Museums Are the Antidote to Slop. Visit One This Weekend.
I’ve been on a museum kick lately. Museums are the antidote to the slop that poisons our daily lives. These institutions present art and history with the information and context necessary to understand what we see and hear. They’re curated - the actual definition of the word, not the watered-down marketing department version of it - by people who have done real research to present the materials in the most accurate way possible. I can trust what I see in a museum and that’s comforting when I can’t get through a single scroll without asking truly absurd questions like, “Is that Golden Trump for real?”
My favorite thing about museums, though, is that the exhibitions are designed to be seen in person. You can take as many photos as you want, but none of them are going to do justice to the art or exhibits. That’s why, instead of my regular recommendations this week, I wanted to encourage people to go out and see what is in your local museums. If you’re reading this in Los Angeles, which I am assuming you are, then I have two specific institutions to shout out. Both are in locations that are easy to visit whether you have a car or use public transit and admission for both is free.
Read more in “Museums Are the Antidote to Slop. Go Visit One This Weekend.”
As for new music, here are my recommendations.
Minoru “Hoodoo” Fushimi “In Praise of Mitochondria”
XL Middleton, Milk Talk “Funkin’ Me Up”
“In Praise of Mitochondria” from Japanese musician and producer Minoru “Hoodoo” Fushimi is something of a cult classic for fans of funk from Japan. I was unfamiliar with it until local city pop party Tokyo Love Song reissued the song as the A-side on their first vinyl 7” release earlier this month. It’s a killer electrofunk/early hip-hop cut. Kicking the release up a notch is the B-side, a cover(ish) version of the A-side called “Funkin’ Me Up” from Tokyo Love Song’s XL Middleton and Japan-based duo Milk. Talk, where they tease out the P-Funk and Zapp undertones of the original, turning it into a West Coast-style party jam with a hydraulic bounce.
Read the full review on Beatique.
Carla J. Easton I Think That I Might Love You
Throughout her career, Carla J. Easton wrote and played with piano and synthesizers. That changed, though, after spending eight years working on the documentary Since Yesterday: The Untold Story of Scotland’s Girl Bands. “I would just interview and spend time with these incredible, powerful, independent women,” says Glasgow-based Easton on a recent video call. “None of them ever waited for an invitation. A lot of them are just like, I’ll pick up a guitar, fuck it.”
So Easton, too, decided to just pick up a guitar. The result is her latest solo album, I Think That I Might Love You, out on May 8.
“It’s just really refreshing to understand that, as an adult, you can still learn new skills,” says Easton. “I think as adults, we sometimes forget that you have to dedicate the time to practice. We just want to be good at something straight away.”
Holy Sun Opera House, The Holy Sun Opera House
For years, Krissy Barker has been dreaming about houses. Some of the dreams are frightening. Others are not. All feature very specific dwellings that only exist in her dreams. “I’ll visit the same ones over and over and over again, sometimes multiple times in the same night,” the L.A.-based singer and drummer says on a video call. After so many somnial visits, Barker started turning those mysterious spaces into songs and, after forming Holy Sun Opera House with composer dl Salo, they became the basis for the project’s self-titled debut album, out now via Hologram Opera.
Holy Sun Opera House is gothic music in a way you wouldn’t expect for 2026. Barker and Salo- both classically trained musicians who met playing pinball and share a wide variety of non-classical influences- have made the kind of album you want to hear while you’re reading Rebecca or marathoning episodes of Dark Shadows. The album The Holy Sun Opera House is gothic in the sense that the music gives you the impression of wandering through an old mansion on a stormy night, guided only by candlelight and unsure of what lies behind the doors you find.
Read more in “Holy Sun Opera House Turned Recurrent Dreams Into a Gothic Tale”
DJ Gigs
If you are in Los Angeles and you do want to get out to a club night this weekend, I’ll be at Footsies on Saturday, May 16, DJing alongside Malvada and Romy. The party’s called Acid Rain. Start time is 10 p.m. and there’s no cover. Also, I’m playing a vinyl set, which has become increasingly rare for me these days.
Thanks for reading! Hope to see you on the dance floor soon.
Liz O.