This month has been all about the extra— extra hot, extra rainy, extra tired, extra work, lots of laundry. Its also had good extra though. I have a lot of new followers (welcome!), there’s a ton of new music, I’ve been buying lots of concert tickets. The summer is ending in a hot flash and I’m ready for fall pumpkin spice and bouquets of newly sharpened pencils.

This month’s mix is a doozy. Three hours of new singles from bands I’m excited about as well as some I’ve only just learned of. I couldn’t stop adding to this mix and so its full to the bursting but I listened through 100 times and never found a thing to cut. A big dose of hazy dreamy scuzzy shoe gaze, with a run down the North Carolina twang alley, and some sweet collaborations (Haley Williams on a track with The Linda Lindas warms my cold dead heart, and rips). There are lead singles from a few albums I am excited about (Phoebe Bridgers, Jess Williamson, Slow Pulp) and lots of things found from my little corners of the internet. I dare you not to have your heart leap at the beginning of the Jay Som produced and featuring Meaningful Stone track, to not be suddenly transformed into a Nora Ephron character who is going to be alright.

If I could curate the experience of listening to this mix for you, I would suggest during a nap after the pool, or on a long walk, or while reading a really long novel somewhere sunkissed. Maybe you have a big glass of iced tea and it’s a little too hot and you have the faintest sunburn. Maybe you’re going somewhere later, maybe summer is ending soon, but none of that is now.

Playlist

Here is the mix on Apple Music if you prefer. Please buy these albums if you hear something you love, or listen on Bandcamp!

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Mid Year Faves

It’s probably a bad idea with a bunch of new readers to change my format and not use this section to talk about new releases of the month like I normally do. The truth is I haven’t kept up with new releases this month, I was bogged down in the deluge of singles and the busyness of a summer semester. I am getting some downtime soon and I’m excited to dig into the Tracy Nelson album, Swapmeet’s Mount Zero, IAN SWEET’s Shiverstruck, And Trophy Wife’s Pathetic to name a few. In the meantime, I thought it might be useful to share some of my favorite albums from the first half of the year.

The list in no particular order (album cover images left to right in the grid) :

Frances of Delirium, Run, Run Pure Beauty—Was probably fed to me by the algo because there’s a healthy dose of angrier sadder Phoebe Bridgers to her sound, but she’s also got her own thing. Rich, anthemic at times, good old fashioned rock hooks.

MUNA, Dancing on the Wall—I wrote about this record here, I continue to love it, the only band I know who can bottle up happiness and sadness in one line of one song.

Charlotte Cornfield, Hurts Like Hell— I wrote about this album here, see also this highly enjoyable interview from the Music Person podcast.

Snail Mail, Ricochet—I wrote about this album here, go to her tour with Soccer Mommy for me if they are coming to your town, what a dream.

Ratboys, Singin’ to an Empty Chair— I wrote about this album here, and seeing them live here. Quickly becoming one of my current favorite bands.

Zoh Amba, Eyes Full— A completely surprise finding for me just a month ago, but one of my most played records already. Heartfelt, gritty, all knowing, and yet naïve, this is the first folk rock album of a former pro saxophonist, and one of the most exciting things I’ve heard this year. Music Person also has a great interview.

Kevin Morby, Little Wide Open—I wrote about this record here, Kevin Morby wrote about his new baby here!

Remember Sports, The Refrigerator— I wrote about this record here and I am due for a revisit. I was out of town for their concert, which I regret.

Widowspeak, Roses—Wrote about this album here. Skipped their concert to avoid an awkward hinge date encounter, which I also regret.

youbet, youbet—Another total surprise of a record I found through a favorite artists instagram story, this record is, and I don’t know how else to put it, sick. Grungy guitar, gorgeous vocals, weird little goth elements, just a true joy to listen to. The band is made up of a duo of former music educators and their love of and curiosity for music shines through.

Olivia Rodrigo, you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love—I’ve written about this album here. I just watched a video of her being featured in a Smashing Pumpkins set, she is the first word in cool.

Morgan Nagler—I Have Nothing to Lose and I’m Losing it—Veteran cowriter whose credits include Phoebe Bridger’s “Kyoto” and ex-child star has her own debut at 47. It’s everything thats right about alt-country or indie folk and none of the pretension. Blast it in the morning and clean your house.

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Live Music

Buck Meek

I saw Buck Meek at The Earl, a teeny grungy little venue in east Atlanta that is usually unpleasantly full and sweaty. Inexplicably, there was almost no one there for this show and it was intimate and relaxed. I sat on a decaying leather couch and chatted with a sweet couple there from out of town on their first night away from their tiny baby. The show was generous and flawless with more energy than I expected especially given the small crowd. I also liked seeing Buck with the opening band, the very different Kisser. Download their tracks on bandcamp while you still can, they will take them down before the album is out next year.

Other music things

Lucy Dacus released the sweetest music video for “Planting Tomatoes”, and played with the Chicago Philharmonic. I drooled over all the friends that Haley Williams brought out at the Newport Folk Fest.

Even though we are only a little over a week past the solstice, I am deep in summer. I have been going to the pool and sometimes staying for hours, until my fingers are pruned and my shoulders are pink, and every muscle in my body feels stretched. Doing laps is the kind of satisfyingly boring activity that reminds me of childhood when summer actually meant a kind of nothingness. If it weren’t for work, I would think I’m back to being eight years old, filling the stretch of summer with pottery classes and the community pool, novels from the library, and packed lunches.

I almost thought I wouldn’t have a playlist to post this month because I’ve been listening to basically only the Olivia Rodrigo album (more on this in a moment). She is brilliant and there’s nothing immature about this album, but there’s a teenaged feeling to such perfect pop songs that also is a summer feeling— emotions right up on the surface, out front for anyone to see and parse. The hot humid summer makes me feel like the literal and emotional temperatures can coincide—both boiling over, all of us in a child-like search for release.

This month’s playlist is all about that bubbling up. There’s a lot of screaming on this playlist and except for a brief respite in act III, this playlist is raw, angry at times, earnest at others, full of drums and group choruses and the feeling of your feelings. There are a lot of songs on this album that I love that I wouldn’t think I would— the long awaited Phoebe Bridgers single is produced by Jack Antonoff and I am all in, I’ve spent the week making myself cry watching supercuts of boygenius concerts set to “lost boys”. The final song on the playlist is Mitski covering One Direction of all things, and it’s so good. I put a Weezer song on the playlist (featuring Wednesday, but still), and a strange Leyla Ebrahimi track I found myself replaying. Lots of incredible singles, but I was perhaps most surprised by “Pretty Little Fantasy” by Brennan Wedl, which is a single off of her upcoming album produced by Katie Cruchfield of Waxahatchee. I saw Brennan play with Waxahatchee during her show with MJ Lenderman and enjoyed it, but this single is electric and anthemic and leaves me wanting more.

There are a hundred stories behind the songs on this playlist, I’m sure. I usually have a lyrical through line in mind, but I think the thing that holds this playlist together is the idea of turning it up very loud, and rolling your windows down.

Monthly Playlist

The track “Black Ring” does not appear on Spotify. Here is the track and it goes between “Pop Punk Anthem” and “Lost in the Sun”.

Here is the link on Apple Music if you prefer. Please buy records or merch or use band camp if you can!

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New Releases

Widowspeak-No Roses

I had kind of forgotten that Widowspeak has a seven album history, in part because I like this new album so well that it seems unique and fresh. This is a relaxed album, but never dull, sad but not morose. I would have loved it to death in college, but it’s not tired. I guess the NY based band, who have been recording together for almost two decades, went to Greece to record this record and there is something sun bleached and awed about it. The lyrics are about looking back and evaluating the ties we have to people in our lives. “I’m not holding a flame for you”, the end of the opening track goes “ but I’d keep every little thing that still reminds me of you”.

Olivia Rodrigo—you look pretty sad for a girl so in love

I think part of what makes this album feel so universal even though it’s so specific is that it tells a story. Starting from the beginning of a relationship when everything is rose-tinted and euphoric and taking us along as witness through the slow decent into heartbreak, I can cry along to parts of it that I haven’t and won’t experience because I saw it happen, track by track. I can’t help but compare it to Lucy Dacus’ Forever is a Feeling, which traces the opposite trajectory from unlikely crush to committed loving relationship with similar detail. These albums were somewhat of a departure for both artists and both have commented on the difficulty of the decision to write long songs. to bare that part of themselves to the public in chronological order. I thought I would miss the bubblegum pop-punk of Sour or GUTS but I really don’t— I love the devastating beauty and clear quality of Rodrigo’s songwriting being on full display.

