Good morning! Need an antidote for the algorithms? Looking for a place to share the music you love with like-minded people? You’re in the right spot.
For those of you who are new, we kick off every week by sharing what we’ve been playing, and the playlist below is some of what’s been in heavy rotation for me.
As always, thank you to those who have recently upgraded their subscriptions. Your direct support fuels this community and makes a positive impact. Shares and reposts also help!
When you’re ready, joining them is easy. Just click here:
My little suburb has its own Indivisible chapter that coordinates things like No Kings marches and a standing protest on one of the main corners here in town. There are, of course, an infinite number of things people would rather be doing than defending our republic—things like listening to records— but here we are.
There’s also a cool newsletter (because of course there is), with thought-provoking links and a subsection titled Journalism That Might Be Worth Your Time and/or Money. As Jeff Bezos continues to burn WaPo to the ground, reporters are finding themselves landing elsewhere… and writing obits for the place they used to call home. This one from Becca Rothfeld was particularly poignant, and I’ve been thinking about this quote quite a bit:
A newspaper is—or ought to be—the opposite of an algorithm, a bastion of enlightened generalism in an era of hyperspecialization and personalized marketing. It assumes that there is a range of subjects an educated reader ought to know about, whether she knows that she ought to know about them or not.
I’m mindful of the coarse analogy, but in its own way, that’s what we’re trying to do here: share records and artists you might not know about, but who might be your next favorite. Algorithm-based platforms serve you a nonstop trough of dopamine and whatever an opaque data set suggests will keep you locked inside their walled garden. Blogs and newsletters advocate for sounds that are worthy of your attention.
Advocacy in this context comes from a lot of corners. In the case of this playlist, Camper Van Beethoven was brought to my attention several lifetimes ago by one of my friends up the block, who played their cover of “Pictures of Matchstick Men” incessantly. Guadalcanal Diary landed on my radar thanks to a librarian who deemed it something worthy of patrons’ attention. Devo? Thanks, MTV!
Fast-forward into today: GUV came courtesy of the fantastic Rosy Overdrive blog, while the Julia track is the latest from a friend of our pal Billy Cuthrell—so call it a referral? Either way, I’d make the (easy, IMO) case that all of these are worthy of your time and space on your playlists. You might not know every name, but hopefully there’s a new favorite or two just waiting for you.
KA—
On to the music…
A few of you have asked whether I sequence these as an album or mixtape. The answer is always “yes.” In my head, I imagine them being played on your morning commute or road trip. I’m too old to use the word “vibes” as much as I have lately, but, well, if the shoe fits…
This week, Side A is tracks 1-12 (ends with “Barbra”), with Side B being 13-27.
The band’s latest takes what’s worked and builds on it.
Cover art courtesy of New West Records
Good morning!
Today we’re taking a look at Singin’ to an Empty Chair from Ratboys
With a band like Ratboys, there will inevitably be people claiming they’ve been around since Day 1, checking their watch, and wondering what took the rest of us so long.
I am not one of those people.
I was late to the party, arriving like I assume many people, with 2023’s The Window. By that point, they’d been around almost a decade. And as much as I’d like to cash in some hipster cred and cite some arcane influence and trace it back to another equally cool band, it was for a much less cool reason: they have a track named after a city near where I live (“Black Earth WI”). It’s also worth noting that the band and producer Chris Walla decamped to rural WI for some of the new record’s early tracking.
Like most everyone else, I quickly fell in love with the fuzzy riffs, the elements of power pop, and the way it felt so alive. It felt like a debut record from an overnight success (it wasn’t).
Those same high expectations have wrecked countless follow-up releases. Would they keep the momentum going, or would it feel like they’d lost their fastball?
Part of Ratboys appeal is their absurdly good ability at building emotional see-saws in their songs. If The Window did well to blend sweet melodies and crashing riffs, Singin’ perfects it.
“Know You Then,” one of the record’s chunkiest songs, turns the refrain—“I didn’t know you then”—into something way more potent and possibly painful.
I mean:
Kept it to yourself You couldn’t make a sound Oh, I would have been there in less than a second If time and space allowed
Oof. If you ever stood quiet while someone else was being bullied, this one’ll give you pause. No idea if that’s what Julia Steiner had in mind while penning this, but that’s sure what I took away from it (and lemme just take this chance to retroactively apologize to anyone that might’ve been caught in the crossfire of my childhood).
“Anywhere” is a straight ripper, and utterly infectious. That’s really all I need to say about that.
For a Chicago band, “Penny in the Lake” sure sounds like it came from Kentucky (or at least southern Illinois). They’ve always dabbled in Americana—and Black Earth is far enough out of the city that I’m counting it— but here they go all in. It’s delightfully breezy and more countrified than anything else on the record.
