Here’s my messy 2023 summary post ✨
I had good experiences watching a bunch of things I’d been meaning to watch for a while, or by directors I’d been meaning to check out for a while:
- Godzilla.
- Crimewave and Springtime in Greenland by John Paizs.
- 26 Bathrooms, and The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover by Peter Greenaway (also Drowning by Numbers, which I didn’t like at all).
- Twisted Pair by Neil Breen.
- Lots of Johnnie To films.
- Shadows in Paradise by Aki Kaurismäki.
Lots of docos:
- Love and Saucers.
- Shinjuku Boys and Dressing for Pleasure that Trash Palace screened were both good.
- Watched plenty of bad music ones.
Highlight of MIFF was seeing Querelle again.
My 2022 post said ‘I didn’t listen to much I really liked’, but I guess I made up for it in 2023. Feel like I found some of my all-time favourite songs. Some highlights:
- Playback Part 2 by Momoe Yamaguchi
- Lots of karaoke videos off a YT channel that seems to have disappeared :(
- Remembered the Tina Arena song I Need Your Body.
- Heard I Wanna Be Your Lover by La Bionda in a mix, then YT led me to some good songs by San Giovanni Bassista, and Spacer Woman by Charlie.
- Listened to Midnight by Edith Bliss a bunch, I think that’s my fave of hers now.
- Stardust Sniper by Sayuri Kokusho.
- Goodbye Season and Mi-Ha by Chisato Moritaka. But almost that whole album‘s become a fave.
- Miss Liberty by John Sauli.
- Kiss Her by Jane Hill.
- 私Mailuwa by Yukari Yamamoto.
- Maybe I’d heard Give Me Up and I Don’t Know! by BaBe before but I listened to them a lot.
- Yoko Nagayama’s great cover of Big Love and Hidemi Ishikawa’s cover of Love Comes Quickly went together a lot.
- When I Spend My Time With You by Model-T is a real special one.
- Near the end of the year I looked into Dragon and Marc hunter and have listened to them a bit since.
- Can’t remember how I stumbled upon In Alto Mare by Loredana Bertè, but there’s a live version I really like. Notte Che Verrà too, actually.
- At some point I was trying to find a song I had vague memories of and learned it was by Ollie Olsen’s band No, and was listening to them for a while.
- Whoops, left off Cinderella Honeymoon by Hiromi Iwasaki.
Started enjoying singles last year, bought lots of 7″.
Didn’t release much. Was commissioned to do a game mid-year and started another one in December, messed with music but nothing’s really come of it.
Read shit all.
2024 is the year of perfume so far, look out.