Year End: On 15 People We Interviewed in 2017 Who Created Some of My Favorite Work in 2017
Mount Eerie’s album, A Crow Looked At Me, a cycle of songs about the death of Phil Elverum’s wife, the artist Geneviève Castree, and he and his daughter’s survival. It’s deeply diaristic, raw, and personal, but feels universal.
Her series of photos, Shedding Skin, and her ongoing Instagram feed.
His exhibition, Keep on Pushing gave me a new perspective on his process, and the opening felt like a happening.
Her ongoing Instagram feed of drawings, as well as her debut solo show, “Death of a Tail”. Heather’s work feels like work I’ve known my entire life, but keeps surprising me.
Her collection of poems, Whereas struck me as perfect and unchangeable.
His performance at Remains that launched our Trump Countdown Clock. It was my favorite live experience of the year.
Her exhibition, Bodega Run
Her biography, After Kathy Acker, which feels like a lot more than a biography.
Scott McClanahan’s novel about his divorce, The Sarah Book. People say this all the time, but I really did read it in a single gulp.
Her performance of “Untitled (Double Face)” at Basilica Soundscape.
His album, async focuses on mortality, and being closer to death than you ever have been in your life, but we’re all always closer to death with each second, and that realization (and this album) are somehow very calming.
His interview with Amy Rose Spiegel that we ran on TCI. It should be published as its own short book.
His album, No Shape, as well as his brilliant Twitter feed.
Hanif Abdurraqib’s essay collection, They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us is beautifully and incisively written. If you didn’t know he was a poet before you opened it up, you’d have it figured out by the end of the first essay.
About the Author
Brandon Stosuy is Co-founder and Editor in Chief of The Creative Independent and a Music Curator at the Broad Museum in Los Angeles. He was formerly Director of Editorial Operations at Pitchfork. He co-founded and co-curates the annual Basilica Soundscape festival in Hudson, N.Y. and the ongoing Tinnitus music series in NYC. For the past several years he and the artist Matthew Barney have collaborated on a series of live events, objects, and publications. They launched a Trump Countdown clock in June 2017 across from the UN. His anthology, Up is Up, But So Is Down: New York’s Downtown Literary Scene, 1974-1992, was published by NYU Press in 2006. His first children’s book, Music Is, was published by Simon & Schuster in 2016. He has a second children’s book forthcoming, also on Simon & Schuster, in 2018.