Other music things this month

No live music this month, although I won the Ticketmaster wars for a Phoebe Bridgers ticket in October and to Wednesday and Mannequin Pussy in November. I did not even try to get tickets to Olivia Rodrigo’s Daisy Chain festival although I wish I could blow off the first week of Fall classes for that lineup. Even though I’m a music video agnostic, you gotta watch the Phoebe Bridgers ren faire fever dream.

Otherwise, Lucy Dacus ranked the Home Video tracks for its anniversary and agrees with me, usual music critic Amanda Petrusich wrote a heart wrenching meditation on long-lasting grief, and Muna is profiled in playboy.

As always, thanks for reading, tell me about your favorite band.

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Built around the concept of VHS home videos of childhood and drawn from Dacus’ real childhood diaries, Home Video is a coming of age album. The album is about deconstructing religion, coming out, adolescence, falling in love for the first time— all the ways you could find yourself bumping against the hard edges of your old self during a messy evolution. “Being back here makes me red in the face” Dacus sings on the first line of the first track, “Hot blood in my pulsing veins…Heavy memories weighing on my brain”.

While all her albums have diaristic moments, Home Video marks a shift from hidden meanings and poetic images towards what seem to be snippets of Dacus’ real life, actual grainy mental video tapes of her past set over song. This album emerged from Dacus retyping the diaries she’s kept since kindergarten as a way to pass the time during Covid, and “being back here” refers to in part this revisiting of past selves. In an interview with Hanif Abdurraqib right after the album’s release, Lucy Dacus mourns a little bit her choice to sing her literal diary entries out loud. “… ultimately, it is just me. There's not really a separation, but that's kind of my fault and I think it was a mistake. I wish I lied more. I feel like I know people that lie about their songs and they are protected in a way that I am just not.”

This kind of unvarnished truth telling and the vulnerability of describing detailed and intimate real events should make this album more individual and less relatable, but (for me at least) the opposite is true— I relate to the vulnerable moments on this record even more than the vaguer truisms on No Burden and Historian (which is saying a lot, show me a more relatable song than “I Don’t Want to Be Funny Anymore”). These moments are so personal that relating to them feels as if perhaps their author had developed extrasensory perception and used it to include some of my own diary entries in her album, even though I’ve never been that good at keeping a journal. Its the same almost frightening thrill of learning a friend has the same weird habit as you, or had the same childhood misunderstanding of something— a shared truth remarkable only because you were carrying around a tiny bit of shame about it before you knew you weren’t the only one.

There’s a moment in the brilliant Sorry, Baby that I missed the first time around. The movie is a devastating depiction of the protagonist Agnes grappling with an assault, but in the background there’s a quieter story of her best friend Lydie understanding she’s gay, which, like the primary arc, is told with an empathy and humanity that could bring you to your knees. In the scene I’m thinking of, Lydie is lying on the couch reading Giovanni’s Room. In the brief moment before Agnes bursts in, we see Lydie’s eyes widen, some understanding of queerness from the page settling into place in her mind—a new piece of self-identity being formed.

As someone who “came out” “late in life” ( liberal use of scare quotes here because what do either of those things really mean), this album’s gift to me, and why I keep returning to it for comfort, is akin to what I imagine Lydie is getting from Baldwin’s perfect beautiful tragic prose about a man understanding his attraction to other men in smoky Paris Cafes— a recognition sure, but also a vocabulary I was previously missing for my own history. The fortitude I get from Home Video isn’t so much from how queerness is depicted in the songs, although “Tripe Dog Dare” is a dagger through my adult and child hearts alike, but rather an invitation to review my own memories through a new filter and see in them my own coming of age and my own evolution.

Lucy Dacus herself admits she’s still contextualizing the string of memories that make up Home Video. As an example, “Christine” is a song about riding in a best friend’s boyfriend’s car and feeling conflicted about their relationship and its lack of promise—something more complex than jealousy, or fear of loss, more so the disquieting realization that someone you’ve been growing up alongside has been picturing a different and separate future. Dacus has explained in interviews that it took her years after the release of Home Video to understand this song was about queerness, even when fans thanked her for letting them be so seen by it.

In an article on Bandcamp the reviewer writes“But Home Video is, at its core, an act of propelling oneself forward into a new lifetime through interrogating the past, rather than letting its stagnancy remain. Dacus herself calls it a ‘coming-of-age type of record,’ … Coming-of-age texts are normally an artist’s first release, so there is an admirable tenderness in Dacus waiting until her third project to explore it”. Tenderness is a good way to put what this album gives, a prodding of the tender parts of the past, an invitation to reconsider what has been recorded as truth and have both empathy and impatience for the self that believed it.

The first track of the album, “Hot & Heavy” is ostensibly a conversation between the singer and a past love, an explanation for why they had to move on, how their teenage love would have failed to last under any conditions. I think there’s room for a more meta interpretation though, where part of who the singer is speaking to is her own past self. “you were always stronger than people suspected, underestimated and over protected/ When I went away it was the only option…The most I could give to you was nothing at all, the best that I could offer was to miss your call”. To me, this is at least in part about the sadness of understanding what you were missing out on without whatever clarity time has brought, the bittersweet separation from the self that wasn’t ready yet to recognize who they really were.

I think in the end that is the crux of why this album is so important to me, beyond it being beautiful, which it is, or extremely perceptive, is that it has an unfailing faith in our capacity to evolve. The end of “ triple dog dare” shows two girls unable to be in love in their community getting in a boat and sailing off into the proverbial sunset. There is a nihilistic interpretation of this act, but I think there’s a hopeful one too— if you take the dare, there might be a whole new adventure waiting for you.

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I have once again been on the road this month, this time to Las Vegas. Las Vegas is not the place for me, but I did have the supposed best iced coffee in the US, swam in a pool for the first time in 20 some-odd years, and enjoyed three days of a life that was not my own. We drove from California to Las Vegas and on the way there we took a route that would up through the Sierra Mountains, so high that it snowed, not just a cold mist but big fat flakes on our windshield. The drive was nothing but big, shocking, sometimes remarkably strange vistas— orange peaks that looked like someone had dropped kinetic sand from the sky and lakes of such a neon teal they seemed extraterrestrial.

Summer semester starts next week and summers have always seemed to me to hold the opportunity to be someone else for a little while (much like Vegas for some, lol). Perhaps under summer’s spell, for example, I’ll start going to the community pool down the street from my house, I’ll start a garden, I’ll read One Hundred Years of Solitude. The next eight weeks stretch out before me like so many vistas, and it’s impossible to say what will happen on the other side. This month’s mix is consequently once again a quiet one, an appropriate summer’s eve mix. Songs that fit in a hot summer evening with a paperback on the porch, but also a long drive or the slow, subtle transformation of your choosing.

I started this mix with a song from Car Seat Headrest’s 10th anniversary reissue of Teens of Denial, and ended it with the Iris Dement song I failed to recognize during the Waxahatchee/MJ Lenderman concert, bookends of quiet sadness. There’s some good new music on here too though, I’m particularly fond of the Kevin Morby single “Little Wide Open” (thematically aligned), and the new Babehoven song. I included the MUNA song “On Call”, because I have listened to it more than anything else this month, at times just fast-forwarding to the key change for its pure satisfaction. Frances of Delirium released an album I wasn’t expecting and I think I’m going to love, and Shakey Graves released an album, catapulting me back to 2014.

Hopefully this mix is a good soundtrack to whatever your first month of summer brings, whatever vistas that includes.

Monthly Playlist

Here is the playlist on Apple Music if you prefer. Monthly request to please buy vinyl and merch from the bands you love and consider streaming platforms with better ethics where you can.

New Music This Month

Muna- Dancing on the Wall

I was a late adopter of MUNA, because I sometimes struggle to like the type of synth filled up-beat pop music they make. Their trick though is that buried beneath the glitter and glam is a sadness that I relate to and a world outlook that is wise. I wrote about “on call” earlier and it tells a story we’ve all probably lived through of being so willing to do anything to keep in contact with someone we sublimate ourselves completely, as does “wannabeher”, which perfectly explains that queer experience of wavering on the line between wanting to be like someone or be with them. I love the members of this band and their podcast gave me a lot of comfort during a tumultuous time, so I’m delighted to have them touring and on a press tour.

