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.
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?
Some thoughts on The Grateful Dead, grateful Ducks, and one’s shifting musical tastes.
If you want to know what my dad was like, imaginethe Halt and Catch Fire cast member of your choosing towards the end of the series (okay, maybe not Boz). Clean cut. Rarely without a suit and (at one point) a pair of matching Audis in the driveway.
If you want to imagine what my uncle is like, picture the opposite. He was—and is—the prototypical Deadhead. Followed them on the road, had a VW bus, and even made a living designing/selling T-shirts.
If you want an idea of how obnoxious I could be in the mid-90s, just know that I had a “Thank You, Journey” sticker on my car. These, of course, were in response to the legions of “Thank You, Jerry” stickers that everyone had following Jerry Garcia’s death. That marked the end of an era for many people, but I honestly couldn’t be bothered. Sure, I understood the cultural ramifications, but this was a band I only knew of from afar… and from punchlines. It wasn’t for me… yet.
That we lost Bob Weir this week won’t be news to anyone here. I noted a few days ago that it was frankly refreshing to see my TL flooded with remembrances from all corners. I don’t know what it says about 2026 that mourning was a nice change, but here we are.
A lot of people also shared their experiences of the Dead, and of Weir. Almost without exception, those people have more ground to talk than I do. Nevertheless. Here’s a great example. Here’s another. And one more for good measure.
For most of my life, the Dead were a band I experienced secondhand. My uncle playing them in the hopes that this might finally be the time they land with me at home. Friends playing them as we all crammed into someone’s VW and made our way to the coast or Mt. Hood. Grainy Super 8 footage on TV shows. Once, when I was about 10, I tagged along on one of my dad’s business trips. On a rural highway somewhere on the Atlantic seaboard, we passed a car, and he nodded his head toward it, deadpanning, “Those’re Dead Heads.” Strange the way that sort of thing sticks with you. But yeah, not a lot of story to stick to the ribs here.
The next step was part of the glorious rite of passage for most Gen X kids—Columbia House. And one of those 12 free was ’87’s In the Dark. “Touch of Grey?” An all-timer. “Hell in a Bucket?” Not bad! “West L.A. Fadeaway,” same. You’d have never gotten me to admit it back then, but that slinky groove was fantastic. The rest I couldn’t describe if my life depended on it.
Within a year or two, my divorce from pop radio was finalized, and I cannonballed into the world of college radio. The Grateful Dead? Are you kidding me? Hard pass. Even if I was into ’em on principle, their brand of blues and Americana wasn’t in my wheelhouse…Yet. It was a nonstarter. The whole thing just seemed like a caricature. When I would see flashes of normalcy—Weir wearing Vaurnets or drummer Bill Kreutzmann wearing a sports jersey—these felt more like cracks in the fourth wall than anything else. If you want an idea of how my brain works, that last sentence is a good indicator.
It didn’t help that my high school was divided by sonic tribal identity, with very little crossover. Oil and water for sure. There were the occasional exceptions—turns out the possibility of getting high works great as an emulsifier—but by and large those red lines held. People super into the Dead were not the same people I was seeing at hardcore shows.
Flash forward a few years, and I find myself listening… and it’s not terrible? I never got to see the band play live, but they sure sound good at full blast as you’re barreling across the Mojave Desert, that much I can tell you. Maybe that’s all it took, but I was in. I can’t claim any sort of Deadhead status (or whatever). The best I can claim is a sort of fellow traveler status, and that’s probably good enough.
The records all grew on me. Distilled down, a lot of them work great as pop songs. I don’t mean that as a “hot take,” but it’s hard to ignore when viewed through a structural lens. Chris’s point above is well taken (and I love the typo- was it intentional? The internet never tells). They don’t ramble off into Neverland. There’s no 15-minute walkabouts—those were saved for the stadiums. Speaking of which, in my world, the live shows went from fodder for inside jokes between friends to half-serious conversations about the pros/cons of various shows.
When we’d get a loaner car with Sirius, I’d find myself turning the dial to channel 23 more often than not. Eighteen-year-old me wouldn’t have recognized that sentence. At all.
In 2026, we’re longing for community and IRL experiences. Dead Heads have been doing that for decades. No blue screens, and the only “content” being created was via a tape recorder.
Last October, I got to go home and see my beloved Oregon Ducks play. I was excited to see my family and be back in Autzen (it never rains there, you see). The promo tie-in was Dead-themed. Anytime I go home, it’s good for 10 points off my blood pressure, but being in the stands with my kids and family made it even more so. As they played various tracks, I thought, “This rules.” That’s absolutely something 18-year-old me would’ve recognized.
As “Althea” rang out, somebody mentioned it being their favorite, and I thought about what mine might be. “Althea’s” there, I ‘spose. “Friend of the Devil,” too. My lunchbox has a Shakedown Man sticker. “Touch of Grey” makes a good case. I know that’ll raise some hackles. “West L.A. Fadeaway” as well. No deep-cut picks this time—I still don’t know any.
