When was the last time you threw caution to the wind and just let go? I’m asking myself just as much as I’m asking you. The more time goes on, and the more the world promises us expert solutions and “the next best thing,” the more I long for a ramshackle mess.

Technology promises to open up our world and dreams, and yet barriers also seem to rise. Anyone can play guitar, but get these 12 pedals first if you want a real professional tone. Anyone can write, but have you considered a format that will resonate with a genuine readership? I recently learned that Little League baseball bats can easily cost you $250 or more. Getting kids outside to play and make a mess now costs a good pile of money. It’s all enough to make you wonder if we’ve lost the plot. I worry about it all the time. Am I succumbing to a world of arbitrary rules, or am I pushing against the machine of monotony?

Then a band like Twisted Teens shows up. A band that sounds messy, blown-out, and distinctly alive. It’s enough to rattle you. Maybe there’s another way of doing things. It’s not even that they’re creating a new genre of music or tapping into ideas that have never been explored – how could anyone be expected to do that? Instead, it’s a blast of rock and roll alchemy that makes you want to drop your phone, unplug, and cause a ruckus.

The New Orleans-based duo blends two of my favorite things in music: punk existentialism and steel guitar. You can credit Caspian Hollywell for the former and RJ Santos for the latter. It’s a marriage of ideas that aren’t as far apart as they may seem on paper. (Why should something have to first “work on paper” anyway?) I’ve always seen the steel guitar as one of the most emotional instruments. The way the notes bend and contort feels deeply human. It’s a wailing sound, complex in its innate melancholy even when it’s riffing at blistering speeds. It works especially well in classic country balladry, but Twisted Teens prove it feels just as vital when stacked against a bellowing scream and a blast of chunky, distorted chords.

Twisted Teens have only been a band for a couple of years, but they’ve quickly bubbled out from their local scene and the punk underground to a wider world of curious listeners. Their self-titled debut gave them a devout following in the underground circuit, but their second album from earlier this year, Blame The Clown, really pushed the band to bigger audiences. Not ones to sit and savor the fruits of their labor, they dropped another brilliant record last month, Florida Water Blues. And just last week, they announced that they’ve signed to Sub Pop Records. One thing is clear from the outset: they’re a band that moves with urgency.

I first encountered Twisted Teens when Blame The Clown dropped in February. I liked it well enough at first, but I quickly lost it in the ever-growing pile of new releases. But a few months ago, I suddenly had an urge to hear it again. It was like a compulsion. Maybe it was the warmer weather. Maybe it was the existential angst I felt brewing in my gut. Probably both. Now I can’t stop listening. The record is a wild cacophony of riffs with left-field production choices, drum machines, and jarring spoken-word interjections.

For weeks now, I’ve just been rotating between their three albums. Twisted Teens when I want something especially raw. Blame The Clown when I feel the compulsion to scream along to every word. Late one night, coming home from the movies, I drove down dark, winding roads, windows rolled down, hot summer air rushing in, and the bittersweet country tunes of Florida Water Blues blaring from my speakers. It felt cleansing as I tried to push every stressful thought out of my mind.

That’s what really gets me with Twisted Teens. The songs feel fun and exciting at the outset, but the more I play them back, the more I feel Hollywell pushing through heavy shit. Blame The Clown’s opening track, “Is It Real?”, is what really locked me in on the band. While I want to resist comparison, it’s hard for me not to hear this song and think of Wipers’ classic “Is This Real?”. Not because they sound alike, but because they’re tapping into that same psychic drama of questioning your own reality.

Where Wipers’ Greg Sage questioned the crushing emotional weight of the question, Hollywell conjures up cosmic and spiritual imagery full of angel trumpets and divine protection. Hollywell says he wrote the song after being put in a psych ward against his will, but he also had the self-awareness to know he needed to pay close attention to everything happening to him in that moment. Even though he and Sage approach the question differently, it’s their furious vocals that feel spiritually linked. It’s a question that needs to be yelled, that we should all yell more often: WHAT IS REAL?

In an excellent interview with James Broscheid for Big Takeover, Hollywell and Santos get candid about what they feel is missing from our world today. Even that notion may seem a bit trite. Sure, there’s a lot wrong with the world. But what’s impressive is both the solutions they offer and how they model it through their music.

Hollywell lambasts how our access to information and technology has hampered our creativity, using the example of YouTube guitar pedal experts leading young guitarists to think they need to spend thousands of dollars to get the right tone rather than spending that time and money to learn how to play sick licks. As Hollywell puts it: “The guy that made the most money during the gold rush was the guy selling pickaxes, you know?”

As wild as the production might be on their records, when Twisted Teens play live, they keep it as simple as possible. Neither Hollywell nor Santos uses a pedal – not even a tuning pedal. They plug straight into the amps and go. It’s a rare radical simplicity.

Hollywell and Santos point to a larger collective longing for communal culture. The two are deeply embedded in the New Orleans scene. They take in hardcore punk, country, Cajun music, trap, and all the other sounds that boom in through their window. It’s the type of connection you can’t get online. They attribute the “freshness” felt in their sound not to an ambition to “create something new,” but to simply being alive with their community and letting themselves absorb all that’s around them.

Allow me this long aside; I promise it has a point.

Some of my earliest musical memories are full of this kind of mess. Long before I’d ever learned of punk rock, I grew up amongst bluegrass festivals. I’m intentionally not saying “went to bluegrass festivals”; they came to me. My grandparents lived out deep in the woods in our own little corner of the Northwest. Normal town life was just a few miles away, but the shield of trees made it feel like a world inside itself. Over several decades, my grandfather’s built a reputation as a stand-up bass “gun for hire.” He’s no celebrity in the traditional sense, and you won’t find him on many album credits. But within a circle of Northwest bluegrass musicians, he’s the go-to man when you need a bass player.

In those deep woods, my grandparents would throw huge bluegrass festivals. Their friends from near and far would come, camp out, and spend days picking and hollering and, no doubt, up to much more debauchery than my little mind could even comprehend. Music was everywhere. Groups would circle up and play tunes for hours. They’d even let my little self in his Chicago Bulls jersey sit in on a washboard. It was chaos. But it was real.

Those days are a blur for me (I’m sure they’re a blur for other people too, but for very different reasons). Still, that feeling stuck with me. I felt it again when I did finally find those punk shows. I’ve felt it in basement DJ sets, hip-hop shows in warehouses, and the quiet stillness of a singer-songwriter at a cafe.

I can admit that I haven’t been good about keeping up with this sense of local community. As devoted as I am to my local Northwest scene, it’s been a difficult re-entry into the post-COVID world and big life changes like becoming a parent. But listening to Twisted Teens reminds me of those feelings I’d get from being immersed in a local scene, what it was like to watch six different bands that all seemed to share different configurations of the same members. Even on their studio recordings, Twisted Teens exude a sense of being together. These are songs meant to be shouted off-key in a sweaty room.

Above all else, though, it’s the band’s impulsiveness that gets me. Allegedly, their first two records took a couple of weeks each to write and record. Hollywell says that many of the songs were made up on the spot and the recordings are mostly first and second takes. That feels unbelievable based on how good the records are, but totally believable by how the albums feel.

This trio of records is some of the most urgent albums I’ve heard in a minute. They’re songs that feel like they needed to get out, spewed out from the gut. The band embraces the moment instead of trying to manufacture the perfect setting.

While recording “Not Real” for Blame The Clown, a phone alarm went off in the studio. Instead of stopping recording or editing it out, Hollywell goes with it as he speaks into the mic: “You hear that alarm? It means it’s time to wake the fuck up.” It’s the type of moment you can’t plan, unless by divinity. It’s funny, but it’s real and important. Twisted Teens is about waking the fuck up. Get outside. Be messy. Let that caution run out the car window. Allow yourself to feel something without overthinking it for once. Twisted Teens are making the call; will you answer it?

Twisted Teens are on tour now. They play Baba Yaga in Seattle on August 30.

Share

Support Another Thought and Get Cool Stuff!

I appreciate you reading Another Thought, whether this is your first post or you’re a long-time reader. Another Thought is a labor of love fueled by very long deadline nights, lots of art supplies, and espresso at ungodly hours.

If you want to support the newsletter, please consider becoming a paid subscriber at $5/mo. You’ll get exclusive newsletters, early access to upcoming physical media, and a sheet of stickers featuring drawings from the newsletter and my book mailed to you!

Subscribe now

Get my book, 20th Century Ambient!

Through text and comics, 20th Century Ambient traces the recent history of ambient music to uncover how the genre has evolved and the role it plays in our daily lives. If you dig the combination of art and essays on Another Thought, I think you’ll love this book.

“Enriched by vivid profiles of the genre’s practitioners and capped by a list of essential tracks, it’s a quirky love letter to an enigmatic sound.” - Publishers Weekly

“Dad! Your book isn’t boring! It has pictures in it! It’s hilarious. Kids can read it too!” - my child

20th Century Ambient is out now from Bloomsbury Books.

BUY IT HERE: Bloomsbury | Amazon | Bookshop | Barnes & Noble

I’d wager that most of us can’t go a day without hearing the terms “artificial intelligence” or “AI.” Oftentimes, it’ll be paired with other phrases like “inevitable” and “this is just the beginning.” The rise of AI in recent years has been exhausting, and yet we’re told it’s just getting started. Particularly in creative spaces, AI has started an ongoing debate about what’s real and what happens when you remove artists from the art equation.

London-based composer is feeling all this, too. She’s an award-winning artist and co-runner of The London Ambient Orchestra, crafting stunning orchestral ambient music. Her latest album, Human Music: Live Improvisations I, is a beautiful response to this ongoing debate around AI in music. She makes her case in the simplest way: by creating music herself. As she tells me over an email interview, there’s something particularly human not just about playing music, but improvising.

The six tracks on this album were all recorded in different locations—from London churches to arts spaces—in front of live audiences. While the recordings weren’t originally made with the idea of becoming a record, Roch listened back to them and started to see this common thread. It’s not just in the way that she’s making the music, but also in the fact that it was done in front of others; a testament to humanity, connection, and the way music moves us.

“I wouldn’t describe myself as a spiritual person at all—but there is definitely something magical about how music makes us feel,” Roch tells me. “I know science can explain why it does these things to our brains, but it doesn’t quite feel sufficient to capture the life-changing impact that music can have on us. I actually wrote a bit about how music can change how we feel after releasing a track that I wrote when grieving my late father. Music is magic.”

Roch and I caught up over email, which has its own challenges when it comes to human connection. But as we talked about doing an interview, I thought one way to bring the humanity back would be to write and draw our conversation. Getting the chance to reflect more deeply on Roch’s words and perspectives while putting pen to paper emphasized her points so much to me. In a world that wants to erase our humanity, we can choose to reject that notion and lean deeper into what makes us human after all. That feeling comes through deeply in her words and her wordless music.

Enjoy our interview in full below. Human Music: Live Improvisations I is out now through Past Inside the Present.

Share

Support Another Thought and Get Cool Stuff!

I appreciate you reading Another Thought, whether this is your first post or you’re a long-time reader. Another Thought is a labor of love fueled by very long deadline nights, lots of art supplies, and espresso at ungodly hours.

If you want to support the newsletter, please consider becoming a paid subscriber at $5/mo. You’ll get exclusive newsletters, early access to upcoming physical media, and a sheet of stickers featuring drawings from the newsletter and my book mailed to you!

Subscribe now

Get my book, 20th Century Ambient!

Through text and comics, 20th Century Ambient traces the recent history of ambient music to uncover how the genre has evolved and the role it plays in our daily lives. If you dig the combination of art and essays on Another Thought, I think you’ll love this book.

“Enriched by vivid profiles of the genre’s practitioners and capped by a list of essential tracks, it’s a quirky love letter to an enigmatic sound.” - Publishers Weekly

“Dad! Your book isn’t boring! It has pictures in it! It’s hilarious. Kids can read it too!” - my child

20th Century Ambient is out now from Bloomsbury Books.

BUY IT HERE: Bloomsbury | Amazon | Bookshop | Barnes & Noble

Another Thought+ is the paid version of the Another Thought newsletter. Want the full, premium, super deluxe, guaranteed-to-improve-your-life version? Sign up for a paid subscription today.

Subscribe now

Earlier this week, I dug into TV on the Radio’s incredible “Wolf Like Me.” A crux of the essay was how the song is on my shortlist of “songs that make me feel like I could run through a brick wall.” “Wolf Like Me” might be at the top of that list, but it has some pretty great brick-breaking peers.

For this edition of Stray Thoughts, I thought I’d expand on this a little bit and share more of the songs that give that “AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!” feeling. These songs, to me, feel like a taste of immortality. They tap into all the frustration, angst, and rage that sometimes bubbles up inside us. Songs like these help me vent those feelings. Sometimes you just need the catharsis of a brutal riff or a shredded voice.

I’m sure I could make a list 100 songs long, but these are some standouts that resonate with me right now. What songs make you want to run through a brick wall? Let me know in the comments.

Read more

I feel pissed off more often than I let on. There’s no shortage of things in this world that will leave you feeling irritated, angsty, and disrespected. Turn on the news, scroll your news feed, read the comments, look around you. We all have something that sets us off. I've spent a lot of time trying to ignore or deny those feelings, but now my thinking is starting to shift. I want to understand those feelings instead.

For a long time, I didn’t know what to do with anger. I equated it with being sinful or evil. So when I felt it brewing up in myself, I tried to push it away. This, of course, had diminishing returns. In retrospect, I can see why I was initially drawn to punk rock as a kid. Hearing Nirvana or even Linkin Park felt like releasing the steam valve. All that pressure, all that intensity that was weighing on my soul felt lifted. I didn’t have the voice to express my rage in a productive way, but other people did. I think it’s around this time that I learned the word “catharsis.”

Occasionally I’ll get into a discussion with friends about the best songs for “running through brick walls.” We’re talking songs that make you feel powerful, that have such a propulsive energy that when you hear them, you feel invincible. Songs that tap into something primal within your soul.

I keep a playlist full of these songs, simply titled with a 😤 emoji. It’s my “break in case of emergency” playlist when I feel pressed, worn down, and furious. Sometimes I don’t even know what I’m feeling or why I’m feeling it, some mysterious angst hovering over me like a black cloud, but I suddenly get clarity when I put these songs on. Tracks from Kendrick Lamar, Rico Nasty, Black Flag, and Rites of Spring, all spanning a wide gamut of genres but tapping into a similar wellspring of aggression. Smack in the middle of this playlist is the song that always hits the hardest for me: TV On The Radio’s “Wolf Like Me.”

Like a true carnivore, “Wolf Like Me” has stalked me since 2006. I’d been a fan of the band after a friend painstakingly sent me the Young Liars EP over AOL Instant Messenger one song at a time on dial-up Internet. I remember there was an otherworldly quality to this art rock band from Brooklyn. I remember “Staring at the Sun” came through first. I was transfixed. I’d loop it again and again, trying to understand it. I’d never heard something so droney and feverish. Tunde Adebimpe’s oohs and aahs leading in the track over Spanish radio feedback before the gnarliest bass synth devours the song alongside some nasty guitar tremolos. This music was weird, but exciting.

