Playlist – June 2022

As I write (most of) this on July 4, I look at the world on fire with another senseless massacre of a young black man in Akron, multiple recent assaults on rights trying to drive us back to the stone age, and the recurring drumbeat of mass shootings – and the ever-present awareness that people of color, women, and people without a financial safety net always suffer first and worse. I’m donating to abortion funds, trying to donate to vulnerable senate races, and grappling for more direct action I can be of help with. 

So, I know putting together playlists and sending them out on the air is even less important than usual. But I also remind myself that staying in touch with art and people does matter and joy is important. The two best things listening with an ear for things that spark this and compiling/ordering it into a list give me are the feedback and spirited discussions from the handful who read this and the part it plays in my gratitude practice. Thank you to anyone who reads this. 

https://tidal.com/browse/playlist/8d9f9df7-01c1-4a7a-9020-65568ad4f0f3

• Scrunchies, “Parallel” – The single thing I was saddest to miss in 2020 was Dirtnap Records’ 20^th anniversary in Madison, so when they rescheduled for June of 2022, even though it meant we were out of town for the third weekend in a row, and flights were insanely expensive, we had to do it. And it delivered in spades. Among crushing sets from the first band that put the label on my radar (River City Tanlines), warm reunions (Boris The Sprinkler off-shoot TBAs, Sugar Stems, Marked Men), the set that reverberated hardest in my bones and reminded me why I stand in a cramped room and vibrate as a main part of my cultural life was by the Minneapolis trio Scrunchies, promoting one of my favorite albums of the year so far, Feral Beach. The pulsating, supple rhythm section of Matt Castore on bass and Danielle Cusack on drums and vocals set up shifting, surging settings for Laura Larson’s flamethrowing buzzsaw guitar and emphatic lead vocals. These songs are packed with surprises and landmines but never get so far away from a primal groove that they lose touch with that physicality that makes it rock and roll. 
• Golomb, “Unexpected Negative Force” – Golomb are the young Columbus band that gives me the most hope and the most joy, spinning our storied indie rock history into something that feels fresh and of the moment. Xenia Bleveans Holm’s sticky bass and her brother Hawken Holm’s crisp drums create a sense of suspense and intrigue and her intertwined vocals with Mickey Shuman, alongside Shuman’s crackling jangle of guitar make their debut full-length one of the most exciting records to come out of Columbus in a few years and it sets the bar high for things to come. 
• !!! Featuring Meah Pace, “Man on The Moon” – I got into !!! based on friends of mine DJing their early records but I came back to them noticing one of my favorite contemporary soul singers Meah Pace is working with them regularly. This cover of a favorite late REM song trades the original laconic wistfulness for a slick disco sway, the lines delivered like a streetcorner salesman from vocalist Nic Offer and with Pace’s inimitable scorching vocal putting the chorus over and reframing the existential question at its heart. 
• John Paul Keith, “Baby We’re a Bad Idea” – Those of us lucky enough to subscribe to Memphis singer-songwriter John Paul Keith’s Bandcamp have been treated to a plethora of stellar live records showcasing the breadth of formats he works in and how well his songs hold up in each. Rhythm Of The City was a breakthrough of sorts, and I treasured seeing – at Anne’s urging, just like Anne got me into his work in the first place – him on Beale Street with a full horn section before that record came out. Finally, we’re blessed with a gorgeous document of that heftier band with A World Like That: Live at the B-Side, and this sizzling recasting of an older track from still my favorite of his studio albums, Memphis Circa 3 a.m., is a perfect snapshot of that band at the height of their powers, with the cooking rhythm section of Danny Banks on drums and Matt Wilson on bass, and righteous bring-the-house-down solos from Pat Fusco on organ and Art Edmaiston on tenor, along with Keith’s own barbed guitar.  
• Chastity Brown, “Loving the Questions” – Somehow Chastity Brown hadn’t hit my radar until this year, even though she toured with a number of my all-time favorite singer-songwriters. Her Sing to the Walls is a damn masterpiece, in a year that’s given me a lot of killer soul records by writer-singers I knew and those I didn’t, this might be the best of the lot. This song is a potent embrace of ambiguity and trying to find peace with yourself and your partners, trying to hold space for some of that peace for others. 
• Angel Olsen, “This is How it Works” – Big Time took a while to grow on me, I missed the rhythmic intensity and sense of surprise in the arrangements of the work that originally made me a fan. But once I got over those preconceptions and came to it on its own terms, I realized it has some of the most beautiful songs she’s ever written, and this is probably my favorite at the moment. A sun-soaked aching ballad with the flowing rhythm section of Emily Elhaj on bass and Jonathan Wilson on drums, with her voice flowing over and through vintage organ swells from Drew Erickson and I don’t see a credit for pedal steel so I’m guessing that’s Spencer Cullum’s additional guitar. “I know you can’t talk long but I’m barely hanging on. I’m so tired of saying I’m tired; it’s a hard time again.” 
• S.G. Goodman, “Keeper Of The Time” – SG Goodman’s second album Teeth Marks is a potent reminder of what I love about storytelling songs. I had to put away my usual three different things at the same time and just listen intently and it still has that same pull and that same sense of mystery. Tight close-up production from Goodman herself grounds every nuance of her voice and lyrics, her guitar weaving with Matthew Rowan’s and the gradual build, like a devastating sunset, of the rhythm section of S. Knox Montgomery and Nick Harley on this track, exemplifies what keeps me coming back to this magical album.  