Kevin Morby—Little Wide Open

I am an avid Mary Oliver fan. I have her name on my baseball cap , I keep my audible app downloaded despite not using it anymore because of this beautiful audiobook about her poems and their impact that was somehow only available on audible, and I’ve recently added a poem a day to my morning routine. There is, however, an earnestness and a lack of rough edges to her whole deal that could be interpreted as corny or hallmark flavored to the naive observer who only took a surface level survey of it. While Kevin Morby is not a lesbian naturalist poet who taught at Bennington College , there is something of the same double image to his album Little Wide Open. Largely about the plains of Kansas during the time pre-pandemic that he and wife Katie Cruchfield lived there, the album is all smooth edges and pop-hooks. There is more to it than that, however. It is also about being open to change, about heading into middle age, and it is openly relatable but also beautiful because of that.

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Live Concerts this month

A bounty of concerts this month! Three concerts within three weeks.

Waxahatchee and MJ Lenderman

When I got the (difficult to get) tickets to this concert I had assumed that they would each do a set and then maybe play some songs together. This was not the case at all, but instead we were invited to sit as voyeur to a living room while they jammed. There was a comfort to it not unlike when my friends and I would sing through songs to kill an afternoon, or when my dad and I would trade favorites when he tried to teach me to play guitar. We got the treat of Allison Cruchfield joining them for a few Snocaps tracks and they did a beautiful four song encore of covers of songs our dads made us listen to in the car growing up. The concert felt like a warm cup of Good Earth tea— comforting, generous, without any drama.

Florence and the Machine

This was the third time I’ve seen Florence and the Machine but I think the version I got the most out of. Unlike so many musicians of a certain era, she does not try on witchiness but rather just embodies it—making it clear from the moment she came on stage have just been borrowing her regular clothes as a costume. There was a moment where the big screen zoomed in on her as she clasped hands with a fan at the barricades and the fan, with more calm than I ever could have fathomed, chanted the lyrics alongside her while they locked eyes. It was such a calm moment in the frenzy it really did feel like an incantation and we were all just there, happy to be under her spell.

Lucy Dacus

I saw Lucy Dacus at the newly renovated Castro Theater in San Francisco, which was beautiful, as is she. The concert wasn’t the best of the many times I’ve seen her, in part because the acoustics were off and in part because it unexpectedly was a catalyst for some interpersonal drama in my own life I won’t write about on the internet, but I remain, as always, happy to have spent time with her wisdom and her presence. As I did with boygenius, its been fun to see this album tour at multiple points from before it even was out to now a year after its release and see which songs are favorites and watch the band grow comfortable and proud.

As always, thanks for reading, and tell me about your favorite band.

I spent a lot of time in the car this month and I’d love to tell you that the songs on this month’s playlist were road tested, but I listened to almost no music while driving because I was listening to my gossip memoirs. I listened to Lena Dunham’s Famesick one way and Lindy West’s Adult Braces on the way back and having drowned myself in the discourse prior to reading either I was expecting to be entertained in part by voyeurism, but instead found myself in wrapt attention to both because they seemed so relatable and so true.

If forced to compare, I would say that both these books provide wise council on what it means to rebuild a life after you’ve given something your all—how to grieve and honor the public self that got accolades and simultaneously quietly make something of yourself that might be less in certain people’s eyes but is nonetheless truer. This is not a personal blog (nor was I a significant part of the cultural discourse in the 2010’s), but writing about music is personal enough I can tell you both books felt like they had a lot to say to me, personally.

And so the songs on this months playlist are not sing along in the car ballads befit to a solo road trip, but rather quieter, warmer, more introspective songs— songs for morning pages, methodical routines, nostalgia both for what was and for what might have been, and also for that heady procrastination that only the end of the school year brings. April was sparer for me in terms of music releases, but the overall sound of this month’s mix might be at home on the Girls set— superchunk, Fruitbats, and a Teen Suicide track thats pure 2010’s indie rock sound. We got blessed with a new Lucy Dacus song about a summer garden and I’m unabashedly looking forward to an Olivia Rodrigo summer album. I hate summer but I do love its promise.

Unrelatedly, but also not so unrelatedly, I’m recommitted to this venture of finding music I like and sharing it with my small audience. I’m freaked out (if not a little self satisfied) but unsurprised by Geese being programmed into popularity, and bothered by Kevin Morby being involuntarily autotuned. Hanif Abdurraqib wrote about resisting the great flattening of things by convenience and I don’t know if I’m helping at all, but combing through various sources for little pearls of music to offer up to my friends like a penguin with its pebbles at least makes me feel better.

Thanks for reading, tell me about your favorite band.

Here is the playlist on Apple Music if your prefer. As always, consider buying physical media through the artists directly or downloading on bandcamp if you love it and can swing it. Here is a breakdown of how the funds get to artists.

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New Releases

Snail Mail—Ricochet

(Technically a late March Release but who had the time)

I have been kind of ignoring Snail Mail, in part I think because of some fuzzy memory of her casting dispersions against boygenius (I’m ever the loyalist lol), and also being just sort of generically underwhelmed by 2021’s Valentine. When the singles started coming out for this album though I was into them. The album is moody, grungy, 90’s informed, just my cup of tea. Ricochet has a higher production value and a less self conscious aura from the other albums, and an off-hand cool girl delivery that reminds me of, ironically, Phoebe Bridgers or Soccer Mommy.

This is Lorelai—Box For Buddy, Box for Star (Super Deluxe)

I don’t know what my ultimate take is on this trend of artists re-releasing an album with a new b-side of covers and demos, because it does have a every-new-tv-show-is-a-reboot feel to it, but I have also pretty much loved every one I’ve run across (American Football, blondshell, and Lucy Dacus being great examples). This is the mega-meta version of that trend as its the second re-release deluxe version of 2024’s Box for Buddy, Box for Star, but obnoxious as that idea might be it has an incredible lineup of covers, most memorably for me MJ Lenderman’s cover of “Dancing in the Club” and Waxahatchee on “Where’s Your Love Now”, proving that it is perhaps correct that This is Lorelai is my favorite bands’ favorite band.

Extras

No live music in April ( was supposed to see Indigo De Sousa but travel interfered), but got a triple header coming up in the next two weeks. Until then, doubling down on my recommendation to read Eliza McLamb’s take on cy-op marketing as an artist, Lucy Dacus was on The Comment Section podcast, and Mannequin Pussy was on Tiny Desk.

Also, because I am apparently talking about books in this month’s music newsletter, cannot say enough good about Fat Swim, Emma Copley Eisenberg’s new collection of short stories. I so often share music I love because it makes me feel understood— it’s a wonderful thing to read a book that does the same.

March Playlist

Spring has started and I went outside one day this week and all the trees outside my house are in bloom. Suddenly, everything is bright and transformed, a coat of yellow pollen over everything. As a child, I always hated the onset of spring—I’ve been adverse to change from birth and spring always meant the eve of change. Even now it always makes me a little uneasy and this spring in particular seems thick with big changes and unrest.

The songs this month lie on either side of a leaping off point— either standing on the precipice scared to jump or lying in the aftermath of a huge rupture. Daniel Cesar’s “Who Knows” is a perfect example of the former: “lately I’ve been thinking about my precarious future…is it a crime to be unsure?”. Ruby Gills’ “Touch Me There” made me cry: “I haven’t been kissing the people I want to, been making excuses but they’re mostly nonsense…I’ve heard myself lying like I don’t like women…I want to feel braver want to taste and to savor'“. Both songs lament living in the safety of not breaking the unsaid wide open.

There are also missives from the aftermath on this playlist—Buck Meek’s “Can I Mend it” asks what it might take to put the pieces back together: “Last night I lost my temper and punched the wall, I think I broke a finger and your heart…Can I mend it? Can I make it whole?”. Creekbed Carter’s cover of a Mary Gauthier song, “Slip of the Tongue” tries to put the flood of confessed feelings back in the bottle: “…Last night I drowned, I got carried away, swept up in a feeling the words poured out of me…This morning I’m so scared, I don’t know how to be”. Even MUNA, ever the pop-philosophers, defiantly refuse phrase loss as loss: “And all is well that ended well and I feel great if you can’t tell…so what if you don’t love me”. The “love me”, though, is repeated over and over again until it sounds less like assurance and more like a plea.