Not long after, I was watching MTV and happened to catch the “Wolf Like Me” video playing. In the time before the conceit of “on-demand,” any song that wasn’t a heavy-rotation hitter on the music video channels could easily become a missed connection. I maybe saw it once or twice when it aired. I tried to hold on to as much as I could remember about it – Adebimpe looking a fascinating mixture of cool and nerdy with his thick-rimmed glasses and black leather jacket amidst a flurry of film scratches, and blurry images of wolves terrorizing a town. Those flashes of images stuck with me and still pop into my head when I listen to the song now.

It’s not hard to sell a teenage boy on a rock song about werewolves, and I gladly took the bait. It was the “badassery” that resonated with me most back then, or at least that’s what I thought. The song is a perfectly orchestrated anthem. From the opening feedback leading into that pounding drum beat, the adrenaline starts pumping. And then that grimy, droning bass comes in, and it’s like a lit cigarette on dried grass. The inferno blazes hotter and hotter. Adebimpe starts furiously singing a nursery rhyme; the guitars wail in glorious mania. The energy only goes up and up before it hits a transcendent, almost gospel-like breakdown, before rising again into a fury.

It’d be a few years before I saw their storied performance on Late Night with David Letterman, now considered to be one of the all-time great late-night performances. If the band looked like mythical ghost riders in the music video, here they look more like some guys who just walked off the street. Adebimpe stands in the center in green pants, a T-shirt, and a plaid overshirt. But as the music kicks in, he becomes a man possessed. The performance sounds far more raw than the studio version. The band’s art rock tendencies are eclipsed by a more rickety, punk rock club feel – an impressive feat to get that energy in a TV studio. It’s as if they’ve gone through a werewolf-like change from Sonic Youth into Bad Brains.

The song feels like it could fall apart at any moment, but it never does. Adebimpe bounces across the stage, sweat pouring off him. His voice cracks as he howls, the kind of vocal shake that can only come from throwing every last piece of our soul into the microphone. If he’s not having an out-of-body experience in the performance, I certainly am as I watch it.

In Lizzy Goodman’s book Meet Me in the Bathroom, TV On The Radio’s Dave Sitek reflects on how the band’s perspective changed after 9/11. He references another song from Return to Cookie Mountain, “I Was a Lover,” particularly the line, “I was a lover before this war.”

“I was thinking about getting laid and now I’m thinking about dying in the fucking eternity,” Sitek says. Even without referencing “Wolf Like Me” directly, I think that idea extends across Return to Cookie Mountain. The stakes had changed. We all had changed. Not every metamorphosis leads to a butterfly.

The metaphor of the werewolf couldn’t be more apt. When you start losing your sense of self, you begin to wonder who you really are. Are you man or monster?

Sometimes the toxicity can be intoxicating: “but god, I like it.” The innocence of “say, say my playmate” quickly devolves into talk of bloodlust. Clarity only comes in that swooning bridge as Adebimpe pleads for connection.

Dream me, oh, dreamer, down to the floor

Open my hands and let them weave onto yours

Feel me, completer, down to my core

Open my heart and let it bleed onto yours

Feeding on fever, down on all fours

Show you what all the howling is for

Despite the song’s exciting energy, it’s openly about tragedy. Adebimpe is heeding a warning that there’s something monstrous inside of him – or, at least, the character he’s inhabiting in the song. Through the allegory of a wolf man, he’s tapping into the truest parts of humanity: questioning your own morality and whether you’re as good of a person as you think you are.

A funny thing started to happen to me with this song a few years ago. Now when I hear “Wolf Like Me,” I start to well up. My throat tightens. There have been numerous times when I’d throw this song on in the car and suddenly realize I’m crying. I was never much of a crier when I was young. That changed after having a kid; now everything makes me cry. But “Wolf Like Me” of all songs? This is the song that’s supposed to make me feel invincible, not vulnerable. What gives?

I think there are a few factors at play. One is the music journalist in me. I get too emotionally invested in bands. As time has gone on, I can’t help but look at TV On The Radio as one of the best bands of that 2000s indie rock era. And for all their critical acclaim, it feels like they never properly got their due. How can you write a song like this and not be the biggest arena act in the world? In a just world, TV On The Radio should be talked about in the same way as The Strokes or Arctic Monkeys. Not just by journalists and music nerds, but the general populace.

That’s only part of it, though. Adebimpe maybe puts it best in the song: “My mind has changed my body’s frame.” I feel a different physical reaction to the song because my life and experiences have fundamentally changed me.

With each passing year, I relate more to the idea of fighting the monster inside. The more you experience the world, and that always seems to want to bring you down, it’s easy to succumb to the darkness. But you also start to see more nuance. For me, it’s been realizing that anger isn’t necessarily bad on its own. It’s where it’s placed and how it’s utilized—or weaponized. It’s a useful emotion, one our body instinctually musters up as a form of protection. Righteous rage at injustice is warranted. It’s natural for certain moments, ideas, or interactions to set us off. How we let that out and how we interrogate those feelings – that’s where you have to be careful.

I think that’s what Adebimpe is doing on “Wolf Like Me.” He’s taking stock of himself; he sees the monster he could become and fights against it. That intensity that sets off our adrenaline when we hear the song is a byproduct of the push and pull between the song’s narrative fighting against the person you are and the person you see yourself becoming. Will you let yourself grow or will you devolve into a beast?

The last time I ran into “Wolf Like Me” in the wild, I was sitting in a movie theater. I caught a late showing of Spider-Man: Brand New Day on opening night, sitting in an auditorium full of people my age when I first heard the song. To my surprise, those opening drums started booming through the speakers as we watched a montage of Spider-Man fighting villains and saving the day while his personal life was falling apart.

As usual, I started to well up. But I also had to smile. Knowing how big of a comic book fan Adebimpe is, it felt oddly fitting to hear the song paired with Spider-Man—and even stranger to imagine a new generation hearing it for the first time. (And, fun fact, previous Spider-Man director Jon Watts also directed the “Wolf Like Me” music video. The spider web weaves in mysterious ways.)

The song couldn’t have been a better fit. Peter Parker has always been a character caught between who he wants to be and who he’s afraid he might become. Hearing “Wolf Like Me” blasting over that montage, nearly twenty years after I first heard it, made the song feel like it had somehow followed me into a completely different era.

There’s something about “Wolf Like Me” that feels part of the cosmic canon. Hearing it in the movie made it seem real to me that this song transcends eras and generations. It’s the ultimate ode to humanity. Those “brick wall” urges the song elicits tap into that primal human instinct. Yet the song is savvy enough to know its energy and infuse it with lyrics that remind you you’re human after all.

It’s hard to say if any of us can ever truly strike a perfect balance. The world will constantly change, and we’ll change with it, whether we notice or not. That internal battle is a common denominator. It feels good to hear a song that so aptly, both musically and lyrically, taps into that difficult mixture of emotions. It makes me feel less alone in that struggle. Each one of us will be howling forever. Just let our transformation be a good one and keep the beasts at bay.

Share

Support Another Thought and Get Cool Stuff!

I appreciate you reading Another Thought, whether this is your first post or you’re a long-time reader. Another Thought is a labor of love fueled by very long deadline nights, lots of art supplies, and espresso at ungodly hours.

If you want to support the newsletter, please consider becoming a paid subscriber at $5/mo. You’ll get exclusive newsletters, early access to upcoming physical media, and a sheet of stickers featuring drawings from the newsletter and my book mailed to you!

Subscribe now

Get my book, 20th Century Ambient!

Through text and comics, 20th Century Ambient traces the recent history of ambient music to uncover how the genre has evolved and the role it plays in our daily lives. If you dig the combination of art and essays on Another Thought, I think you’ll love this book.

“Enriched by vivid profiles of the genre’s practitioners and capped by a list of essential tracks, it’s a quirky love letter to an enigmatic sound.” - Publishers Weekly

“Dad! Your book isn’t boring! It has pictures in it! It’s hilarious. Kids can read it too!” - my child

20th Century Ambient is out now from Bloomsbury Books.

BUY IT HERE: Bloomsbury | Amazon | Bookshop | Barnes & Noble

For years, I had mentors, teachers, therapists, and every writing self-help article I could find telling me I needed to start journaling. I understood why. The idea of building a daily writing practice, even just for yourself, could only be a good thing and a great way to process ideas. But knowing and doing are very different.

Every time I tried to pick up the habit, I’d do pretty well at it for a couple of days… then start to fall to every other day, every few days, and then completely forget about it altogether. Sometimes the words would come easy. Other times I’d just be sitting there staring at the blank page, unsure what to write, feeling a strange pressure to deliver—even if I knew no one would read it. I have a drawer full of these aborted journals from decades of attempts. The idea of reading through them feels mortifying.

Most writers I know have a love-hate relationship with the craft. Clearly we love it enough to be doing it, but sometimes the writing process can be demoralizing. Whom among us has not just laid down their head on the keyboard in a moment of frustrated exhaustion? Just me?

For a long time, when I’d go through these periods where the words would just not come, I felt so demoralized. Like maybe I’d picked the wrong path for myself. This was especially devastating given how I’d built my life, personality, and sense of self all around this idea of being a writer (don’t recommend doing that, by the way). Sometimes words fail you. What do you do then?

As a kid, I didn’t just love to draw—it was a compulsion. Every homework assignment, test, and notebook would have its margins filled with doodles (much to the chagrin of my teachers). One time in junior high, a friend bet me five dollars I couldn’t go a day without doodling. I had to pay up before we even got to lunch. Even as a younger kid, I remember spending hours with a blank sheet of printer paper and just drawing until every inch was filled.

At some point, I convinced myself that I wasn’t good enough to draw. There’s no specific moment or interaction or anything like that I can point to that gave me this impression. But it was a seed of doubt that I let grow. In part, it came from comparison. Seeing other people be so exceptional, then looking at my own crudely done doodles and knowing inherently that they sucked in comparison. And if you suck at something, why would you keep doing it?

Around 2017, I picked up a small pocket-sized journal and a bag of cheap ballpoint pens. I was “going through something” around that time and looking for any kind of outlet to get me out of my funk. I was tired of trying to process everything in words and dealing with spiraling thoughts. I wanted an escape. So I started carrying this book and pen in my jacket pocket and decided to see what would happen. I didn’t know it then, but this practice would become the backbone of this very newsletter.

I was still in my head about not being “good enough” to draw, but if it was just going to be for my own eyes, then why not? Once I got over that fear and just allowed myself to do it, I was amazed at how quickly ideas began to flow. Pages upon pages of scribbles, ideas, and total nonsense quickly filled the book. Ideas for comics, little ghosts, strange shapes turning into strange-looking people, hastily written notes, and seeds of ideas.

For over a decade, I had denied myself the joy I got from drawing as a kid. I had also been denying myself a key tool for processing ideas and emotions. I kept my notebook close to me, but I hardly showed it to anyone. I was still caught up in the idea that my art was bad, but I loved doing it. I started to build whole comic worlds in my notebook. It wasn’t just the act of drawing anymore; it was a means to let my imagination flow.

I kept this practice up until 2019, when I took a couple of comic book writing classes. That’s when I started to see things differently. Comics weren’t just about being a great technical artist. They were about communicating an idea. I think it must have been in that class where I was recommended Scott McCloud’s book Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. I picked up a copy from the library and quickly found it life-changing.

Understanding Comics is a brilliant deep dive into the mechanics of comics, but it’s also much more than that. It’s a manifesto on visual art as a means of communication. He breaks it down as an almost idyllic form of communication, tracing it from cave paintings to Steve Ditko. The way McCloud explains it, it’s not always about the art being technically or even aesthetically exceptional. It’s about how well your art can communicate an idea. It can be drawing with the fine, neat prowess of an artist like Moebius, or it can be as simple as stick figures. In fact, he makes the case that the more “cartoonish” a drawing looks, the more relatable it is for the reader.

This was an awakening for me. The idea that you didn’t have to be a technically proficient artist to make something that resonates with people. Suddenly, drawing went from being unattainable to a new way of getting my thoughts out. The practice only grew more ravenous, more impulsive.

I’ve continued to fill journal after journal and have gotten less precious about it over time. Sometimes I do want to write. So I write. Sometimes I want to draw a comic, so I do that. Sometimes I don’t know what I want to do, so I just scribble or draw blobs or (more often than not) sketch caricatures of my dog just to get something out. Once I stopped looking at the blank page as something prescriptive or something to be lived up to, I was able to get more out of it. And now, having a backlog of journals, I can go back through them all, mine old ideas, and flesh them out.

Opening myself up to drawing again has been a godsend. It’s a huge aspect of Another Thought. It also became a cornerstone of my book 20th Century Ambient. Having the ability to use comics and illustrations in the book helped preserve my sanity while working on it, but it also gave me a new way to approach ideas. If I was stuck on something in the text, I could step back and try it a different way.

Certainly, I don’t want to oversell it. Just because I started drawing more doesn’t mean I’m not still bashing my head over the keyboard from time to time. But allowing myself to draw, to fail, to try something else, loosens up my mind a lot more. Even if I don’t publish a drawing in a piece, sometimes just the act of doing it while working on a draft can get the juices flowing instead of just staring at that stupid, smug blinking cursor. For whatever reason, drawing feels like it circumvents the editor in my head. I’m not getting stuck on certain words and phrases. I’m just trying to get the image out of my head.

Maybe I’m just here trying to convince myself again, but it feels so easy to silo ourselves in boxes. For years, I thought, “This is how a music journalist works,” and I found I was boxing myself in. There are great reasons to stick to certain forms and guidelines with your finished work, depending on what medium you’re working in. But the creative process doesn’t have to be so strict. Plus, there’s something wonderful about the tactile feeling of pen on paper, trying to conjure the image out of your head and onto the page.

If you’ve been like I was in the past and convinced that “you can’t draw” or “it’s not for you,” I challenge you to challenge yourself. It doesn’t have to look pretty. It never even has to leave your journal. It just needs to help you get the idea out. And maybe you’ll find it shows your ideas in new ways you couldn’t even dream of.

Share

Support Another Thought and Get Cool Stuff!

I appreciate you reading Another Thought, whether this is your first post or you’re a long-time reader. Another Thought is a labor of love fueled by very long deadline nights, lots of art supplies, and espresso at ungodly hours.

If you want to support the newsletter, please consider becoming a paid subscriber at $5/mo. You’ll get exclusive newsletters, early access to upcoming physical media, and a sheet of stickers featuring drawings from the newsletter and my book mailed to you!

Subscribe now

Get my book, 20th Century Ambient!

Through text and comics, 20th Century Ambient traces the recent history of ambient music to uncover how the genre has evolved and the role it plays in our daily lives. If you dig the combination of art and essays on Another Thought, I think you’ll love this book.

“Enriched by vivid profiles of the genre’s practitioners and capped by a list of essential tracks, it’s a quirky love letter to an enigmatic sound.” - Publishers Weekly

“Dad! Your book isn’t boring! It has pictures in it! It’s hilarious. Kids can read it too!” - my child

20th Century Ambient is out now from Bloomsbury Books.

BUY IT HERE: Bloomsbury | Amazon | Bookshop | Barnes & Noble

Somehow, we’re just over the halfway point of the year!

