A gulf of time has passed since I first reviewed them on this blog. Since then, it has become one of the most popular posts.

I recently savored my fortune when a wave from the permanently shelf-stable wand of the junk food fairy brought me to western Queens’ newly-opened H Mart, whose gigantic scale I’ve not experienced since getting lost in the Asian grocery stores of Houston.

Baring it all on the shelves, at waist height, check to cheek, were not just one brand of couque d’asses, but two. On one side was Sanritsu’s matcha-flavored offering, and on the other, a decked-out, striped package containing couque d’asses from Korea’s brand Natural Story. All of this dueling Engrish-Flengrish means it is time for the Omnivorous Traveler’s first Ass Cookie Smackdown.

Let us start with the box from the Japanese brand Sanritsu, since that is the brand that introduced me to the realm of couque d’asses. Edging into the matcha-flavored snack and desert market already crowded with matcha Pocky, matcha bonbons, and matcha mille crepe cake to name a few, the shortbread of the matcha chocolate couque d’asse is dry and slightly rough-textured — as anything named after a langue du chat (cat’s tongue) should be. The matcha filling finished semi-sweetly with a touch of bitterness.

Meanwhile, Natural Story’s classy packaging cannot hide the product’s oversimplified flavor scheme that goes by the only word “white.” So what can one expect from white ass cookies? Excepting a brown racing stripe down their length, these pasty biscuits, more slender than their Japanese competition, utilized a softer shortbread, but yielded scant traces of creamy flavoring, despite the box claiming a filling of “Italian style cream cheese & ultra rich cream.” While the singular naming, couque d’asse, contradicts the box’s plural contents, the name hints at a more grammatically correct attempt that may pin the biscuit’s origin to the Asse municipality of Belgium which, according to Natural Story, is known for its “Italian style cream cheese.” But Asse is in the Dutch speaking part of Belgium, not the French speaking part. So now we have Dutch French Engrish with some Italian? Dunchrishian? Ah, I get it — general whiteness.

With such competition out there in boxes utilizing alluring graphic design, you have to know your ass cookies. The winner is — hold your butts — Sanritsu’s matcha chocolate couque d’asses, edging out the challenger by a longer, more pleasant finish. And the use of more proper Engrish.

When Josh Tillman, a.k.a. Father John Misty, dropped the surprise live album Off-Key in Hamburg on March 23, I gave it a chance for several reasons. Recorded with Orchestra Neue Philharmonie Frankfurt, the release is a benefit for MusiCares’ COVID-19 Relief Fund, established to assist peers in the music community affected by the pandemic. Applause sequences were kept to a delightful minimum (mostly, at least). And hey, almost none of us will attend live concerts for a while, so Tillman and company may have to tie us over.

Of course, one could make a case that Father John Misty is a fitting donor for a soundtrack to a pandemic. “9 out of 10 of my songs are about the end of the world,” he mentioned during an interview with the Scandinavian talk show Skavlan a couple years ago (A rock-star-interview exaggeration? Perhaps, but not by much). Off-Key in Hamburg contains material from all four Father John Misty studio albums, which means the release’s lyrics form a stream of troubling observations and images: a boat capsizing, a satanic Christmas Eve, a comparison of burgeoning love to a carcass left out in the heat.

That also means that humanity is in the hot seat. Tillman performed several tracks from his Grammy-winning 2017 release Pure Comedy that serve up such reflections as “When you question their sacred texts / Written by woman-hating epileptics / Their languages just serve to confuse them” and “There’s no place for human existence like right here / On this bright blue marble orbited by trash.” But, all things considered, that’s “Not bad for a race of demented monkeys.”

