MUSIC
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A Good Year is the collaborative project of producer and former Liss drummer Tobias Laust Hansen and filmmaker-turned-musician Albert R. Hildebrand. Play. moves between acoustic instrumentation, synthetic textures and loose-limbed rhythms, balancing baggy drums, bass-heavy electronics and understated guitar work with a reflective, road-trip atmosphere. Across the record, tender vocal performances and layered production give the songs a shifting sense of scale, from intimate sketches to expansive, anthem-like moments. Contributions from Horse Vision, Koilwood, Tiffi M, Quiet Light, Late Verlane, Alba Akvama, Suisse Air and Mร add further depth to its blurred mix of organic and electronic sounds.
At Our Best! were one of the greatest and most influential bands to emerge in the early 1980s as part of a new wave of independent acts. DJ John Peel championed them, playing their singles repeatedly and inviting them to record a session for his programme. Wry vocalist Judy Evans and brutal yet melodic guitarist James Alan whoโd met at art college in Leeds fronted Girls At Our Best!, the proto-Indie band that formed from the ashes of Alanโs 1977 punk band SOS! Pleasure, the sole album, reached number two in the Indie Chart. It was an album so different from the rest of the post-punk indie pack that you can still play it now and completely baffle new listeners. As John Peel said about Roxy Music, it just doesnโt seem to relate to anything else.
After a half decade slog in the Gilman Street punk scene as The Vagrants, Brian Jay, Nick Gancheff, Craig Miller, and Dave Henwood resurfaced with a new name and a new sound. Their mid-punk crisis in full bloom, the quartet abandoned dissonant guitars and garbled glass vocals in favor of a jangly, albeit introspective mood. Neither shoegaze nor emo, and sonically exiled from their Lookout Records peers, Pot Valiant carved out their own corner of the East Bay, releasing two singles and a brilliant LP before imploding in mid-1994.
By early 1994 Pot Valiant had graduated from brooding high school punk band to young adults with an ever widening spectrum of influences. Gone were the palm-muted guitars and downcast lyrics, replaced with a modern rock sensibility and command of the subtleties of the loud/quiet dynamic. The groupโs sole LP was tracked in early 1994 for the Benicia-based Iteration Records, and released via famed distribution black hole Dutch East that summer to heady critical praise. The 10-song Transaudio was awash in dense, ringing guitars, powerful drumming, and a hushed vocal approach more at home in a bar than an all ages club tucked into an industrial part of Berkley.
The San Diego via Boston alt trio's complete original studio recordings, remastered, restored, and compiled into one lavish box set. Wait A Lifetime gathers the band's peerless albums Junk and This Afternoons Malady, plus a first time vinyl pressing of R.I.P., expanded to include their unfinished 3rd album, singles, splits, and comp tracks. The 28-page accompanying booklet details the entire saga via Nina Corcoran's essay and dozens of period photos, all housed in a stunning case-wrapped and varnished box. Sink into the ground and fly.
Greg Mendez has always been an economical songwriter โ he wields restraint and simplicity as tools, the core of his songs sharpened into simple, cutting truths. On Beauty Land, his new album and debut LP for Dead Oceans, weโre guided by a wry but forgiving narrator, an underdog who has learned to balance cynicism and faith. These songs are self-effacing without self-pity, carefully constructed altars of imperfection channeled through pop melodies, shimmering but urgent guitars, and a voice that reaches for choir boy innocence. The bulk of Beauty Land was recorded directly to tape, almost entirely alone in Mendezโs makeshift home studio in Philadelphia โ a small room with no natural light. Itโs his first full length since his unexpected self-titled breakthrough in 2023, which was a slow burn success following 15 years of writing and recording music in relative obscurity between Philly and New York. Beauty Land picks up where we left off three years ago โ plumbing the depths of grief, love, and addiction โ but its intense, quiet clarity shows Mendez at his songwriting best. Parts of Beauty Land feel like a lucid dream, dented characters carve their way through a world thatโs cartoonish and warped โ the broken-clock march of โI Wanna Feel Pretty,โ the chiming toy piano on โGentle Love.โ โMary / Dreamingโ begins as a sparse, finger-picked lament before cutting abruptly to a deflated, Beach-Boys-but-make-it-fucked-up resolution that brings both melancholy and joy; a sense that all things can be true at once. None of the 14 tracks here break three minutes, but they tell stories that span lifetimes. Death floats through the record, whether it appears as a memory or a threat. Everything feels precarious. Thereโs a fragility to how these songs are built: the way the funeral organ hits alongside the morphine on โLooking Out Your Window,โ the devastating simplicity of โFrog,โ with its slowed-down keyboard and bare refrain: โPlease forgive me for my faults.โ Beauty Land feels, at times, impossibly lonely. Which makes it really count when it doesnโt โ like when Mendez sings in harmony with his wife and bandmate, Veronica near the end of โSo Meanโ and it feels like a cherished reunion, a fleeting moment of redemption, a temporary parting of the seas.
