Hannah Cohen's Catskills magic

5 new songs, rotisserie chicken + more.

Packed newsletter to take you into the weekend. The best new music recs on the planet, rotisserie chicken, A.P.C. x Asics, Irish pubs, spa drama, Yankees restaurant recs, and more.

ALBUM OF THE WEEK

Hannah Cohen — Earthstar Mountain

“Whoever has made a voyage up the Hudson must remember the Kaatskill mountains… Every change of season, every change of weather, indeed, every hour of the day produces some change in the magical hues and shapes of these mountains… When the weather is fair and settled, they are clothed in blue and purple, and print their bold outlines on the clear evening sky; but sometimes, when the rest of the landscape is cloudless, they will gather a hood of gray vapors about their summits, which, in the last rays of the setting sun, will glow and light up like a crown of glory.”

—WASHINGTON IRVING, “RIP VAN WINKLE“

Time moves differently in the Catskills. Rip Van Winkle had a few drinks and fell asleep for 20 years, waking up to realize he had missed the entire Revolutionary War. Something happens on the drive up I-87, as the city drops out of the rearview and the landscape blurs into a smudge of greens and browns and blues.

Hannah Cohen’s fourth album, her first in six years, brings to life that feeling of timelessness. An ode to the Catskills and named after a celestial fungi, Earthstar Mountain captures the region’s mystical essence. Cosmic indie folk pulling from Dusty Springfield, Fleetwood Mac, Sly & the Family Stone, and Ennio Morricone in search of everything, everywhere, all at once.

The best songs achieve the certain hit of nostalgia that borders on deja vu, where a sensation will trigger not one memory but all of them. You catch a whiff of dirt and you’re back to playing in the backyard as a kid, to a playground you went to once, to a lake house on some forgotten weekend. You don’t quite remember it but you can feel it. You wonder how you could have ever forgotten so much, and then you forget it again. Life goes on.

5 NEW SONGS

Bear1Boss — “18 WHEELER”

Bear1Boss has been making overstimulated ADHD rap long before “OPM BABI” but “18WHEELER” is a level up and sounds like lightning struck an arcade and turned on every machine at once.

Smerz — “You got time and I got money”

Sometimes love is about going on vacation and shoes and clean t-shirts and what kind of restaurants you want to go to and waking up next to them.

NAV — “UNLIMITED” ft. Playboi Carti

This is what Ashton Hall listens to when he sprints. A snippet of this leaked a couple years back as an Offset song featuring Carti, who reportedly never cleared his verse. Now it’s NAV’s song without Offset (and with The Weeknd)? Makes sense.

Venna — “Prophet”

After spending all day depressed “Studio Ghibli style” AI “art” being posted like it was a good thing, spending five minutes zoning out into this song and video from UK jazz producer and saxophonist Venna was what my soul needed.

YT — “Girls Trip”

2025 Karmaloop rap from the UK.

1 OLD SONG

A new Shoreline Mafia album on the way sent me back to the first song that put me on way back in 2018. An ode to classic ‘00s Bay Area hyphy that encapsulated the late ‘10s LA resurgence and still sounds like the future. R.I.P. Ketchy The Great.

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What’s going on?

Forest Hills Stadium might not have any concerts this summer. EDM claims another victim.

There is an underground rap meme Illuminati orchestrating what goes viral. I was already impressed by i-D’s new era and that was before they interviewed Swegg and had him break down “good brainrot” vs. “badbrain rot.”

Someone please save Bachelor in Paradise. Bachelor in Paradise is a perfect show. You get a bunch of hot dumb people on a beach together and watch them get drunk and hook up. It’s the only reason to watch The Bachelor or The Bachelorette at this point, just to get the necessary backstory on everyone.

So you’ll understand my confusion when they announced this week that the considerably older Golden Bachelor/Bachelorette contestants will be joining the regular, (much, much) younger contestants this season. At best this means copious sob stories or having to watch someone’s grandmother make a fool of herself. At worst you have to witness hookups with a 50-year age gap.

Kareem Rahma is the busiest man in short-form video. He has a new show with UPS and we better see Keith in here at some point.

The cool kids are flocking to an Irish pub in FiDi. T.J. Byrnes is the ideal bar. A reliable neighborhood staple with ample space and no intention of becoming cool. As it becomes increasingly impossible to navigate NYC without reservations or members fees or TikTok-fueled lines, it’s only right that people are seeking out the simplicity of Byrnes.

This guy reviewing rotisserie chickens is my new favorite content. Wegman’s Rosemary is the best, but don’t sleep on the BBQ either.

White summer sneaker deadline is approaching. A.P.C. has a new Asics collab on the way and those gum soles are hard to resist.

Teen producers are making up to $150K per month making soulless phonk music.

It’s evil white noise built for mindless grinding, a life where every second must be filled with bludgeoning beats. This iteration increasingly feels like the marching music for a technofascist state, the soundtrack of a future where computers generate new megahits in two clicks.

The Yankees love 4 Charles Prime Rib, Don Angie, and Lucali.

People are claiming they’re getting UTIs from Bathhouse in Williamsburg. Not surprising. I got one of the best massages of my life at Bathhouse, but the tubs were packed and the locker room was disgusting.