I’ve spent a lot of time over the last month debating whether I wanted to do a “best of the year so far” list. Sometimes I overthink these things. I get apprehensive about turning everything into “a list,” but at the same time, I find so much great music through other writers’ roundups.

The other side of this is that I started this newsletter, in part, as a way to write about the music that’s moving me and to strike while inspiration strikes. So I’ve been lucky enough to have already written about many of my favorite records of 2026 so far. And for those that I haven’t yet, well, I want to keep the door open for writing in-depth features and essays in the future.

So I’ve come up with this compromise. For you, dear Another Thought+ subscribers, I’ll be doing a rapid-fire rundown of some of my favorite albums I’ve heard this year that haven’t been prominently featured on Another Thought yet. I’m going to keep the write-ups brief in case I want to expand on them later. Lord knows I could write thousands of words about most of these records. Plus, I’m aiming to keep this one short. A fun challenge for a long-winded writer like myself.

So, let’s dig in!

Read more

We’re right in the thick of summer, and I’m amazed at how fast it’s gone. As much as I’ve always thought of myself as a “fall person,” I’m finding that I love summer a lot more than I realized.

It’s the one time of year we get a (mostly) consistent break from all the endless gray here in the Northwest. The days seem to stretch on forever. There always seems to be a baseball game to catch. And it means getting even more time to spend with my kid than we get during the school year, a reminder of how precious this time is. I’m reveling in these moments—even when the heat starts to get to me.

I won’t keep you in suspense. Last week, in lieu of a “song of the summer,” I shared a few of my favorite new albums that I think perfectly soundtrack summer nights. Now it’s time to flip the script. These are four recent albums that I think are perfect for summer days. There’s a wide range here, from the quiet, peaceful moments when you get to take in the fresh air to the rowdier ones, humid and full of life.

Each of these four albums captures a different aspect of the season that’s resonating with me right now. Check them out below.

Twisted Teens - Blame The Clown

Label: Jazz Life

Release Date: February 13, 2026

Mood: Dehydrated, delirious, and delighted at the daytime punk festival.

Background

Twisted Teens are a punk duo based out of New Orleans comprised of Ramon “RJ” Santos on steel guitar and Caspian Hollwell on “everything else.” The project is the next step in a long lineage of projects for Hollwell, a serial collaborator with a penchant for blown-out punk sounds doused in sly humor and genuine Southern charm. The band has quickly become favorites in underground punk circles with their chaotic bombast and rowdy live shows. Blame the Clown is the first of two records the band has put out in 2026 so far (though I’m not ruling out another one before the year’s over).

What Makes It a Summer Album?

I’ve only been aware of Twisted Teens for a few months at the time of writing this, and yet I’m overwhelmed with nostalgic feelings listening to their music. In particular, they evoke those sweaty punk days watching bands play back to back in a field, parking lot, or basement (take your pick). Blame the Clown feels like the crunch of tall boys under your feet in the dead grass; the blistering sun pounding down on you as you realize you forgot to put on sunscreen and it’s too late.

Hollwell’s voice cracks and booms with infectious energy as he slams chunky chords. But Santos’ steel guitar might be the secret weapon behind that “summer feeling.” It’s that extra dose of Americana, paired with Hollwell’s disaffected lyrics, that ties punk back to its not-so-distant blues roots.

Key Summer Track: “Is It Real?”

Sofie Birch - Bivabippabualukka

Label: Stroom

Release Date: July 21, 2026

Mood: Sipping lemonade on the porch and a long exhale.

Background

Sofie Birch is an experimental composer and sound collage artist based out of Copenhagen. I’ve been a fan of Birch since coming across her masterful 2022 album, Holotropica. Birch is masterful in her blend of ambient, jazz, and naturalistic tones. Each new project and collaboration feels fresh and inviting. It’s great music for contemplation but hardly ever idle. Even in its peaceful tones, Birch’s music always has a sense of searching and wonder.

What Makes It a Summer Album?

Birch’s latest record, Bivabippabualukka, is maybe her most “upbeat” yet. I put upbeat in quotes because this record still feels in the same realm of spacious, expansive ambient that we’ve heard from her in the past. But this time, there’s a newfound brightness to her work. This album feels like sitting on the porch with music lightly playing from a tape deck as you bask in the delight of a quiet afternoon. The field recordings lying beneath much of the music sprinkle in sounds of birds chirping, wind chimes, and cars starting up in the distance. When paired with the light saxophone twirls and shimmering synthesizer drones, they evoke a powerful sense of memory. It’s instant transportation to a perfect summer day with all worries left behind.

Key Summer Track: “Azurit”

Tierra Whack - Whack’s Museum

Label: Interscope

Release Date: June 19, 2026

Mood: Feeling good, feeling great. Feeling great, feeling good. How are you?

Background

Tierra Whack is a Philadelphia-based rapper who merges technical prowess with high-art ambitions. Each new project comes with a stunning presentation of colorful artwork, outfits, and videos. Since she emerged on the national scene with her 2018 mixtape Whack World, Whack has continually pushed the envelope with left-field production, rhymes, and ideas. She’s worked with everyone from Beyoncé and Lil Yachty to Jill Scott and Flying Lotus.

What Makes It a Summer Album?

I can’t imagine summer without hip-hop. After living with this album for a few weeks now, I feel confident calling Whack’s Museum my favorite rap album of the year so far. But it’s not just her genre that makes Whack’s latest masterpiece perfect for summer. Her beat selection across the album is primed with tracks that sound great in the car with the bass turned up loud. Whack raps with a furious heat that can only match the blazing August sun. Summer is a time for stepping out in both literal and figurative terms. For homebodies like myself, it’s a time to get outside. Whack’s music oozes the confidence you need to make the most of the summer months. And clocking in at under 30 minutes, the album begs to be repeated on blast with the windows down.

Key Summer Track: “BRAZILIAN WAX”

Johnny Blue Skies - Mutiny After Midnight

Label: High Top Mountain/Atlantic Outpost

Release Date: March 13, 2026

Mood: Cracking open a cold one with the resistance.

Background

Johnny Blue Skies is the latest moniker of Sturgill Simpson. Simpson has become a powerful force in country music over the last decade with records like 2014’s Metamodern Sounds in Country Music and 2016’s A Sailor’s Guide to Earth, among many others. While rooted in country music tradition, he’s always been inclined to twist and turn the genre to his liking, bridging influences from psych and rock while even leaning into high-octane anime imagery, as he did with 2019’s Sound & Fury. He’s since retired from putting out music under his own name and has turned his focus to Johnny Blue Skies, starting with 2024’s lovely Passage du Désir.

What Makes It a Summer Album?

There’s no denying that country music has been “having a moment” over the last few years. We’ve seen a variety of pop stars give their own twists on the genre. It feels like a prime time for Simpson to come out and “play the hits,” so to speak. Mutiny After Midnight, however, is a far weirder record. It’s a country base cooked up with dashes of disco, funk, rock and roll, and the psyche of a man who’s strung out on polarized politics and brain rot.

The album is a huge left turn from Passage du Désir, but it’s all the more thrilling for it. The grooves are funky, and the lyrics are unhinged in all the best ways. Only Simpson could pull off lines like, “I’ve got that Hunter Biden energy.” The album leans into the chaos of modern politics and feels well timed for America’s 250th anniversary. He even manages to squeeze in a cover of Eddie Murphy’s “Party All the Time” (and it rules).

Key Summer Track: “Make America Fuk Again”

Share

Support Another Thought and Get Cool Stuff!

I appreciate you reading Another Thought, whether this is your first post or you’re a long-time reader. Another Thought is a labor of love fueled by very long deadline nights, lots of art supplies, and espresso at ungodly hours.

If you want to support the newsletter, please consider becoming a paid subscriber at $5/mo. You’ll get exclusive newsletters, early access to upcoming physical media, and a sheet of stickers featuring drawings from the newsletter and my book mailed to you!

Subscribe now

Get my book, 20th Century Ambient!

Through text and comics, 20th Century Ambient traces the recent history of ambient music to uncover how the genre has evolved and the role it plays in our daily lives. If you dig the combination of art and essays on Another Thought, I think you’ll love this book.

“Enriched by vivid profiles of the genre’s practitioners and capped by a list of essential tracks, it’s a quirky love letter to an enigmatic sound.” - Publishers Weekly

“Dad! Your book isn’t boring! It has pictures in it! It’s hilarious. Kids can read it too!” - my child

20th Century Ambient is out now from Bloomsbury Books.

BUY IT HERE: Bloomsbury | Amazon | Bookshop | Barnes & Noble

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the idea of a “song of the summer.” It’s a concept that, in theory, I love. A unifying anthem that we can rally around. A common denominator between all of us as we make our way through hot days, warm nights, and far too many plans. Or if it’s not something we can all agree on, there’s at least a personal anthem you can claim for yourself.

Last year was the first year I can remember leaving and not feeling like I could identify a clear song of the summer. Both for the masses and for myself. On the larger scale, it could be a further sign of the fractured mono-culture and how we all live in our own little creative worlds apart from one another. But to not feel like I had a definitive song for myself felt even weirder. Anything I tried to pick just felt… forced.

This year, I want to try something different. I’m much more of an album listener than a singles obsessive. Once I started to think about what it would look like to have a record that defined the summer, suddenly my list grew. I love a record that you can leave on that just captures the mood and lets your ruminate in it. A song of the summer is great – a little dose of euphoria, maybe even one you repeat again and again until you hate it by the end of the season. But an album gives you a lot more leg room.

Instead of one all-up lists of 2026 summer albums, I’m going to roll them out in two phases. Songs for night and songs for day. Both of which are very distinct vibes. I’m a night owl myself and I especially love the feeling of a “late night summer record.” Those record I reach to when the house is quiet, the air is humid, and I want to feel my speakers buzzing.

We may only be halfway through summer (how did that happen?) but these are already making my late night heavy rotation and I suspect they will for the months ahead.

Check them out below and stay tuned for the day time edition in the coming weeks.

Nirosta Steel — My Skyscraper

Helado Tropical — Helado Tropical

Kelela — new avatar

Les Rallizes Dénudés — Disque 4 – ’76 Studio et Live

Share

Help Support Another Thought and Get Cool Stuff!

I appreciate you reading Another Thought, whether this is your first post or you’re a long-time reader. Another Thought is a labor of love fueled by very long deadline nights, lots of art supplies, and espresso at ungodly hours.

If you want to support the newsletter, please consider becoming a paid subscriber at $5/mo. You’ll get exclusive newsletters, early access to upcoming physical media, and a sheet of stickers featuring drawings from the newsletter and my book mailed to you!

Subscribe now

Get my book, 20th Century Ambient!

Through text and comics, 20th Century Ambient traces the recent history of ambient music to uncover how the genre has evolved and the role it plays in our daily lives. If you dig the combination of art and essays on Another Thought, I think you’ll love this book.

“Enriched by vivid profiles of the genre’s practitioners and capped by a list of essential tracks, it’s a quirky love letter to an enigmatic sound.” - Publishers Weekly

“Dad! Your book isn’t boring! It has pictures in it! It’s hilarious. Kids can read it too!” - my child

20th Century Ambient is out now from Bloomsbury Books.

BUY IT HERE: Bloomsbury | Amazon | Bookshop | Barnes & Noble

The other day I watched my team lose. Again. They lost the one before that too. Yup, and that one too.

This particular loss was worse than usual. The camera zooms in on the players’ faces. None of the Mariners are leaving the field. They just sit there, staring out into the field. Despondent. Crushed. Lost. All the while, Katrina and the Waves’ smash hit “Walking on Sunshine” blares from the speakers of Tropicana Field. It’s pure, tragic art.

It’s a frustrating time to be a Mariners fan. When is it not? Yet I keep watching. Sometimes it’s downright painful, and I wonder why I’m even wasting time watching it. But I’m too far in. I’ve devoted myself to the only team in Major League Baseball to never even go to the World Series, let alone win a title. There’s no turning back.

After last year’s playoff run that got the team one win away from the World Series, I renewed my oath to my childhood team. It’s been a lifetime of seeing the team either reach the brink of glory or wallow in limbo. But last year gave me hope. The expectations for this year’s team coming into the season were very high. Great talent coming off a landmark year, the World Series feeling entirely within reach.

So far, things haven’t been playing out that way. It’s been a grind. There have been some highs, like Julio Rodriguez smashing 10 home runs in May during a beautiful winning streak. But there’s also been a lot of pain. Literally, so many of our key players keep getting injured. Cal Raleigh, our once-mighty Dumper, has not been himself. Last year he smashed 60 home runs. Right now, he’s the worst hitter in our lineup.

And despite how things are going and how questionable it might be, I still have some hope. I know, I’m hopeless.

It was one thing to jump back aboard when the Mariners were on top and going through the drama of the playoffs. But to actually live through a full regular season of baseball is another thing. Even though I watched a lot of baseball as a kid, I didn’t grasp it the way I do now. I knew the basic fundamentals of the game—three strikes, you’re out at the old ball game, and so on. But the intricacies of the game were all lost on me.

Now, I’m fully immersed. I scrutinize lineups, monitor pitch counts closely, and yell at the screen over questionable decisions. There’s still a lot I don’t know, like a good chunk of the dizzying number of different types of stats. At the end of the day, though, it comes down to one main point: did we win or did we lose?

I’ve never been a “sports guy.” As a teenager, I gave all my attention to music and figured that was enough. Ironically, when I entered music journalism, I discovered most writers and editors were baseball or basketball obsessives. After resisting for so long, I’m finally starting to understand why.

After resisting for so long, I’m starting to see the appeal of riding for your team. Mariners baseball has become a “simple thought to occupy my time.” It feels like a world I can step into outside of everything else I do. Music and the arts consume so much of my life. I love that, of course. Yet baseball feels like a beautiful escape. It gives me somewhere else to go.

I haven’t watched every game, but I’ve come close. During the times I’m just not able to, I’m listening on the car radio or obsessively checking the score on my phone. It’s not always a joy. Sometimes I’m sitting there in anguish for three hours wondering why I committed myself to this. It’s almost embarrassing how a bad game can totally ruin my mood. I could just turn it off or look away. Yet the compulsion is too strong. We’re in this together—even if the team is doing all the work.

There’s a unique pain to being a Mariners fan. We’re halfway through our landmark 50th season, and we’re ranked second in a division that every analyst can’t believe we’re not running away with. I’ve had my fair share of yelling at the TV, as if I have any qualifications to coach the team. But, shit, I believe in these guys. You can see the potential waiting to come out of each of them. Like Gohan on Namek. Or Gohan with the Elder Kai. Or... most Gohan moments, actually.

The thing I’m realizing that sets baseball apart from other sports is the grueling length of the season. Bo Jackson, who excelled in both the MLB and NFL, once said that he found baseball much harder than getting tackled every Sunday. He attributed a lot of that simply to the length of the season. They have to play 162 regular-season games, and even more if you’re lucky enough to make a playoff run. The NBA plays 82, and the NFL plays 17.

There’s something about that sheer endurance that compels me. The grind of pushing through, playing almost every day. It might seem slow and arduous, but it’s also epic in scale. It can be hard to make out how much one game means over another until you reach the end. You just have to keep pushing forward. It feels like the closest sports equivalent to working a 9-to-5.

