YTD recordings listened to: 509
Good music, not recommended for purchase: 295
Not good music: 174
Honorable Mentions: 14
Buys: 9
Possibles: Chris McGregor, Alvin Youngblood Hart, Dave Arner Trio, Bill Horist, MAKU Soundsystem, Zomby, Retox, About Group, Jessie Mae Hemphill, Bone Dance, Defeater, Jonwayne, Okkyung Lee, The Ballantynes, Debruit, Slidhr, The Whammies, The Chewers, Alexander Hawkins, Toxic Holocaust, Equal Stones, Comeback Kid, Susie Iberra/Roberto Rodriguez, Lenguas Largas, The Coral, Spacesuits, T.O.M.B., Fofoulah, Lozen, Erase Errata, Mohamed Abozekry, Dawn Richard, Leo Welch, Astral Swans, Mastery, Leviathan, Xibalba, Hartley C. White, Weed, Cold Water, Ellen Jewell, Akitsa, Chico Trujillo, Richard Thompson, Royce Wood Junior
@@@ Highly Suspect: Mom (300 Entertainment, 2015). Some purdy mainstream 3/4 heavy post-grunge. Duder’s voice is grungy, the drums are immaculate and arena-y and the guitars are more ZZ Top than Alice in Chains. The lyrics are a bit strange, he’s talking to his mom and rockin’ it. He doesn’t seem sad about her he seems kinda manly about it, I don’t really know what’s going on.
@@@ Royce Wood Junior: The Ashen Tang (PIAS, 2015). Both this record and the previous single come via the Beats highlights page. Mr. Junior sounds a bunch like Prince but his r&b is more updated with a notable absence of guitar and synthier sound with some club influence. He’s got a really nice voice and I really like this second tune, Midnight. The Prince influence does not fade, but he’s not copying and I think I’m going to have to swing back and check out this record more closely. He’s got a very fluid voice with an odd rhythmic flow that’s very unusual and interesting and his music is pretty frickin’ funky.
@@@ Linden: Rest and Be Thankful (Slumberland, 2015) Off last week’s All Music weekly email. Horn section, the vocalist sounds like the duder from Squeeze and there’s a blue eyed soul tinge to the the first tune. It’s pretty poppy but the high quality vocal melodies keep it from collapsing into Cheese Valley. This could be for you Cubicle Dwellers out there — not too heavy, not too complicated, but not completely mindless.
@@@ Nozinja: Nozinja Lodge (Warp, 2015) Some African electronica off the WRIR weekly playlist email. Obviously funkier than 99% of the indie electronic going on here in the USA, these guys brings some sweet vocal arrangements over African inflected drum machine patterns. The arrangements are not as out there as some African electronica I’ve heard but it could be good for some Americans who’ve been rotting their brains on indie electronic.
Deep In the Music 