Mark Richardson

I am supremely unqualified to answer this. The only one I know well and love is Dig Me Out. I refer you to Jenn Pelly’s review of their discography. 

I like them a fair amount, but I’m def. a novice. Every 80s thing I hear I love. Palace of Swords Reversed I know very well and love.

this was asked during one of those “ask me records and I’ll rate them” things, and I later wound up reviewing this one.

I like him a fair amount, though honestly Excitable Boy and the best-of are really all I need. He was very funny and wrote beautiful melodies, just a very unusual character in pop music. The oral history of his life that came out about 10 years ago was good.

I’d say Confield. It took me a long time to get into it. When it finally clicked I honestly thought of Miles Davis On the Corner, feels like that kind of mix of way-out texture and disorienting rhythm. 

I loved it. Really gave me a lot to chew on. I think it’s probably the most important new book about music in the last 5 years (Ellen Wills Out of the Vinyl Deeps is the most important overall). The book endured a lot of criticism but to me that was a sign of how much it made people think. To a degree I think it was written to start conversations, and it did that and then some.