It’s been a great month for music. I crammed as many new releases in this playlist as I could manage and it swelled to a massive size. There are also a few songs on this playlist that were new to me if not new-new. I was delighted by CMAT, as an example, the charmingly irreverent pop-country from Ireland, and Soup Dreams, the Philly based indie rock band with an incredible band name. Some very long awaited releases came out since I last wrote, Mitski, Buck Meek, Charlotte Cornfield, and Snail Mail (more on that later). I also returned to this old Tegan and Sara album, which is always a speed train back to a particular chapter of college for me that I understand better now, and the beautiful essay on his substack that Carter of Creekbed Carter wrote about his cover sent me to this Mary Gautier album, which my dad used to listen to. It’s funny how music can take you back to the past and contain a while new future all at once. Carter talks about that in his essay—how one song can somehow bring your understanding of past and future selves into clearer focus.

Here the mix is on Apple Music if you prefer.

New album releases

Mitski—Nothing’s About to Happen to Me

The legend says that Mitski always releases albums in duos. This album is the second half of a duo that can best be described as theatrical torch song, an era that began with The Land is Inhospitable and So Are We. The set for this particular piece of theater is a dusty, cat-run apartment, and a well of Mitski’s character’s loneliness. In her review for Paste Casey Epstein-Gross writes:

“This has always been Mitski’s particular knot: the artist who watched “My Love Mine All Mine” soundtrack millions of strangers’ lives and responded by pulling further inward … who then—because she is, in the end, a songwriter—made an entire album about the retreat itself …The house is a set piece, and she knows it. She’s too sharp a writer to pretend otherwise”.

This era isn’t my favorite era of Mitski, but I cannot deny this album’s brilliance. I love “If I Leave”, which I put on this playlist, for its soft-loud-soft musings on an unknowable future and an oppressive depression “I’ve only let you know, how I ride through a tunnel and its dark the whole way” she sings over a rare moment of electric guitar, “I couldn’t lose you”.

Buck Meek—The Mirror

I’ve always enjoyed Buck Meek’s solo work, but it’s only in the last couple albums that I feel like it stands out as different from Big Thief backing band sound or general male folk singer. This album is fittingly called The Mirror, which makes sense because it sounds almost like he is seeing himself for the first time. There are more questions than answers on this album, but Meek seems to be at ease with the uncertainty, and with confronting his past and future. His sound has always been lovely, the bright guitar and haunting tone of his voice, but this album and its sweetness gives them a depth that has brought me back to it many times.

Charlotte Cornfield—Hurts Like Hell

This is, as I knew it would be, in the running to be one of my favorite albums of the year. I love absolutely everything about it, although I know just saying “I love it” is bad critique. I’ve always loved a storyteller songwriter and the images are so clear on this album— I listened this in the early morning the day it came out, I hit play before I’d even gotten out of bed and then I watched the movie of these songs in my head—they’re vivid and sad and joyful all at once. I also particularly love the pacing of this album—when Charlotte Cornfield collaborates on this album particularly the voices are ever so slightly out of sync— the effect isn’t messy but rather like she’s created a new type of tempo— a two step danced on a old front porch, friends practicing songs for a performance that may never come.

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There were other new releases this month— Snail Mail, Courtney Barnett, King Tuff, but I haven’t spend enough time with them to write about yet.

Live Music this Month

Brandi Carlile

I went to see Brandi Carlile at the Kia Forum in Los Angeles at the end of February with my oldest childhood friend. The whole weekend was sweet and warm and a reminder that friends can become family and taking care with the people we love when they can return that care is the best feeling. Brandi Carlile is not in need of my review, but even though I knew she’d be great I was shocked at what a moving performance it was. The Kia Forum is huge, and the opener disappeared into its vast expanse a little, but Brandi did not. The second she stepped on stage the huge auditorium shrunk by magic into a small room and the generous three hour set was but a moment. I was also moved by the queerness in a way I didn’t expect— its difficult to talk about with out using cliches, but seeing someone sing about her wife and tell stories about her family in a forum that large made me feel safe. I gave myself permission to be a little corny and I enjoyed every moment of it.

Ratboys

I’ve had a lot of solo concerts planned lately and many of them havnt’t worked out (including, heartbreakingly, a sold out Wednesday show). but a couple weeks ago in the middle of frankly a terrible work week, I went out and went to a Ratboys show on my own. The show, despite the shockingly bro crowd, was a true and utter delight. The lead singer of Rayboys, Julia Steiner, has an infectious enthusiasm, and the wave of happiness I felt when the choruses kicked in felt like it should be illegal. I put “The Window” on the mix for this month even though its off a 2023 album because the catharsis of Steiner’s voice in her high register alone as the instrumentals grow and sweet behind was unforgettable where it was in the middle of the set.

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Unlike her solo records which seem almost unbearably personal to me, Adrienne Lenker’s songs written for Big Thief are filled with stories and characters and may or may not be autobiographical. The die hards who comment on genius.com offer two potential meanings to “Masterpiece”, none of which seem to completely be true. In the first, it is a song about Adrienne’s own anguish from a childhood of her father trying to make her a star and about being put in the delicate and unfair position of living out a parent’s dreams for them, in Adrienne’s case by performing in dive bars at 13 years old.

You whisper to a restless ear, “Can you get me out of here?
This place smells like piss and beer, can you get me out?”
You were asking me how to get you free
I only know the recipe to roam

In the second interpretation, a girl watches her dying mother, Marie, reflect back on her life and see the potential for her legacy to go forward in her image. It is unclear whether this is meant to reference Lenker’s own mother or not, but the image is horrible and beautiful at once. Lenker’s mother as a child is in the photo on the cover of the album with her younger brother, and the lyrics include a beautiful image of swallowing unspeakable grief.

Old stars filling up my throat
You gave 'em to me when I was born, now they’re coming out
Laying there on the hospital bed, eyes were narrow, blue and red
You took a draw of breath and said to me

You saw the masterpiece, she looks a lot like me

I don’t give these examples to sleuth out which is correct—I’m not sure that we as listeners are entitled to any kind of certainty at all about what songs mean actually—but rather to demonstrate the magic trick of Big Thief songs. You can assign a variety of importance to different lyrics and cast any reality onto the vignettes she offers and come up as correct— the emotions and images are strong and sad and angry and there for the taking.

“Masterpiece” is the centerpiece of this album, but it’s not the only track whose images stick in my mind. There is a novel’s worth of stories on this album, each shifting meaning and reforming the plot at each listen. Masterpiece came out before Adrienne Lenker and Buck Meek had their amicable divorce, but Lenker’s meditations on impermanent identity that pop up throughout the album could be commentary on that stirring shift in her life. “Caterpillar on the floor, Can you teach me to transform?”, she sings in “Parallels”, ”and I'll step right in and cocoon 'til I'm born”. Her relationship to the characters of this album are unclear—did she really have a Lorraine, “…like two lovers forming from friction, your mouth caught my ear with such perfect diction, on a Saturday morning”? Is Paul, who she is “horrible and almost let him in” part of the same cinematic universe? It isn’t ours to know.

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I think the storytelling on this album could easily be corny, an over affectation of the folk tradition, but there is a rawness that saves it from being trite and the possibly fictional characters from feeling contrived. Some reviewers were irked by the artifacts and tape recorder effects in between songs, but I find them part of the character development in a way I wouldn’t want to lose. In his review of the album on its release day, Bob Boilen wrote “In many moments on Big Thief's debut album, characters are pulled in time, through distances, on roads, through love and rain. It isn't a clear journey, but it always feels compassionate, with its humanity and melody front and center. There's always something solid to hold on to; like good friends, these songs don't let go. I like my music that way.” Having seen this band live twice, I tend to especially agree—this music could be dismissed as just sad but instead I’d say it’s more just full of emotion in the way that only honest and compelling storytelling can be.

Reviews of this album consistently compare Big Thief to Sharon Van Etten ( I hear it, there’s a shared angst with “comeback kid”, for example) and thats both a commentary on its emotional intensity of the album and where this album happened in music history. Perched as it is between the folk rock revival of the early 2010’s and the sad girl revolution of 2020, Masterpiece borrows from the tradition of the former and lays track for the latter. There’s an interview with Julien Baker at what must have been the end of her first tour talking about music she likes and she talks about unknown artist Phoebe Bridgers and Big Thief’s second album in the same reverent breath, a snapshot of if nothing else a cosmic shift for my particular listening habits.