The aspect I didn’t expect to become so fascinated with was the minor leagues. You’ll be watching a game, and suddenly you’re asking yourself, “Who’s this guy... uh... Mastrobuoni? And Buddy Kennedy? Are they making these names up?”

Players getting called up from Triple-A is fairly common, and it threw me off a bit at first. Then, as I learned more about the minor leagues, I became fascinated by these stories. If the MLB is a slog, the minor leagues feel like true purgatory. Pushing yourself every day, sleeping in dorms, getting meager pay, all to vie for the very small chance that you’ll actually get called up.

I remember back in June when the Mariners called up an outfielder named Curtis Washington Jr. just because they needed another body to fill their roster. His stats aren’t anything too spectacular. Everyone knew it was unlikely that he’d get to play. And yet the whole team felt celebratory around him. Patting him on the back, giving him high-fives, welcoming him to the show. The whole time he was grinning ear to ear, happy to get the chance to wear a Mariners uniform and sit in the dugout. Moments like that go beyond division rankings or statistics. They represent the love of the game, the love of the team.

It’s hard not to identify with the slog. The constant push to get ahead, getting your team’s wins higher than your losses. I get so mad watching the Mariners sometimes. Cursing the players and coaches. Then I’m also elated. Watching Josh “I’m Going to Stab You” Naylor steal a base is like hearing the nastiest guitar riff. Randy Arozarena playing rock, paper, scissors with the first base coach while rounding the bases after hitting a grand slam is unparalleled coolness. For better or worse, I feel so connected with the team’s highs and lows.

The Mariners are making me love the minutiae. So much in life these days feels like pushing through, hoping that the goal is within reach. It’s easy to get discouraged. When I see the Mariners looking glum against “Walking on Sunshine,” it’s hard not to feel it. But there was part of me watching it that thought, “They need this moment. A reminder to get it together and get back on track.” They won the next day. Now I’m wondering if I should extend that same thought and advice to myself.

The season’s not over. We are right smack in the middle. I’m not writing the Ms off. I have to believe. And I’ve got to take some of that energy with me too. Bring on the major leagues.

Subscribe now

Further Reading:

Help Support Another Thought and Get Cool Stuff!

I appreciate you reading Another Thought, whether this is your first post or you’re a long-time reader. Another Thought is a labor of love fueled by very long deadline nights, lots of art supplies, and espresso at ungodly hours.

If you want to support the newsletter, please consider becoming a paid subscriber at $5/mo. You’ll get exclusive newsletters, early access to upcoming physical media, and a sheet of stickers featuring drawings from the newsletter and my book mailed to you!

Subscribe now

Get my book, 20th Century Ambient!

Through text and comics, 20th Century Ambient traces the recent history of ambient music to uncover how the genre has evolved and the role it plays in our daily lives. If you dig the combination of art and essays on Another Thought, I think you’ll love this book.

“Enriched by vivid profiles of the genre’s practitioners and capped by a list of essential tracks, it’s a quirky love letter to an enigmatic sound.” - Publishers Weekly

“Dad! Your book isn’t boring! It has pictures in it! It’s hilarious. Kids can read it too!” - my child

20th Century Ambient is out now from Bloomsbury Books.

BUY IT HERE: Bloomsbury | Amazon | Bookshop | Barnes & Noble

Listen to the mix here:

The roar of motorcycles against the sound of rooster calls in the morning. Crashing waves on the beach. Bouts of laughter and the smell of freshly baked pandesal. Daily rituals I’ll miss as we depart the Philippines again.

I’ve been blessed to come here four times now. My wife’s family is Filipino, so traveling here has become almost a ritual in itself — something we try to make happen as often as we can.

Getting to be a part of this family has opened my world in so many ways. It’s taken me to places I truly would’ve never guessed. I’ve fallen in love with the country, and I’m so grateful to get to experience it.

Every time I come here, I love to crate-dig and discover new OPM (Original Pilipino Music) records. Steadily, I’ve been building an OPM section on our record shelf. I can’t claim any expertise on the genre. Whenever I dig through records, I realize more and more how much I don’t know — which is exciting. There are so many different pathways to go down, and I’m trying to dip my toes into all of them: the traditional Kundiman love songs and balladeers; the icons like Apo Hiking Society and Hotdog; jazz experimentalists; ’90s hip-hop provocateurs; and a whole wave of indie music that’s thriving today.

This short mix does not capture the full breadth of OPM and even colors outside the lines a bit. The last song is, quite obviously, not from here. But every time I travel north into the provinces where our family lives, I inevitably hear John Denver’s voice and the melodious nostalgia of “Take Me Home, Country Roads.” It’s a surreal thing, because I remember hearing that song so much growing up too. My grandparents kept a steady soundtrack of country-western music murmuring from their boombox when I was a kid. It’s one of those things that reminds you how close we all are, no matter the geographic distance. A little cliché? Maybe. But also very true.

As we take off again, I’ll carry these sounds with me — both the music and the sounds of the Philippines itself.

You can listen to the mix above, or on Mixcloud here.

Tracklist

• Hot Dog — “Ikaw Ang Miss Universe Ng Buhay Ko”

• Eggboy — “Nagsasawa Ka Na Ba?”

• Bee Eyes — “Dasma Girl”

• Bong Peñera — “Imee”

• Evelyn Mandac — “O mio babbino caro”

• Derek Tunala & Mario Consunji — “The Sound of Burning”

• MastaPlann — “Check Your Bass”

• Yoyoy Villame — “Magellan”

• Vex Ruffin — “What Matters Most”

• John Denver — “Take Me Home, Country Roads”

Share

Help Support Another Thought and Get Cool Stuff!

I appreciate you reading Another Thought, whether this is your first post or you’re a long-time reader. Another Thought is a labor of love fueled by very long deadline nights, lots of art supplies, and espresso at ungodly hours.

If you want to support the newsletter, please consider becoming a paid subscriber at $5/mo. You’ll get exclusive newsletters, early access to upcoming physical media, and a sheet of stickers featuring drawings from the newsletter and my book mailed to you!

Subscribe now

Get my book, 20th Century Ambient!

Through text and comics, 20th Century Ambient traces the recent history of ambient music to uncover how the genre has evolved and the role it plays in our daily lives. If you dig the combination of art and essays on Another Thought, I think you’ll love this book.

“Enriched by vivid profiles of the genre’s practitioners and capped by a list of essential tracks, it’s a quirky love letter to an enigmatic sound.” - Publishers Weekly

“Dad! Your book isn’t boring! It has pictures in it! It’s hilarious. Kids can read it too!” - my child

20th Century Ambient is out now from Bloomsbury Books.

BUY IT HERE: Bloomsbury | Amazon | Bookshop | Barnes & Noble

Another Thought+ is the paid version of the Another Thought newsletter. Want the full, premium, super deluxe, guaranteed-to-improve-your-life version? Sign up for a paid subscription today.

Subscribe now

Happy Sunday, my Another Thought+ faithful.

Last Sunday, I introduced a new recurring Sunday piece for paid Another Thought+ subscribers called Sketchbook Sundays. If you haven’t checked it out or missed it, you can do so here. This week I’m introducing another recurring paid piece: Stray Thoughts.

Or, rather, a reintroduction.

As some may recall, I used to include a “Stray Thoughts” section at the end of each Wednesday essay where I’d share brief thoughts on other music, movies, books, etc. that I’m digging right now. I really loved doing this, but as I got deeper into the weekly grind of the newsletter and the essays got more in-depth, it became harder to keep up. But I’ve really missed it!

Another Thought started with the idea of taking time to slow down and really consider all the art I (and we) are taking in all the time. Truly, one of my favorite things in the world is getting to share art with others that’s left an impact on me. So with Stray Thoughts, I might not have an essay’s worth of ideas to explore yet, but it allows me to be a little more casual and get them on your radar now. Some things might get the full essay treatment later on.

I fear I’m at risk of over-explaining, so let’s jump in.

Read more

I didn’t want to leave the house that night.

The rain battered against the windows. The sky was already pitch black. I tried to muster any practical excuse I could make to miss this concert that I’d talked up for weeks. Work in the morning. A child at home. The weather. But even I knew my excuses were weak. After my wife’s encouragement that I really should go and I’d regret it if I didn’t, I resolved that I’d at least go for a little bit and see how it went.

In truth, I was feeling some kind of funk. I can’t even remember what about anymore. But it was one of those nights where you just feel off. And worse, you don’t want to do anything that’ll fix it. A perfect recipe for falling deeper into the endless blah.

My windshield wipers shrieked the whole way as I drove into the night. I remained unconvinced the whole time that I really wanted to do this. But fate found me a parking spot right up front—there went my last possible excuse.

I walked in and could barely move a step further. The room was packed. I’d never seen The Nectar in Seattle so full. The cold air outside was replaced by the warm radiance of body heat. It was 2022 and I was still trying to get used to that sensation after almost two years locked indoors with the pandemic. Despite being cramped and squished together, the energy was already electric. As uncomfortable as it was, I slowly felt my mood change. Then the band hit the stage.

Makaya McCraven and his band started to play and it was like a wave of awe washed over us all. He was supporting his 2022 jazz masterpiece, In These Times, my favorite record from that year. But they weren’t playing the songs as they were recorded, instead improvising and going to and fro some of the album’s key motifs. It was spellbinding. All my doubt and worry and excuses fled my mind. I was squished against strangers’ bodies and yet outside of my own.

The entire band was masterclass, but I quickly recognized Jeff Parker on guitar. I’d recently become infatuated with his music too after picking up his 2021 solo album, Forfolks, on a whim. I still spin that one often. Despite having a lengthy career playing in the post-rock group Tortoise, various solo projects, and being a key member of so many other jazz groups, I was only beginning to dip my toes into his music.

The way he would casually rip clean riffs alongside McCraven and the dazzling spectacle of the band was mystifying. Hearing him on wax is great. Hearing him live is borderline spiritual.

I think that’s part of what draws me so much to his latest release as the leader of Jeff Parker & the ETA IVtet, Happy Today. The album’s two sprawling tracks were recorded live in front of an audience at the Lodge Room in Los Angeles.

2025 was difficult for many people, but particularly for Parker. He talks about this in the album’s Bandcamp description, reflecting on how he and his family were displaced by the California wildfires for eight months, all while navigating what it means to live under this second Trump administration.

“There was a lot of sadness and despair,” he says. “But feeling the sense of community that we created with our concert, and later hearing the recording, seeing the beautiful footage that had been shot and the photographs of such joy to be back in that space and to be making music again: It was a very happy moment. So I called the record Happy Today. It’s meant to be a statement of joy.”

That idea is incredibly resonant. The toll life and modern times take on us all can be brutal, if not downright debilitating. Especially to be displaced from your home is to lose a crucial foundation. But Parker’s words ring true. Even in our darkest moments making our way through the fog of bad news, happiness can still happen.

I think it’s no coincidence that this live recording evokes so much joy. The idea of being “in community” is often bandied about, but feels rare to accomplish. The digital age pulls us further apart and I don’t think we’ve truly ever recouped what we lost from our collective pandemic isolation. Seeing Parker play with McCraven four years ago reminded me so much of this—of all that we lost, but also all that we can still have. I remember talking to strangers, looking at each other with shock and delight with each new thrilling riff and transcendent moment.

Moments like that exist all over Happy Today. To hear Parker and his band meander through the spiraling jam of the first track, “Like Swimwear,” with the occasional whoop or clap from the crowd feels revelatory. The mental images conjure themselves—the band locked in, the crowd transfixed, the spirit of the moment taking the whole room to another realm.

The title track “Happy Today” eases in softly. For minutes it inches in like a low murmur. The rattle of Anna Butterss’ bass strings, a hum of organ, the gorgeous sprawl of Josh Johnson’s languid saxophone. Even when the tempo starts to rise, it hardly loses this calming center.

It’s halfway through when Parker’s guitar emerges, skittering across the backdrop of instrumentation and the emergence of Jay Bellerose’s steady and stealthily intricate drums. Parker, too, starts slowly, gradually picking up as they get deeper into their musical miasma. The crowd gives a shout. It’s hard to tell who’s enlivening whom, the band or the crowd. In reality, it’s probably both.

As the music continues to crescendo, I can’t help but feel a smile coming on. Both from marveling at the sheer, insane musicality of the performance but also at the clear joy from every person on the recording, musician and crowd alike.

I’ve found myself reaching for Happy Today in those moments where I’m not sure what else to play or do. Sometimes when you get into a “funk,” just making a simple decision of what to put in the queue can be debilitating. For a while, I hadn’t even read Parker’s quote about the album and its relation to happiness. But even without that context, it’s so easily felt. The music always lifts my mood even without being stereotypically “upbeat.”

Dark times beget dark moods. But Parker’s band, the crowd, and the music they create together are a startling reminder that hope is still allowed. It’s okay to cherish the happy moments. It doesn’t take away from the pain and hurt that might be happening elsewhere in the world or in our lives. A great album or a great show isn’t a cure-all. Even still, take the happiness. Today and wherever you can find it.

Share

Help Support Another Thought and Get Cool Stuff!

I appreciate you reading Another Thought, whether this is your first post or you’re a long-time reader. Another Thought is a labor of love fueled by very long deadline nights, lots of art supplies, and espresso at ungodly hours.

If you want to support the newsletter, please consider becoming a paid subscriber at $5/mo. You’ll get exclusive newsletters, early access to upcoming physical media, and a sheet of stickers featuring drawings from the newsletter and my book mailed to you!

Get my book, 20th Century Ambient!

Through text and comics, 20th Century Ambient traces the recent history of ambient music to uncover how the genre has evolved and the role it plays in our daily lives. If you dig the combination of art and essays on Another Thought, I think you’ll love this book.

“Enriched by vivid profiles of the genre’s practitioners and capped by a list of essential tracks, it’s a quirky love letter to an enigmatic sound.” - Publishers Weekly

“Dad! Your book isn’t boring! It has pictures in it! It’s hilarious. Kids can read it too!” - my child

20th Century Ambient is out now from Bloomsbury Books.

BUY IT HERE: Bloomsbury | Amazon | Bookshop | Barnes & Noble

Also, Ambient Book Club?!

And if you already have the book (or are looking to purchase it) I wanted to give a quick shout-out to Left The Chat’s YouTube book club! He’s going through each chapter giving in-depth analysis and sharing his perspective, chapter-by-chapter. It’s genuinely been fun for me to watch along. He’s already four chapters in, and even I’ve learned a thing or two from it. Very flattered someone would do this. A great companion for your reading!

Another Thought+ is the paid version of the Another Thought newsletter. Want the full, premium, super deluxe, guaranteed-to-improve-your-life* version? Sign up for a paid subscription today.

Subscribe now

Happy Sunday to you all. I realize it’s been a while since I’ve done a paid subscriber post. First of all, I want to thank you all for sticking with me and supporting Another Thought! It really means a lot and the support you give truly goes a long way. I put a lot of hours into this between writing, editing, planning, and drawing the newsletter every week. I have so much more I plan on doing with Another Thought, and I’m starting to get my head around how to make it happen.