“The World, So Madly” will evoke the best parts of Belly and Tanya Donelly.
From here, things slow down and slowly morph into something heavier. “I Just Want You To Know The Truth,” “What’s Right?” and “Burn It Down” are an incredible 3-song run. Longtime readers know I’m a sucker for a good outro, and the latter has one that’s as good as any out there. It’s one of the highlights of the whole record. YMMV.
All of that leads up to “At Peace in the Hundred Acre Wood,” a disarmingly quiet(er) closer that feels like closure as much as anything else.
With all of that as context, Singin’ to an Empty Chair feels less like a reinvention and more like refinement. They didn’t fix what wasn’t broken, or take a stab at some sort of “new creative direction.” They haven’t lost any heat. The band knows what they’ve got and what we want. You still get what you expect from a Ratboys record, but it all locks in with a clarity and purpose that wasn’t always there before.
Good morning! Need an antidote for the algorithms? Looking for a place to share the music you love with like-minded people? You’re in the right spot.
For those of you who are new, we kick off every week by sharing what we’ve been playing, and the playlist below is some of what’s been in heavy rotation for me.
As always, thank you to those who have recently upgraded their subscriptions. Your direct support fuels this community and makes a positive impact. Shares and reposts also help!
When you’re ready, joining them is easy. Just click here:
I swim in an ocean of acronyms at work. It’s not quite its own language, but it’s close — like Scouse meets COBOL (or something). There is a shared language among carriers. But it’s different enough that when DL and NW merged, corp. comm issued us cheat sheets so we’d know what our new colleagues were saying. Every industry, group, etc. has its own argot, it’s own inside baseball talk — and don’t get me started on inside baseball about… baseball. Mostly, it’s just linguistically easier. A picture is worth 10,000 words, but an acronym or two are worth at least a handful, right?
I thought we were good, and then I came across this over on Futility Closet:
Just a bit of trivia: In the New South Wales railway system, the telegraph code RYZY meant:
Vehicle No ….. may be worked forward to ….. behind the brakevan of a suitable goods train during daylight provided locomotive branch certifies fit to travel. If the damaged vehicle is fitted with automatic coupling it must only be worked forward behind a brakevan also fitted with automatic coupling by connecting the automatic couplers on each vehicle but, if fitted with ordinary drawgear, it must be screw coupled. Westinghouse brake to be in use throughout train and on damaged vehicle. Guard to be given written instructions to carefully watch vehicle en route.
This reduced a 90-word message to four letters.
Oof.
I’m aware of the irony of using a lot of words to talk about acronyms and snapshots, but what I’m getting to is this: these playlists are a snapshot of my week — of where I’ve been, or at least where my mind’s wandered. Belly of the Whale? The cover art took me back to the Oregon coast and family vacations as a kid-the cover art is of a shipwreck you can climb on and around. The Strokes? They’re part of the Best of ’01 bracket coming up — as are R.E.M. (not this record, of course) and Life Without Buildings. Res should’ve been in, but didn’t get the votes needed. That’s probably worth its own story.
Wall of Voodoo pops into my head every so often for no reason — and I may or may not have watched their US Festival performance while procrastinating at work this past week. There are plenty of lookbacks, but also plenty of looking forward, with brand-new tracks from Spencer Hoffman, Vegas Water Taxi, and Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever. And the idea that the latter have a new record on the way is exciting. Frfr. YKWIM?
KA—
On to the music…
A few of you have asked whether I sequence these as an album or mixtape. The answer is always “yes.” In my head, I imagine them being played on your morning commute or road trip. I’m too old to use the word “vibes” as much as I have lately, but, well, if the shoe fits…
This week, Side A is tracks 1-12 (ends with The Outfield), with Side B being 13-27
Today we’re taking a look at the latest from at the latest from David Forman.
The boilerplate intro: Every year, I celebrate all the great music we’ve been gifted while worrying that next year will see the other shoe drop. I first did that in December 2020 and have been proven wrong every month since. Not only are there a ton of releases steadily coming out, but it also transcends genre or any other artificial guardrail we try to put up.
In other words, a ton of good stuff is still coming out, and there’s something for everyone. It’s almost overwhelming— but in all the best ways. These are another batch that caught my attention recently.
Hard to believe that it’s 2026 already, but here we are. Luckily for us, the records keep coming. Below are a few quick field reports from right between the sound machine.
Let’s get into it!
David Forman- Who You Been Talking To
Anytime I think of LA, I think of all the people that haven’t quite made it yet; the people whose story we don’t yet know. The waitress who’s in the biz, but that really just means a couple of IMDB credits as an extra. The disillusioned film major working a shitty office job, hoping for a better tomorrow. The hotel clerk working nights who’s got a screenplay that’s perfect- it just needs to get in front of the right eyes.