There’s also this perfect cover of “Paul”.

I’ve written before about how I listened to “Masterpiece” and Mitski’s “Your Best American Girl” in tandem and on repeat in 2016. They came out a couple months apart in the wake of one of my own personal vignettes of tragedy and they were looped in my brain for months. By the time the whole album came out, however, I had moved on to collecting data for my dissertation and only listening to Beyonce’s Lemonade. The story of my relationship with that album is for another time but it was intense and unyielding and it was months or longer before I was able to listen to Masterpiece and give it its due attention. When I finally did I was captivated.

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There are a lot of albums that hold their place on my own timeline from when they got the most play and can do a better job than an old perfume of bringing up the past for me. The summer of 2023 and boygenius’ The Record is a good example of this, or Pomegranate’s Everybody, Come Outside and my walks to work in the winter of 2009, one minute of either of those albums and I am transported back there. To me though, Masterpiece exists out of space and time. Nearly ten years of this album being well worn in my listening habits has hung a lot of different memories on its hooks— moving across the country, driving around a new city, working from my father’s desk in my childhood home with the world shut down outside, watching Adrienne and her girlfriend slow dance off stage to Lucinda Williams when Big Thief toured with her —these songs are connected to all of that and none of that.

I watched an interview with Jennifer Garner recently where she talks about how her mom reads a little bit of Anne of Green Gables every night, like some people read the Bible. I think well loved albums like Masterpiece become a little bit like what that must be like, its words and images mixed up with your own memories and thoughts and worries until they become a part of how you tell your story and encounter the world.

Last weekend, I had to take my car in early on a Saturday morning to have my tires replaced. I’d had an anxious week, and I was upset about having to spend the money and get up early on a Saturday after a restless night. The drive, however, proved to be a quick and practical lesson on action being the antidote to despair. The roads were empty and the sky was pink and I listened to the first set of songs on this playlist with my volume up and my windows down, finally soothed by just tackling something. The bigger problems obviously weren’t addressed by a few alt-country bangers and windblown hair, but in that moment my mind was set right. This month’s playlist aims to bottle up this feeling for you—the musical equivalent of shaking off the dust and heading out into the early morning.

I have been stuck on this passage from Annabelle Dinda’s “Big News Day”, both for its clear imagery (who among us has not ruminated while making a pasta dinner in a work shirt and pajama bottoms?), but also this idea about the unpredictability of the future and the futility of anxiety.

And then all again, when I'm home making pasta
Still half in my work clothes, and half in pajamas
And you made a promise and I don't know why
I am caught on a promise, a promise is nothing
Life's pretty lawless, an unspoken promise
Is usually not what protects you from something

Perfect in the future isn’t guaranteed, so get going now. And, as my astrologer reminded me in this week’s horoscopes, perfect is the enemy of done.

The first act of this playlist is yet another group of slightly fuzzy indie folk/alt-country releases that are manufactured for me, the second a bunch of familiar 2010’s pals releasing new music (Iron and Wine! Cat Power! Mirah! Kevin Morby!), and the third the newer shoe gaze informed indie pop that I’ve culled from new release playlists, all topped off with a dance-y new Muna Track.

In a year that can’t possibly top 2025’s bounty, there have been a lot of releases already that are exciting, and a lot of reliable bands putting out new music for the first time in a minute—not pictured here The New Pornographers and Broken Social Scene. Despite all these revisitings, I’ve been trying to push myself just a tiny bit with my music listening and see if I can keep these playlists from becoming monotonous. It seems perhaps pop isn’t the enemy of all things, and that occasionally everyone likes something because it is good. This does not mean I’m ready to listen to Geese!

Here is the list on Apple Music if you prefer.

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February New Releases

Ratboys—Singin’ to an Empty Chair

I freaking love this band, and this album is practically perfect. Ratboys are for sure another band that inhabits the middle of my venn diagram, that perfect mix of twang, scuzz, and yearning. Apparently, this album is about being in therapy, specifically a therapeutic technique known as “the empty chair”, where you imagine a loved one in an empty chair across from you and say to them what you’ve always wished you could voice. I didn’t have this little gem of information the first five or six times I listened to this album, but it makes perfect sense. There’s a wisdom to Singin’ to an Empty Chair that makes it perhaps less fun than 2023’s The Window, but does show all the range of feelings you might be able to express to someone who is really only hypothetically there and listening. Like The Window, Singin’ to an Empty Chair is produced by Death Cab for Cutie’s Chris Walla, whose precise and technical signature I consistently like. His producer credit helps explain the familiarity of this album even on first listen. I hear references to a lot of indie rock foundational bands like Wilco, Nada Surf, and The New Pornographers—but thats certainly not to say this album feels out of date— I also hear Wednesday and Waxahatchee.

Remember Sports—The Refrigerator

I had only kind of vaguely heard about Remember Sports (née Sports), when somewhere in my internet wanderings I ran into the opening track. From the first vocal break in “Across The Line”, I was deeply in. The Refrigerator and Singin’ to an Empty Chair could be competing quilts cut from the same cloth, both in sound and catharsis, but The Refrigerator has a momentum and an urgency due to a less fine grained production and a dash more Vivian Girls than Lucinda Williams. The reference to a refrigerator in the title is literal—a lot of the album is actually about cleaning—but also figurative. Domestic tableau as a vehicle for profundity is very much my shit and I ate this album up and related to so much of it. “The kitchen table split in two” lead singer Carmen Perry repeats over and over again in “Ghosts”, “I thought of you, I thought of you”.

Assorted other music moments

No live music yet this month, but next month I’ll report on my first Brandi Carlile concert (a lesbian rite of passage, surely), a Ratboys show with Florry as the opening act (!), and a full band Wednesday show. Big deals.

In the meantime, Brandi Carlile hosted a benefit concert for families in MN affected by ICE and raised over 600,000 dollars, MUNA announced a new album with a hot music video , and Lucy reminds us art is political.

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Monthly Playlist

January is historically my most hated month. It has a superstitious awfulness to it that has me signing off phone calls to loved ones with “ I love you, be careful, it’s January”. This January has been no exception, and I am myself rapidly switching between healthy coping mechanisms like cleaning my whole house and making chicken soup and unhealthy strategies like watching endless TikTok with my phone held two inches from my face.

The one upside to this month, however, is that I love the concept of a fresh start. I have renewed interest in listening to more music this year and cataloging my listening carefully. I finally went through trusted end of the year lists from music writers I love and pulled bands I’ve never heard of, went through several band camp rabbit holes, and bought more concert tickets than is probably wise. I am keeping a running list of every time I listen to a full album, which is already giving interesting data, and resulting in a spreadsheet that looks like the work of a madman. I am learning how seldom I do see the whole album through, and what a great experience it is to do so.

Album releases have started to trickle in for the year as well as singles from upcoming albums. I was perhaps most excited to see a Mitski single, with a truly stunning line of victorian cat merch alongside it, although the song itself is good but not of my particular preferred Mitski mood. The song I have listened to almost every day multiple times since it came out is “Hurts Like Hell” by Charlotte Cornfield whose last release I barely tracked with in 2023, but who has an album coming out next month that I am so excited for. The album has Palehound’s El Kempner on guitar and this track features Buck Meek. I mean, could you have better endorsement? The song itself is capturing the fear about and moral goodness of asking for what you want and in that way feels like a good January mix headliner.

This mix, to me, sounds at times a little different than my typical sad girl oeuvre, although they are certainly not missing, don’t worry. A few more tracks on this mix that are pop music, there is one exuberantly angry track from First Day Back, and a song off of Lucinda Williams’ new album— lots to pick from for a balm or catharsis. One of the reasons I find music to be such a comfort is that once you’ve heard a song, it can’t be taken away, not really. In that way, a playlist is a little collection of totems that can be carried around however long you want.

Here is the playlist on Apple Music . The new Lucinda Willams Album doesn’t appear to be on Spotify or Bandcamp, so I’ve included a YouTube video below:

New albums this month

Courtney Marie Andrews—Valentine

A reliable and lovely record I’ve been putting on while I read or work. I read a review of this album that compared it to Linda Ronstat and I see it— her beautiful voice, her wistful imagery. I always feel about Courtney Marie Andrews that her albums are already classics and are lived in in a wonderful way.