The first step in this is starting what I’m calling “Sketchbook Sundays.” These are occasional Sunday posts where I’ll peel back the curtain and share some pieces from my notebooks, drafts folder, and other miscellaneous pieces I find in my drawers and hard drives. I may try other formats out as well, with things like quick hits of more music, movies, books, etc. that I’m loving. So stay tuned for that.

For the inaugural “Sketchbook Sunday,” I wanted to give you a deeper look into the making of my book 20th Century Ambient. It’s crazy to think it’s now been over six months since the book came out! Writing and releasing the book has been a life-changing experience. If you don’t know, the book not only covers ambient music’s recent history and evolution, but also includes a bunch of drawings and comics.

Read more

Sunsets never get played out. I laugh a little at myself every time I take a picture of a sunset on my phone. As if it’s a rare occurrence when, in fact, it happens every day. The sun rises and it sets. One of the few dependable things we have in this temperamental world. And yet, it feels like a gift every time. Each one unique. Sometimes you barely notice it happening. Other times, you’re captivated by hues of orange, yellow, blue, and purple. It’s a miracle of light moving through our atmosphere. A painting out of thin air.

Right now I’m traveling through the Philippines with my family, staying in the provinces up north. Even being spoiled by the gorgeous sunsets of the Pacific Northwest, there’s really nothing like the skies here as daylight fades away. The excruciatingly humid heat starts to dissipate. It feels like you can finally breathe again and you’re rewarded with magnificent, brightly saturated skies. I snap countless photos as usual. But even they pale to the feeling it evokes when you stand beneath it in awe.

I’m used to being a night owl. Sunsets are usually just the beginning of my evenings. Typically, when I’m wrapping up these newsletters, I’m getting dangerously close to seeing the sun come up. But time moves differently here and my body follows suit. As the sky changes color and fades into dark, I feel myself already making my way to bed at the ungodly late hour of… 7:30 PM. It makes me feel more connected with the natural speed of the earth. The earth has spun and it beckons you to end the cycle with it.

As I’ve stared out at these skies, I’ve felt compelled to revisit one of my favorite ambient albums, Robert Fripp and Brian Eno’s monumental second collaborative album, Evening Star. Or I suppose you could call it “proto-ambient,” given that it came three years before Eno’s Ambient 1: Music for Airports, which is when we truly started to hear the widespread use of ambient as a term.

I’ve spilled a lot of ink explaining why ambient started way before Eno. When I was working on my book 20th Century Ambient, I continually reminded myself that this was not a Brian Eno book. I think a part of me even wanted to resist his undeniable influence just because I wanted to make sure I was properly acknowledging all the other players and musical movements involved in the genre’s evolution.

But really, there’s no denying Eno played a crucial role. I think that initial resistance actually made me appreciate him even more because the more I read into his work, the more it seemed he agreed with me.

“I think although great new ideas are usually articulated by individuals, they’re nearly always generated by communities,” Eno said in an interview with Basic Income UK in December 2015. “Being an artist you hear a lot of talk about genius, which is the process of singling out certain people in art history and saying those were the important ones, you know, Picasso, Rembrandt, Shostakovich, whatever. Whenever you look at any of those artists you find that they lived and drew from a very, very active flourishing cultural scene and they were only one of the elements in that scene.”

Eno’s humility is very endearing. I mean, this guy’s credited with the popularization of an entire genre. That’s on top of working with everyone from David Bowie to U2 to Coldplay. But it’s his knack for experimenting and collaborating that I think has been his key to success.

I find listening to the albums Eno worked on in the early 1970s before Music for Airports to be especially enlightening. Particularly the albums where he’s circling around these ideas that would lead him down this road of expansive sound.

In 1975 alone, he released Discreet Music, Another Green World, and Evening Star. A proverbial holy trinity of sounds that would guide him into his next era. All of these albums can be (and have been) dissected and expounded upon time and time again, and I’m sure will be for years to come. Another Green World is certainly not an ambient record. But it has some key moments. It’s the moment we hear Eno at an intersection of his glam rock past merging with his languid, dreamy future. You feel the latter prominently throughout, like on the elegant title track and peaceful, hypnotic songs like “Becalmed.”

Discreet Music has a strong case for being his true “first ambient album,” with the opening title track swooning across 30 minutes of minimalist sound followed by three tracks of Pachelbel interpretations. In the album’s liner notes, we see him circling around the term, describing the music as “part of the ambience of the environment.”

And yet, it’s Evening Star that I’ve found myself coming back to most. It was the last of these records to come out in 1975, something of a sunset itself for this monumental year.

What’s fascinating to me is that Evening Star isn’t necessarily new ideas for Eno. But it’s when things start to crystallize. And the implications it had for where music would go and how artists would create are still echoing through to today.

Of course, this was his second time working with Fripp. Fripp cemented himself as a guitar god as the founder and guitarist for the legendary prog-rock group King Crimson. The group’s 1969 debut album, In the Court of the Crimson King, is often held in the same discussions as Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon in terms of prog and psych masterpieces. (I’d also venture to guess, two records you’re most likely to find seeds and stems lodged in their vinyl slip covers if you come across a used copy.)

Fripp & Eno’s first collaborations often found the two at crossroads in their respective careers. When they first got together, Eno had just recently left the band Roxy Music. It was a big leap. Not only was Eno a key player, but it was a case of leaving a “sure thing” in order to pursue a passion. He’d become obsessed with the “delay and decay” sound effect methods of artists like Pauline Oliveros and Terry Riley from the San Francisco Tape Music Center and started to experiment with them on his own and see how far he could push them.

Eno brought Fripp to his home studio and showed him what he was working on. Fripp was riding high on the success of King Crimson, a type of success Eno could’ve been enjoying had he stayed with Roxy Music. But the two shared a yearning for expanding sound and dreaming up a future for music. Eno would play him tape loops and have Fripp improvise his guitar wizardry over them, Eno hitting record when he felt the moment was right. This method of looping sound and playing over it is pretty typical today. But in 1972, it was monumental. The method of recording would later be dubbed “Frippertronics.”

The sessions resulted in their first collaborative album, No Pussyfooting. The album is icy and mesmerizing. Fripp’s guitars rip over the woozy loops – the loops themselves also being Fripp’s guitar played back to him. You can still hear bits of that King Crimson mayhem sweeping in and out over the frantic licks. The first movement, “The Heavenly Music Corporation,” feels like a guitar solo being warped through a black hole. It’s an album that forever changed the recording process and practically invented the loop pedal that’s commonplace today.

Where their first album together, No Pussyfooting, felt experimental and thrilling, Evening Star is warm and self-assured. This time, Fripp was looking out into the unknown. King Crimson had just broken up for the first time. Fripp was discouraged by the music industry and convinced that music as an art form would undergo a radical change by 1981 (a very specific estimate and not entirely wrong).

No Pussyfooting created a new method, but Evening Star feels like a new day. So much of Eno’s music around this period is indebted to serving its environment. Evening Star does that, but also feels like it’s channeling environment in a very literal sense. The album brings the duo down to Earth. With instrumental music like this, I’m always fascinated by how a title can completely shift the idea and tone of a song.

Just reading the opening track’s title, “Wind on Water,” suddenly primes me with a visual. I can picture myself looking out at the sea, the rush of air blowing across my skin and hair. I can almost smell the sea salt as Fripp’s guitars twist and turn in beautiful spirals. The music is less harsh than No Pussyfooting. It’s less like a guitar solo and more of a transference of mood and feeling. Later on “Wind on Wind,” the tone is changed; there’s less resistance than the water. It feels purely like drifting, cool and effortless. The closing seven-part suite, “An Index of Metals,” is appropriately harsher and denser, like it’s crunching right out of the earth.

What I come back to the most is the title track, “Evening Star.” For me, it’s the finest moment of Fripp and Eno’s collaborative efforts. The twinkling harmonics of Fripp’s guitar at the beginning capture not just the look of the changing sky, but the sense of wonder it evokes. Even when he loops over it again with a surging, distorted riff, it doesn’t feel any less dreamy. At times, it sounds like a motorcycle revving off in the distance – not too dissimilar to staring out at the Philippine skies in this small town I currently inhabit.

A new element also appears in the music – the soft sounds of a piano. Sparsely played, it’s the foil to Fripp’s guitars. A reminder of the gentleness of the ending day. As someone who often resists sleep to “get more done,” it feels like the two instruments are pulling at one another. Eventually the guitar relents to the piano after a few more sleepy distorted riffs. It gives one last squall at the end, reverberating like a howl at the moon before it rings out and dissipates.

I imagine I’ll keep playing Evening Star again and again as I watch the skies change here. I know when I get home I’ll resist sleep again and the sunsets will signal the second part of my day instead of the end. Yet I don’t really think about any of this at all while I’m watching it happen. The music and the sunset feel miraculous in and of themselves. Sometimes all you have to do is sit back and appreciate that you get to be there for it.

Share

Want to learn more about Brian Eno and Ambient? Check out my Book, 20th Century Ambient!

Through text and comics, 20th Century Ambient traces the recent history of ambient music to uncover how the genre has evolved and the role it plays in our daily lives. If you dig the combination of art and essays on Another Thought, I think you’ll love this book.

“Enriched by vivid profiles of the genre’s practitioners and capped by a list of essential tracks, it’s a quirky love letter to an enigmatic sound.” - Publishers Weekly

“Dad! Your book isn’t boring! It has pictures in it! It’s hilarious. Kids can read it too!” - my child

20th Century Ambient is out now from Bloomsbury Books.

BUY IT HERE: Bloomsbury | Amazon | Bookshop | Barnes & Noble

Help Support Another Thought and Get Cool Stuff!

I appreciate you reading Another Thought, whether this is your first post or you’re a long-time reader. Another Thought is a labor of love fueled by very long deadline nights, lots of art supplies, and espresso at ungodly hours.

If you want to support the newsletter, please consider becoming a paid subscriber at $5/mo. You’ll get exclusive newsletters, early access to upcoming physical media, and a sheet of stickers featuring drawings from the newsletter and my book mailed to you!

There’s always been something delightfully haphazard about Danish band Iceage.

I had to do a double-take and some mental math when I read a press release for the band saying they were now entering their 18th year as a group. Surely that’s impossible. In my mind, they’ve always been a rowdy, rebellious group of young Danish kids. But I guess you can’t stay young forever. But everything else is still fair game.

Even though I always saw the band as young kids, I now realize lead singer Elias Rønnenfelt and I are close to the same age. But the way the band burst onto the scene with such a powerful blaze, it felt like they had the momentum of youth in the palm of their hands. We were the same age, but it felt like they were living life at a completely different speed than I was.

The first time I saw Iceage was back in 2015. The band was coming off the breakthrough success of their third album, Plowing Into the Field of Love, while I was working my first desk job doing copywriting. I’d become obsessed with the record. The mix of frivolous punk attitude, country aesthetics, and Elias Rønnenfelt’s ghoulish wailing voice had bewitched me at a time when I was fascinated by ugliness in music.

On the rapturous “The Lord’s Favorite,” his wobbly, breathy voice slurs between the notes, actually sounding drunk as he sings about 100 euro wine. And on “Glassy Eyed, Dormant, and Veiled,” the band sounds, well, glassy-eyed, dormant, and veiled. While I was here questioning if I was forsaking what little punk spirit I had for the security of a salaryman, Iceage were penning freaky, twangy opuses with mannequin legs on the cover.

My memory of the show is hazy. It was a tortuously hot Seattle night. The crowd was sparse, my friend and I making up a high percentage of the audience. I couldn’t tell if the band was barely keeping it together or if they were just nailing the haphazard spirit of the record. I mostly remember that they ended with a cover of “Moon River,” with Rønnenfelt half-screaming and half-groaning the lyrics to a mostly empty room. Leaving the surreal tension of the show, we walked out the side door only to find it was still bright outside, one of those Seattle summer nights that never seems to end. We walked on and tried to decide if what we saw was good or not.

The next time I saw them was in 2018, headlining a show at the Nordic Heritage Museum in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood in support of their album Beyondless. It was the rare occasion where I was on assignment as a photographer instead of a writer. I didn’t really know how to be a photographer. I’d only just started working a real reporter job and said yes to everything. Call it self-preservation. I wanted to make myself indispensable. Meanwhile, Iceage were still moving like everything was dispensable. Beyondless felt more honed in than Plowing Into the Field of Love, but it didn’t feel like a compromise. The band was evolving. But it was still unclear if this was the final form.

It was the first and only time I’ve seen a mosh pit at a museum. I mostly remember Rønnenfelt had a line of plastic cups of IPAs lined up at the edge of the stage, which he downed within the first few songs before moving on to bottles of...something. They hadn’t lost the chaos, but they’d turned up the volume. Their sound was getting bigger and so was the exciting mess around them.

It’d been a few years since I’d thought about Iceage. I completely missed their 2021 album, Seek Shelter, when it came out. I’ll chalk it up to the pandemic era. (I’ve since rectified that and loved the record with its psyched-out funkiness.) But life’s changed a lot since I was really plugged in with Iceage. There was the lockdown. I’ve lost family, become a dad, taken on more personal and career responsibilities, learned a bunch of new skills, and yet I’m still trying to figure things out. Maybe that part doesn’t change, even if everything else does.

When the first singles from Iceage’s new album, For Love of Grace & the Hereafter, came out, I thought I’d listen out of curious nostalgia. I’d incorrectly gauged that they were a band from a different era and season in my life. I’d put them in the past like a mosquito in amber. But when “Ember” queued up, I quickly realized how wrong I was.

On “Ember,” I could still hear that devil-may-care, loose attitude Iceage always had. But they sounded sharper. Paired with their other single, “Star,” I was amazed to hear just how much Rønnenfelt’s voice had improved. This couldn’t be the same guy bellowing “Blue Moon” to an empty, humid room. The way he enunciates “I love you in an ominous way” feels so brilliant, I catch myself mimicking it often.

Even the riffs feel more locked in, their arrangements more ambitious. And it’s not like they’re sacrificing some juice to make this happen. If anything, they sound more urgent than ever. “Match Head Girl” spirals out like an Adderall-fueled crash-out (and those “doot doos” can’t help but remind me of the Super Mario “Power Star” theme). Rønnenfelt gets close to rapping as he spits out a frenzy of lines about graveyards and maggots in apples. And he paints no rosy image on “Lifetime” as he warns: “Get ready for a lifetime of beatings.”

I’ve been reaching for the album often since it came out. While I love the floaty, introspective world of things like ambient and expansive jazz, there’s something about Iceage’s wordy, mangled punk squalls that’s resonating so deeply with me. And, honestly, I don’t even know what they’re going on about half the time. But the way Rønnenfelt punches out every word and the way the band punctuates with red-hot distortion just gives it so much conviction. And what parts I can decipher in the lyrics, so much of it feels grounded in thoughts of love. Messy, frantic love. But still love.

For a band that I always saw as teetering toward the edge, For Love of Grace & the Hereafter feels remarkably pulled together. But for the band, it doesn’t seem like embracing a leaner and more exacting structure to their music has held them back. In a recent cover story by Matt Mitchell for Paste, Rønnenfelt talks about the band’s commitment to always change it up, saying, “We need movement. Stillness seems like a prescription for the end.”

