First Ten Standouts

• Alan Licht – Havens listen/purchase
  I’m not sure what else needs to be said about Alan and his guitar music. This new album explores repetition and subtle morphing pieces that will fill you with goodwill.
• I4A – I4A 3 listen/purchase
  I4A continues to fly under the radar making “dishwashing music” that shows an immense amount of maturity through smart composition and ideas that are modern sharp takes with Traffic and Kraut origins, but somehow wholly different.
• Läuten der Seele – Die Reise zur Monsalwäsche listen/purchase
  This is the final installment of  Christian Schoppik’s “Water” trilogy. The first two showing up on this yearly list in the past as well. He makes beautiful collages that don’t get long in the tooth or introduce boredom. 
• Wussy – Cincinatti Ohio listen/purchase
  As a fellow Midwesterner, this record is almost achingly too on the nose. Wussy continues to write music that immediately shows that they’ve listened deeply to thousands of records and they are able to relay their existence through your speakers.
• Nala Sinephro – Endlessness listen/purchase
  This is what happens when you have an ear for a journey and surround yourself with great musicians. If Broadcast wanted to make a record with mid-era Miles, you’d find something like this on the tape.
• Jeff Parker ETA IVtet – The Way Out of Easy listen/purchase
  An album that has an immediate impact on first listen and still gives upon repeated listening. Which is exactly what Jeff, Anna, Jay, and Josh are doing in the room together…listening.
• METZ – Up On Gravity Hill listen/purchase
  For me, this is METZ finally delivering the melody that I knew they were capable of, without losing the raw power that they somehow deliver in trio form. This will pummel you from start to finish…and you’ll immediately replay it in its entirety. 
• Mount Eerie – Night Palace listen/purchase
  I think perhaps Phil has finally made an album that is the essence of what he truly is as an artist/human. It’s all here, everything he’s embodied over the last decades. Introspective, quaint, fuzzy, cloudy, and abrupt. 
• Blood Incantation – Absolute Elsewhere listen/purchase
  This is the best death metal band going and this is the best record they’ve made to date. Obviously they’ve been deep diving into the German ambient crates and it has imprinted itself into their approach. This is gigantic and sprawling. Take your time.
• Merope – V?jula listen/purchase
  This is a beautiful album of recordings rooted in Lithuanian folk music, but tied together through the ancient and modernity. It’s perfectly paced and the emotions communicated are easily received. As artists, we only hope we can fully realize our ideas like this.

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• Tara Jane O’Neil – The Cool Cloud of Okayness listen/purchase
  TJO continues to make music that tickles her fancy at any given moment. She’s careful in her craft and as she shifts styles, she always has a common thread throughout all of her albums…she’s got immense taste.
• Klimperei – Cirque Klimperei listen/purchase
  This is a collection of pieces from the history of recorded music from Klimperei and it’s so perfectly well done. Kudos to Time Released Sound & Time Sensitive Materials for doing such a wonderful job sequencing and packaging this up. A must listen AND physical purchase.
• Eric Fourman – Dread listen/purchase
  Eric Fourman has been inconspicuously making music in the Middle TN area for years. Quietly releasing some of the best drone music pieces without any speck of pretension. Not merely fucking around, he obviously develops compositions that first and foremost are for himself.
• The Hard Quartet – The Hard Quartet listen/purchase
  Rio’s Song may be one of the coolest sing-along simple tunes released in quite some time. Jim White’s drumming is so perfectly good here while the contributions from Matt, Emmett, and Stephen don’t feel like throwaways you get with most “supergroups”.
• Gillian Welch and David Rawlings – Woodland listen/purchase
  Do I really have to put something here? Empty Trainload Of Sky sounds like it was written 50 years ago and is already a classic. The rest is just the best Nashville duo of the last 25+ years. Enough said.
• German Error Message – German Error Message (S/T) listen/purchase
  Sticking to the Middle TN area of my home, German Error Message has continuously released music that combines experimental folk with the bedroom recordings most musicians make for only themselves. You can tell he’s a lifer and he’s waiting on nobody to put things into the world.
• Melos Kalpa – Melos Kalpa (S/T) listen/purchase
  I wouldn’t necessarily call this a supergroup, but perhaps for me it is. This first album from a collection of musicians that I admire, showcases how a group of people improvising and piecing together ideas can result in a wonderfully moving abstraction of feelings and ears.
