Q&A Remix With Sara Mae (The Noisy)

Q&A Remix is a frequent column on IHTOV in which people from all walks of life answer a set of questions about their vinyl collection. Today we welcome Sara Mae, who creates music as The Noisy

Have you ever bought a record just for the artwork? 

Library of Sound Grooves: Pagan Psych-Folk Glam Vocal Sounds of the Italian Cinema (1965-1977). It has a collage of many sexy Italian ladies with beautiful, yellow 70s horror paperback font. Felt like it was made for me!!

What is your most memorable vinyl buying/receiving experience? 

My neighbor that I had a crush on gave me Led Zeppelin IV and I used to get home from angsty bike rides through the neighborhood and listen to it laying on my bedroom floor. Love that for 15-year-old me. 

What’s the most treasured album in your collection and why? 

Hop Along’s Get Disowned! I went to go visit my friend Sam when I was a senior in high school and they were a freshman in college, and we saw Hop Along when they were opening for Dr. Dog at the Mann, playing off this record. They became my favorite band after that, and feel like a central part of this dear friendship I still have! It also felt like the advent of having my own music taste, and the first of many of my favorite bands being from Philly, where I live now!

Do you have a definitive album of choice for spring, summer, autumn and winter?

Spring - Centrifics by Marina Allen or Hold Your Horses by Houndsteeth

Summer - Rat Saw God by Wednesday

Autumn - Pink Moon Nick Drake, The Past is Still Alive Hurray for the Riff Raff

Winter - Bye Bye Berta by Palberta

What is/are your white whale records, something you have your eye on but haven’t been able to get?

Big Wave by Tatsuro Yamashita - my friends I met in grad school played us this record and told us how hard it was to find. And they were surely right!!! We listened by candlelight and played darts after. They lived on a hill in South Knoxville where the kudzu had climbed up all the trees. I love this record and it reminds me of that humid beautiful place. 

What’s your favorite record to listen to on headphones?

Anything Mitski makes. She has this line in “Stay Soft” where she says “thinking of you / I tuck my hand under my weight” and her voice sounds so close to the microphone — which feels like a quality of sound she accomplishes elsewhere in her discography but I particularly notice it there because its a moment of heightened intimacy and feeling. 

Tell us a little about your favorite record store

Normal’s Books and Records in Baltimore. I lived down the street during the early pandemic and it was one place I could go to browse and feel something close to whimsy. I can be impatient about record stores because you have to really invest time / go in having done some research / have a strong foundation of music knowledge to not just be judging records by their covers. 

What’s the last record you played?

The last time I really sat down and listened through, it was For Melancholy Brunettes and Sad Women by Japanese Breakfast the first time! 

Sara Mae is a genderqueer writer raised on the Chesapeake Bay. They write bedroom pop as The Noisy, and their most recent release was The Secret Ingredient is More Meat. They are a 2023 Big Ears Music Festival Artist Scholar, a 2022 Tin House Summer Workshops alum, a 2022 Open Mouth Attendee, and a 2021 Sewanee Writer’s Conference Scholar.  Their work appears in or is forthcoming from POETRY, the Georgia Review, Muzzle, and elsewhere. They are a 2017 Individual World Poetry Slam, 2018 National Poetry Slam, and 2018 College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational Competitor. Their first chapbook, Priestess of Tankinis, is out via Game Over Books. Their second chapbook, Phantasmagossip, won the Vinyl45 chapbook competition and was released from YesYes Books in spring 2025. They received their MFA from UT Knoxville, and currently live in Philly.

@veryverynoisy on Bluesky and Instagram