Cleo’s Staff Picks

Scroll down to read an archive of Cleo’s staff pick write-ups.

glas, Two

“Heavy zoned out synths that feel like you’re cascading down a pit. Listened to this while eating potato skins the other night and it was good for that too. I heartily endorse Glas both as individuals and as a musical project.”

Can, Monster Movie

“Scariest and most paranoid Can record.”

Les Rallizes Denudes, Heavier Than a Death in the Family

“Absolutely essential.”

Merzbow, Rainbow Electronics

“Really gorgeous cassette edition of a Merzbow classic.”

Ann Quin, Tripticks

“A joyful & experimental deathtrip of a science fiction novel”

Parson Sound, S/T

“Unreal to think this came out in the 60’s. Sounds like the heaviest side of psych possible (think something closer to Earth) but with the idiosyncratic tendencies of the Dunedin experimental scene, i.e Dead C or Dadamah.”

Liaisons Dangereuses, S/T

“Beate Bartel.”

Sonic Youth, EVOL

“‘Mystery train/three-way plane/expressway to your skull.’ Enough said.”

Darkthrone, Blaze In the Northern Sky

“Essential winter dread & gloom. Metal only got worse from here.”

Nico, Femme Fatale Live ’85

“Wonderful live set from Nico’s best era. Winter music for real.”

László Krasznahorkai, A Mountain to the North, a Lake to the South, Paths to the West, a River to the East

“A beautifully minimal one from a Hungarian master.”

The Smiths, Meat Is Murder

“Still one of the best, haters be damned”

Panda Bear, Person Pitch

“Better and weirder than any Animal Collective record.”

Unica Zurn, The Man of Jasmine & Other Texts

“A unique and disturbing memoir from an underread surrealist master”

Missouri Williams, The Doloriad

“An amazing and dark first novel about the different forms that humanity and perseverance can take. Probably the best and most troubling book I read all year. The book of the times.”

Nico and the Faction, Camera Obscura

“Perfect for the impending doom & gloom of winter.”

David Markson, Wittgenstein’s Mistress

“The most convincing post-apocalyptic book of all time.”

Alan Licht, Three Chords and a Sword: Solo Cover Versions 1988-2021

“Nobody could make Van Halen sound pretty but Alan Licht.”

LA Plays Itself: The Fred Halsted Collection

“Weirdo gay adult film classics, essential for fans of car films.”

Iggy & the Stooges, Metallic K.O.

“Absolutely beyond Raw, Stooges at their best.”

Sonic Youth, Simon Werner A Disparu

“If i could listen to only one band for the rest of my life, it’d be Sonic Youth.”

Ratcatcher

“A bleak & beautiful movie. Everything Lynne Ramsay’s made is wonderful, but her debut is in a league of its own.”

Big Thief, Capacity

“Mythological Beauty still gives me chills. Heavy hitter.”

Henri Lefebvre, The Missing Pieces

“A catalog of unfinished & lost works by artists, writers & composers. Imagine something similar to Baskinki’s Disintegration Loops but for cultural history. What is missing often defines what remains.”

Nurse With Wound, Homotopy To Marie

“Definitely my favorite Nurse With Wound release and probably one of my favorite pieces of experimental music. Frightening, funny, surreal and everything in between – basically everything that’s great about Nurse With Wound on one album.”

The Body & Full of Hell, One Day You Will Ache Like I Ache

“The masters at their peak. I fake it so real, I am beyond fake.”

Titane

“My favorite movie that came out last year. Tender and disturbing and completely unpredictable.”

Pierre Guyotat, Coma

“While primarily known for his grotesque exploration of the Algerian War, Eden Eden Eden, Guyotat’s Coma is just as piercing. An introspective exploration into what it means to be human in a world removed of humanity, Coma is a singular book that could only come from Guyotat.”

Thriller: A Cruel Picture

“A grotesque & bleak movie that’s so stylistically insane that it works. Slow & methodical pace, a loping camera and one of the weirdest soundtracks make it rise above mere exploitation movie.”

Virginie Despentes, King Kong Theory

“A truly piercing book.”

We’re All Going to the World’s Fair

“Probably one of the most haunting movies i’ve seen recently. To talk about it too much would spoil it, but completely left me torn open, gasping at the screen when it finished. Real true horror.”

Kathy Acker, Empire of the Senseless

“My personal favorite Kathy Acker book, a deep & kaleidoscopic journey into hell featuring pirates, androids, God and what it means to push one’s body to the absolute limits.”

Larry Clark, Tulsa

“The only time glamorizing self annihilation as art has worked.”

Ann Quin, Three

“Beautiful example of a book as a mobius strip. ‘The boat is ready as planned. And all that’s left is a note. I know nothing will change’ are some of my absolute favorite bleak lines in a book.”

Fernanda Melchor, Hurricane Season

“A work of true cosmic bleakness and power, Hurricane Season transcends both the murder mystery genre & novel in general. Needs to be read to be believed.”

Human Rights

“Absolutely massive tome of cutting edge ‘science-fiction’ novellas & essays. A must have for any lover of transgressive writing. Has an equally essential bibliography of classic science-fiction texts to continue falling down the rabbithole”

Steve Finbow, The Mindshaft

“A daring collage of a place & time that doesn’t exist anymore. You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)”

Brion Gysin, Permutations

“One of the ultimates in psychedelic writing & concrete poetry. No one matches Gysin”

Michael McDowell, Toplin

“Absolutely insane black comedy existential horror. Like Eraserhead but simultaneously bleaker & funnier.”

Katherine Dunn, Attic

“Dunn’s masterpiece about a disaffected woman trapped in jail for a crime she didn’t commit, Attic reads nothing like Geek Love and is true testament to Dunn’s abilities as a writer”

Charli XCX, Crash

“Eulogy for late 90’s/early 00’s pop music.”

