First Ten Standouts

• Pale Blue Eyes – This House listen/purchase
  Layered melodic synth pop that recalls German motorik, Ulrich Schnauss production, and The Engineers – Always Returning era recordings
• Scivic Rivers – S/T : listen/purchase
  Kids don’t write albums like this. Mature finely crafted songs in the vein of Talk Talk’s later output and passing moments of Bob Welch Fleetwood Mac material
• Jeannine Schulz – Pure : listen/purchase
  Incredibly patient ambient micro-shifts of drift that feels completely organic
• Lankum – False Lankum listen/purchase
  Irish folk ensemble bringing drones and minimalism to out of this world melodies
• Simon Joyner & The Echoes – One Carried A Lantern : listen/purchase
  What else can be said about Simon? Inspired, practiced, and full of life lived songwriting
• Blood Incantation – Luminescent Bridge : listen/purchase
  Quite possibly the best death metal band going right now. Heavy, spacey, with ambient interludes
• PJ Harvey – I Inside the Old Year Dying : listen/purchase
  PJ and John Parish continue to do extraordinary things together. This album is maybe her darkest since Is This Desire?
• Läuten der Seele – Ertrunken Im Seichtesten Gewässer : listen/purchase
  If Christian releases an album every year…here it will be. Field recordings interspersed with very smart imaginative collage work
• Ned Milligan – Considerable : listen/purchase
  Quiet and delicate sounds that not only can get lost in the background of life, but overwhelm you with their intricacy when focused upon
• Alberto Lizarralde – Haizetxe : listen/purchase
  Collection of unreleased pieces from the maestro himself recorded in Basque on a 4 track reel to reel

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• James Ellis Ford – The Hum : listen/purchase
  Think in the arena of Eno producing Brendan Perry and Barrett-era Floyd backing. Beautiful stuff
• Scott Solter & Rohner Segnitz – The Murals : listen/purchase
  Meticulously crafted dark ambient pieces that push and pull you with glistening ease. Stunning sound design
• Ibex Clone – All Channels Clear : listen/purchase
  Here is your Big Star ran through the LSD laced post punk of the Meat Puppets with a Bob Mould delivery
• Tommy Guerrero – Amber of Memory : listen/purchase
  Baritone guitars gently swaying in the wind drenched in sunny layers
• A Journey of Giraffes – Empress Nouveau  : listen/purchase
  Precise ideas of calm and reflection smartly captured to make you dream. I still don’t believe John made this music in Baltimore
• Vor-stellen – Parallelograms : listen/purchase
  Improvised Krautrocky goodness served on a “band in a room” platter
• Gary Peters – Beginnings: Collected Pedal Steel Works : listen/purchase
  Gary situates you on a pastoral landscape, makes you dizzy from dissonance, and rocks you to sleep in the top of a tree with his pedal steel with this collection
• John Francis Flynn – Look Over the Wall, See the Sky : listen/purchase
  Re-imagining traditional music with wit and high levels of creativity and passion
• American Analog Set – For Forever : listen/purchase
  Dropping a lot of the preciousness found in their music from decades ago, but keeping the minimalist approach to melody. Make dinner to this album…it’ll taste better
• Ori Barel – Alkaline River : listen/purchase
  Modular synth compositions that are playful and push a sci-fi narrative. This isn’t someone just fucking around with modular, this is well crafted stuff
• Susan Alcorn Septeto del Sur – Canto : listen/purchase
  Susan continues to be one of the best pedal steel players around. Rearrange your noggin’ with a journey through improvised pieces that only masters at their craft can pull off
• Tomáš Knoflí?ek – Serendipity : listen/purchase
  Field recording deconstruction through electronic manipulation that challenges you upon each listen
• Barn – Luminescence : listen/purchase
  Brutal technical death metal that builds on what Chuck and his band Death originated. Watch out for these young guys. SO GOOD
• Arthur Russell – Picture of Bunny Rabbit : listen/purchase
  Unreleased recordings from the master. Wobbly tunes that exhibit what I love about personal recordings that you suspect will never see the light of day.
• The Pines of Rome – The Unstruck Bell : listen/purchase
  Look, we don’t get many records like this anymore. Thanks to The Pines of Rome for making music again so that we can indulge in our slowcore daze again.
• Cate Brooks – Tapeworks : listen/purchase
  Perfectly arranged long form ambient passages that make me jealous that I didn’t compose
• Bill Orcutt – The Anxiety of Symmetry : listen/purchase
  Not your normal Orcutt guitar recording here. This delivers a layered loop approach that morphs as the repetitive fight of rhythmic dance ensues. Masterful in the vein of Philip Glass
• Slowdive – everything is alive : listen/purchase
  You know what Slowdive sounds like, right? Well, this might possibly be the best album of their long career. After “Kisses” plays on the album, I expect Casey Kasem to come on and announce the next track.
• The Necks – Travel : listen/purchase
  Trio music brilliantly played and always rides the line of complex and completely accessible. In my opinion, their best since 2013’s “Open”
• Abstract Concrete – S/T : listen/purchase
  It seems everything Charles Heyward does, it turns to a delicious plate served up exactly how I like it. Experimental, smart, abstract post-everything chamber pop
• Benoît Pioulard – Eidetic : listen/purchase
  Thomas pours his influences all over every recording whether he’s channeling masters of ambient, early-era Floyd, or Amon Düül II. When I hear this newest recording, I think Beck meant to make this record when he made Morning Phase
• KMRU – glim : listen/purchase
  Absolutely beautiful pacing on this mix of drone and micro-music as KMRU continues to grow into a fascinating artist
• Justin Walter – Destroyer : listen/purchase
  Imagine if you kept wanting a new Broadcast album that had 3-2-1 Contact segment transitional music. Justin made it for you right here
• Giovanni Di Domenico – Succo di formiche : listen/purchase
  Stunningly beautiful experiments in contemporary classical composition that makes you want to crawl into the recording studio
• Yo La Tengo – This Stupid World : listen/purchase
  Still going strong after all of these years. When I hear “Aselestine” I’m instantly transported to a million cold Midwestern days stumbling to find out where I was going