Tag: Playlists

Discussion: What’re You Listening To?

by KevinLeave a Comment on Discussion: What’re You Listening To?

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.

Other sources: Apple | Qobuz | YouTube Music |

Now it’s your turn.

Any new releases or shows you’re looking forward to? Whatcha got? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Leave a comment

‘Singin’ to an Empty Chair’ | A Quick Look at the New Record From Ratboys

by KevinLeave a Comment on ‘Singin’ to an Empty Chair’ | A Quick Look at the New Record From Ratboys

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.

Listen via Bandcamp

As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts on the record! Did I get it right, or am I way off the mark?

Thanks for being here,

KA—

Discussion: What’re You Listening To?

by KevinLeave a Comment on Discussion: What’re You Listening To?

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:

Subscribe now

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

Other sources: Apple | Qobuz | YouTube Music|
Note: Qobuz is missing a couple this week.

Now it’s your turn.

Any new releases or shows you’re looking forward to? Whatcha got? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Discussion: What’re You Listening To?

by KevinLeave a Comment on Discussion: What’re You Listening To?

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

On to the music…

Other sources: Apple | Qobuz | YouTube Music |

Note: YT and Qobuz are both missing a couple of tracks this week. Now it’s your turn.

Any new releases or shows you’re looking forward to? Whatcha got? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Leave a comment

Discussion: What’re You Listening To?

by KevinLeave a Comment on Discussion: What’re You Listening To?

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.

KA—

On to the music…

Other sources: Qobuz | YouTube Music | Apple Music

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 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

Discussion: What’re You Listening To?

by KevinLeave a Comment on Discussion: What’re You Listening To?

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.

On to the music…

KA–

Other sources: Qobuz | YouTube Music | Apple Music

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’!

Leave a comment

Discussion: What’re You Listening To?

by KevinLeave a Comment on Discussion: What’re You Listening To?

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’!

On to the music…

Other sources: Qobuz | YouTube Music | Apple Music

Now it’s your turn.

Any new releases or shows you’re looking forward to? Whatcha got? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Leave a comment

Discussion: What’re You Listening To?

by KevinLeave a Comment on Discussion: What’re You Listening To?

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’ve mentioned it before, but before my knee decided to commit harakiri (0/10, do not recommend), I played pickup soccer every week at a local gym. Every January, the parking lot would get exponentially more crowded for a few weeks as the “new year, new me” crowd resolved to “do something,” only to lose faith, interest, whatever, a few weeks later. It went on long enough that we started betting informally on the over/under for how long it would take to get a good parking spot again. And to reiterate, we never bet on anyone specific—they could’ve easily been one of us (and occasionally were).

All of this is a long way around to say that there won’t be a sonic version of “new year, new me” here; I like what I like and am a creature of habit (exhibit A: track 10). But one of my habits is finding new music, so there’s that (exhibit B: tracks 21–22). I enjoyed Miki Berenyi’s Tripla but hadn’t really done a close listen since I reviewed it. I checked it out again and found a new appreciation for it.

This week, there are a few other faves from 2025 back in the mix. What’s the over/under on when AOTY season ends? A few new-to-me records are here, and of course a bunch of old favorites. My world looked like Hoth for a minute, and going back to/through those records is my version of hygge. We went out for an early dinner on NYE, and tracks 8–11 were heard at our fave pizza place (resolution: go there more). And we were overdue for a two-for from Trent Reznor & co.

Turnstile is a band that seemingly on everyone’s list except mine. Did I miss the boat? Sure looks like it. Might be one of those records I left on the table. I’ll resolve to find out…

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 1-13, with Side B being 14-28.

On to the music…

Other sources: Qobuz | YouTube Music | Apple Music

Now it’s your turn.

Any new releases or shows you’re looking forward to?

What song defined 2025 for you? Tell me about it here.

Whatcha got? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Leave a comment

Discussion: What’re You Listening To?

by KevinLeave a Comment on Discussion: What’re You Listening To?

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:

Welcome to dead week, everyone! The liminal space where nothing really happens unless you’re in the resolution business, in which case it’s peak season. Maybe you have 1–2? I don’t, other than the boringly boilerplate ones like “eat better,” and “listen to more records.” The smart money says I’ll go 1-for-2. You can probably guess which is which. Later this week we’ll take a look both back at the decade that was 2025, and forward to 2026. In the meantime, here’s some tracks that have been in heavy rotation here at the house. Hopefully these’ll sound good on the trail or treadmill.

I was having a discussion with a friend about bands that often get lost in the discussion when talking about any given scene, and that led me down a Cabaret Voltaire rabbit hole (yes, they’re from Sheffield, yes I’m counting it as Manchester). There was also a lot of album playing over the last few days, and that’s reflected in some deeper cuts throughout the list. I feel like I missed the boat on J Brekkie this year. For Melancholy Brunettes (& Sad Women) never really landed with me, yet every time I hear a track off the record, it’s my new favorite. Guess that’s how it goes sometimes.

“Monie in the Middle” might stick out here, but is one that pops into my head every now and again and stays for a few days. The Big Audio Dynamite and Let’s Active tracks are old favorites from new (to me) records picked up last week at a benefit event for our local LW FM station, WVMO. “Stimulation” is an older track from a new (to me) band, Preoccupations. Tbh, I think they would’ve fit right in on a bill with some of the Manchester bands of old.

We spent a lot of time with Kitchens of Distinction as part of the “Best Record of 1989” bracket challenge. This one’s from ‘91, and the next bracket is for ‘01, which is a bit of a blind spot for me. Maybe that should be my resolution? We can workshop it. In the meantime, Milwaukee’s represented here with Collections of Colonies of Bees. Spotlighting more Wisco bands is definitely on order for the new year, as is finding more new-to-me stuff like Air Miami.

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 1-16, with Side B being 17-27.

On to the music…

Other sources: Qobuz | YouTube Music | Apple Music (Note: Qobuz & YT Music are both missing a couple).

Now it’s your turn.

What caught your ear this week? Any new releases or tickets to shows for Christmas/Hanukkah/ Boxing Day? Do you make any end-of-year lists or resolutions? If so, please share below!

Whatcha got? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Leave a comment