Off-Key in Hamburg follows the studio recordings closely, yet some spin off a curious freshness. The philharmonic treatment of “Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings” bestows the heavy-footed indie rock track with an anthem-like grandness that normalizes Tillman’s fearless fascination with death. Meanwhile, on the live versions of “Hangout at the gallows” and “Things it would have been helpful to know before the revolution,” the strings’ melancholy pleadings are less gentle and more prominent, more quivering, casting a spotlight on Tillman’s unsettling lyrics of the former (“I’m treading water as I bleed to death”) and the latter (“But what a perfect afternoon / Industry and commerce toppled to their knees”). Tillman’s borrowings from French singer/songwriter Serge Gainsbourg reveal themselves proudly on Off-Key in Hamburg, with snarly guitar and rising orchestral blooms that echo the seductive doom of Gainsbourg’s Melody Nelson.

Those seeking an escape from Tillman’s subtly amusing darkness may find relief in the eccentric and forgetful hotel guest in “Mr. Tillman,” a track from God’s Favorite Customer that sees its unhurried gait become buoyant and nod-worthy on stage in Hamburg. Don’t give up before you hear “I Love You, Honeybear,” whose atmosphere of drunken burlesque provides a catchy platform for demonstrating that, in the throes of apocalypse, love can still prevail. “My love, you’re the one I want to watch the ship go down with,” Tillman announces. “The future can’t be real … / Unless we’re naked, getting high on the mattress / While the global market crashes,” he continues, and finally, “Everything is doomed / And nothing will be spared / But I love you, honeybear.”

As with many live recordings, the loss of intimacy on the quieter songs’ tender underbellies is unfortunate. But whether Tillman’s songs are live or not, the end result is the same: we don’t even feel the music prodding us and guiding us along, like the hands of a veteran pickpocket. As we float through the murky depths of Tillman’s thoughts, we briefly forget stuff like running out of facemasks and avoiding human contact. Thus, we briefly trade our unnerving landscape for Tillman’s. I know which one I prefer.

Quebec’s very own Leonard Cohen. Crescent St., Montreal.

There is something satisfying about turning a corner in a grid of unremarkable buildings—offices, laundromats, Chinese takeouts, utilitarian staples—when a mural pounces out of the greyness. Proud of its hiding spot? I doubt it; a mural is not meant to shy away from eyes. It’s an indication that a city has decided it no longer needs to quarantine its art to funky neighborhoods. Free funk for all.

I considered such thoughts during my last visit to Montreal. Of course, one would expect vibrant murals adorning the buildings along Rue Sainte-Catherine, where college students put away bowls of inexpensive Vietnamese noodles and plates of Turkish lahmacun. But it seemed wherever I went in the city, murals were never off limits.

Just as a billboard paid for by the highest bidder was not chosen by the people of the neighborhood in which the billboard blares its advert, the art was most likely not chosen by local committee either. The murals may not be to everyone’s liking, but, in a way, the artwork evens the playing field of what is in view on a walk around the city. Here are some of my favorites from that August, 2019 visit. Note that over time, some of all of these murals will disappear and yield to new murals. A city inhaling, exhaling, living. Trying on new hats. Distilling recent thoughts and feelings. Or, just because it wants something new.

Fake meat has come a long way. And the curiously bleeding fake beef from Impossible Foods has taken a lead in this revolution, graduating from placement at a few tester restaurants here and there to nationwide availability at Burger King, arriving later this year.

Over the weekend, I tried 5 Napkin Burger’s version of the Impossible Burger, with lettuce, tomato, pickles, swiss cheese, and their mustard aioli (a.k.a. “burger sauce”). The patty arrived surprisingly charred like beef, an upgrade from my last encounter with Impossible beef a few years back, where the charring more closely resembled that of the outer crust of falafel. Unfortunately, the burger was well done — I had forgotten to ask for it to be cooked to medium. Then again, having the option to request doneness for a fake beef burger indicates what fake meat has achieved.

But my mistake had uncovered another similarity between Impossible meat and real beef: they both lose their precious juice and become disappointingly dry when overcooked (that is, cooked to well done). Despite the less than stellar dining experience, I’ll chalk this similarity up as a win for fake meat.