Searows—Death in the Business of Whaling

Alec Duckart says he grew up listening to "Sufjan Stevens, Bon Iver, Iron & Wine, the Decemberists and people who also write about Oregon and the Pacific Northwest”, which is enough to make me feel 85 years old, but also why I love this album so much. There is something about the rendering of those bands sound (alongside the full sentence album title) that stops this from being just a TikTok sensation with a full album, and makes it almost a reminiscence. Also, the title is apparently a nod to Moby Dick, which I’m choosing to be charmed by.

Extras

No live music this month, I had tickets to Daffo but it was cold and I was overcome with existential ennui. I suggest Yasi Salek’s newsletter on finding new music, and Lucy Dacus singing at Mamdani’s inauguration, and her post about the books she read this year, which I always look forward to.

Thanks for reading, tell me about your favorite band.

December has been a rapid and disjointed month for me, crossing the country several times, starting things, failing to wrap things up, ambiguity, relationships in stasis, and then the usual holiday chaos. I write this with a terrible head cold, finally forced to pause enough to consider anything. I’ve been piloting this mix during long feverish naps in the afternoons and I find its well suited for that—all loose ends and hard edges and full, prickly worlds for imagining.

I’ve been in California almost all month and my music listening changes here— music is much more interior, all headphones, a lot of shuffle or old playlists while I read or finish up grading. My sick time has been spent mostly scrolling TikTok videos about how to cure my attention span (irony) or watching the entirety of The Guilded Age. Still, I found some musical treasures that captured the mood— a track from the new This is Lorelai, one from Dove Elis, a haunting live Samia recording.

In addition to the usual monthly mix, I am commemorating a full year of mixes (!!!) with a meta mega mix of all mixes— essentially just my most played 2025 tracks from each of the monthly playlists tacked together. I don’t know that I have any wise take aways from seeing the favorites of this year of sharing music I like in one place, other than I am growing ideas about how to improve this process for 2026. I don’t really believe in new years resolutions, as a behaviorist I know that arbitrary changes in date have little permanent effect on our behavior, but I am ready to listen for more and take better notes.

Speaking of which, I am looking forward to combing through the best of 2025 lists of people that I trust— if you’re interested I suggest Hanif Abdurraqib, both albums and songs, Amanda Petrusich best albums, Brittany Spanos’ new substack (support her if you can her writing is excellent and she was part of the many layoffs at rollingstone), Ann Powers, and of course the inimitable Yasi Salek both podcast and substack.

December Playlist

On Apple Music if you prefer

Meta Mega 2025 Playlist

On Apple Music if you prefer

New Music This Month

Dove Ellis—Blizzard

I think Dove Ellis got on my radar because they’ve been opening for Geese, who everyone who talks about music on the internet seems to be head over heels infatuated with. My deep dark secret is I do not or do not yet understand the Geese craze and have a stubborn resistance to them that I suspect is like the one I once held re: Phoebe Bridgers— something seems lab grown for my specific enjoyment and I recoil at the idea. I suspect in a couple months I’ll come around to them just as I did to Phoebe, but my suspicion of them almost made me overlook this album. I’m glad I didn’t though because while I understand why he is a natural opening act for Geese, this music is quieter, sadder, harsher, and really a perfect thing for December.

This is Lorelai—Holo Boy

I guess this is the month for new records from the bro corner of my music tastes, but much like Geese, This is Lorelai feels so engineered to my taste I feel suspicious of them and like I should come to my senses and put on a Big Star record already. Still, I can’t help but enjoy the textbook indie rock of it all, after all I am a mere mortal who once had a Death Cab for Cutie ringtone. I don’t think this album is as eloquent as Box for Buddy, Box for Star, but it is sweet and good.

Other Notes on Music in 2025

I wrote about my favorite albums but even my Apple Music replay doesn’t tell the while story of this year in music. I went to only six concerts this year (50% Lucy Dacus, lol), a very low number for me, started to write about music for more than just me to read, tried harder to find new music, tried and mostly failed to get into Midwest Emo (but that one American Football record slaps), listened to Car Wheels on a Gravel Road every time I got sleepy in the car, fell asleep to Adrienne Lenker’s songs three times, cried to the “Lost Time” extended outro more than three times, endured a very cramped plane ride by listening to boygenius chronologically, spread the good word of MJ Lenderman, used music to celebrate friends, as comfort, as distraction, as a vehicle for self-reckoning, and recently, to flirt.

Thanks for reading, and tell me about your favorite band.

This is the third year that I am posting my favorites on instagram and the first year I am also posting them here. I was far more systematic about my music listening this year, and seeking out new music. I was also far more systematic about deciding on my favorites in 2025, because in 2023 and 2024 I sat in front of a post-it and tried to think about what I had listened to as method. This year I kept a running list of releases I cared about for one reason or another, and worked my way through it as I could. Then I plonked all 94 albums into an excel doc and ranked 15 top albums and 10 more bonus records and was generally dismayed at the number I needed to leave behind.

I’ve written before about how I’ve been doing monthly playlists this year and I’ve also been making a concerted effort to amass physical media and listen to whole albums. I’m generally super freaked out about Spotify and AI and the state of the world and I’m combatting it one 35 dollar merchtable order at a time. I’ve made an effort to increase my attention span to meet the challenge of whole albums, and books again, and movies. I don’t know if it's working, but I will tell you it meant I made it through a lot of albums this year.

To find new music I have a largely unscientific method that is a hodgepodge of artists I already love releasing new work or promoting their friends’ work, critics I love and trust writing about music, an occasional irritated glance at pitchfork, vulture, or Brooklyn vegan, music influencers on TikTok, scrolling bandcamp, etc.

If anyone wants to see the red string behind the scenes my original spreadsheet and ranked “favorites” spreadsheets are here.

My Top 15 Albums of 2025

15. Florence+ The Machine—Everybody Scream

I’ve written about this album here, and in the interest of space I won’t repeat.

14. Haley Williams—Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party

Like so many of my favorites this year, this album took me by surprise. I have a sentimental attachment to some Paramore as any alt girl from the early 2000s does, but this solo album is huge— funny, empathetic, anthemic, at times heartbreaking, always appropriate for top volume in the car on the way to work. A true delight of an album that I will keep listening to for a long time. I suggest listening to Haley on Amy Pohler’s podcast, or Haley with Michelle Zauner and others in conversation for The Hollywood Reporter.

13. Sharon Van Etten—Sharon Van Etten and the Attachment Theory

Not seeing this album live is one of my core regrets (in my defense there was a freak snowstorm in Atlanta). Sleek and goth and full-bodied with more than a hint of the theatrical, this album is different from a lot of her other albums (she wrote and recorded with her full touring band, a departure), but it has the same virtue I love about her: feelings right on her sleeve, catchy hooks and droning lyrics, and a wisdom that shines through.

12. Julien Baker & TORRES—Send a Prayer My Way

Julien Baker and TORRES share a soft resigned sadness that makes them a natural pairing on a country album. My favorite from this album is “Sylvia” which is a ballad about the horrors of leaving your dog at home when you must go out. The gentle sorrow of this album reminds me of John Prine, with his wry humor also.

11. Samantha Crain—Gumshoe

“I don’t want to worry” Samantha Crain says in the opening lines of “Neptune Baby”, “when I worry I lose all that precious time to love”, and yet this album is so good because it is worrisome. Dark, moody, with haunting vocals it's an album of insects and detectives, and rehab, and old radios—a world that is alien and strange but transporting and captivating.

10. Snocaps—Snocaps

I’ve written about this album here.

9. Flock of Dimes—The Life You Save

I’ve written about this album here.

8. Momma—Welcome to My Blue Sky

Momma is band with the exact brand of fuzzy 90’s guitars and vocals I deeply adore. This album is an advancement of their sound to be heavier, fuzzier, catchier, more fun to sing on a rooftop at the end of a romcom set in a high school where the guy gets the girl at the end. Completely addictive and months after its release I can’t get enough.

7. Daffo—Where the Earth Bends

I have written about this album here.

6. Jay Som—Belong

I have written about this album here

5. Cryogyser—Cryocyser

I saw the lead singer of Cryogyser open acoustically for Carly Hartzman from Wednesday last December. They’re friends and you can hear that they have a shared palette. The venue for this show was a sweaty dive bar with a shower curtain in the place of a bathroom stall wall, but the lead singer Shawn Marom was calm and very certain. Her assuredness shines through on this record, more than it did in their older songs, and the music takes up space as if heard across a vast expanse.