The second in the two-record deal Forman signed in 1976, Who You Been Talking To was recorded at the Sound Factory on Selma Avenue in Hollywood over two weeks in late summer 1977 (just days after Elvis Presley’s death) and engineered by Dave Hassinger, who had worked with the Rolling Stones and Frank Sinatra. Despite the extraordinary musicianship and Forman’s remarkable vocal performances, Arista Records head Clive Davis chose not to release the album, claiming he didn’t hear a radio hit, instead offering to return it to Forman to shop elsewhere. Devastated, Forman declined, and the tapes went into storage for nearly fifty years.
The story of David Forman’s Who You Been Talking To is the stuff of just such a screenplay. It’s the sort of story we love: an artist delivers their debut to incredible acclaim, only to record a follow-up at exactly the wrong time. The label refuses to release it, and said artist falls into obscurity, known still only to a few people who have copies of the first record.
Enter a music listening club- in this case, journalist Joe Hagan, photographer Tim Davis, and museum curator Joel Smith (Disclosure: Hagan offered to send me a copy of the album to listen to, which I accepted.). Smith happens upon the record in a cutout bin and falls in love with it. He shares it with the group, who all follow suit, and a minor obsession is born. Through a little detective work, they figure out Forman lives nearby and invite him to lunch. Forman plays them the (then) unreleased record, and a campaign to get it out into the world is launched.
Hagan had sent me links to the liner notes and a Bandcamp link ahead of time, but I decided to go into it cold (literally, as it was -18 when I first played it). My first surface-level impression was one of surprise; this is a really well-done record, with a murderer’s row of session musicians, including Ry Cooder, Jim Keltner, David Lindley, Fred Tackett, Tim Drummond, and Flaco Jimenez.
And while I get that Arista might not’ve wanted to go in this direction, I’m surprised they didn’t at least hold onto it and ship it later. I mean, Kudos to Clive Davis for offering it back to Forman, but still… this strikes me as a rare mistake by the man.
My second impression is that Forman reminds me of Randy Newman. Like, a lot. Especially his vocal stylings on tracks like “Thirty Dollars.” That’s certainly not a bad thing, but it’s a theme I couldn’t shake as the record went on.
The title track kicks things off and sets the tone; it’s a sultry groove, and once it landed in my ears, it stayed there for the rest of the day. “A Train Lady” is a bit of infectious soul that reminds me of sounds from the Grand Strand on the opposite coast. Maybe I just have beaches on my mind. Either way, it’s a ride I’m grabbing a ticket for.
Things slow down with the ballad “Painted in a Corner,” before a bit of a mistake with “Let It Go Now.” A pleading number, it feels like the stereotypical track they threw everything at (falsetto included). The money shot, as it were. You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take, I guess.
But just like one bad scene doesn’t take down a whole movie, we’re quickly back on track with “Midnight Mambo,” one of this writer’s favorites on the record. This represents a sharp shift to late-50s/60s pop melodies (right down to the obligatory sax solo). I spent a lot of time thinking about who might be best to cover it, and what their versions might sound like. My two faves were Jimmy Buffett and Dean Martin (suspension of disbelief is, of course, required here).
If “Midnight Mambo” dips a toe into the ‘50s/’60s, “What is so Wonderful” does a cannonball into the deep end, with its doo-wop and backup singers. Penultimate “Losing” is a dark track best suited for the backside of the clock. Not my cup of tea, but that’s a me issue. Maybe it was one Davis couldn’t get past, and that helped drive his decision to pass? We’ll never know. Either way, “Now That I Found You” kicks the tempo back up and ends things on a high note.
Fifty (ish) years is a long time to wait for a sequel. I talk a lot about records finding you at the right time, and this was a textbook example. I love that the universe aligned so that the right group of people found this at the right time and were able to share it with the world. Talk about a storybook ending.
Good morning! Need an antidote for the algorithms? Looking for a place to share the music you love with like-minded people? You’re in the right spot.
For those of you who are new, we kick off every week by sharing what we’ve been playing, and the playlist below is some of what’s been in heavy rotation for me.
As always, thank you to those who have recently upgraded their subscriptions. Your direct support fuels this community and makes a positive impact. Shares and reposts also help!
When you’re ready, joining them is easy. Just click here:
As some of you know, I spent much of last week on a much-needed escape south of the border. It’s good not to have an agenda or an infinite scroll for a to-do list. It’s even better not have to wear pants. And for my money, nothing clears your mind or hits the mental reset better than just watching the ocean for hours on end. Sometimes I wonder if that makes me like Puddy when he “raw dogged” a flight back from India, but then I remember that I’m too old to care (shrugs).