Priced the same as beef burger, 5 Napkin Burger seems to be going after carnivores as well as vegetarians. Both should be satisfied, so long as they remember to ask for their favorite cooking temperature.

Does the extra fuzzy guitar on “American Guilt” usher in a new direction for UMO? Does singer Ruban Nielson put a potato sack over his head before he records his vocal tracks, or does he just make it sound that way during editing? Does asking too many questions like this count as clickbait? I attempt to answer these questions (except the last one) over at Cultured Vultures.

In the popular music of today, guitar solos seem to have become an endangered species. That’s because the instrument itself seems to have become an endangered species in this current landscape dominated by hip-hop, dance pop, and electronic-driven work. As expected, Jack White’s latest album, Boarding House Reach, contains plenty of White’s luscious guitar riffs and solos high in the mixes. But this time, they coexist in a rhythmic sea of hip-hop, spoken word, funk, and country. Did Jack White just save rock ‘n’ roll by adapting it, or did his experimentation go a genre too far?

I explore the matter in my first piece for Global Comment: Genre, Gender, and Class Tumble in Jack White’s Sonic Blender.

Thankfully, her worst song ever does not appear on Rest. Instead, the veteran actress (Antichrist, Prête-moi ta main, Nymphomaniac) sings her bilingual French and English lyrics, distilled from her diaries, to the techno, house, and ambient beats of French electronic artist Sebastian Akchoté, creating a pleasantly dynamic yet poignantly personal work that showcases Gainsbourg’s vocal versatility. Akchoté must have taken notes on how Gainsbourg’s vocals on her 2006 release, 5:55, written by Air and Jarvis Cocker, occasionally fell into an awkward placement atop the band’s downtempo tracks, where Gainsbourg was unable to break out of a breathy delivery. Likewise, Akchoté must have also been informed by the sweet alchemy Gainsbourg and Beck had struck on IRM, with Beck’s braiding of singer-songwriter hooks and irresistible electro-indie rhythms allowing Gainsbourg to offer her own version of punchy French 60s yé-yé (albeit in English) as well as an injection of sexy edginess into her breathiness, creating a delightful contradiction.

The contradictions on Rest are less subtle. Gainsbourg recalls standing by her father’s dead body as the sound of nails driven into the coffin remains with her in “Lying with you,” while a driving drum machine and haunting keyboard lines, reminiscent of a late 70s Tangerine Dream groove, creates a darkness that lurks just beneath a glossy veneer of pop.

In contrast, Gainsbourg lays bare her grief in “Kate,” in which she reflects on the life of her half-sister who died in an apparent suicide. Akchoté opts for a sparser electronic pulse as Gainsbourg pushes through sorrow with a powerful angelic voice (“On the way to school / You were singing your idols” builds up to “A soul too tender” and “Lost forever”). With majestic, string-soaked turnarounds that sound as if they nod to Sufjan Stevens, Akchoté sharpens the edge of emotion with a touch of distortion on Gainsbourg’s vocals.

The infectious and dancefloor-ready “Deadly Valentine” reveals a recitation of wedding vows, perhaps representing her devotion to her long-standing partner, the actor and director Yvan Attal, in place of a legal marriage owing to her avoidance of the institution. While Akchoté managed to make all 23 brief tracks on his 2011 release Total sound and feel unique, Akchoté must have known he had hit on a killer groove for Gainsbourg’s “Deadly Valentine,” enough to lay down an almost interchangeable chorus for “Sylvia Says.” Thankfully, Gainsbourg brings a fresh tone and flavor to each to keep them distinctive and, fortunately, both tracks are not back to back on the CD (for us old-school folks who still play albums from start to finish).

Gainsbourg takes us for a gentle jaunt into French nouvelle chanson on “Dans Vos Airs.” While a comparison to Coralie Clement may be tempting, Gainsbourg’s own breathy coffeehouse delivery possesses too much body to be mistaken for the airy whispers of the former.