4. Annie DiRusso—Super Pedestrian

I’ve been a fan of Annie DiRusso for ages and was delighted when she finally released a full album. I’m linking the deluxe edition here because its additions are noteworthy, but both versions are excellent. Like Momma, Jay Som, and Cryogyser, this has all the guitar work and hooks of a Smashing Pumpkins album, but also with sharp observations about a very modern time. I don’t understand a lot of Gen-Z, but I can understand this record and relate to it. It would be easy to write off her TikTok ready hooks as pop without depth, but that would be failing to really listen to the empathy she shows the world.

3. Wednesday—Bleeds

I’ve written about this album here.

2. Big Thief— Double Infinity

I’ve written about this album here.

1. Lucy Dacus— Forever is a Feeling

I’ve written about this album here, but just to say this album didn’t make it on to as many best of lists as I feel it deserves, but it made up a huge proportion of the music I spent time with this year, and so no surprise to anyone who knows me that its in number one.

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Other Really Great Albums

Stay tuned in December’s post for a meta playlist from top hits of 12 months of playlists, and if you follow me on instagram check my stories for a more fun version of this post.

thanks for reading, and tell me about your favorite band.

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My music listening routines went to shit this month because I was in Europe walking 23,000 steps a day and seeing beautiful momentous art and having a panic attack in the Vatican. I did memorably listen to the newest Turnstile album on a high speed rail through the Italian countryside which had a satisfying contrast, worked my way a little through my “still need to listen to” 2025 playlist on various planes and trains and automobiles, and on a day long layover at the Dulles airport listened to the new Annie DiRusso track about 100,000 times. Anyways, I’m not a travelogue person so don’t ask me if I did it right, but I had a great time.

I never log on to the plane wifi and I have been thinking a lot about that moment just before your phone finds signal after a long flight— the anticipation of what might have happened down on earth while you were hurtling through space; whose name do you hope to see on your screen? What messages were trying to reach you out in the ether? Even cynics like me can find a certain profundity from disappearing for a while and taking count of what awaits my return. The songs for November are a lot about that mini new years that you imagine when you have a chance to view your life from above, at a distance.

Medium Build put out a fun little EP of demos and his wry humor continues to charm me, “I‘m outside smokin’ with my shoulders clenched, eyes rolled back/Like that picture of Ben Affleck”— I mean, come on! Blondshell put out a companion album to her excellent If You Asked For a Picture and it’s got so many familiar friends on it. I actually really like the Conor Oberst track, but I picked Folk Bitch Trio for this mix. Some initial tracks from albums coming in the spring made the mix, notably Ratboys, lending hope of a 2026 that is just as full of music gifts as 2025.

May this playlist be of use to you in case you find yourself in transit— the second half especially of this mix are all songs that felt like a balm when there were people in my space.

Here’s the playlist on Apple Music if you prefer!

New Releases This Month

Florence and the Machine—Everybody Scream

The first order of business for this beautiful album is to go read my friend Kathleen’s new substack post where she writes about it as she is brilliant and very wise and says it all. What I have been thinking about with this album is just that its rare to have a album from someone that I’ve been listening to since college that I don’t just like out of loyalty to a long time fave, but that is something new and rich. I listened to this album for the first time on a weekend when I was especially anxious about changes in my own life and the steadiness and strength was comforting but not staid.

Sno Caps—Sno Caps

This surprise drop felt like a present just for me— a big buzzy guitar forward record with a touch of alt country? Obviously this project goes right in the middle of my musical Venn diagram I created before they existed.

The Crutchfield sisters revisiting their P.S. Elliot days would have been gift enough, but adding in MJ Lenderman’s Jake Lenderman adds a relevancy and a fullness that makes it a joy to listen to. This album could have been obnoxious, but instead its simple and underproduced and just sounds like they are having fun. Jack White famously talks about how creativity can be born from constraint, but this album shows it can also be born from ease.

Haley Heynderickx & Max Garcia Conover—What of Our Nature

When Haley Heynderickx and Max Garcia Conover set about to collaborate again after their 2018 EP Among Horses III they had the goal of writing a protest album in the image of Woody Guthrie. I think this lofty goal is why even though this is an album about resisting the terrors of the world, I find it so deeply comforting. I heard the track I put on this playlist “This Morning I am Born Again” for the first time when I was combatting jet lag and just deeply cranky and raw from travel and it was the sweetest warmest blanket. This album is a bunch of songs I can half imagine my dad singing in the car and maybe that makes them derivative but to me its familiarity is welcome— hopeful and nostalgic all at once.

Live Music This Month

Big Thief

Cheating somewhat as this was in October, but on the 30th I went alone to go see Big Thief at the Fox in Atlanta. It was a confusing crowd and long night but I could have stayed for hours listening to them. I love going to concerts solo, I put my phone on do not disturb, bought myself a popcorn, and wept when I felt like it—it’s so much easier to be vulnerable with strangers. I was especially moved by this unreleased Adrienne Lenker track.

Grizzly Bear

Speaking of music from college still being relevant today, I went to see Grizzly Bear at the Warfield in San Francisco (Where I’m pretty sure I haven’t been since I saw the Kaiser Chiefs in like 2007 lol). This was a reunion tour, but it wasn’t rote or phoned in but rather generous and generative. Since this show I’ve been listening to Yellow House a lot and thinking about houses I used to live in.

Jay Som

I saw Jay Som like five days later at Bimbo’s 365 and even though her music hasn’t been around as long, it gave me the same satisfying feeling from hearing familiar music out loud. It's a small venue and her family was there and the crowd knew all the words—The show flew by and I left full of a huge fondness.

This Month’s Playlist

Around Halloween the veil is supposed to be thinner and we are supposed to have easier passage between the world of the living and the world of the dead. The songs on October’s mix are not about that exactly, but different times when the veil between worlds might become thin— In the “The Way Love Goes” Karly Hartzman writes “knocking on that screen door, even though I can see right through” and that’s the image— songs about how often we are so close to understanding someone else or something about ourselves but still on the outside asking to come in.

I went to see After the Hunt last week which is a very beautiful three hour movie with a muddy thesis (I think on paper its a satire of academic victimization culture?), but what I took from it was that it was trying to say something about how complex consent for intimacy is— the various ways we invade each other and the various ways we fail to stay close. This mix is intimate in that it is quiet, folky, and warm, but it is a lot about those violations also—both I didn’t want to let you in this far and I didn’t realize how far you strayed.

I’ve been overwhelmed by the amount of new music released and so this mix has a few more old familiars than recently, including the Yo La Tengo song I heard at a Portland coffee shop this month and was instantly required to listen to that album on repeat, and a track from the Laura Marling album I overlooked during Covid. Haley Heynderickx released singles from a collaboration with Max Garcia Conover and they are gorgeous, and I stumbled upon Arden Leas and have been listening a lot.

I’m writing this a little before the end of the month because I woke up today and it’s stormy out and this last week is going to be busy. Waiting with bated breath for the Florence and the Machine album, and my big thief concert, and will need to include those with November’s newsletter.

Here is the mix on Apple Music for those that prefer. As a note for the Spotify users, Sab Star does not post their music on Spotify, the track is this:

And appears between the Living Hour track and the Jay Som. The whole album is excellent and I recommend buying on bandcamp!

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Releases This Month That I Loved

Forever Is a Feeling: The Archives—Lucy Dacus

I know this is somewhat cheating to write about what is essentially a deluxe edition, but it made an impression on me and I haven’t had the chance to write about FIAF on here yet. Besides being my favorite musician and my major celebrity crush, Lucy Dacus is an expander for me. For whatever reason, she is always one step ahead of me in articulating things in her music I feel deeply but don’t recognize just yet. Home Video was a touchstone for me as I began to acknowledge my queerness, and so Forever is a Feeling feels like it might be guidance from a future where I may fall in love. What makes the archives worthy of their own post is their imperfections—the actual surprise on the recording of “Bullseye”, the sudden sadness of “ankles” stripped of all the gilt adornment, the long outro to “lost time”, all little glimpses of a real love with sadnesses and worry and noise alongside the beauty.