Speaking of the team, I was wearing my “Grateful Ducks” sweatshirt when their season came to an inglorious end last Friday. My usual lucky shirt, too. But even that wasn’t enough to stop the mighty IU. I wonder what the Dead think of such things? Maybe at this point there’s nothing left to do but smile, smile, smile.
The next day on Bluesky, someone mentioned hearing the band during the Rams game, and that was how they learned of Weir’s passing. Reading their post was how I learned. The song? “West L.A. Fadeaway,” of course…
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.
Some thoughts on community, curation, and why indie writing matters more than ever
My dad’s last job was in what we would today call “IT.” For a while, he was on the hardware side, and our garage was full of boxes from long-lost brands like Leading Edge. While on the software side, we got to see games that today seem primitive, but back then seemed revolutionary.
LOGO? Sure, laugh now, but man, that turtle was f’ing something. Ditto the original Oregon Trail game—who knew dying of dysentery could be fun? For a minute, we had an Apple IIe. This also coincided exactly with how long I was cool at school. I’m sure it was a coincidence. His final project before he passed was a program that pulled together your frequent flier miles, applied each airline’s award rules, and showed how close you were to any given redemption—so you could book your next trip with whatever carrier made the most sense. Today, we’d call that an app, and probably one you’d learn to build in a 200-level class.
That idea—aggregating value across fragmented systems so people can make better choices—has stayed with me. Because in a small, non-technical way, that’s what this project is trying to do too.
It’s a miracle, this internet. For as much as words like doomscrolling and digital decay have now become regular parts of the discourse, nothing else has done more to slip the surly bonds of geography and let people find one another around shared interests, values, and obsessions. Yes, it’s often weaponized, but it’s just as frequently used as a force for good—whether that’s organizing pro-democracy rallies or yapping about records. All of it would look like science fiction to people just a few short years ago.
This time of year is flooded with lookbacks and lists, but if you’ll indulge me for a second, I wanted to take one last glance before we start looking ahead this Saturday.
This community continues to grow in new and exciting ways. Its success is due to readers like you. Thank you for making it what it is. Thank you for sharing it on social media and with your friends and family. If you’re sharing it with your enemies, well, thanks for that, too.
Whether you’ve been here since Day 1, just recently showed up, or this is the first post of mine you’ve ever read, I’m glad you’re here. And if you’re up at 7 AM on New Year’s Day? More power to you!
Some red meat for the data wonks:
Because of your recommendations, On Repeat Records is read in 48 states (2024 resolution: get North Dakota and Wyoming on board; 2025 resolution: try again; 2026: third time’s a charm?!) and 71 countries worldwide. There are a lot more of us here than there were a year ago at this time, but the vibe still seems to be “the coolest dinner party you’ve ever been to.” One 2026 goal: keep that goin’. These missives land in inboxes as close as literally just down the block and as far away as New Zealand. That never ceases to amaze me and is incredibly humbling.
The numbers are interesting and prove there is an appetite for sharing the music we love with people, subverting algorithms, and supporting indie music journalism. Metrics are fun to discuss, but wouldn’t mean much without engagement.
The conversations—especially the ones in the comment sections that go far off into the weeds—are a highlight of every week. Same with the stories you share directly with me. I appreciate the feedback and love hearing the role certain records have played in your life. I read every one and try to respond as quickly as possible. That door is always open. Please use it.
This was also the year that I finally got hit with a few “stick to music” responses and performative unsubscribes. So be it. It’s a reminder that there are people on both sides of the glass. Most folks are here for hot takes on cool records, but once in a while, there will be a wildcard essay from a middle-aged guy trying to make sense of the world around him (spoiler: that guy is me).
Rather than list everything month by month, here are a few moments that felt representative of the year:
We took a rocket into space and got a chance to chat with Gelli Haha, among others.
Cool people doing cool shit? Yes please! This place is bursting with incredible talent. And I’m 110% here for it. This list barely scratches the surface. We’ll be doubling down on that in ’26.
Through it all, the throughline was community.
We don’t do ads or sponsored content here. There is no media team or marketing, either. It’s just Gizmo and me spreading the word about good records (and warning you away from bad ones).
That only works because of reader support. Paid supporters have full access to the entire archive, but more importantly, that revenue is the jet fuel that keeps this project in the air. Your support, shares, and recommendations all make an immediate, positive impact and keep this place independent.
I also want to again thank every guest writer, collaborator, and co-conspirator from the past year. If you recognize yourself in that sentence, thank you for trusting me with your work. And to the few of you I got to meet in real life, know that those moments were genuine high points of the year. More of that in ’26, please!
We’ve talked about a lot of records and covered a lot of ground. I hope you’ve found a new favorite or two, and a new favorite spot on the internet. Life’s better with records in it and people to share ’em with.
2025 was a meaningful year for On Repeat Records, and 2026 is already looking bright. Thanks for being a part of it.
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.
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!
Kevin Sent 
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