Greg Mendez has always been an economical songwriter โ he wields restraint and simplicity as tools, the core of his songs sharpened into simple, cutting truths. On Beauty Land, his new album and debut LP for Dead Oceans, weโre guided by a wry but forgiving narrator, an underdog who has learned to balance cynicism and faith. These songs are self-effacing without self-pity, carefully constructed altars of imperfection channeled through pop melodies, shimmering but urgent guitars, and a voice that reaches for choir boy innocence. The bulk of Beauty Land was recorded directly to tape, almost entirely alone in Mendezโs makeshift home studio in Philadelphia โ a small room with no natural light. Itโs his first full length since his unexpected self-titled breakthrough in 2023, which was a slow burn success following 15 years of writing and recording music in relative obscurity between Philly and New York. Beauty Land picks up where we left off three years ago โ plumbing the depths of grief, love, and addiction โ but its intense, quiet clarity shows Mendez at his songwriting best. Parts of Beauty Land feel like a lucid dream, dented characters carve their way through a world thatโs cartoonish and warped โ the broken-clock march of โI Wanna Feel Pretty,โ the chiming toy piano on โGentle Love.โ โMary / Dreamingโ begins as a sparse, finger-picked lament before cutting abruptly to a deflated, Beach-Boys-but-make-it-fucked-up resolution that brings both melancholy and joy; a sense that all things can be true at once. None of the 14 tracks here break three minutes, but they tell stories that span lifetimes. Death floats through the record, whether it appears as a memory or a threat. Everything feels precarious. Thereโs a fragility to how these songs are built: the way the funeral organ hits alongside the morphine on โLooking Out Your Window,โ the devastating simplicity of โFrog,โ with its slowed-down keyboard and bare refrain: โPlease forgive me for my faults.โ Beauty Land feels, at times, impossibly lonely. Which makes it really count when it doesnโt โ like when Mendez sings in harmony with his wife and bandmate, Veronica near the end of โSo Meanโ and it feels like a cherished reunion, a fleeting moment of redemption, a temporary parting of the seas.
"What Can I Say" is from the CD reissue of Kick Me Hard by one of our favorite bands ever, NRBQ. "Yellow Sarong" is by The Scene Is Now, from their first album, Burn All Your Records, on their label, Lost. A really great album, as are their other two, Total Jive and Tonight We Ride -- you can never say enough about The Scene Is Now. Cat Stevens wrote "Here Comes My Baby" and did a pretty good version of it, too (really), but we didn't hear it until recently. We learned it from the Tremeloes, who had a hit with it somewhere in the '60s. "Emulsified: was the handiwork of Rex Garvin and the Mighty Cravers, and we found it on the incredible swell compilation At The Party, which no record collection should be without, Candy Records. It'd be difficult to wholeheartedly recommend the Escorts' From The Blue Angel reissue on Edsel, but equally hard to come down on an album with "The One To Cry." "Griselda" was sung by Peter Stampfel on the Rounder album, Have Moicy!, a record only Stephan Wichnewski could dislike. "Speeding Motorcycle" is on Daniel Johnston's Yip Jump Music, pressed up by Homestead. "Andalucia" is on John Cale's Paris 1919 (we recorded "Hanky Panky Nohow" from the same LP for a Ruta 66 compilation, with Georgia singing, and maybe that'll be out before too long). "Oklahoma U.S.A." originated with Muswell Hillbillies by Ira's all-time faves, The Kinks. "Tried So Hard" can be found on the Flying Burrito Brothers' 3rd album, the first without Gram Parsons, no classic. Fairport Convention also did it on Heyday; and of course, Gene Clark did it too, but it slips my mind as to where. "You Tore Me Down" is from Shake Some Action by the Flamin' Groovies, and if it's on that CD thing that came out last year, all the more reason to pick one up. And these are our second cracks at "Did I Tell You" and "Barnaby," which can be found on New Wave Hot Dogs and President Yo La Tengo respectively (as well as together on our de-lux CD) -- and we use the word "found" primarily as a figure of speech. Dave's group, the Schramms, with Al on electric bass, just released their Okra LP, Walk to Delphi.