On “Songbird in a cage,” the only track whose lyrics Gainsbourg did not pen (Paul McCartney wrote the song for her some years back and also played guitars, piano, and drums on the track), Gainsbourg deftly alternates between yé-yé half-shouts on verses and silky Phantogram-esque choruses. Rounding out the top-shelf guest appearances Gainsbourg secured for the album, Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo of Daft Punk wrote the sparse, spacy music of the title track that dovetails well with Gainsbourg’s sensual dreamscape (“Stay with me, please / Do not let me forget you / Take my hand, secretly / I’ll let you fly me away”).

While the bare leg that pops “out of the sheet without shame and cold blood” during “Lying with You” belongs to the French singer, songwriter, and provocateur Serge Gainsbourg, his daughter has shown that while she was born from entertainment royalty (the British actress and singer Jane Birkin is her mother), she has carved out her own career and style, despite living in such tall shadows. Many fans of her father have expected to hear his daughter write and sing songs like his to satisfy their fix after Serge’s untimely death in 1991. While the Serge effect is unmistakable on Rest, especially in “Les Crocodiles,” with a confidence-oozing spoken narration, a buildup of strings, and a dry snare seemingly sampled from Histoire de Melody Nelson and only slightly fattened up, such details don’t spell out a mini-me Serge imitation. Rather, they form a tribute pulled sparingly from a songwriting toolset when the timing was right. And no one is better prepared for such a tribute than Serge’s own offspring.

After sharing thoughts on a visit to her sister’s grave in “Les Oxalis,” the final track, Gainsbourg attempts to lighten up the ambience with a hidden track containing an auto-tuned recording of her daughter singing the alphabet song, put to a stock electronic beat. Most likely, the idea behind the track—besides underscoring the continuing cycle of death and life—was that a singing child can put a smile on just about anyone’s face. Unfortunately, the track comes off as sounding like knob-nerd studio experimentation.

While Rest loses some ground compared to the instant catchiness of IRM, Gainsbourg’s own words make her new album her most vital to date. The album’s brave reflection on grief, melded with a beat-driven physique, creates a compelling and rewarding opus that reveals a deep connection between the artist and her work, something her fans (myself included) have been waiting for.

When dulse is dried, it becomes a shelf-stable snack I can rely on while sitting out freezing northeastern weather, like today. But some of my most recent memories involving dulse recall a much sunnier atmosphere. A few summers back, I had a chance to visit my grandfather’s old Acadian stomping grounds of Prince Edward Island, where the native Mi’kmaqs have been eating this excellent vegetarian source of B vitamins since long before the Europeans arrived. I discovered that on modern-day Prince Edward Island, seaweed consumption has mostly faded away. But after asking around, I found bags of dried dulse at the table of Oceanna Seaplants at the Charlottetown Farmers Market. Dr. Irene Novaczek, a marine ecologist who grew up in nearby Nova Scotia, co-owns the business with her daughter, and she remembers Nova Scotian pubs serving dulse as a snack instead of nuts. One of her favorite ways to enjoy dulse is by toasting the fronds quickly over a small fire on the beach, the seaplant gaining the crispness of bacon.

In New Brunswick, dulse is still prominent at the province’s farmer’s markets. Maine is America’s only commercial dulse outpost, supplying American health food stores with this sea vegetable in flakes (best for soups and smoothies), in granules (a replacement for salt), or in its most snackable form: a bag of fronds dried in an inviting tangle, ready for sharing.

While the band’s eponymous debut offering in 1998 retained echoes of the sludgy rock of Kyuss, Queens of the Stone Age’s predecessor with the same lineup, the band has shed pieces of the sound—having been honed at the outdoor concerts of the Palm Desert, California scene where the band was born—before each new album. With their latest release, Villains, Queens of the Stone Age seem to have finally left the stoner rock orbit. Either that, or the band has distilled and adapted stoner rock to suit a new sonic landscape: one populated with more dynamic, bite-sized songs that retain some of the repetitious distorted riffs of their long-winded ancestors, but succeed in taking the listener from one place to another.