The Life You Save—Flock of Dimes

Apparently this is my season of being shocked by releases I didn’t see coming. I had seen Flock of Dimes around, but never knew that it was Jenn Wasner from Wye Oak. I listened to a lot of Wye Oak in a certain time of grad school— the first bars of Civilian and I can practically smell the cracking fake leather in my Cadillac. I love everything about this album. It’s sad, it’s lush, it’s got a far reaching depth, and would be great on a roadtrip. It reminds me a little of that great War on Drugs album and also Wye Oak if I listen. I hate to quote a pitchfork review, but this was perfect: “Listening to The Life You Save feels safe, not in the sense of risk-aversion, but in the way Wasner creates a tender space in which to dismantle what had seemed so sure, to see without judgment all the ways you might have been kidding yourself all along”.

Belong—Jay Som

Lucy Dacus said once introducing Melinda Duterte of Jay Som that she had a theory called the Jay Som theory and that is if you’re somewhere and you’re like “what is this playing I like this!” its probably Jay Som. I tend to agree and I think it is in part because Melinda Duterte has had her hands in so many projects as a masterful producer (she’s produced for Boygenius, Lucy Dacus, Hatchie, illuminati hotties, the list goes on) and collaborator (her project with Palehound, Bachelor led to one of my favorite records), which has led to her sound being dispersed through indie rock in general. Unlike some producers, where this leads to an upsetting homogeneity, this is just highlights her skill and makes her songs sound like classics. Thats evident on this record which already seems like it’s been a favorite of mine for a while.

Extras

No live music yet this month, but stay tuned. In the meantime, I recommend Lucy and Janelle Monae in conversation about time travel, Florence Welch’s interview with Zane Lowe, and this vulture article from Karly Hartzman.

Bury Me At Makeout Creek is Mitski’s third album, but the first one that she drew indie darling level attention for. I, however, was not listening to Mitski in 2014 when this album came out, I was deep in my Ph.D and my archival notes say my top listens were a chaotic mix of Foals, Kendrick Lamar, and Destiny’s Child (If you didn’t find it calming to prepare presentations to “Survivor” as loud as it would go, you’re lying or you and I are different).

I wouldn’t discover Mitski until a couple years later, when some NPR All Songs Considered synergy would inextricably link “Your Best American Girl” by Mitski and “Masterpiece” by Big Thief together in my head and they would become two of the only songs I listened to on a loop during a dark and confusing winter in a new place with new loss. “Your Best American Girl” is Mitski’s other pre-Tiktok hit, but I stand by it as an entry point and as a song. The slow-fast/hard-soft contrast in that song is part of what I love about Bury Me At Makeout Creek, and Mitski period.

The wikipedia page for Bury Me at Makeout Creek notes that Mitski learned to play the guitar for this record, and was trying to make it as a musician, fresh out of art school, cobbling together session bands and studio time, resulting in the exhaustion heard on the record. “I will retire to the salt and sea”, she sings on “Drunk Walk Home”, “at the age of 23”. The exhaustion comes through in a wonderful way, somehow perfectly encapsulating the slow, dull dread of depression and seeing the world through a snow globe.

There is a huge heartbreak or unrequited obsession for someone at the center of this album but it’s dissociated from and at a distance— there are threats of violence everywhere but you get the impression they are largely theoretical (“One word from you and I would jump off of this ledge I’m on, baby. Tell me ‘don’t’ so I can crawl back in”). The beautiful thing about this album to me is the yearning and anguish for a relationship that is never concrete enough to be categorically different from whatever heartbreak you as the listener has been carrying around— the person mentioned is so faceless they might be the very person on your own mind.

In the last track on the album, Mitski passively comments on a potential impending plane crash. “All of this turbulence wasn’t forecasted… and I am relieved that I l’d left my room tidy, they’ll think of me kindly when they come for my things”, and this apathy towards certain destruction ties up the album neatly. This sentiment isn’t nihilistic or even pessimistic, but rather a long view on current turmoil— if we have no warning the plane is going to crash we can only hope we’ve done our best to leave things in order.

Here it is on Apple Music if you prefer.

A mix for the first hints of fall and the last dregs of summer. I’ve been taking pottery classes and going to the art museum and the air is finally cool enough to open my windows in the afternoon. With lots of new music to choose from I ended up including songs with a specific commonality: bright, heartfelt, but with a core of slow core of darkness or dread. Even the fun songs on this playlist have an ominous flicker to them, but hard to say if it’s creepiness or sadness. Back to school in a Donnie Darko kind of a way, I suppose.

This playlist has several new (to me) bands that I love, most notably Daffo and Cryogyser, but is also held together “double infinity” from Big Thief, a very familiar name, and the Fleet Foxes with Madison Cunningham. I was also surprised to stumble across and love a song by Christopher Owens, which prompted me to embrace nostalgia and listen to that one Girls album, which holds up as long as the year 2010 doesn’t hold any great trauma for you.

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Releases This Month That I Loved

Double Infinity— Big Thief

I will always love a Big Thief album and even down a band member and with an album cycle graphics package that isn’t for me this is an album I love. I entered to host a listening party for this release which ended up being just me in my car driving home from class in the early evening. In a way, this was the perfect party for this album— its got a slow monotonous drone along its spine that borders on meditation music. In the singles from this album I found that distracting, but when I heard it in my car as a whole thing that droning element held it together.

Bleeds— Wednesday

Wednesday is in the center of my music taste and right now in the middle of the explosion of North Carolina music. I listened to this excellent podcast on the music scene in North Carolina and got genuinely overwhelmed by how many intertwined bands are on my To Listen 2025 playlist, and how many projects are touched by MJ Lenderman. This is apparently somewhat of a breakup album, but doesn’t feel like one because he’s everywhere and because this album is warmer than it is angry.

Daffo—Where The Earth Bends

This was my surprise album of the year. I love it so much and I had no background on this band whatsoever. The song I have on the September playlist, “Get a Life” is so good that every time It comes on I think its an old classic.

Live Music This Month

This month I broke all my rules and went to a music festival in the name of Lucy Dacus, and it was worth it. I didn’t get “Triple Dog Dare”, but she did play “addictions” and I did pretend I was 20 years younger and stand at the barricade with the youths.

Thanks for listening, tell me about your favorite band.

There is nothing cool about my interest in music. Words like obsessive, intense, and maniacal are more accurate. On my good days I am Lester Bangs in Almost Famous, an articulate and eccentric snob, but honestly most of the time my music interest looks a lot more like this other Almost Famous character.

Despite my general fervor, this year I have been trying to take listening to and sharing music more seriously. I have counted on music in a corny way in the last few years as a vehicle to figure important stuff out about myself, grieve, exist in burnout, find joy in the hellscape. A very wise woman said once “How you spend your time is how you spend your life”, and so I have tried to stop sidelining music and spend more time on it.

This year that has manifested in loosely following Hanif Abdurraqib’s protocol for annual album listening. I say loosely because besides the fact that he is a genius, he makes weekly playlists and listens much more widely than I do—In 2024 I tried one week of his normal weekly pace and gave up. Since January I have been making monthly playlists of new music and old favorites and trying hard to expand my listening away from the same album over and over again.

I am clear on the idea that my red string level of obsession for the music I love doesn’t make me cool, but that does not stop me from attempting to thrust my taste on to others. One of my greatest joys in life is subjecting others to my music at any opportunity. There is something horrifying to me about the AI generated Spotify playlists that are meant to show you new music but somehow get it too correct to be right, and so I have been sending my month of music to a few friends every month. It’s fun for me because I get to hear what they think, and it also gives me a reason to spend time and keep up with new releases.

As a way to expand my audience, and at risk of being that girl, thus this substack. The idea is monthly playlists and album release summaries, and then assorted other things like some personal essays and a year end list. I might write about my quest to get into midwest emo and how I learned to understand the appeal of boybands, or maybe I will open the floor to make some very specific playlists for you. This might all just be me wanting to replace the high of Tumblr in 2013, but I think it will be fun.

Thanks for listening, hope you’ll be back, and tell me about your favorite band.

Here are Apple Music and Spotify links to the eight playlists so far— stay tuned for September very soon.

January (Apple Music| Spotify)

February (Apple Music| Spotify)

March (Apple Music| Spotify)

April (Apple Music| Spotify)

May (Apple Music| Spotify)

June (Apple Music| Spotify)

July (Apple Music| Spotify)

August (Apple Music| Spotify)