Music for 9/2/26!!! Steve Lacy, Kate Bollinger

@@@ Steve Lacy: Oh Yeah? (RCA, 2026). This musician’s name is bouncing around with the release of his latest record a few weeks ago, I caught it on an All Music notable release email. I think the opening track opens the album in an interesting way — it sports a gray area beat, a little funky and a little rocky, a bit of buzzy bass it’s a marketer’s wet dream spanning a larger audience than usual. The second tune, is it cool? switches gear with Lacy to moving in the MC direction and a guest appearance from SZA though after the intro he brings in more of the indie feels that are part of the opening tune. I’m digging in on the third tune and I can see how the major label would lick their lips over this musical formula there’s a thinly veiled pop sensibility embedded beneath the indie feels and the funk-ish sounds, it’s a pretty conservative formula rigid and seeking approval, and pandering to boot. It’s interesting that the Apple Music blurb says he’s a new age guitar god melding genres, and I get the melding genres (not the part where he says he’s making a unified statement of desire that’s horseshit.) but I don’t hear any interesting guitar here, it’s pretty boy vocals that really leap out here. Oh string flourishes at the back end of this tune, some pretty boys are bad juju from what I’ve heard.

@@@ Kate Bollinger: Shop Girl (Ghostly Intl, 2026). A prerelease tune I got to via the KCRW 5 songs of the week. I’m not really even sure what this tune is supposed to be, it sounds more like a Broadway tune than any sort of indie tune, it’s a little 80s, it’s a bit Barry Manilow, I don’t really know what’s going on here. I reread the KCRW blurb and it’s supposed to be a tune from an imagined musical. Oy, bad choice on my part, I hate musicals ah well.

Music for 8/31/26!!! Boyg1rl and Novagang, Tara Clerkin Trio

@@@ Boyg1rl and Novagang: Exit 2B (Decent/Surfgang, 2026). This collab between two dancefloor musicians is up on Pitchfork’s best of 2026 thus far list. The opener is more than a bit disorienting but I dig the chopped and wild nature of it. If you thought that somebody couldn’t take drum ‘n bass -ish beats and then crank up another coupla notches you would be wrong wrong wrong. The question here is not whether this is too over the top the question is whether the over the top-ness means anything or is it just a ramped shit biscuit that people are latching onto. Some of these bass sounds are insane just bellowing through my small desktop monitor woofers and I know that thus is undoubtedly dancefloor music that is supposed to be in your face but these two vocalists are giving me a headache right now. I might feel differently at a different point time but despite a good blenderized tune as much as the next guy this is almost fully untethered and I don’t know what the word for it is.

@@@ Tara Clerkin Trio: Somewhere Good (World of Echo, 2026) This is off a month by month best of month list by Pitchfork and it’s blurbed as a mash of genres — dub, jazz, world, some other business. This first tune Lake Walk is a piano driven jazz-ish thing and it’s got not a penny whistle but a woodwind of some type swirling around the piano. The groove comes out in the second track, and it’s not really my kind of groove, this is a non sweaty groove with New Age bits to it, and everything gonna be all right. I’m a card carrying lifelong white person but this is white people brunch shit, I can’t get with this. Nobody gonna get challenged, nobody gonna get sweaty, nobody gonna feel uncomfortable, and I’m for all those things. Unfortunate. My guess is that not a lot of folks who roll in the no sweat, no challenge car are not regular readers of this blog which is their loss, fuck ’em. Before I let you go for the day check out my podcast The Magic Organ, it’s super fun, lotsa genres lotsa vibes. This is like some 21st century Dave Brubeck, it’s not good for your mind.