At the end of our trip, a storm rolled through (translation: some light rain with heavy wind), sending wave after wave of sargassum algae to roll ashore. This, of course, is an occupational hazard for anyone traveling where the water’s warm, and I’m grateful it happened at the back end of our trip, not at the front.
I watched as one man, armed only with a pitchfork, worked tirelessly to move it from one pile to another. Soon, he was joined by 3-4 others, but this didn’t make it any less Sisyphean. I couldn’t help but see it as a metaphor for the nonstop waves of slop we’re subjected to. In the freelance editing work I do, I see it everywhere.
On the music side, we see it in the anonymous tracks that are slotted into our playlists, or “suggested” to us by an equally anonymous algorithm. These tracks are utterly forgettable; empty calories designed to briefly pacify a passive listener. It’s a lot, and it’s easy to become disheartened and disillusioned. To think that no one is still fighting the good fight. The good news is that it’s not true. There are people every day who come together and make records by their own hand and mind for us to enjoy (for my fellow synth pop/EDM peeps, if it first came from someone’s brain before hitting a sequencer, I’m counting it). It’s amazing, and an potent antidote to the waves of shit all around us.
Like my man with the pitchfork, they’re fighting an uphill battle but on the right side of cultural history.
KA—
A couple of quick notes:
There’s some new to me stuff from Junior League, Thomas Duxbury, and Atomic Tom here. Look for some words on them soon. “Little Light” is the latest from Santa Fe’s Maybe So and is on our pal Kiley Larsen ‘s Mama Mañana Records— another guy fighting the good fight. New Order’s Technique turned 37 this week, and well, you had to know this was coming. I was also at the Hard Rock in Rockford Illinois this week for a comedy show, and never in a million years would I have predicted hearing Bob Weir and The Dead as the before and after music. Rock & Roll weirdness is undefeated.
A few of you have asked whether I sequence these as an album or mixtape. The answer is always “yes.” In my head, I imagine them being played on your morning commute or road trip. I’m too old to use the word “vibes” as much as I have lately, but, well, if the shoe fits…
This week, Side A is tracks 1-12 (ends with New Order’s “Run”), with Side B being 13-27
Good morning! Need an antidote for the algorithms? Looking for a place to share the music you love with like-minded people? You’re in the right spot.
For those of you who are new, we kick off every week by sharing what we’ve been playing, and the playlist below is some of what’s been in heavy rotation for me.
As always, thank you to those who have recently upgraded their subscriptions. Your direct support fuels this community and makes a positive impact. Shares and reposts also help!
When you’re ready, joining them is easy. Just click here:
Each week, I try to come at this with a certain theme—or at least a nominal throughline—running through it. Sometimes that really does only go as far as “what I’ve been listening to.” There’s no deeper meaning here, no message I want people to pick up—just a snapshot of the week that was for a suburban dad living on Hoth in flyover country. Some real Occam’s Razor stuff, to be sure. And sometimes that escape or respite is just what we need—if only for a few minutes at a time.
Zooming in a bit: on Saturday, I mentioned that the Best Record of 2001 bracket would kick off soon (are you in?). There’s a couple of tracks here from records on the initial ballot (Colin Hay, The Dirtbombs, and Semisonic), a few brand-new tracks from old faves (New Pornographers, Snail Mail, Kim Gordon), and a new spin on an old favorite, with The Beaches taking on a song everyone raised on MTV will remember (h/t to Dan Pal for getting it on my radar!).
We’re also rewatching Mad Men, which led me to finally find a Decemberists song I liked. Funny how that works. Saving the best for last, we’ve also got a new one from our pal Lancelot Schaubert.
In other words, a world surrounded by sound, with tracks coming from all corners. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Any new releases or shows you’re looking forward to? Whatcha got? Share your thoughts in the comments!
P.S. A few of you have asked whether I sequence these as an album or mixtape. The answer is always “yes.” In my head, I imagine them being played on your morning commute or road trip. I’m too old to use the word “vibes” as much as I have lately, but, well, if the shoe fits…
This week, Side A is tracks 1-14, with Side B being 15-27
Today we’re taking a quick look at some garage punk from both the Best Coast and No Coast, some no wave from Down Under, and bit of hip hop from Nottingham.
Longtime readers may recall that I reviewed 100 new (to me) records last year. Because I’m a glutton for punishment love music, I’m doing it again this year. This is the latest in the series.
Good morning!
Today we’re taking a look at the latest from Dry Cleaning, Sleaford Mods, Perfect Buzz and Wristwatch.
The boilerplate intro: Every year, I celebrate all the great music we’ve been gifted while worrying that next year will see the other shoe drop. I first did that in December 2020 and have been proven wrong every month since. Not only are there a ton of releases steadily coming out, but it also transcends genre or any other artificial guardrail we try to put up.
