhere, I have to recommend doing whatever is necessary to give them a new lease on life. Seriously: Order that old Dock Connector cable, buy that used Discman, or lumber around in the attic or basement for those buried boxes. I promise it’s worth every bit of the cost and struggle.I recently took a stack of old hard drives to data recovery, hoping to restore decades of lost photos and writings, but instead spent more time combing the MP3 collection I thought I’d lost in a 2015 crash. All the forgotten albums, remixes, bootlegs, DJ edits, and Soundcloud rips were like accessing an alternate mode of music discovery from an earlier version of myself: Oneohtrix Point Never’s Eccojams and early Games cassettes, DJ Sprinkles’ Midtown 120 Blues, Blawan’s “Why They Hide Their Bodies Under My Garage,” Death Grips’ Exmilitary, and innumerable reggae singles, bloghouse remixes, and techno twelves are back from the grave (and loving it!), co-existing alongside years of Bandcamp purchases.
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It’s no secret that the triangular parcel of land known as The Lot Radio is Brooklyn’s best warm-weather hang and a key hub of New York dance culture. Opened in 2013 and run by Francois Vaxelaire and Pauline La Mell, the site features a DJ booth/shipping container known to host thee most legendary producers in dance music. On any given day, you can relax in the sunshine with friends and a bottle or coffee while listening to artists, critics, record shop owners, or producers mix live on air— or, if you’re lucky, stumble onto a set from Octo Octa, Nick León, or Honey Dijon.
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