Music for 8/31/26!!! Elanor Moss, Plum

@@@ Elanor Moss: The Knife, The Needle (Merge, 2026). I got to this folk record via this week’s Pitchfork’s 10 most reviewed albums of the week. I like that the opening track has a horn in it, oh there’s a string flourish, that’s usually a red flag for me. All these side sounds sit beside the arpeggiated guitar, her voice and no beats. I think this first tune is a bit long for my taste. I like her voice and the way it was recorded, it’s intimate without being cheesy, that’s good. I don’t know if I’m super in the mood for sad music right now, I’m much more into escapist and pissed off music but there’s a plainness to this record that I dig, this one’s for the mopers and I’m a bit surprised that it’s out on Merge as Merge puts out a lotta bouncy indie business but this is very far from that. Mopers and sad folks deserve nice records, so enjoy.

@@@ Plum: Bodies in Motion (Self-released, 2026). Art rock that I got to via PItchfork’s 10 most reviewed albums. This has some Devo stink lines, not full on but it’s square for sure but with more math to it. And not as weirdly theatrical as the big boys in Devo. This second tune opens up with some Minutemen manic guitar action, just a flash, the energy is brisk I gotta give them props for that. The record sounds great but I wish it was rougher, especially in the guitar area, some strategically deployed crunch would work better for me. And right on time to make a jerk out of me they finish the track with a brief blazing guitar solo and it immediately caught my ear. They pimped out these songs, they’re quite intricate for rock tunes, it’s a question of whether they work for you or not.

Music for 8/28/26!!! Erykah Badu

@@@ Erykah Badu: Before the World Blows (Young, 2026). Released today and looking at the guest list here it’s a cultural moment with appearances from Kamasi Washington to Thundercat to other more mainstream hip hop names. I was always a bit suspicious of Badu’s music as she was most definitely into packaging her music with a lifestyle and I’m pretty against that. This first tune is sonically pretty advanced and Ms. Badu is not exactly rapping she’s holding court on this opener. I like it, it’s got an interesting hippie/post hippie thing she’s been rocking for a long long time. I didn’t finish the opener it was 7 minutes long and I liked it but maybe not that much. The last third of the second tune is the closest the record has come to working a song structure, and it jumps out to my ears, other parts of the record feel like a lot of layers floating over r&b/hip hop beats, certainly no sort of trap sounds to be found here yet. I’m on the fourth tune Witches, and I’m feeling the sonics more than I’m feeling Ms. Badu, I prefer Jill Scott’s energy from earlier this year, more combative and out to prove something, I’ve always had a bit of a beef with the hippie feels, how do you represent when you’re so lax? It’s a big record with 16 tracks over 62 minutes and there are moments that are sonically very 21st century Hendrix-ian collage-y and really cosmic shit but the energy here is not super aimed at me.

Music for 8/27/26!!! Underscores, Babau

@@@ underscores: U (Mom and Pop, 2026) I saw this record at the top of the best of 2026 list thus far and I haven’t peeped it yet. The blurb says it’s at the intersection of genres but thus far it’s rolling as pop which it’s labelled as. I mighta heard this and forgot it. This happens, I listen to so much. However I just went to this here blog and searched on underscores and nothing came up so I’ve heard a buncha music like this. I will also say that almost every week there will be somebody marketing a record that claims to be the anti-pop pop record so there’s that. There’s a lot of energy here, it’s ramped, not methed out but plenty of glitch, big synth basses diving voices etc. I’m on the third track and I will say it’s an ambitious record technically, it’s hard put together a record like this, it’s a lotta work. That said I’m not listening and being moved, my body moving or me feeling the beat, I’m just noticing that there’s a lot to listen to and it’s raining down on me like a Marvel superhero movie, overwhelming my senses to a certain extent. Maybe not in quite the way I want to be overwhelmed. A friend of mine who reads this here blog occasionally was mentioning that it might be good for readers to get a suggestion when I’m at the end of a record of another record that might do something similar and then they can go listen to that. I do do that sometimes but today I embrace because I would rather listen to the record by Babau released earlier this year, it’s called the Sludge of the Land. It’s a similar melting pot of sounds but way more organic, less sci fi and less teched out though it’s hard to put this record together as well but for different reasons. This is an unusual combo of sounds so you have to have all these sounds go together where the underscores record is consistent in its commitment to technology, glitch and sci fi. I’ve clipped the Babau record below the underscores record, rock on!

