Marcel Winatschek

Cry First, Then Lose Your Mind

Pulled an all-nighter with Anna and Philipp—Philipp being the kind of person who accumulates stories the way other people accumulate furniture, each one more unbelievable than the last—and came home to a sky that had decided to be November about it.

Two songs on repeat since. Kate Nash’s The Nicest Thing first, because the weather demanded it. There’s something in her delivery—that slight flatness, the way she underplays the hurt—that gets into you sideways. Not the sad song you pick to wallow in; the one that finds you already there.

Then The Age of the Understatement by The Last Shadow Puppets, which is the correct antidote. Alex Turner and Miles Kane raiding a late-sixties film score and making it feel urgent instead of retro. The strings hit and something shifts. Cry first, then completely lose your mind.