In other words, a ton of good stuff is still coming out, and there’s something for everyone. It’s almost overwhelming— but in all the best ways. These are another batch that caught my attention recently.
Hard to believe that it’s 2026 already, but here we are. Luckily for us, the records keep coming. Below are a few quick field reports from right between the sound machine.
Let’s get into it!
Wristwatch- III
Album art courtesy of Wristwatch
The pitch: After a 3-year layoff, Madison’s Wristwatch kicks the door in and delivers a blistering dose of garage punk.
If nothing else, the title of the band’s third album is on the nose. Know what else is on the nose? Just how well they nail down these songs. I had some knowledge of the band (translation: I knew a couple of tracks) and liked what I heard, but had never experienced a full record. Listening through the first few, it’s clear I’d been missing out. The previous records were recorded and mixed at frontman Bobby Hussy’s house. For III, the band brought in producer Beau Sorenson (Bob Mould, Superchunk) to engineer and mix the sessions. The result? Everything is leveled up (no pun intended).
III is a record that starts at 3k RPMs and never lets up. Coming apart at the seams is an occupational hazard of playing this brand of high-voltage music. That never happens here. Hussy is as theatrical as ever, but never too far gone. Ben Deidrich’s guitar work runs the gamut from bruising chords to angular riffs and back again. The rhythm section of Tyler Spatz (Geoff Palmer) and Eric Hartz (The Flavor That Kills) keeps everything in the pocket and keeps everything from spiraling off into terminal velocity.
When I do a first listen, I like to try to take note of what might be a feature track. This time around, I couldn’t narrow it down. Opener “Screwed” gives an early taste of what we’re about to get into. “Hints” does the best job of showcasing each of the four players and drives deep into post-punk territory. But really, all of ’em rip. It’s magnificent. And just the thing for right now. I’ve been listening to this on my pre-dawn commute this week, and it’s almost made me forget the subzero temps on the other side of the windshield. Get in.
The RIYL roster includes some of the usual suspects: Buzzcocks, New Bomb Turks, and to my ear, maybe even a bit of the Supersuckers.
In 2021, Dry Cleaning’s New Long Leg felt new and exciting — just the sort of thing needed to shrug off the lingering malaise of the pandemic. Florence Shaw’s writing and deadpan vocals felt like a “brand refresh” for The Fall. It might’ve been a case of putting a new spin on an old formula, but it worked. And it worked well enough that New Long Leg was my record of the year.
That year, I wrote in part:
The English post-punk band knocked it out of the park with their debut album…The musings/vocals mix well with the layered, dense soundscapes she’s talking over (but not overtaking). Dry Cleaning reminds me a bit of King Missle, except Shaw’s talking about things like lanyards and helicopters, and not detachable…organs…
In other words, Mark E. Smith and John S. Hall walked so Dry Cleaning could run.
But given the brand of music they were making, how far could they go? If I’m honest, I didn’t really want to find out. If New Long Leg was a revelation, Stumpwork was… not. And in a crowded field, it wasn’t hard to overlook it.
The nudge I need came from our pals at 3Albums6OldGuys who went in with the same reservations I had.
Dry Cleaning is, at least from a listener’s perspective (my sense is they probably don’t give a rat’s ass), a band confronting two issues: (1) they’ve really only had a singular sound, so for how long can they keep doing the same thing?; and (2) other bands have now gotten more attention with that sound, and because of those other bands (rather than them), the sound seems a bit played out. So, do they keep going, a la Guided by Voices, and just say “f it; this is who we are and what we do” and keep churning out more of the same, or do they change it up?
Things kick off with “Hit My Head All Day,” which at 6 minutes and change might be about 3 minutes and change too long for a Dry Cleaning song. But just a few seconds in, you start hearing other elements and stylistic shifts. Nothing major, just enough to think that maybe they’ve gone with mixing things up. Maybe the formula’s not as rigid as we thought?
“Cruise Ship Designer” has a bit of call-and-response, with Shaw serving a bit of an anchor while her bandmates do their thing. At 2:30, it’s the perfect length. The title track feels almost… warm? Ditto “The Cute Things.”
And are there horns here? Am I listening to the right record here?!
Dear reader, it sure sounds like it, and I am.
The band brought in Cate Le Bon to produce. Le Bon’s no stranger to this lane of no wave and art pop, and does well to bring Shaw out of her shell. Insouciance is great, but only for a few tracks. Same with bandmates Tom Dowse (guitar), Lewis Maynard (bass), and Nick Buxton (drums). Shaw is still the sun they orbit around, but overall, Secret Love finds them operating more as a band than on previous records.