But there’s another part in the interview that sticks with me. Rønnenfelt is talking about how his solo album informed the direction of this new Iceage album when he says, “Anything you ever do adds to the collected mess that is you. Even if it’s songwriting or just sheer living, it all gets sucked in and becomes part of what you create from.”

Iceage demonstrates that beautifully on this new album. It’s a culmination of everything they’ve been before and then some. They’re more refined, but I hesitate to say “fully evolved” because who’s to say they won’t just evolve again? And maybe that’s the point.

Looking back, I can see how I always feel drawn to measure myself against someone else’s artistic arc, like Iceage’s. But I’ve been missing the point. The journeys are completely separate. We’re all just adding on more and more to who we were to become who we are. Iceage wasn’t a great band all those years ago because they were young. They were and continue to be great because they’re not afraid of what they might become next. I want to live that way too.

Share

Help Support Another Thought and Get Cool Stuff!

I appreciate you reading Another Thought, whether this is your first post or you’re a long-time reader. Another Thought is a labor of love fueled by very long deadline nights, lots of art supplies, and espresso at ungodly hours.

If you want to support the newsletter, please consider becoming a paid subscriber at $5/mo. You’ll get exclusive newsletters, early access to upcoming physical media, and a sheet of stickers featuring drawings from the newsletter and my book mailed to you!

Subscribe now

My Book 20th Century Ambient is Out Now!

Through text and comics, 20th Century Ambient traces the recent history of ambient music to uncover how the genre has evolved and the role it plays in our daily lives. If you dig the combination of art and essays on Another Thought, I think you’ll love this book.

“Enriched by vivid profiles of the genre’s practitioners and capped by a list of essential tracks, it’s a quirky love letter to an enigmatic sound.” - Publishers Weekly

“Dad! Your book isn’t boring! It has pictures in it! It’s hilarious. Kids can read it too!” - my child

20th Century Ambient is out now from Bloomsbury Books.

BUY IT HERE: Bloomsbury | Amazon | Bookshop | Barnes & Noble

I remember clearly the first time I realized both the power and folly in being verbose. It was in the 5th grade and we had a science assignment with short-answer questions. I can’t remember exactly what the question was, but I know for certain that I didn’t know the answer. It was around this time that I was discovering I had some knack for writing.

Instead of leaving it blank, I tried something. I wrote a lengthy answer, using whatever “big words” I knew that more or less kept rephrasing the question instead of answering it. The teacher asked us to go around and read our answers to each question. I stood up and read my eloquent mess of an answer. I remember my peers nodding their heads, seemingly impressed.

This didn’t last long. A moment later, my teacher told me my answer was wrong, and I sat back down.

It wouldn’t be the last time I tried that trick – throwing words at a problem. I see it all the time. In retrospect, maybe I missed my calling as a Fortune 500 CEO. Sometimes you can get away with it, sometimes not. But after a time I realized it wasn’t doing me any good. I started to develop some bad habits that, honestly, I’m still trying to break.

It’s given me great appreciation for brevity. It’s one thing to be able to paint a picture with long, lavish, descriptive sentences packed to the brim with adjectives and allegory. It’s another to leave an impression with only a few words.

At one point, when I was struggling early in my writing career, I got this software called Hemingway Editor that was meant to review your work and tell you how to trim it down and write more like, well, Hemingway. Shorter, sparser, impactful sentences. I hated it. It felt sophisticated when he did it. When I tried, it felt like Go, Dog. Go! I eventually did away with the app. Took some good lessons, but realized it wasn’t my style. But still, writers with restraint always amaze me.

I feel that same amazement listening to Greg Mendez’s latest album, Beauty Land. He good. Real good. I like. (Okay, right, brevity isn’t my style).

I wasn’t familiar with Mendez prior. I put it on impromptu on a cloudy morning in the car driving through the rundown factories and train tracks of South Seattle. Without even knowing what the music would sound like, it ended up being perfect. Whatever ennui I was feeling was perfectly matched by the soft strums of the opening track, “I Wanna Feel Pretty.”

By the time the song ended, I nearly pulled over. It breezed by in a little over two minutes. In a short span, he’d talked me through his inner malaise, getting mugged, getting drunk, going to rehab, escaping rehab, and wishing he were someone else. It was a wallop of emotion, almost too much to take at once. I needed to double back and hear that again.

And this isn’t an isolated incident. This same sort of rapid-fire emotional devastation happens again and again on Beauty Land. Just on the next track, “Looking Through Your Window,” he pulls off this heartbreaking magic trick again – but this time he does it in one minute and 43 seconds. In fact, no song cracks the three-minute mark (he nearly gets there with “So Mean” but beats it right at the buzzer). The whole album moves by in just over 26 minutes.

I’ve often thought about the power of short songs, but mostly in the context of punk records. Songs that get in and get out quickly, hitting you with a wallop of aggression and excitement before suddenly ending.

Or if it’s not punk albums, I think of hip-hop maestros like J Dilla and Madlib, who can put a collection of short, seemingly disparate beats together into a chaotic but beautiful sound collage. Mendez’s Beauty Land feels akin to these works, though it trades in chaos for intimacy and restraint.

With each song it feels like he’s pushing himself to cut deeper with less. A song like “Frog” features only one line, repeated several times over a soft keyboard: “please forgive me for my faults.” Hemingway, eat your heart out with those “six-word stories.”

The realm of “singer-songwriter” I think is maybe the hardest in music. There’s certainly mastery at play watching someone spiral out with insane guitar riffs and load up intricate layers of dense music. But the vulnerability and nakedness of just a person and a guitar feels so brave. You have nothing to hide behind. The songs are distilled to their core elements. If it sucks, it’ll be quickly apparent. But when someone can do it and be excellent, it’s breathtaking.

All that is what amazes me about Mendez. I love his voice and his guitar playing, which aren’t showy but deceptively intricate and excellent. There’s an underlying intentionality behind every note. When he does overdub with a piano or adds drums, it never feels like it’s there for garnish. When the drums come in at the last minute of “So Mean,” it feels like a buildup of all the frustration and despair he’s been building up the whole song. Contrasting that is a song like “Sunsick,” where he confronts his worst tendencies over delicate, sublime finger-picked guitars.

The spartan approach to his songwriting builds a trust with you as the listener. These songs are meant to have a heavy impact in the short time they’re with you. Ephemeral but arresting.

I can listen to Beauty Land on repeat several times with how quickly it goes by, but then I’ll find suddenly I need to stop. The songwriting is so heavy and there’s so much to digest, it can be a lot. Inevitably, though, I find my way back. These brief passages of music are so enamoring with their scattered memories and suppressed feelings. There’s power in its brevity. Mendez wields it beautifully.

Share

Want to Support Another Thought? Okay, I’m Down!

I appreciate you reading Another Thought, whether this is your first post or you’re a long-time reader. Another Thought is a labor of love fueled by very long deadline nights, lots of art supplies, and espresso at ungodly hours.

If you want to support the newsletter, please consider becoming a paid subscriber at $5/mo. You’ll get exclusive newsletters, early access to upcoming physical media, and a sheet of stickers featuring drawings from the newsletter and my book mailed to you!

Subscribe now

My Book 20th Century Ambient is Out Now!

Through text and comics, 20th Century Ambient traces the recent history of ambient music to uncover how the genre has evolved and the role it plays in our daily lives. If you dig the combination of art and essays on Another Thought, I think you’ll love this book.

“Enriched by vivid profiles of the genre’s practitioners and capped by a list of essential tracks, it’s a quirky love letter to an enigmatic sound.” - Publishers Weekly

“Dad! Your book isn’t boring! It has pictures in it! It’s hilarious. Kids can read it too!” - my child

20th Century Ambient is out now from Bloomsbury Books.

BUY IT HERE: Bloomsbury | Amazon | Bookshop | Barnes & Noble

George Lucas caught a lot of flack. Maybe you’re aware.

After creating one of the most renowned and ubiquitous fictional universes of the 20th century, Lucas spent years getting feedback from critics and fans that he was doing a bad job. In 2005, while promoting the last film he’d direct (Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith) on 60 Minutes, Leslie Stahl asks him directly what he thinks of the criticism of his last two films. He chuckles that the critics “never liked any of them.” His words are unfazed but his tone feels bothered. Then he continues:

“The point is, it’s like if you paint your house white and somebody comes over and says, ‘that should be a green house.’

“Well, fine, but I wanted to paint it white and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with white and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with me for painting it white.

“Maybe it should have been a green house, but I wanted it to be a white house.”

The irony in this whole conversation comes at the end when Lucas firmly denounces the idea of an Episode VII being made by himself or anyone else. He insists it will never happen.

Well.

I recently caught The Mandalorian & Grogu, the big screen tie-in to the streaming show The Mandalorian. It’s the first Star Wars movie in seven years from Disney, following the critically maligned Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker. It was fine. Some fun moments and action but ultimately not really much about anything. Lots of things happen, but it all weirdly feels absent of purpose beyond keeping you entertained just enough for two hours. Very serviceable.

It was a weird feeling to walk away feeling so empty from a Star Wars movie. I’ve been elated after watching some and enraged by others (“Somehow Palpatine has returned”). Never just totally ambivalent.

Like many people, I remember watching Star Wars for the first time feeling like a revelation. A total realignment of what I thought movies could do, a whole universe I wanted to know more about. My imagination just going full throttle.

George Lucas amazed me. I wasn’t even sure what a director really did, but I was totally caught up in how he’d created this whole universe. The Jedi philosophies, a huge variety of creatures, spaceships, and a scale that felt massive and unlike anything seen before. All starting in this guy’s head.

Still, this new film kept me thinking about Lucas’ quote about wanting to paint a house white that everyone else says should be green. Who is right in this scenario?

When someone’s artistic vision becomes a part of pop culture, it will inevitably spiral out of the creator’s control. And look, Lucas made $4 billion selling Lucasfilm and the Star Wars rights to Disney. He’ll be okay. Though reports and comments he’s made suggest that he has regrets.

Like many, I was excited for this sale. It meant more Star Wars! We were being told we’d get a new movie every year. There was a chance to improve over the wooden dialogue and CGI overload of the prequel movies that dismayed many fans. And there’s even been some really good moments in this era. But even at its highs, I can’t help but wonder if every move is just betraying the original intent. Lucas may not own Star Wars, but he was Star Wars.

There’s been reported leaks of a treatment Lucas gave Disney for a sequel series. It involves crime syndicates, microscopic Force-beings, and was allegedly an allegory for the Iraq War. Honestly, it sounds very weird, convoluted, and confusing. I would’ve loved to have seen it. It might not have even been good! But it would have been true to the original vision.

And even more importantly, it sounds like these stories would have had a point of view. That’s an underrated aspect of his original films. The first film, A New Hope, took direct reference from the Vietnam War and warned against fascism. As folks have loved to point out on social media lately, George Lucas was mocked for making the central conflict of The Phantom Menace revolve around a trade route blockade. Well… that turned out to be a timely message after all.

Some may argue that Lucas was misguided in his execution and his “best movies” were directed by others. And even A New Hope, which Lucas directed and set off the whole phenomenon, deserves a heap of credit from his ex-wife Marcia Lucas, who edited the film (who sadly just recently passed away).

And yes, those are great credits for collaborations and editing being a key part of the creative process and realizing something to its fullest potential. But at the core of it, there’s still the key ingredient needed: vision.

All these thoughts and feelings came up for me again while watching another movie in theaters recently: Boots Riley’s I Love Boosters.

Riley’s film is about a group of women boosters – people who shoplift designer clothing to resell them for much more affordable prices to their community in Oakland. The film is psychedelic, unhinged, and vibrant. Every scene feels wackier and more visually arresting than the last. It doesn’t hide that it’s a critique on capitalism – that’s the ground floor, it only ups the ante and takes the idea to the extreme the further it goes.

This is definitely one of those movies where you don’t want to describe too much for fear of “giving it away.” And it comes with the “not for everyone” disclaimer. There’s truly surreal sex scenes, actors are playing over the top, the pacing and transitions will make your head spin. I absolutely loved it.

Watching I Love Boosters gave me similar effects as seeing Star Wars for the first time. The sheer overwhelm of trying to take in everything you’re seeing. There’s a whole fleshed-out world here that plays to different rules than our own. Boosters even introduces a piece of sci-fi tech that’s one of the coolest original devices I can recall seeing in a movie in years. Boosters and Star Wars may be thematically different, but they both share a kinship of ambition and relentless pursuit of a vision.

That’s a testament to Boots Riley. Riley’s been testing the limits of what general audiences can take since his days in the rap group The Coup with album titles like Kill My Landlord and Genocide & Juice. He’s always let you know up front where he’s coming from: anti-establishment and unafraid. I Love Boosters even takes its name from a song on the group’s 2006 album Pick a Bigger Weapon.

Riley’s been transmuting this energy into film since his directorial debut Sorry to Bother You in 2018 – yet another holy-shit-I-can’t-even-describe-this-but-you’ve-gotta-see-it movie. And I’d be remiss to not give a quick shout-out to his excellent 2023 series I’m a Virgo. All to say, Riley has made a quick ascent to being one of the most vital and interesting filmmakers working today.

Leaving the theater after watching I Love Boosters, I felt like I needed a moment to even try and understand what I just saw. I’m still thinking about it and eager to see it again. My mind’s been spinning with questions of what certain scenes mean, how certain shots were done, and wondering all of the things I missed when I winced at the cringey moments and cry-laughed at other moments. Bigger than all of this, it’s exciting to go to the movies and feel this way.

And of course Riley’s not the only one holding this mantle. Just a few months ago I was waxing poetic about the brilliance of Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie for tackling similarly big swings. But the bigger feeling, beyond the state of cinema, was the excitement of seeing an artist execute their vision in the way they wanted it to be done. And maybe there is hope! Just this week The Mandalorian & Grogu was toppled at the box office by a low-budget horror film by a young director. The tides may shift after all.

It’s hard to imagine a studio executive seeing a movie like Boosters and “giving notes.” This might be one of the most anti-establishment films to come out of Hollywood in a while that doesn’t hide beneath vague allegory.

The contrasts between I Love Boosters and The Mandalorian & Grogu are deeply apparent. And, look, I’ll iterate once again that the former isn’t for everyone.

Telling someone who liked The Mandalorian & Grogu that they should instead be watching I Love Boosters would be like telling a die-hard Maroon 5 fan that they really ought to listen to Frank Zappa instead. Not that you can’t love both, but it might be a much harder sell.

Both movies raise big questions for me. What happens when you strip the vision from the visionary? And, inversely, what happens when you let the visionary have their vision?

I think in the last decade in particular, we’ve gotten too comfortable with shoving the vision to the side for “giving people what they want.” To me, this is the logical conclusion to the disease that is calling everything “content.”

Rather than leaving the possibility that a creator’s vision will differ from an audience’s expectations, studios and suits have opted to use “data-informed decision-making” to create “products” that will deliver on “higher customer satisfaction rates” and “ROI.”

This goes well beyond Hollywood and movies. The lesson here is more universal. Placating your vision for the masses in whatever form it might be in – writing, music, all forms of art – has diminishing returns.

Sticking with your vision might blow up in your face, but at least it’s true. I’ve been on both ends of this in my professional career, and I’d always choose the latter. Things often work out best when you can bring in like minds who can help you see your vision through to the fullest, so don’t discount collaboration.

