here’s a chronological list of the 30 best 1970s experimental/psychedelic folk albums that I made a few years ago

April the 14th, Pt. 1 YouTube video by Gillian Welch - Topic

unhappy Ruination Day to all who commemorate

youtu.be/FjwatDksOvQ?...

the fourth one is also much harder to find/more expensive used than the others

they’ll blurb this on the back of a future edition I’m sure

Oh fun! I found this particularly helpful in understanding phenomena that were historically central but don’t get talked about in terms of enduring masterworks—the British bourgeois world of neoclassical collectors/dealers, their relationship to Roman patrons and German theorists etc

I read this not too long ago, for sure worth the read

A Universe of Music in an Appalachian City: Big Ears Festival 2026 - Ultra Dogme Alex Fields reports from this year's Big Ears in Knoxville, delving into the music festival's far-reaching lineup, moods and spaces.

My report on Big Ears 2026, with special concern for fingerpickin guitarists and the many achievements of SML

Bandcamp Friday recs

Tone Glow 218: Gwenifer Raymond An interview with the Welsh fingerpicking guitarist about the blues, how her "piss-poor attention span" informs her compositional approach, and her album 'Last Night I Heard the Dog Star Bark' (2025)

A few weeks ago I got to interview Gwenifer Raymond, who made my favorite album of 2025, and tomorrow I get to see her at Big Ears

toneglow.substack.com/p/tone-glow-...

Cinéma du Réel 2026 — Dispatch 1: Dao, We Are the Fruits of the Forest, Relicto | In Review Online A new film festival dispatch from 2026 Cinema du Reel for film review site in Review Online.

I reviewed RELICTO (a documentary about the last Tinigua man) and SUBURBIA, THERE AND BACK (Damien Cattinari’s feature-length landscape film about Paris and its suburbs) for In Review Online’s first Cinéma du Réel dispatch

inreviewonline.com/2026/03/25/c...

Cinéma du Réel 2026, part 1 There are frequent reasons to lament the documentary takeover of experimental film programming, but Cinéma du Réel is never one of them.

I wrote about a bunch of films from this year’s Cinéma du Réel, happening now

notreconciled.substack.com/p/cinema-du-...

Film Show 062: Jack Auen & Kevin Walker An interview with the filmmaking duo about Umberto Eco, capturing obsession on film, and the ideas and stories behind their debut feature 'Chronovisor' (2026), the highlight of this year's IFFR

I interviewed the directors of the best film of 2026 so far, CHRONOVISOR

toneglow.substack.com/p/film-show-...

a V Mortensen travel show called Viggo In Italia

Rotterdam 2026: Shorts Highlights IFFR is one of the most exciting programs for me each year, not just because of the sheer number of films and the high proportion of formalist and experimental work, but because of the unusually stron...

on Not Reconciled, I wrote notes on seven of the best short films I saw from the 2026 IFFR program

notreconciled.substack.com/p/rotterdam-...

In 1970 he got in trouble for a Navy Times article critical of the Vietnam war effort (that was the year he had 20 years of service and soon retired with career benefits to become a high school principal)

Apparently I’m wrong and the first entry was 1950, when he was 19 years old and first joined the Navy, and the cover page was added later in ‘57

My dad growing up in Japan where his dad was based as a Navy officer

My grandpa on Mt Vesuvius in 1960

First and last entries from a notebook my grandpa maintained for 67 years

“We reject that our programmers have intimidated filmmakers, that we’ve silenced filmmakers,” says Berlinale Director Tricia Tuttle, and that’s why she’s going to individually contact filmmakers who signed this letter to intimidate and silence them into removing their names

RIP Simeon Fields, elder statesman of east Kentucky folk music, fingerpicker and bridge player extraordinaire, mortal enemy of Bush and Trump, immortal UK basketball fan, grandpa (and great-great grandpa) to a legion of us

they’re telling me this is a sports team mascot. no. this is the murderer in a giallo film

someone on the opposite side of the world in Melbourne organized a screening of avant garde Christmas films based on the list I made a couple years ago, and mailed me a copy of the program

Fred Wiseman was born two months before my grandpa in 1930; two men of a very different generation who fundamentally shaped my view of art, one through film and one through music

Now Wiseman is gone and my grandpa has terminal stomach cancer and probably days or weeks to live

Experimental flower films for Valentine’s Day Send to your sweeties who love form-forward cinema

for those celebrating the weekend’s holiday (or those who just like flowers)

boxd.it/t2Fhe

Josephinenhütte white wine glass, my all time favorite glass

drinking Fritz Lang’s favorite Riesling tonight

Just learned that Aaron Paul is not the brother of Jake and Logan Paul

Next you’re gonna tell me that John Paul II ain’t their dad

I’ve already seen a number of very good films this year courtesy of the IFFR program. CHRONOVISOR is the best of them but also:

THE KILLING OF MEGHNAD (Avikunthak)
TYCOON (Zhang)
ALL YOU NEED TO MAKE A MOVIE IS A GUN (Sein)
XTENDED RELEASE (Solondz)
FOR ONCE I DREAMED OF YOU (Solar)

Happy fifth birthday to my dog Waylon and happy twenty-fifth birthday to the song “Drops of Jupiter” by Train