The Valentine Weekender: Your Guide to a Lovely Weekend
Curated record-mendations from the heart, including my favorite love songs of the 2020s.
Welcome to The Wax Museum’s exhibit The Weekender, which has been on hiatus since Halloween. For new members, this is your curated dose of must-hear records, must-watch gems, and must-read pieces to give your weekend a sensory upgrade. I got a lot to recommend, so let’s get right into it.
What to Listen to This Weekend
This Modern Love: My Favorite Love Songs of the 2020s
Happy Valentine’s Day, friends! As my little love note to you, I’ve updated this mixtape of my favorite new love songs from the decade. It’s called This Modern Love — so modern that it includes a track released today from Lykke Li.
Steam it now on Spotify and Apple Music.
Ratboys - Singin’ to an Empty Chair (2026)
Get Vinyl: Opaque Green (Autographed) | Black
Stream: Bandcamp
Ladies and gents, we have a new #1 on the Album of the Year Leaderboard! Ratboys have done it again. Singin’ to an Empty Chair continues their evolution into one of the most rewarding rock bands of the decade.
Like 2023’s The Window, this one finds the Chicago gang teaming back up with Chris Walla of Death Cab fame after frontwoman Julia Steiner reached out because of her love for The Con, the Tegan and Sara classic Walla produced. His ability to add emotional weight is all over the record.
I came in hoping for more “Black Earth, WI” — that winding, eight-minute highlight from The Window with its psychedelic, jam band solo. I didn’t hear it right away. But then the penultimate three-song suite hit: “Just Want You to Know the Truth” → “What’s Right?”→ “Burn It Down.” Each one stretches past five minutes, building, pivoting, shapeshifting. Taken together, it’s the best 20-minute stretch of music I’ve heard this year.
Park Ave CDs may be the last store in America with Ratboys signed vinyl, so get on it. And if you need proof this band can carry it live, check out their Cloudland Theater set from November featuring five songs from the new album.
MONO - Under The Pipal Tree (2001)
Get Vinyl: Forest Night
Stream: YouTube
To celebrate its 25th anniversary, Japanese post-rock legends MONO are releasing their debut album Under The Pipal Tree on vinyl for the first time in years. Under The Pipal Tree captured a young MONO channeling Sonic Youth and Mogwai into a one hour epic that drifts from tranquil to thunderous and back again. Melodic washes unravel into scorched-earth guitar storms, then disappear into silence. If you’re into Explosions in the Sky or Godspeed You! Black Emperor, this belongs on your shelf.
The limited Forest Night edition has been remastered by the great Bob Weston (Shellac) at Chicago Mastering Service. Don’t sleep on this one.
Duran Duran - Duran Duran (The Wedding Album) (1993)
Get Vinyl: Black
Stream: Spotify | Apple Music
We got a proper Valentine’s Day surprise this morning: The Wedding Album by Duran Duran is finally getting a long overdue repress! Shockingly, it hasn’t been touched since its 1993 debut.
And now, a moment of silence for the poor soul who dropped $707 on a copy recently. The lesson, as always: if you wait long enough, it will get repressed.
Critics were not kind at the time, but history has been. “Ordinary World” and “Come Undone” are the obvious classics, but the deep cuts hold up too, featuring curveballs like the collaboration with Brazilian legend Milton Nascimento on “Breath After Breath.” Worth revisiting this weekend.
Just a quick intermission as I shake the donation jar at you. A $5 contribution unlocks full archive access and gets you a $10 coupon to our Gift Shop — just the sign you needed to grab one of our sweet Weekender bags. Thanks for the support!
What to Watch This Weekend
Binge-Watching Yussef Dayes Sets
There’s a tidal wave of modern jazz crashing out of the UK right now, and drummer Yussef Dayes is surfing the front of it. His band is tight, with Elijah Fox on keys and Rocco Palladino on bass (yes, son of Pino, who’s played with everyone from John Mayer to D’Angelo to The Who).
But what really sets Yussef apart is the way he captures these sets on video: picturesque locations gorgeously shot, flawlessly mixed, and thrown up on YouTube for free. The recent Fuji, Japan performance goes perfect with your Saturday morning coffee. Watch them full screen, volume up, and thank me later.
Let’s Go to the Movies!
I’ve got two movie recommendations that demand a theater and a crowd. Both courtesy of NEON.
First up: Sirāt, currently in select theaters and expanding soon. It’s one of the most nerve-wracking films I’ve seen in years. The setup is simple: a father and son travel to an illegal rave in the mountains of Morocco searching for their missing daughter and sister, Mar. From there, it plays like an EDM-fueled version of Sorcerer. The soundtrack took home the Cannes Soundtrack Award, and you’ll understand why within minutes. The bass alone is worth the price of admission. It’s also nominated for this year’s Best International Film Oscar. You may think you see the road ahead. You don’t.
On the opposite tonal spectrum but equally unpredictable: Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie, directed by and starring Matt Johnson, who last gave us BlackBerry, a film far better than it had any business being.
You don’t need to know the show. Just know that Matt and Jay are two lifelong friends obsessed with booking a gig at Toronto’s The Rivoli despite not actually having songs.
When their latest attempt to book The Rivoli implodes, Matt and Jay somehow wind up back in 2008, and the movie detonates from there. It operates in the same lane as Jackass or Borat, blurring reality and performance while dragging unsuspecting bystanders into the bit. It feels punk in the way those shock comedies did, but it is also sneakily meticulous, twisting itself into a tightly constructed time travel movie about friendship and creative delusion. I can’t remember laughing this hard in a theater since those early-2000s comedies.
What to Read This Weekend
The mushroom making people hallucinate dozens of tiny humans by Rachel Nuwer for the BBC
Psychedelics are supposed to be unpredictable. One person sees God, another sees geometry, a third stares at their hands for hours. But this mushroom is different. Across China, the Philippines, and Papua New Guinea, the trip is strangely consistent: tiny humans. Marching under doors. Climbing your furniture. Hanging out on your dinner plate.
The mushroom is Lanmaoa asiatica, sold openly in markets with one clear warning: cook it for at least 15 minutes. Ignore that, and it’s tiny people time.
According to the BBC article, doctors in Yunnan, China treat hundreds of cases a year. Patients describe dozens of elf-like creatures, with the visions becoming even more vivid when their eyes are closed. The hallucinations can last one to three days, sometimes longer, and researchers still have not identified the compound responsible. Absolute nightmare.
I’ll leave you with this thought: are these tiny humans mean or fungis? Goodnight, everyone!
Hey, thanks for stopping by The Wax Museum! If you enjoyed your stay, pass this along to a friend whose weekend could use a little upgrade.
Drop a comment card on your way out, and I’ll see you back here next week,
Jared
That playlist is hot tho🥵
Hadn’t heard of Ratboys before you wrote about them. I’m digging em 👌
I'm also loving the new Ratboys and appreciate the link to the live performance. Also, I've never listened to the Ordinary World album - will give it a whirl this long weekend.