Bon Iver’s three-song collection SABLE, was an act of vulnerability and unburdening. Written and recorded at a breaking point, they were songs of reflection, fear, depression, solitude, and atonement. The word “sable” implies darkness, and in that triptych, Justin Vernon sought to unpack some long-compounded pain. Then, at the tail end of its final track “AWARDS SEASON,” there’s the barest thread of a lighter melody—a drone, a glimmer, an ember, hope for something more. SABLE, was the prologue, a controlled burn clearing the way for new possibilities. fABLE is the book. Stories of introduction and celebration. The fresh growth that blankets the charred ground. Where SABLE, was a work of solitude, fABLE is an outstretched hand.
Compared to the sparse minimalism of its three-song table setter, fABLE is all lush vibrance. Radiant, ornate pop music gleams around Vernon’s voice as he focuses on a new and beautiful era. On every song, his eyes are locked with one specific person. It’s love, which means there’s an intense clarity, focus, and honesty within fABLE. It’s a portrait of a man flooded and overwhelmed by that first meeting (“Everything Is Peaceful Love”). There’s a tableau defined by sex and irrepressible desire (“Walk Home”). This is someone filled with light and purpose seeing an entire future right in front of him: a partner, new memories, maybe a family.
While not as minimal as its companion EP, fABLE’s sound appears to walk back the dense layers of sound Vernon hid behind on records like i,i and 22, a million. There’s nothing evasive or boundary-busting about this music. It’s a canvas for truth laid bare. Much of the album was recorded at Vernon’s April Base in Wisconsin after years of the studio laying dormant during a renovation. The album’s conceptual genesis happened on 2.22.22 when Jim-E Stack, Vernon’s close collaborator and guide throughout the creative process, arrived at the base with Danielle Haim. Snowed in for multiple days, their voices intertwined for the ballad “If Only I Could Wait.” Suddenly, Haim gave voice to this crucial perspective—the one Vernon seems to hold in sacred regard across fABLE. Accompanied by Rob Moose’s strings, it’s a track about weariness—about not having the strength to be the best version of yourself outside the glow of new love.
There’s something undeniably healing about infatuation. Cleaving to someone else can feel like light pouring in from a door that’s suddenly swung wide. But there’s a reason SABLE, is of a piece with fABLE; even after you put in the work, the shadow still rears its head from time to time. On “There’s A Rhythmn,” Vernon finds himself back in an old feeling, this time seeking an alternative instead of erasure: “Can I feel another way?” There’s an understanding that even when you’ve reached a new chapter, you’ll always find yourself back in your own foundational muck. A fable isn’t a fairy tale. Yes, there’s the good shit: unbridled joy, trips to Spain, the color salmon as far as the eye can see. But fables aren’t interested in happy endings or even endings at all; they’re here to instill a lesson.
As the album winds to a close, he acknowledges the need for patience and a commitment to put in the work. There’s a selfless rhythm required when you’re enmeshing yourself with another person. The song—and by extension the entire album—is a pledge. He’s ready to find that pace.