Either way, listeners may be too busy dancing to bother grabbing the bong when it comes around. For Villains, Frontman Josh Homme engaged in a potentially risky maneuver in enlisting producer and pop specialist Mark Ronson (Lady Gaga, Adele, Paul McCartney) to barehandedly grab the buzzing mains of the guitar-driven rock Queens of the Stone Age is known for and bring out the inherent danceability of the band’s succulent grooves without neutering them in the process. Then again, the job of any good producer is to enhance, not to alter.

Some diehard elements of Queens of the Stone Age’s fan base may question the more prominent keyboards and the guitars’ lower levels in the mixes. But the keyboards on Villains, while employed more frequently than on the band’s previous albums, keep the cheese out and the rock in. Just as a glossy 80s production did not blunt the poetry of Patti Smith on Dream of Life, Ronson’s rhythm-forward treatment of Villains preserved the band’s sound while amplifying the material’s accessibility, catapulting Villains to number one on Billboard’s Alternative Albums chart, repeating the success of their 2013 release, …Like Clockwork.

The encroaching tide of the keyboard intro of “Feet Don’t Fail Me Now,” the album’s lead track, serves to launch the listener head-first into the song’s deliciously nasty funk that sets the album’s boogie-friendly tone. “The Way You Used To Do,” the album’s first single, follows next, the electric-razor buzz of the guitars locking into a tight swing rhythm that is probably already breathing life into many a tiresome swing dancing set (no offense, Benny Goodman).

Exploring a contemplative space that picks up where the soft-loud-soft “Kalopsia” from …Like Clockwork left off, “Fortress” is more of a steady rocker, with its introduction of beckoning ambience leading to the album’s most intimate lyrics (“It ain’t if you fall / But how you rise that says / Who you really are / So get up and go through” and “If ever your fortress caves / You’re always safe in mine”). The uplifting song’s mere five and a half minutes may singlehandedly scare off some of the band’s old-guard fans, but I suspect the band will simultaneously gain many more. At their recent concert at Madison Square Garden, Homme spotted a couple arguing in the pit and used the opportunity to stress what the band is all about: “We’re not the soundtrack for your fighting,” Homme said, “We’re the soundtrack for your fucking.” Perhaps “Fortress” will become part of the related soundtrack for pillow talk.

Elsewhere, under Ronson’s clear, breathable production, familiar Queens of the Stone Age stylistic elements flex and strut. There are the requisite false endings; highway-friendly songs (known in some quarters as speeding music), most notably “Head like a haunted house,” whose furious pulse evokes late 70s punk with a touch of glam, an unsurprising outcome considering that Homme had just finished touring with Iggy Pop before recording Villains; and a scattering of Bowie-esque flashes–the chugging “Diamond Dogs” saxophone on “Un-Reborn Again,” the cruising beat redolent of “Suffragette City” at the finale of “The Evil Has Landed.”

Stoner rock has traditionally nourished itself from the proto-metal wells of the 70s and grunge of the 90s, handily skipping the 80s. Queens of the Stone Age rolls out what is perhaps the most damning departure from such a standard in the closing track, “Villains of Circumstance,” in which the singalong chorus reveals hints of Roxy Music’s falsetto hook in “More Than This” from 1982.

Villains is an album for those unafraid of the evolution and cross-pollination of rock music. Dancing is optional. And so is the pot.

With the world’s current flash points, it may be easy to forget one of the longest running conflict areas: Cyprus. In 1974, Turkey invaded the island nation–home to Greek-Cypriot and Turkish-Cypriot communities, some of them mixed–in response to a Greek-instrumented coup. Turkey has since occupied a strip of the island’s northern side. After I visited Varosha, a Greek-Cypriot neighborhood fenced off by the Turkish military since the beginning of the occupation, I wrote “The Concrete Corpses of Cyprus,” in which I consider the effects of political obstinacy while reflecting on an unexpected connection between military zones and fast food. The piece is my latest for Perceptive Travel.