Music for 8/26/25!!! Ella Langley, BTS

@@@ Ella Langley: Choosin’ Texas (Columbia, 2026). How does an ode to the quasi fascist state of Texas become song of the summer? Oh Lord what bizarre ass times we live in. Musical observations: there’s a Jimmy Buffett guitar melody in this badboy and the guitar work outside of the slide guitar tucked in the back is pretty mainstream. It may be hard to grok with just words but a friend of mine once told me something can mean everything and nothing at the same time. It can be true and untrue at the same time. This is just a tune but does it mean something? I think it means something, not a ton but it sure as shit shows that rightwing folks love identity politics, here they’re pushing up a pretty mindless tune about where they’re from. I think that’s just as lame as that lame ass tune ‘NY State of Mind’ by Alicia Keys and Jay Z that I’ve had to endure for decades now. The whole tune is very smooth and familiar and predictable and I think that says something about a certain part of our society.

@@@ BTS: Swim (Bright Music, 2026). Another tune listed by a random AI that might or might not be a song of the summer. Let’s peep. It opens with a breathy vocal and an arpeggiated synth and then busts out into a brisk beat with major pop sauce over the top. Exquisitely produced and smoothed there is no fuzz on this peach, that’s for sure. I find the whole K pop phenomenon fascinating, how a sizable piece of black music culture is filtered through an ancient Asian culture and then fed back to white shopping mall walkers, honestly you can’t make this shit up. The sounds are very conservative, the beat hovers between a hip hop funk beat and a white frat boy rock beat, everything here is carefully chosen and labored over.

Music for 9/25/26!!! Gi Gi, Infant

@@@ Gi Gi: In Lieu (Mood Hut, 2026). I got to this record via the best ambient music of July 2026 and the first thing I notice is that there is a lot of hip hop flavors in this opener. Some ambient feels in the breakdown section, but it’s got beats, brisk beats and he’s moving asses which I’m not sure is a core mission for ambient music. I’m on the third tune and this is really much more ambient flavored hip hop than it is hip hop flavored ambient music. Does it matter, you might wonder??? Yes and no. They are different genres that do different things and produce different vibes. If he had taken the beats down and really gotten deep into the ambient drones and atmospheres he coulda really rocked it, so it seems a bit stuck in the middle — will hip hop folks dig this? will ambient folks dig it? I don’t hate it, but it’s not moving me.

@@@ Infant: Dustlick (Blake Karlson, 2026). Also off the July 26 best ambient music from the fine folks at bandcamp or what’s left of bandcamp cuz their ownership has changed twice I think and I love bandcamp but I’ve heard part of it has been put in a wood chipper. We’re going for the twofer ambient today and It looks like we might have hit on something I can get with a dubwise ambient formula with a lot of echoes and depth. Unlike the album above the beats and the ambient space is better matched with some rhythmic components of the track getting dubbed out and ascending to the ambient sphere above the beats. I like the feeling of a spacious track that hasn’t been cheesed out, let’s hope the other bangers bang like this. This third tune, Broth, has a nice churning chit chit, metallic echo going and the track feels very finely worked and dare we say bespoke? I dare not say bespoke but it feels concious. I will circle back to this record when I have the time and the right energy to sink down into the vibes here, this third tune is a captivating banger. Check it out.

Music for 8/24/26!!! Margaret Glaspy, Black Marble

@@@ Margaret Glaspy: I am Both (Virgin, 2026) I got to this record via a couple week old All Music notable release email. This is a major label record so it sports slicked out production which can be a good thing or a bad thing because if there’s not enough fire in the tune and the arrangement then the whole thing can end up being a bagel brunch record for folks with good paying jobs, that’s about 42 people now from what I read in the papers. This first tune, Michigan, is a long feeling 5 minute banger, not a great sign. I skipped ahead, I had had enough. Track 2, Reminder, opens with some plain talking and some acoustic guitar strumming. It’s a self help anthem where she’s talking to herself, I like some of the lines, and some of them I don’t like at all. She’s just starting to get a bit breathy, and I would like remind folks that there’s a thin line between honest confession and self indulgence and where an artist crosses that line lyrically well that ain’t never gonna get settled. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what music means and if some artists try too hard to mean too much, to pack their music and lyrics with ‘meaning’ and maybe just maybe that can be very counterproductive. That’s what I’m feeling here, it’s just too meaningful for me, I would prefer less meaning.