Come Back Down, the new album by Nashville experimental-pop duo Total Wife, was born from the edge of sleep. When composer and producer Luna Kupper would begin to fall asleep during late-night mixing sessions, the songs would follow her into the halfway place between dream and lucidity. Like Dale Cooper in Twin Peaks, sheโd wake with a new perspective on the puzzle she was piecing together. โIโm a psychological mixer โ Iโm trying to think of how someoneโs experiencing the sound, versus getting stuck in trying to make all these different tones and using all this gear to make something sound a certain way,โ Kupper says. And like a spiral from waking life into dream, the songs on Come Back Down are endlessly self-referential, building whole universes from a single point. Kupper sold all of her synths to make rent before she started working on the album, and so every inorganic sound is instead built from samples of the bandโs own work. A guitar on one song may be reprocessed and used as a synth on the next, while everywhere on the album vocal samples are taken from a single unreleased cover of Elliott Smithโs โBetween the Bars.โ In tribute to this process, the album was almost named The Julia Set after the mathematical equation which feeds into itself again and again, creating beautiful fractal images. The intention was to create something complex but accessible; experimental, yet precise and without abstraction. In her lyrics, too, main vocalist and co-composer Ash Richter is as straightforward as sheโs ever been. She drew on her experience of pandemic isolation to write about connection and disconnection, using her lyrics as a tool for the communication that was missing in everyday life. On the soaring, shoegazey track โpeachesโ, a storm that forced the cancellation of a recording session became a metaphor for emotional distance. โstill asleepโ chronicles Richterโs euphoria after Total Wifeโs first tour, and watches it begin to curdle into paranoia. โThank the full moon, my heart is overflowing,โ she sings, before: โIs there such a thing as too happy?โ The experience of isolation was prompting Richter to think back to her childhood, a time marked for her by solitude and natural play โ climbing trees, making mud pies, getting lost in the woods. On tracks like โin my headโ and โsecond springโ, she uses the imagery of nature to recall that time and forge a connection with her lonely inner child. โI feel connected with transcendentalist writing and magical realism โ trying to convey things in a concrete way, but with that element of psychology and mystery,โ she says. Richter and Kupper, friends from high school, formed Total Wife in 2016, relocating from Boston to Nashville in 2020. Both are visual artists as well as musicians, which they incorporate into their work with Total Wife via layered and purposeful visuals. A DIY streak underpins everything that they do โ from handling their own artwork and music videos to recording their own music, releasing tapes through their label Ivy Eat Home, and hosting house shows in the basement theyโve christened Ryman 2. In Nashville theyโve settled into a weirdo scene living under the record industryโs floorboards, a hive of collaborative and creative energy that has made them excited to call the city home. They also assembled a live band for the first time shortly after moving to Nashville, consisting of Ryan Bigelow, Sean Booz and Billy Campbell โ injecting their creative process with a jolt of spontaneity and aliveness that has fed back into Come Back Down.
Market East finally shares their most important statement to the world in the form of their debut LP, French Street. The group, composed of Kurt Cain on vocals, Vincent John on vocals, bass, guitar and keys, and Maxwell Perla on vocals, drums and percussion, deliver their signature celestial three part harmonies over arrangements that have never sounded so rich and compelling.
French Street is extremely soulful and the vocals are lush, like if the Zombies recorded at Muscle Shoals. The lyrics are poetic and nostalgic, as the group wrote songs about their bygone โgoldenโ years. Back then, the boys didnโt have much besides each other and their shared love of music. Vocalist Kurt Cain lived in a small rowhome in North Philadelphia on a nearly deserted alley named French Street. It was here that Cain, John, and Perla came together every week to escape reality and get high off sharing music. They developed a deep appreciation for all things 60s and 70s, from Simon & Garfunkel to the Moments, and everything in between.
All these years later, and Market East has created a classic record of their own. From the baroque pop of the title track and the roaring soul of โRoses,โ to the Latin flavors of โEchoes of My Heartโ and the orchestral flares of โEveryday, Springtime,โ Market East shows their impressive range. Recorded to analog tape in Philadelphia, the record was produced by the band and Eraserhood Sound. Grab your copy of this timeless classic today.
Taking influence from 1960's Thai funk - their name literally translates to "Engine Fly" in Thai - Khruangbinโs debut album โThe Universe Smiles Upon Youโ is steeped in the bass heavy, psychedelic sound of their inspiration, Tarantino soundtracks and surf-rock cool. The Texan trio is formed of Laura Lee on bass, Mark Speer on guitar, and Donald โDJโ Johnson on drums.
โThe Universe Smiles Upon Youโ was recorded at their spiritual home, a remote barn deep in the Texas countryside where their first rehearsals took place. The band listened to a lot of different types of music on the long drives out to the country but their favourites were 60s and 70s Thai cassettes gleaned from the cult Monrakplengthai blog and compilations of southeast Asian pop, rock and funk. This had a heavy impact on the direction of the band, the scales they used and the inflection of the melodies; which coupled with the spaciousness of the Texan countryside culminated in Khruangbin forming their exotic, individual sound.
Although the band was conceived as an instrumental outfit, โThe Universe Smiles Upon Youโ features the first Khruangbin recordings with vocals. Tracks โPeople Everywhere (Still Alive)โ, โBalls and Pinsโ and recent single โWhite Glovesโ show a new dimension to the band.
