ISSUE #151
On Tuesday, I found I was home alone for the night—an intoxicating feeling. And, like intoxication, there is the rush and then the crash, the future's boundless meadow dotted with hidden sinkholes of memory.
I’m still surprised by what I forget—like how it feels to be alone—and how often I find I'm repeating myself. I worry I’ll fall right back into old patterns, Jeff the Walking Déjà Vu, an optometry test flipping between panes with imperceptible changes.
This came to mind that night listening to Fearless (Taylor's Version). I forgot that I once knew a lot of the words. I was drawn by how well she retraced her steps, an invisible difference that still felt new. The songs had deepened with the wisdom of now, like knowing what water can sustain a dive.
Every new song we hear is a fresh batch of feeling. After weeks of Wyrms looking back to the past, here is a collection of new music we missed—with every note, the chance to remake a memory.
Hauntology is, as far as I’m concerned, Halloween’s most essential genre. Embodied by Burial, Boards of Canada, The Caretaker, and more, its defining sound is that of decay—vinyl noise, tape hiss, reverb, echo—and it captures the ghostly nature of nostalgia. A haunting, at its essence, is the presence of an absence.