So yeah… a lot of leaning into familiar territory here, but also hints of evolution. Sometimes the signal’s faint, and sometimes it’s 5×5. That said, they save the loudest transmission for the end. Album closer “Joy” is, well, a joy. I’m always a sucker for a jangly guitar, but add Florence Shaw again actually singing in places, and now we’re cooking with gas. It’s all relative, but relatively speaking, it’s a sea change and a refreshing one at that. If the other elements throughout the record (e.g., brass, background choruses, etc.) were a hint, this is indisputable evidence.
Perfect Buzz- Happy Trails (EP): PDX garage/punk scene vet Petey’s (Pure Country Gold, Suicide Notes) latest project is Perfect Buzz. Happy Trails blends first-wave punk, power pop, and psych in a way that can only come out of the 503. I’ll take all of this ya got! On a side note, in their Bandcamp pic, one is wearing a Dead Moon hat, which made me irrationally happy. Incredible.
Sleaford Mods- The Demise of Planet X: One of the things I miss the most about Twitter is having a feed full of cool/interesting people. That itself was a gift. Occasionally, something like “Kebab Spider” showed up on your TL and blew your mind. It was the perfect record at the perfect time. Those days are gone, but Sleaford Mods are still at it and have delivered what might be their best work yet. The Demise of Planet X is again the perfect record for right now. Surveying the land, they pull no punches and give no Fs. At this point, that’s table stakes for the band.
In danger of becoming a one-trick pony (see also: Dry Cleaning), the duo of Jason Williamson and Andrew Fearn long ago figured out that stretching the boundaries made sense. There are guest spots (Aldous Harding, Sue Tompkins, etc.), which we’ve come to expect. What I wasn’t ready for is how varied the sound itself is. Make no mistake: it’s still looping and relentless, but we’re a long way from Fearn holding up a tape recorder in the background. The end result is infectious.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on these records! Did I get it right, or am I way off the mark?
Good morning! Need an antidote for the algorithms? Looking for a place to share the music you love with like-minded people? You’re in the right spot.
For those of you who are new, we kick off every week by sharing what we’ve been playing, and the playlist below is some of what’s been in heavy rotation for me.
As always, thank you to those who have recently upgraded their subscriptions. Your direct support fuels this community and makes a positive impact. Shares and reposts also help!
When you’re ready, joining them is easy. Just click here:
Last week, my wife and I decided to walk up to our local high school to watch the boys’ basketball team. As we walked in, we were met with the usual sort of mild chaos these events bring. This was made worse by the fact that the school is trying to realign the kids/parents/visitors/home sections. On paper, this makes sense—they want the student section behind the bench as a sort of sixth man. I get it. That the new layout was only sorta explained and almost totally ignored is on brand. There are, of course, much, much worse things to deal with.
As we found a place to sit, I was struck with two conflicting thoughts: 1) man, I’m glad we don’t have to deal with this anymore, and 2) how lucky we are that we still get to do this.
There was a time when that was all very much in question. In 2020, we were steeped in the world of player-parenting. I’ve noted it before, but there was a years-long stretch where my car never didn’t have a pair of cleats in it (It smelled exactly they way you’re imagining it did). Losing that sports lifeline cut deeper than a lot of the other things that vanished. Again, not the biggest thing to worry about during a global pandemic, but it sure felt like it. It felt like a dark tunnel with no way out.
Then came light. A pinpoint at first, but my first inkling that it wasn’t another oncoming train came in the form of seeing people posting clips of Wilco’s “Shot in the Arm” on their social media feeds. Help was on the way in the form of a vaccine. It was, well, the boost we needed to bounce back.
2026 is off to an equally heavy start. I don’t know how we’ll know if/when we’ve turned a corner, but seeing “creative” uses of songs from Frozen being used in Minneapolis gives me the same sort of cautious optimism I felt six years ago.
This week, that Wilco song is here. So too are brand-new tracks from Autoleisureland (former members of The Kane Gang), Odd Marshall, Girl Scout, and Memorials. Minneapolis is well represented (how could they not be?!), as are a couple of old standbys. My eyes are wide open and my shoulder very much dropped, but how lucky we are to still get to do this. Let’s work to keep it that way.
Note: Qobuz is missing a couple this week. Apple is missing Autoleisureland.Now it’s your turn.
Any new releases or shows you’re looking forward to? Whatcha got? Share your thoughts in the comments!
P.S. A few of you have asked if I sequence these as if they’re an album or mixtape. The answer is always “yes.” In my head, I imagine them being played on your morning commute or road trip. I’m too old to use the word “vibes” as much as I have lately, but, well, if the shoe fits…
This week, Side A is tracks 1-13, with Side B being 14-27.