โWe never really thought of ourselves as having a โsingerโ but we knew that we wanted a voice for Khruangbin. We decided to write about something close to us, tell a story as simply as possible, and sing it together.โ
The seeds of Khruangbin were sown when Mark and Laura were invited to tour with Ninja Tune's YPPAH supporting Bonobo across his 2010 American tour. The tour galvanised the two of them to start making music together more seriously, with DJ - he and Mark have played in the same gospel band for years - the natural choice for drums.
Sharing their first recordings, Bonobo included Khruangbin's โA Calf Born In Winterโ on his 2013 Late Night Tales compilation. Subsequently signed to Late Night Tales offshoot Night Time Stories, โA Calf Born In Winterโ was released as a single in May 2014, four track EP โThe Infamous Billโ followed in October, with covers EP โHistory Of Flightโ on Record Store Day 2015.
โWe feel like there is an ease that comes from being immersed in a space, away from the distractions of the city and everyday life. We make our music in a barn, in the Texas hill country, because it makes sense to us. Being there allows us to make music that comes naturally, and thatโs what we wanted this album to be. We wanted to make a record that just let the music happen, and we hope thatโs what you can hear.โ
ใขใซใใ ใซใคใใฆ On Dreams โ24 / โ25, Scottish composer Bill Wells turns his nocturnal imagination into a sequence of delicate musical miniatures. The album brings together 24 short pieces, most of them under two minutes, unfolding in just under half an hour like a quietly drifting dream diary. The album is split into two parts. On the Dreams 2024 side, Norman Blake lends his voice to Wellsโ dream-born melodies. Blake, best known as a founding member of Teenage Fanclub, recorded the songs with Wells in a single afternoon at his home, capturing their fragile immediacy in direct and unadorned performances. For Dreams 2025, Aby Vulliamy โ one of Yorkshireโs best kept musical secrets โ takes over vocal duties. In mid 2025, Wells sent her a batch of demos; Vulliamy recorded them at home and sent them back to him. The result is a second chapter that feels more introspective, intimate and gently surreal. The songs themselves are born directly from dreams. Wells wakes from the dream, records it on his mobile and later shapes it into a brief, lyrical composition. One piece, Mackenzieโs Return, was inspired by a dream in which Elvis Costello marched through the streets of a suburban town complaining that he had run out of song ideas, a detail that perfectly captures the albumโs blend of humour, strangeness and quiet melancholy. Dreams โ24 / โ25 is not a collection of fully formed pop songs, but rather a series of fleeting emotional snapshots: soft voices, simple motifs, and melodies that appear and vanish before they can fully settle. It is an album that rewards close listening, inviting the listener into a private, half-lit space somewhere between memory and imagination. The album features striking cover artwork by Annabel Wright.
10 songs from No You - the debut, self-titled LP by Davy Kehoe (Wah Wah Wino, IE) and Diego Herrera (Suzanne Kraft, US). Sharing both vocal and instrumentation duties, D & D venture somewhat off of their respective musical paths - with the collab throwing up a big, small-studio sound. They are maybe at their most melodic on โBabyโ where their voices play off each other over bent feedback and crunching drum machine. Thereโs a real low slung swagger to โSo Far Goneโ and โMiracle Mileโ met with a blown out and blasted approach on songs such as โInvisibleโ and โSide Effectโ. The song โPut Up A Dreamโ exhibits the duoโs more unhinged side.
One part THC and two parts MDMA; the first offering from DIIV chemically fuses the reminiscent with the half-remembered building a musical world out of old-air and new breeze. These are songs that remind us of love in all itโs earthly perfections and perversions. A lot of DIIVโs magnetism was birthed in the process Mr. Smith went through to discover these initial compositions. After returning from a US tour with Beach Fossils, Cole made a bold creative choice, settling into the window-facing corner of a painterโs studio in Bushwick, sans running water, holing up to craft his music. In this AC-less wooden room, throughout the thick of the summer, Cole surrounded himself with cassettes and LPโs, the likes of Lucinda Williams, Arthur Russell, Faust, Nirvana, and Jandek; writings of N. Scott Momaday, James Welsh, Hart Crane, Marianne Moore, and James Baldwin; and dreams of aliens, affection, spirits, and the distant natural world (as he imagined it from his window facing the Morgan L train). The resulting music is as cavernous as it is enveloping, asking you to get lost in its tangles in an era that demands your attention be focused into 140 characters.