• Amblare – Amblare (S/T) listen/purchase
  You are only allowed to listen to this album via large amounts of volume. You know immediately that this is Midwestern in origin: big drums and guitars, playing with time sigs, melodic vocalizations and lyrics revolving around heavy emotions.
• Pan American & Kramer – Reverberations Of Non-Stop Traffic On Redding Road listen/purchase
  Mark Nelson teams up with Kramer to create almost exactly what you would expect from these two collaborating. This is super patient stuff that resembles the sun shining off of the lake as I currently look out the window.
• daily rituals – all the ways in which i am mute listen/purchase
  Incredibly wonderful field recording collage work that lets you take part in the disintegration of time with microsound and elecroacoustic approaches.
• Klaus Weise – Sabiha Sabiya listen/purchase
  Klaus Weise from Popol Vuh gets a reissue of this past tape that was originally released in 1982 on Aquamarin Verlag, the distinguished publisher of New Age books and music and it feels as full of place as the music he used to make with his aforementioned collective. 
• Myriam Gendron – Mayday listen/purchase
  Look, I could use comparison of Myriam to Nico, but that would cheapen what she really does…but would it?
• Los Days – Dusty Dreams listen/purchase
  I have immense respect for Tommy Guerrero. I think Tommy and Max Schaaf are the epitome of how skateboarding creativity radiates out into other life works. This is the newest sun-drenched exploration of sound with his friend Josh Lippi and it delivers as per usual.
• Belong – Realistic IX listen/purchase
  I wasn’t sure if we’d ever get another Belong record, but I’m sure glad we got one. This one finds them drowning in wash that isn’t subtle by any means, but it’s all the better because it’s cloudy with a chance of mist all day. Headphones on for this one.
• Arcwelder – Continue listen/purchase
  There was a reason we’d pile into a warm bar in the Midwestern winter with piss soaked bathroom floors…Arcwelder were playing.
• Magic Tuber Stringband – Needlefall listen/purchase
  This is a beautifully put together recording of an evolving palette of string music. Improvisation through loosely based structure is what it sounds like to me. Exploration of sounds through togetherness and a shared record collection. Outstanding stuff.
• Itasca – Imitation of War listen/purchase
  Sometimes Itasca comes across as a sister artist to The Weather Station who was recorded in a studio that understands that the process is just as important as the end result.
• Derek Monypeny – The Oppositional Imagination listen/purchase
  Derek makes music here that differs in style from track to track, but all encompassing what I love about making my own guitar music…whether prepared, droned, strummed, or aggressively picked, you’ll find emotion hurled into the room.
• Ned Collette – Our Other History listen/purchase
  Ned returned this year with this particular album that recalls his absolutely amazing 2018 album, Old Chestnut. This music is serious business, and you know it. 
• Seabuckthorn – this warm, this late listen/purchase
  Seabuckthorn is a cold hardy plant that puts on thousands of small berries that are found to be medicinal. So are these musical pieces found on the newest collections of sounds from Andy as he crafts beautiful improvisations with friends in tow.
• Finom – Not God listen/purchase
  Dare I say this might be the best thing that Tweedy has produced…ever? These women understand what they want to say and how to say it. Melodic, witty, and perfectly arranged. Kudos to Tom Schick for such a fantastic sounding recording. **Chef’s Kiss**
• Stefan Christensen – In Time listen/purchase
  You can definitely hear the Träd Gräs Och Stenar family tree here. At times Stefan and crew will veer into kraut territory, but firmly holding onto their obvious psych tendencies. Fire up the Marantz and throw it on already.
• Brandon Tani – The Road Was Bent From The Way We Took It listen/purchase
  Tani takes you around to the places that make you wonder if you could recreate daily in your life if given nothing but some love and time. This is supposed to be abstract music, but it feels like it has purpose. Found sound and concrète approach, but with focused ideas.
• Winged Wheel – Big Hotel listen/purchase
  Exploring more of the motorik sounds and drowning the vocal in a room the size of Central Station. 12XU will never let you down, kids.
• Mystery Waitress – Bright Black Night listen/purchase
  Sometimes I want to hear something fairly pop influenced, but somehow it still holds on to threads of being pretty without all of the preciousness. That seems to be a theme that falls out of New Zealand quite often (think Tiny Ruins). Flying Nun seems to have had a knack for finding this stuff for 40 plus years and here’s the latest in that long line. Mountain, what a song.