P.P.S What song defined 2025 for you?Tell me about it here. Thank you to everyone who has responded so far. Please keep ‘em comin’!
Members of the band stop by to discuss their latest record and what’s next.
Photo: Katy McElroy
Good morning!
We’re in for a treat today! Members of Winged Wheel—one of my fave discoveries of the last few years stop by to chat.
The pitch: An “experimental super-band” comprised of Whitney Johnson (Matchess, Circuit des Yeux), Cory Plump (Spray Paint, co-owner of the dream venue Tubby’s), Matthew J. Rolin (solo guitar wizard and half of the Powers/Rolin Duo), Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth), Lonnie Slack (Water Damage), and Fred Thomas (Idle Ray, Tyvek), Winged Wheel is a creatively and geographically scattered collective, with each player living in a different city and bringing their own unique element to the group’s interpersonal alchemy.
The first record (2022’s No Island) was a product of file trading, with each band member living in a different city and sending in their own part to be assembled later. The result: a record they describe as “accidentally really good” (my take: yes), with its high-voltage kosmische-meets-jam-band vibes. 2024’s Big Hotel was one of my sleeper picks for AOTY, with “Sleeptraining” easily one of my most-played tracks.
When I first heard a new record was inbound, I was excited. As each single rolled out, that excitement only grew. A few weeks ago, I mentioned that I was going to be obnoxious about it, but also wondered whether the record would live up to whatever bar I’d set in my head. Spoiler: it totally does. In last week’s Sound Advice column, I wrote “[where] intensity is still very much there, with layers of synths, walls of noise, and unfamiliar sounds. The band has mentioned trying to balance excitement and tension, and it shows. Things move a little slower here, and the hits come a little harder.”
I ended that piece by noting Desert So Green“is yet another evolution from a collective that has made that their stock-in-trade. It’s not always the easiest listen, but for those who make the effort, the payoff is enormous.”
Having listened to it a bunch since then, I’d only double down on that assessment.
I recently had a chance to chat with band members Fred Thomas and Matthew Rolin via email. In our wide-ranging discussion, we talked about the band’s origin story, the record, and what’s coming next. Our chat has only been lightly edited for grammar and flow.
KA—
Congrats on the new record! Can you walk us through the backstory of how this project came together?
Fred Thomas: It’s been a very unusual path! The easiest way to explain the band is as a series of unexpected outcomes. It started as a remote recording project when everyone was locked down heavy in 2020, and that unexpectedly resulted in a really interesting first album, 2022’s No Island. When shows started happening again, Cory asked Steve if he’d want to sit in with us. He said he’d be down, which was unexpected, and we all got together in person to record the jams and ideas that became 2024’s Big Hotel. I think after that recording session, none of us really expected to play live, but we quickly started touring and operating like a traditional band, even though we all live in different places and come together around the conceptual entity of Winged Wheel.
Big Hotel was the on-ramp for many people. What should they expect this time around?
FT: The only goal we had for making the new record was that it be completely different than the last. Where Big Hotel was cauterized together from hours of jams and searching, Desert So Green was collectively designed in the studio, with structure and composition playing a much larger role. It’s still the result of searching, but there’s a lot more group intention here.
Matthew Rolin: If Big Hotel was the on-ramp, then I would say Desert So Green is reaching a foreign, yet familiar, place. You’re not sure if you are close to the destination yet, but you’ve just stumbled across something that is interesting enough to stop and check out.
Desert So Green is described as an album that spends its duration struggling to balance a scale with excitement on one side and anxious tension on the other. Say more, please.
FT: Listening to the album, it might be difficult to pin down exactly how it makes you feel at any given moment. There are pretty parts, but they’re always a little bit shaky. There’s sections of peaceful drone, but fried undercurrents are always there, too. Nothing fully resolves, and it’s almost like the songs stubbornly don’t allow themselves to be just punky rippers or meditative zoners, or anything singular. Whatever dominant energy is present, its agitated foil is always nearby.
MR: That’s life (mine at least). As far as how it relates to the music, I take it as this ever-present undercurrent that gets under your skin. Even the prettiest songs on the album have some of what I’m talking about. Sometimes it’s drones, sometimes it’s sharp, unfamiliar noises, but they are always there to add to the song and maybe mess a little with expectations.
I can hear a few different artists that might’ve been an influence, and everyone here has an impressive CV. That said, were there any specific bands informing the sound?
FT: We’re all huge music listeners and absorbers, so specific influences would be next to impossible to list. That said, while we were making the record, we all noticed there were some accidental similarities to Slint’s Spiderland here and there. That wasn’t so much an intentional homage as something that showed up once the dust settled and was interesting to observe.