@@@ Black Marble: Life in Small Spaces (Sacred Bones, 2026). I’m giving a quick peep to this record after seeing the front man taking about how artists can build sustainable careers in the music industry and he seemed in touch with reality. This outfit is from Brooklyn and they offer up a spirited ramped up version of 1980’s sounding rock, not my favorite era but hey people dig it so there’s that. If you crunched up the guitar and took the chorus out and took that ’80s sound off the snare well then it would be different and I might like it more but I say stick with where you’re at and get on with it. So while I respect these guys for the effort to build a ‘career’ in music (which given how things are going in this country it seems kinda impossible to do out into the medium term future) this isn’t really my kind of music. I only peeped the first three tunes and I like the third track the most.

Music for 8/23/26!!! 730turk

@@@ 730turk: Trapculinary vol. 2 (the recipe) (730Ent, 2026) I got to this rap record via this week’s Pitchfork’s 10 most reviewed albums of the week. There is stripper pole rap and there’s drug dealing rap, and there’s left field hip hop, and this looks set to be a retro leaning party drug dealing rap record. The first tune, the recipe, is brisk with multiple voices and the lead MC Mr. 730turk or Mr. Turk has a unique tone to his voice, low and gravelly maybe he’s a smoker), and he’s got a Flavor Flav type sidekick popping off next to him. This second tune, richest rapper, is another brisk banger a little less buys than the opener, and while I’m agnostic on the drug dealing records this MC has energy and brings it. The contrast between co-MC and the lead MC really makes the tunes stand out. I think the first few tracks are super hot and it sllightly fades, not a ton cuz of that interplay energy but to be honest a full record of drugs and hoes is about as much fun as a Wilco triple record, it ain’t in the works. All the tunes here are pretty short, sub 3 minutes shots which I think is good, hit it and move it to the next one. It’s only 36 minutes but I’m tipping out at track 7 fish grease.

Music for 8/21/26!!! L’Rain, Kiwi Jr.

@@@ L’Rain: fata morgana (Mexican Summer, 2026). A psychedelic indie effort by a Brooklyn woman Taja Cheek that I got to via the Line of Best fit. The opener is not psych, it’s a piano driven off kilter tune, I like it all right. Maybe folks don’t understand that a lot of reverb and space in a tune doesn’t make it psychedelic, it can be a component but psych is wilder than this so red flag throw the penalty flag cuz it’s misleading. I give this two more tunes, but I’m not feeling excited don’t make an art school slow thing and tell me it’s psych, you think I don’t know what psych sounds like, this is drama indie. Okay I’m gonna tip on this record, it’s boring, no offense to the woman who made it but it’s too slow and there’s no passion here, it’s a big downer.

@@@ Kiwi Jr.: Blowin’ Up (K Records, 2026). Off an Allmusic notable release email from a week of two ago. It comes right out of the gate retro jangle rock, stable dude in front, nothing says white boy like a jangly guitar and a Lou Reed flavored voice. He’s got more pep than Lou Reed. The second tune cranks the drums up a whole bunch and it’s the title track and having the drummer up high certainly cranks the energy super fast, excellent move. Oh shit, they went into a big stomp box section of grizzy ass guitar so points for that, these boys are looking to compete for attention, ain’t nothing like some unexpected sounds and changes to grab your ear holes. Ah, more confusion as they keep the distortion box on in the third tune so maybe it’s not a jangle rock record, Lord you gotta remember them first impressions. This record proves the eternal appeal of energy, if you’re making a record and even if your formula is pretty familiar but you bring the energy, well then you can get some fans. That’s the case here, I was bored by the predictability of the opening track and then they took it up a few notches and I can respect it.