For me, ending up with something stale and soulless would be the bleakest outcome. The world is already loaded up with enough slop and regurgitated ideas meant to satisfy large swaths of people. It may even seem like a safe bet. But even ideas like Star Wars weren’t sure things when they first arrived. Take note of artists like Riley who are following in Lucas’ footsteps to see a vision through.

Slop will devolve back into compost. A real vision will stay true forever.

Share

Want to Support Another Thought? Okay, I’m Down!

I appreciate you reading Another Thought, whether this is your first post or you’re a long-time reader. Another Thought is a labor of love fueled by very long deadline nights, lots of art supplies, and espresso at ungodly hours.

If you want to support the newsletter, please consider becoming a paid subscriber at $5/mo. You’ll get exclusive newsletters, early access to upcoming physical media, and a sheet of stickers featuring drawings from the newsletter and my book mailed to you!

Subscribe now

My Book 20th Century Ambient is Out Now!

Through text and comics, 20th Century Ambient traces the recent history of ambient music to uncover how the genre has evolved and the role it plays in our daily lives. If you dig the combination of art and essays on Another Thought, I think you’ll love this book.

“Enriched by vivid profiles of the genre’s practitioners and capped by a list of essential tracks, it’s a quirky love letter to an enigmatic sound.” - Publishers Weekly

“Dad! Your book isn’t boring! It has pictures in it! It’s hilarious. Kids can read it too!” - my child

20th Century Ambient is out now from Bloomsbury Books.

BUY IT HERE: Bloomsbury | Amazon | Bookshop | Barnes & Noble

There’s too much music. Well, maybe not too much music, but too much for you and me to listen to all of it.

Sometimes I’ll just pull up the Bandcamp homepage and watch the “selling right now” section, with album after album I’ve never heard of scrolling by. It’s exciting. It’s also horrifying. How many times have I flipped through a record bin and passed over a masterpiece that I’d probably love? How many albums are on streaming services that will never get playlisted and find an audience?

If you’ve been following along the last couple of weeks, I’ve been fixated on this idea of under-heard music. In truth, it’s been a longtime obsession, but the fire is starting to get lit beneath me again.

I make a point to listen to a lot of music. I love huge triple-A artists and buzzworthy bands on the rise, but my favorite thing is to dig. There’s just something so gratifying about finding a new band or sound that few others have caught on to yet.

But the discovery is just half the fun. The other side is getting to then share this music with others. What’s the point of finding a great gem if you don’t let others know about it?

I begrudge myself often for not doing enough to share the great finds I come across. So that’s why I’m starting this new recurring series: Underplays.

The idea here is to focus on music that (at least to my perception) isn’t getting enough plays. With the streaming era, we have a weird amount of data thrust upon us about artists and their popularity. It can be disheartening finding something you love and seeing that it’s just literally not getting played much. This is a chance to rectify that, at least in a small way. Underplays is for spotlighting the underheard.

I’m not putting any strict “below x number of plays/listeners” rule on this, and some albums might not even be on streaming services at all. These might be albums that came out in recent weeks or maybe even years or decades ago. You can expect Underplays to show up monthly as a part of Another Thought, but not on any strict schedule. Keeping it loose is part of the fun.

There’s too much music. Underplays is an attempt to make a small dent in the pile. This first batch includes music without a language, lost ambient from the depths of YouTube, a lo-fi Filipino cult classic, and murky Memphis beats. I hope you dig them as much as I do.

2020 – (self-titled)

Sometimes you understand exactly why an artist isn’t more popular. Spanish band 2020’s music might be inaccessible sonically, but it’s also nearly un-Google-able. Even when I try to find it in my streaming library, searching “2020” brings up numerous pandemic playlists and takes me a minute to find. But something about this only makes me love 2020 more.

I came across 2020 only recently. During a trip to Seville, Spain last month, I walked into a record store called Sublima Tattoos y Discos purely on a whim. I’ve mentioned this a few times, but I’ve found seeking out record stores while traveling to be such a key to finding not just great music, but a gateway to local culture and a great way of finding parts of a city you might not have explored.

Uncharacteristically, I struck up a conversation with the shop’s co-owner Alfredo, asking for music recommendations. We talked for over an hour. He gave me an overview of all the great ambient in Seville and we played records back and forth. Then he pulled out this one. A very stark-looking black-and-white cover with a person hunched over a road case. The cover alone reminded me of Castle Face Records’ great Live in San Francisco series, so I was immediately intrigued. It turned out Alfredo and the shop actually put out the album.

Before he put it on, he explained to me that the album isn’t in Spanish or English or any other discernible language. It was all made up. He also tried to prepare me for how inaccessible it would be. But I was ready to take the record home with me before the needle even dropped.

The music is harsh. Maybe that’s an understatement. The guitars are heavy, veering into atonal mayhem. The drums are loud and raucous. If you have any taste for stuff like Swans or the darker sides of Sonic Youth, this will likely resonate. I’m not always in the headspace for this kind of music, but something about 2020 lands for me. I’m sure the circumstances of how I was introduced helped. But there’s also just something about it that I find so compelling. The made-up language doesn’t just feel like a gimmick. It feels like a means for pure expression. Nothing is overthought. It feels like a physical release.

2020 feels like the year (and era) for which it was named. Chaotic, impossible to understand, but also inescapable. Whenever I put this album on, I think it’s going to be “too much.” But within moments, I’m enraptured by this colorless world. It doesn’t require you to understand it. You just have to feel it.

George Garside – The Jester

Who doesn’t love a good musical mystery? I know very little about The Jester and its creator George Garside. I came across this album about a year ago on YouTube. YouTube continually proves to be a great source for rediscovering lost music from bygone eras. We’ve seen artists like Beverly Glenn-Copeland and Hiroshi Yoshimura suddenly become beloved thanks to rips making their way to the video site.

It seems like I’m somewhat late to the party on this one, at least in comparison to the top YouTube sleuths out there. I was compelled by seeing the thumbnail of a joker playing card with new music tags. I’d also been playing a lot of the poker-based video game Balatro, so maybe I was uniquely primed for this. What I wasn’t prepared for was how deeply emotive and moving the music is almost right off the bat.

This is all instrumental synthesizer music. I couldn’t tell you what synth he’s using or really much else. Fans aren’t even sure if Garside is still with us. What little information there is out there comes from this Blogspot page that is somehow connected with the artist who designed the cover (that Blogspot also is a treasure trove of other rarities if you’re so inclined to dig).

With records like this, I’m also torn between wanting to dig deeper to figure out the story and letting the mystery lie. There’s something really special about lost music like this from a bygone era. It excites my imagination, allows me to paint a picture in my mind of who this person is and where they came from. Still, it’s the music itself that’s so compelling.

Despite the joker theme, the music feels deeply personal and serious. Yet that added jester dimension only adds more intrigue. Finding albums like this makes me want to keep digging further. Not just making my way through the current deluge of new music, but looking back further and finding the things we all missed.

Outside Source – Fools Don’t Have to Introduce Themselves (Retail Version)

A couple weeks ago I mentioned my love for the label Harsh Riddims and their excellent compilations. Each compilation is always packed with a bunch of names I don’t recognize, giving so many jumping-off points for discovery. I was really enamored with the opening track to Harsh Riddims 5, penned by Outside Source. It was an easy leap from there to finding Outside Source’s 2022 album, Fools Don’t Have to Introduce Themselves (Retail Version).

Outside Source is the moniker of Quinton JeVon Lee, based out of Memphis, Tenn. He’s done a lot of work with rapper/producer Cities Aviv (whose music I recently became acquainted with while working on illustrations for this piece from Emily White). Though I’ve only begun to dip my toes into this world, I can already see myself falling deep into it.

Fools Don’t Have to Introduce Themselves has this murky, hazy aesthetic to the production that I’m just such a sucker for. It feels like finding a lost tape—maybe one left jammed into the deck of a used car, packed with incredible jams. The spastic drums and swooning synth hum of “Mobile Suit (Test Run)” feel like they would’ve been perfect for a Toonami commercial bumper in the early 2000s (a mood and feeling I’m always chasing). The minimalist beat and jazzy chords of “Some Damn Basketball Game” are hypnotizing. His voice meanders as the chords plop in and out over sparse drums.

Outside Source is excellent at leaning into an aesthetic that feels haphazard and lo-fi but is actually masterfully creating a mood. There are moments when his voice carries a Prince-like affectation. Something about the haziness makes me want to lean in more. At just over 21 minutes, I find myself looping this one often.

Eggboy – 98–05

Over the last few years, I’ve really loved digging into music from the Philippines. I married into a Filipino family and have been really blessed to get to experience so much of the culture. So whenever we go visit family in the Philippines, I’m always trying to track down a bunch of records and deep cuts to bring home. But this one is my white whale.

Eggboy seems to have something of a cult following. The project is the moniker of Diego Mapa, who now plays in the great electronic duo Tarsius. Eggboy feels like quintessential bedroom indie pop. Mapa recorded the songs at home between 1998 and 2005 (hence the title) on a 4-track recorder, singing in both English and Tagalog. Every song is packed with hook after hook, his voice wavering and reverbed against the makeshift production.

I’m a sucker for a great lo-fi indie rock record. If the melodies are decadent and the recording equipment is shot, I’m there. And this record hits all the marks. Truly, if you like stuff like Sharp Pins, Guided By Voices, or even early Death Cab for Cutie, then I can’t see any reason you wouldn’t fall in love with Eggboy.

I find myself routinely coming back to 98–05, the songs sticking in my head for days. Something about the production just adds to the feeling of sincerity. These are heartfelt, slacker jams that hold up. If it weren’t for the title, you could easily convince me these songs either came out 30 years ago or just yesterday.

Share

Want to Support Another Thought? Okay, I’m Down!

I appreciate you reading Another Thought, whether this is your first post or you’re a long-time reader. Another Thought is a labor of love fueled by very long deadline nights, lots of art supplies, and espresso at ungodly hours.

If you want to support the newsletter, please consider becoming a paid subscriber at $5/mo. You’ll get exclusive newsletters, early access to upcoming physical media, and a sheet of stickers featuring drawings from the newsletter and my book mailed to you!

My Book 20th Century Ambient is Out Now!

Through text and comics, 20th Century Ambient traces the recent history of ambient music to uncover how the genre has evolved and the role it plays in our daily lives. If you dig the combination of art and essays on Another Thought, I think you’ll love this book.

“Enriched by vivid profiles of the genre’s practitioners and capped by a list of essential tracks, it’s a quirky love letter to an enigmatic sound.” - Publishers Weekly

“Dad! Your book isn’t boring! It has pictures in it! It’s hilarious. Kids can read it too!” - my child

20th Century Ambient is out now from Bloomsbury Books.

BUY IT HERE: Bloomsbury | Amazon | Bookshop | Barnes & Noble

One of the questions I get most often is “where do you find new music?” New music is being dropped basically every second, but with the overwhelming amount of other “content” being constantly fed to us, it can be shockingly hard to keep up with what’s coming out. But at the same time, we also have more resources than ever for finding great stuff.

I’ve written before about the practice of building in time for new music in your life and giving yourself the best shot of enjoying it. I find having new music constantly in my life to be deeply rewarding. It’s exciting to find a new sound or discover an artist whose music affects you that you might never have guessed. Pushing my boundaries with music has opened my mind to so many different ideas, and to learning new history from scenes and countries all over the world.

But the actual act of finding new music can feel difficult, especially if you’re trying to expand your taste and try something new. So this time I wanted to try something different and lean more practical.

There are plenty more ways and places to find music than what I’m listing here. These methods work for me.

Go Down a Bandcamp or YouTube Rabbit Hole

The Internet can be a drag. But it’s still great for going down a music rabbit hole. Researching music is honestly one of my favorite things to do. And we have so much of it out there. This is incredibly overwhelming, but also exciting. I like to think of it sometimes like you’re actually exploring, roaming through the depths and seeing where each path will lead.

Bandcamp remains one of the best websites for music discovery. There are plenty of streaming services out there (most of them with questionable ethics), but there’s nothing out there quite like Bandcamp. For starters, it’s not really a streaming service. Streaming is just one of its functions. The main idea is to (believe it or not) buy music.

I have sunk so many hours into digging deep into the depths of Bandcamp. Especially during the pandemic, when going to the record store and shows wasn’t an option, Bandcamp became a lifeline for discovery.

There are many ways you can go about this, and the more you poke around, you’ll certainly find the way that best suits you. First, the writers and editors behind the site’s editorial arm, Bandcamp Daily, are top notch. The curation is always excellent and goes beyond just what’s buzzy and really leans into discovering new sounds and ideas. They are truly doing the lord’s work.

You can also use their browse function to dig into certain genres, locations, etc. When I focused on writing the local Seattle music beat, this was crucial for me to find new sounds coming up in my own city. Try some odd combinations of things or pick genres you don’t know. It’s amazing what you’ll find just from that. My favorite thing to do is find something I like, then look up the labels they’re on, if they have one, and explore even further in those catalogs, branching out in even more directions.

YouTube is also a powerhouse for discovery. Especially if you have any interest in rare recordings, demos, live performances, unreleased records, and rips of unstreamable music. But it works just as well for exploring the bulk of modern music.

I think the key here is to really get into a flow with clicking suggested videos and continually narrowing down your search. Find a good place to start with something you like or pick an artist you’re curious about and see where it goes. My only gripe with YouTube for discovery is that I find it easily distracts me into other directions with unrelated videos. For a more music-centralized experience, Bandcamp’s got you.

Read Music Writing!

Well, well, well. Look what we have here. If you’re reading this, then you’re likely already in the know. Music writing has long been a great source for learning about new music.

Websites like Pitchfork and Stereogum are still great places to find new music. I love The Quietus for more experimental sounds. Of course, there are many excellent music writers here on Substack as well.

And this isn’t just about checking out album reviews. Interviews, essays, columns, and other types of pieces are all great ways to find out about new music. Plus, there’s the added bonus of finding writers you like whose taste you trust. There are plenty of people I know and read who convince me to try out an album I might have skipped just because I know they’ve steered me faithfully in the past.

(For a lot more on this, check out my piece “Why Write About Music?”)

Ask Your Friends

Here’s a fairly obvious but very effective one. Just talk with your friends! You might not always have the same taste as your friends… but that can also be a great advantage. That’s a great opportunity to push your boundaries and hear something totally new.

I’m constantly saving albums mentioned in my various group chats. Or when I’m hanging with someone and they mention a new band or record they’re listening to, I quickly save it or write it down in my phone so I don’t forget.

We’re all getting recommended stuff all the time and it’s easy to lose track of it all. For me, getting it documented quickly means I’ll have a much higher chance of listening to it later. Even if it takes me a minute to get to it, I can come back to it when the time is right.

Plus, really, there’s nothing better than getting put on to a great record by a friend and likewise getting them into something good too. It’s fun to share music and it’ll be even sweeter with memories attached to it.

Go to a Record Store

Sure, I know, this also feels very obvious. But I think your local record store is entirely underrated. And especially with how much I’m mentioning phones and streaming above, physical media still reigns as the supreme way of enjoying and supporting music.