MR: Like what Fred said, we all listen to probably too much music, so it’s impossible to pin it even on a dozen bands/artists. That being said, this time I found our CAN-style approach to recording to be tightened up. For Big Hotel, we just hit record and let it rip. This time, various members contributed demos and ideas beforehand, so we had a skeleton to fill out while in the studio.
For anyone new to Winged Wheel, what’s the one thing you hope they walk away with?
FT: Each of our three records so far has had wildly different tonalities and sound worlds while remaining somewhat connected to a blurry type of grand vision. Desert So Green is the most restrained and layered Winged Wheel album yet, so it would be great if listeners could tune into some of the deeper waves and movement that happened in the recording this time around.
MR: I hope they can see how amazed we all are that this band even exists. We are all playing music that I don’t think anyone in the band would come up with alone. A true collaboration!
By the time people read this, you will be touring Europe. Besides Big Ears at the end of March, are there any plans for stateside shows?
FT: Things keep on coming up unexpectedly, so it’s very likely there will be more on the books soon. As of this moment, however, nothing is planned past Big Ears.
Last one, just for fun; I bump into you as you walk out of the record store. What records are you carrying?
FT: Each member of the band would be carrying a completely different selection, and it wouldn’t make even a shred of sense to anyone outside of the Winged Wheel bubble. There’d be some Cumbia records, some Bakersfield-style country, a Beatles rarities box set, some microtonal organ music, and probably a Velvet Underground bootleg as well.
MR: As someone who just moved several times in the last few years… I am carrying the money I just got from selling my entirely too large and too heavy record collection and walking straight to the chiropractor.
Listen:
Winged Wheel | Desert So Green (2026)
Right-click the record to listen via Bandcamp.
Desert so Green is out now via 12XU. You can grab your copy here.
Good morning! Need an antidote for the algorithms? Looking for a place to share the music you love with like-minded people? You’re in the right spot.
For those of you who are new, we kick off every week by sharing what we’ve been playing, and the playlist below is some of what’s been in heavy rotation for me.
As always, thank you to those who have recently upgraded their subscriptions. Your direct support fuels this community and makes a positive impact. Shares and reposts also help!
When you’re ready, joining them is easy. Just click here:
I hope this finds you well is the ultimate cliché when it comes to openers. But no, really—how are you? How are you holding up? Life’s never easy. But 2026 has been an 12-day pressure test. It seems weird to put out playlists and write about records in a time like this, but also completely normal. One of the foundations of this nation has always been that tomorrow will be better. That aspiration found its way into every corner of life here. It’s hard to see that as an ongoing concern—and, anecdotally, a bit bewildering to realize that life goes on. I had that revelation driving home after dropping our car off at the shop. Oil changes and interval checks? Now?! Apparently so. More importantly, as bad as things are, nothing is a foregone conclusion. There is still so much we can do.
There’s zero historical context for any of the last couple of weeks, but we’ve always leaned into music when things get sketchy. Indeed, this nation’s entire history has been soundtracked; from fifes and drums during the Revolutionary War to Woody Guthrie, to RATM during the Bush Sr. era, and on to today. It also serves as both a respite and fuels resolve. It’s always seemed like anything’s possible when you’ve got something good playing.
This week, Dan Epstein touched on that using Curtis Mayfield as an example, highlighting his 1971 track “Keep On Keeping On,” writing:
Curtis went to his untimely grave believing that, for all of humanity’s myriad faults and fuckups and self-inflicted tragedies, we still have the potential to get our collective shit together. He also knew that no one was coming to save us, and that we’d have to do it ourselves and within our own communities before we could bring about any lasting and meaningful changes at the national or global level. But he damn well believed that it was still possible.
I do too, Curtis. Even after this past week.
Same here. I went with “Move On Up,” a track that to my ear feels both impossibly sunny and makes one feel like at the sky’s the limit. Besides Curtis, we’ve got some brand new blistering hot sounds from up here in Madison, a bit of shoegaze from the Second City (at least Bears fans have a little something to celebrate?), and the usual dose of sonic comfort food. There’s also a couple of Grateful Dead tracks in the mix. RIP Bob Weir.
And for anyone that feels helpless right now and wonders what they can do, there are plenty of options for every ability and every level of risk tolerance. The only non-starter is doing nothing.
KA—
P.S. A few of you have asked if I sequence these as if they’re an album or mixtape. The answer is always “yes.” In my head, I imagine them being played on your morning commute or road trip. I’m too old to use the word “vibes” as much as I have lately, but, well, if the shoe fits…
This week, side A is tracks 1-12, with Side B being 13-27.
P.P.S What song defined 2025 for you?Tell me about it here. Thank you to everyone who has responded so far. Please keep ‘em comin’!
Kevin Sent 
Leave a comment