Rites of Spring, End on End

“I don’t really care about punk or emo music outside of this record, but god,,,,,,this record”

Katherine Dunn, Geek Love

“Classic dysfunctional family novel. Heartbreaking, bizarre & darkly funny. Arturo is one of the best written characters in fiction.”

Coil, Musick to Play in the Dark 2

“The second half of Coil’s album of moon music is much more somber than the first. Perfect soundtrack to zone out to at 2am. Batwings might be Coil’s finest moment”

Santa Sangre

“Forget El Top. Forget Holy Mountain. Jodorowsky’s magic realist horror satire of giallo movies is his true masterpiece”

Dan Graham, Theatre

“RIP Dan Graham. Nice facsimile reissue of an early artist book by Graham, documenting early performances. Essential for anyone looking to dive into the work of this criminally undersung artist”

J.G Ballard, Conversations

“A collection of key interviews with the ever-prescient writer & social theorist. My hot J.G Ballard take is that his interviews are the best thing he wrote.”

Jack Spicer, After Lorca

“Jack Spicer ‘translates’ and rewrites a selection of Lorca poems, often creating a hybrid mix of both. Anyone that says that poetry is overly serious or can’t be playful should take note”

Flora-Yin Wong, Liturgy

“A stunning book that delves deep into how we process and understand traditions, holiness & superstition. Unlike anything i’ve ever read.”

Constance DeJong, Modern Love

“An essential reissue of this autofiction classic.”

Dave Gilden, Texas Chainsaw Dopefiend

“American noise at it’s best and most raw. True caveman electronics.”

Andrea Dworkin, Last Days at Hot Slit

“The only writings you’ll need from this controversial feminist figure. Dworkin’s writing is often overlooked because of some of her more extreme stances, but her collagelike essays are emotive and transgressive in ways that few of her contemporaries ever were. It’s a comparison that i’m sure she’d loathe, but elements of her work remind me of Peter Sotos in their rawness. The introduction to this volume is also well worth it.”

Ryu Murakami, Piercing

“Equal parts disturbing & funny, an intense masterpiece”

Samuel R Delany, Dhalgren

“An avant-garde sci-fi classic, I’ve never been so simultaneously angry & enamored with a book as I have with Dhalgren.”

James Purdy, In a Shallow Grave

“James Purdy is one of the most underrated american writers of the last 100 years. His writing is grotesque, funny and heartbreaking, often in the same sentence. In A Shallow Grave shows Purdy in top form. I don’t want to spoil any of the twists and turns, but as I set the book down, I had to step outside to catch my breath. RIYL: the early films of John Waters, Denis Johnson, Flannery O’Connor, a gentle empty feeling”

Robert Ashley, Automatic Writing

“Falling asleep to Automatic Writing, having a nightmare during Purposeful Lady Slow Afternoon, waking back up to She Was A Visitor and going about my day.”

Robert Gluck, Margery Kempe

“A masterpiece of autofiction. Century spanning religious lust & obsession.”

David Wojnarowicz, Weight of the Earth

“Transcriptions of the audio-journals of one of the most important artists/writers of the 80’s Downtown New York scene. Equally bleak, charming & rambling.”

Jean Baudrillard, America

“A fractured and poetic analysis of America in the 80’s that feels almost like science fiction”

Jenny Hval, Girls Against God

“Mystical feminist theory meets body horror meets exploration of gender roles in black metal/Norway. A suffocatingly angry and dreadful atmosphere pervades this book. Truly unlike anything else you could read.”

VA, Live in Los Angeles: A Small Mercies Compilation

“Spooky Action At A Distance.”

John Cale, The Academy in Peril

“The only classical/rock fusion album that works”

Richard Pinhas, Chronolyse

“The best sci-fi synthwave there could be.”

The Velvet Underground, VU

“Best record with a song talking about the weather in Alaska”

The Body, All the Waters of the Earth Turn to Blood

“Grips you and won’t let go”

Sarah Mary Chadwick, Me and Ennui Are Friends Baby

“RIYL: Joanna Newsom’s piano tracks, bummers“

The Nihilist Spasm Band, Vol. 2

“The greatest band in the whole world”

Richard Ramirez, Volume 1

“Ramirez’s best work has always been the work recorded under his own name, and this boxset proves this time and time again with each disc. Truly an essential compilation of noise from the master.”

Crazy Doberman, “Everyone is Rolling Down a Hill” or “The Journey to the Center of Some Arcane Mystery and the Entanglements of the Vines and Veins of the Cosmic and Unwieldy Millieu Encountered in the Midst of That Endeavor”

“Warped electronics, reeds & improvisations that recall 70’s trip classics like Can & electric era Miles”

Aaron Dilloway/Jeph Jerman, Casual Collisions

“Noise at its most minimalist & unsettling.”

Blue (Derek Jarman)

“Hardest movie i’ve ever watched.”

The Chills, Submarine Bells

“Perfect bummer pop to ease into fall”

Cindytalk, Wappinschaw

“Cindytalk’s Wappinschaw stands at a wild intersection between dreampop and industrial and manages the dichotomy extremely well. It’s also hard not to love an album that cites Bashō and Sade Abe as influences.”

Faust, S/T

“The first Faust record still hits the hardest. The warped sample of All You Need Is Love is still just as startling. Absolute best”

Joe Potts, Daily Planet

“Uniquely nauseating and disquieting early photocopy/xerox art by the mastermind behind Airway”

K&S, Vex Palladium

“Enveloping and pulsating noise at its most Byronic and baroque”

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  October 8, 2021  |  Staff Picks