Usually I have at least some idea of what I’m looking for when I go into a record store. Even if I come in on a whim, there are usually a few records already on my mind. But, inevitably, I’m going to browse… for a very long time if not stopped. Just through the physical act of walking through the aisles, you’re going to notice records you never have before. Or sometimes you’ll even find new stuff by artists you already love. If I don’t pick up things I spot at the store right away, I write them down and make a note to check them out later. And a good store will surely have some good music playing.

There’s an old stigma about cranky record store clerks. Certainly they still exist and your mileage may vary, but I do feel like that tide has changed quite a bit. If you’re feeling bold enough, talk with the people working in the shop and let them know what you’re into. I did this recently on a trip to Spain and ended up spending an hour or so with the shopkeeper just spinning records back and forth and leaving with a stack of music I never would’ve found otherwise. It’s fine to break those comfort zones.

Catch the Opener

If you’re active and able to attend shows, try and make it a point to catch the opener. The temptation to skip is understandable (and, I’m not perfect, I’ve done it before and likely will again), but you could be missing out on something great. Or maybe not! As Smash Mouth once said, “You’ll never know if you don’t go.”

Dig into the Credits of Music You Already Love

Now we’re getting a little nerdy. But this is easier than ever in the modern age.

Every artist’s music is a universe in itself. This goes for the albums as well as the musicians behind them, even if it’s a solo artist or moniker. You’d be surprised how deep the rabbit holes between band members, producers, and featured players can go. If you’re into jazz, you could probably just spend the rest of your life doing that.

It doesn’t have to be complicated. If going through an album or song’s credits feels like a lot, just clicking on featured artists on tracks on streaming can send you in a whole slew of directions.

…The Algorithm (With Caveats)

Look, I want to be high and mighty and say I’ve never discovered something from “the algorithm.” But that would be a lie. And when we talk about “the algorithm,” we’re really talking about a bunch of different algorithms we have creepily structured around our taste and interests. There’s one for your music streaming, your socials, YouTube, TV, on and on and on. Surely I don’t have to tell you all this. This is the 21st century, baby!

My main goal is to hear more music. So I’m not going to deny myself listening to something just because of how it’s been served to me. But I’m very wary of making it a primary source.

Algorithms cater to what they already think you like. So you’re going to be put in a bubble very quickly. I find it to be really stifling. And for me, the point isn’t always to find something that sounds like what I already like. It can be fun to hone in on a sound, but when the algorithm thinks you only like lo-fi folk music, for example, it can be hard to get it “back on course.” These services are often less interested in helping you discover and more interested in retaining you for longer durations. Like I said, that’s the 21st century, baby!

For me, I look at the algorithm as a passive function. It’s there. It’ll come up. But if you’re putting in effort in any of these other areas for finding music, you won’t need to rely on the tech industry’s content strategy to get you “fresh finds.”

Again, these are all just methods I find myself using regularly. This is all without getting into radio (terrestrial and Internet), the excellent playlist curators that are out there, and more.

That’s the beauty of it to me. Great music is everywhere and more of it keeps piling in. We don’t have to reach far to find something cool and new. There’s a ton out there to explore. Maybe it’s Sisyphean to try and make a dent in listening to it all. But I’m pretty happy pushing this particular boulder.

Share

Want to Support Another Thought? Okay, I’m Down!

I appreciate you reading Another Thought, whether this is your first post or you’re a long-time reader. Another Thought is a labor of love fueled by very long deadline nights, lots of art supplies, and espresso at ungodly hours.

If you want to support the newsletter, please consider becoming a paid subscriber at $5/mo. You’ll get exclusive newsletters, early access to upcoming physical media, and a sheet of stickers featuring drawings from the newsletter and my book mailed to you!

Subscribe now

My Book 20th Century Ambient is Out Now!

Through text and comics, 20th Century Ambient traces the recent history of ambient music to uncover how the genre has evolved and the role it plays in our daily lives. If you dig the combination of art and essays on Another Thought, I think you’ll love this book.

“Enriched by vivid profiles of the genre’s practitioners and capped by a list of essential tracks, it’s a quirky love letter to an enigmatic sound.” - Publishers Weekly

“Dad! Your book isn’t boring! It has pictures in it! It’s hilarious. Kids can read it too!” - my child

20th Century Ambient is out now from Bloomsbury Books.

BUY IT HERE: Bloomsbury | Amazon | Bookshop | Barnes & Noble

Keeping up with music and pop culture sometimes feels like a full-time job in itself. Being constantly inundated with “what’s up and coming” and “what people are talking about” can be exhausting and sometimes unavoidable if you’re any degree of “online” (which, unfortunately, I am). And while I love a lot of stuff that gets broader notice, I find myself more and more wanting to retreat back into crates and corners of the Internet to find something new.

I wrote extensively last week about my love of the band Remy Zero and how that lit a fire in me to seek out new sounds and uplift artists that might not be getting the notice I think they deserve. That idea’s been heavy on my mind, and it reminded me again of all the music I’ve been listening to lately that I feel like I haven’t shared enough.

So, once again, I’m breaking out the graph paper, pens, and markers to make my case for six records I’ve been loving thus far in 2026. Is it a little early to do something like this? Isn’t that more of a June thing? Yeah, maybe. But who makes those rules anyway? These records have been moving me, and it’d kill me to hold onto them any longer. From anxious guitar wizardry to dreamlike jazz, I think all of these albums deserve a listen, and I hope you check them out.

Jo Passed - Away

Sometimes a band re-enters your life and you see them with new eyes. That’s the case for me and Jo Passed. Back when they were based out of Vancouver, B.C., I remember Jo Passed played frequently around Seattle in the late 2010s (that’s a crazy phrase to think about). There were a slew of guitar bands around at the time, and the thing I remembered most about Jo Passed was just how much they ripped and how wild their guitars sounded live. They put out their cheekily named debut in 2018 (Their Prime… as in Jo Passed their prime) and, honestly, I lost track of them in the ensuing years.

Then earlier this year, Jo Passed returned with a new album, Away, on Tacoma, Wash., label Youth Riot Records. The naming keeps with the cheekiness – Jo Passed away, long live Jo. I gave the album a cursory listen, mostly for nostalgia’s sake, and moved on. But then I kept coming back. There’s something here that draws me beyond nostalgia. Now, I feel like I’ve become a bigger fan than I ever was.

Away is sneaky like that. The band’s namesake, Jo Hirabayashi, is now the main force in the band, taking on songwriting, production, and playing numerous instruments on the album while bringing in some friends along the way. In a world inundated with countless “pretty good” indie rock albums floating around Bandcamp, there’s a polish to the craft on Away that I feel goes unrecognized.

The title is an acknowledgment of the time away from the band and Hirabayashi dealing with some mental health struggles. He views life through the eyes of his cat on the standout “Ico,” which also has one of the coolest synthesizer woooom sounds this side of Hans Zimmer. He turns innocuous lawbreaking into an existential crisis on “J Walking.”

Hirabayashi’s guitar work is remarkable as well, crafting tangled, wobbly licks that are just as bewildering as they are catchy. I find myself humming the spastic riff to “Precious Word” all the time. The best moments on the record are when all these elements come together, like on “Too Much Thought,” where he sonically and lyrically creates a poignant reflection on anxiety and getting stuck in a thought pattern. Too real.

I really can’t stop listening to this album. It’s a reminder to me to go back and revisit bands I’ve known and loved over the years. Jo Passed was away, but I’m so glad they’re back.

Green-House - Hinterlands

In recent years, Green-House have become one of my favorite acts in modern ambient music. I was sold right away by their 2019 debut Six Songs for Invisible Gardens and have been so impressed by how the band has continually evolved their sound without losing the naturalistic elements that feel central to their ethos.

Green-House records always have a calming presence. The second I put on one of their albums, it feels like sinking back into the grass – a prime cloud-watching soundtrack. Hinterlands is their first release for Ghostly International, and it’s maybe their grooviest album yet. While the music still carries its softness, the bass and synthesizers feel a little more buoyant this time around, taking cues from artists like Haruomi Hosono and the blissful moments in the Final Fantasy soundtracks.

The opening tones of “Sun Dogs” establish right away that this record will be something of a departure while still feeling within the Green-House universe. The plodding bass and emerging horns and soft drums open up a whole new musical world for the group. Moments like “Farewell, Little Island” really capture this sense of beauty but also adventure. Even if the music maintains a low-key demeanor, it never sacrifices its curiosity and sense of discovery.

The duo feels more free than ever. There’s a looseness to the record that feels wistful and exciting, like drifting out to sea. Allowing themselves to expand their sonic palette by bringing in new instruments and ideas keeps them sounding fresh. Green-House continue to impress, and it’s exciting to imagine where they might go next.

Friko - Something Worth Waiting For

Indie rock can easily veer into nostalgia, but few are able to wield it into something that also still feels fresh and new. Chicago band Friko’s latest album, Something Worth Waiting For, is a masterclass in anthemic indie rock that feels urgent and emotionally candid.

Listening to this record made me feel like I was discovering indie music in the early 2000s all over again. I say that hesitantly because I don’t want to paint Friko as just cribbing from the past and repackaging it for modern audiences. It just feels like they’re tapped into that same source that gave us early Death Cab for Cutie and Band of Horses. It’s the sound of a band swinging for the fences, using every instrument, chorus, and hook at their disposal.

These songs are immediate and abundant. String sections, wallops of distorted guitars crescendoing, thunderous drums crashing in the background, and tender moments that feel like peering into the band’s inner worlds.

The title track feels destined for a sweaty sing-along in front of a packed basement crowd. “Seven Degrees” keeps you guessing with each turn and key change, continually upping the ante. They even make phonetic train sounds feel emotionally devastating on “Choo Choo.” Friko has tremendous promise. This feels like an album that’ll sink its teeth into a whole generation.

Harsh Riddims 5

I’ve been highly anticipating the next edition in the Harsh Riddims compilation series since their incredible Harsh Riddims Vol. 4 dropped during the pandemic. I played every song on that compilation to death and became obsessed with what the label has been creating over the years.

Harsh Riddims is run by Ryan Park – an artist, skater, and musician. He puts out incredible deep house music under the moniker Fit of Body. Park started the label in Atlanta, but it seems he’s since relocated to Los Angeles. Park’s described the label in the past as “a big art project.” He handcrafts the artwork for the releases himself and has cultivated a roster of seriously underrated underground artists like Taves and Solano Candy. He’s also been early to highlight artists like Black Noi$e, System Olympia, and Coco & Clair Clair.

These compilations are always a treat because I never know what to expect. Harsh Riddims 5 is true to this tradition. I recognized exactly one name on this track list before listening, which is exactly what I hoped for. I love digging for new music and sounds, but ultimately all of us are going to have limitations and miss out on something great. I have so much faith in Park’s curation that I knew I would love this before even pressing play.

Opening track “Does The Frame Destroy The Picture” aptly captures the Harsh Riddims aesthetic – lo-fi synthesizers, crooning vocals, with just the right amount of beautiful abstraction in its lyrics. Then there’s the immediate left turn with a remix of Outkast’s classic “Prototype” by I Know Jones, taking the wistful psych-ballad and turning it into a chaotic drum-and-bass banger. Baby Hound’s steamy “Window” has perfect late-night-drive vibes with its minimalist pulse and shockingly groovy bass line. And speaking of bass, Life on Planets’ “Pathos” has a funky groove that feels stripped out of Thriller and reimagined for the late-night after-party. Closer “Pummel Trajectory” by Bathcrones feels like the last climactic high on the dance floor before the party’s over, one more chance to sweat it all out before going back to “real life.”

Harsh Riddims compilations are a testament to great curation and discovery. Park has created something really special here that was well worth the wait.

Resavoir - Themes for Dreams

I have a general rule of thumb – if an album has a sheep on the cover and it’s anywhere near “ambient” territory in its approach, I’m going to love it. (And while we’re at it, shout out to The Sheep Detectives. Great movie.) It worked for The KLF, and it works here with Resavoir’s latest album, Themes for Dreams.

Resavoir is a project helmed by Chicago jazz artist Will Miller. He’s worked with everyone from jazz acts like Brandee Younger and emerging experimentalists like Sen Morimoto to mainstream acts like Justin Bieber and SZA. It’s easy to see why artists gravitate toward him – his work is wildly inventive, but Miller always feels like a steady presence, keeping disparate elements together through his production wizardry.

As the title implies, there’s a dreaminess to Themes for Dreams. That tone has been present in his past work, but it’s even more apparent here. Themes for Dreams is devoid of drums. Instead, the rhythms come from swooning guitar arpeggios, synthesizer swells, and the wistful rising and falling notes of saxophones and strings. It feels like that weird ethereal space between sleep and consciousness – where everything feels hazy, the world doesn’t feel real, but you can still feel your head on the pillow to let you know you’re still here.

More Eaze - sentence structure in the country

I’ve fallen quickly in love with More Eaze’s music. I wasn’t familiar with her work until I heard her on the excellent The Thinking of the World Began Pounding in Our Ears the Moment We Hit Shore album, also released earlier this year.

Artists using auto-tune and vocal effects isn’t necessarily something new in 2026. Over the last couple decades in particular, we’ve become attuned (heh) to it. Yet, there’s something so fresh about how More Eaze approaches her craft. Maybe it’s the timbre of her natural voice and how it gleams through the effects. Yet I can’t help but get a sense of mastery in how she processes her vocals. Every note feels intentional in how it’s sung and how it’s transformed. I feel that across all 10 tracks on her latest album, sentence structure in the country.

The album was crafted as she made a cross-country move, delving into these feelings of change and wonder. It’s the perfect prompt for an artist whose voice feels like it’s constantly changing and evolving. It’s a mesmerizing listen, both feeling like a grand sweeping opus and an intimate, private plea for understanding as the landscapes change around her.

The synthetic sounds of her vocal effects mixed with the raw human emotion she’s conveying is a powerful combination. Hearing layers of auto-tune over a banjo like on “healing attempt” shouldn’t work, and yet it feels effortless in the hands of More Eaze. The technology and emotions are familiar, but the pairing and execution of them together feels completely fresh and new.

Share

Want to Support Another Thought? Okay, I’m Down!

I appreciate you reading Another Thought, whether this is your first post or you’re a long-time reader. Another Thought is a labor of love fueled by very long deadline nights, lots of art supplies, and espresso at ungodly hours.

If you want to support the newsletter, please consider becoming a paid subscriber at $5/mo. You’ll get exclusive newsletters, early access to upcoming physical media, and a sheet of stickers featuring drawings from the newsletter and my book mailed to you!

Subscribe now

My Book 20th Century Ambient is Out Now!

Through text and comics, 20th Century Ambient traces the recent history of ambient music to uncover how the genre has evolved and the role it plays in our daily lives. If you dig the combination of art and essays on Another Thought, I think you’ll love this book.

“Enriched by vivid profiles of the genre’s practitioners and capped by a list of essential tracks, it’s a quirky love letter to an enigmatic sound.” - Publishers Weekly

“Dad! Your book isn’t boring! It has pictures in it! It’s hilarious. Kids can read it too!” - my child

20th Century Ambient is out now from Bloomsbury Books.

BUY IT HERE: Bloomsbury | Amazon | Bookshop | Barnes & Noble