• Mary Gauthier, “Till I See You Again” – Mary Gauthier is an inspiration in careful writing – not a word or note ever feels out of place. And Dark Enough to See the Stars is a high-water mark in a career full of them and this subtle blessing that closes the record got under my skin when I first heard it; it hasn’t left yet. I find myself reaching for these words and that tune over and over, especially as I found out an old friend who I hadn’t been in much touch with for the last few years passed away. “May you lay down your struggle beneath a silver sky. May the summer rain inside your dreams sing a lullaby. May there be no more struggle, no more pain, may you sleep inside the stillness of the night till I see you again.” 
• Ralph White, “Feral Chile” – I was a huge fan of the Austin trio Bad Livers, one of the core bands that opened my perceptions of the potential of American roots music, but while I’ve stayed pretty caught up on what Danny Barnes is up to, I didn’t keep as much track of Ralph White. The negative part of me says I was being an idiot, but the half-full-glass side is absolutely fucking delighted by this record that felt like a great gift from nowhere, produced by old friend and Columbus expat Jerry David DeCicca, It’s More In My Body Than In My Mind. “Feral Chile” is a fascinating example but there isn’t a track I don’t love on this mysterious record, every song feels like a massive but delicate sculpture, born out of a specific mind but built to coexist with the world around it. 
• Chip Kinman, “San Francisco Fog 1977” – On the same category of surprise because I’d fallen out of touch with the new work from an old favorite of mine, seeing Chip Kinman from The Dils and Rank and File had a new record out on In The Red, visions of hard-edged soulful rocking filled my head, and that thought balloon went poof as soon as I actually played The Great Confrontation. Beautiful, expansive, synthesizer explorations like this one, that put me in mind of Michael Mann soundtrack explorations, greeted me instead and it didn’t take me long to fall hard for the record. 
• Sharon Van Etten, “Come Back” – I still remember the first time I saw Sharon Van Etten, accompanied only by her electric guitar, at a CMJ showcase in the middle of the afternoon a few months after her first record Because I Was in Love came out. Thirteen years later, her work still has a magnetic pull on me; as soon as there’s a new record, I must hear it. We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong is another masterful set of songs with panoramic arrangements that know exactly when to zoom in for a close-up. The swooping, soaring melody on “Come Back” with haunting, enveloping drums by Jorge Balbi and Jay Bellerose and Devin Hoff’s bass like a forest fire in the distance, makes me want to throw my fists in the air and call an old friend, maybe at the same time. “Turning into the fear – never, something was here. Turning over my mind; jumping on tenuous time. Come back, come back. Moments of faith turning out late. Come back.” 
• Party Dozen, “The Worker” – This Australian two-piece of Kirsty Tickle on sax and Jonathan Boulet on percussion reminds me of the sense of freedom and ecstasy I got seeing my first free jazz and noise shows in my late teens/early 20s but with a completely unique voice and lens on the world. It’s a dance party and a call to introspection, a knocking back into your body, and a reminder of how much better we are when we’re connected. 
• Horsegirl, “Beautiful Song” – Drummer and pal Steve Kirsch turned me onto Horsegirl and since hearing the advance singles they’ve been the band I mention when someone asks what’s coming to town. Versions of Modern Performance has everything I’m looking for in a rock band. The glimmering, shattered-glass-mosaic guitars and vocals of Nora Cheng and Penelope Lowenstein ride coruscating waves of Gigi Reece’s drumming. 
• Dirty Fences, “Afterworld” – I’m pretty sure I got turned onto New York’s Dirty Fences through Gonerfest, and that love was cemented when they came through Columbus for the much-lamented Sick Weekend. Their poppier strains of KISS-style ‘70s rock get polished a little more here, in a lot of ways it reminds me of Gaunt’s last record Bricks and Blackouts which I love despite it not being well regarded around town, but I can’t get the hook of this tune out of my head and I suspect it’ll be a monster live. “Is it all right if I come back home tonight? Is it okay? Stay away; call me in the afterworld.” 
• Drive-By Truckers, “Welcome 2 Club XIII” – DBT continue their excellent streak with a record more about turning inward and sorting through your personal past, recent and distant. This sardonic and jubilant title track, looking back at the one rock club that existed in Florence, Alabama, when Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley were growing up, is the kind of greasy, fun stomp they don’t write a lot of. On an album full of songs that grabbed me by the back of the neck and brought good and bad memories to the surface – “Shake and Pine”, “We Will Never Wake You Up In The Morning”, “Wilder Days” – I kept gravitating back to this one. “Welcome to Club XIII, we’ll be back same time next year, to play you all our pretty songs till they drag us out of here. “ 
• Courting, “Tennis” – This Liverpool-based quartet make a strength of their youth, wearing their influences on their sleeve – Parquet Courts, LCD Soundsystem, Franz Ferdinand – and leaning into them with the kind of powerful earnestness I’d expect to annoy me but I’m buying into, sucked in by Sean Murphy-O’Neill’s sneer of a vocal and Sean Thomas’s earthquake drums. 
• Lettuce featuring Bootsy Collins, “Keep That Funk Alive” – In the vein of their soul and funk heroes, for me, Lettuce has always been a singles band, and they returned with a whopper on this one. That founding rhythm section of Adam Deitch’s drums, Erick Coomes’ bass, and Adam Smirnoff’s guitar sets up a sweaty, dancefloor stomp for excellent work from other founder Ryan Zoidis on reeds, Benny Bloom on brass, and Nigel Hall on keys, with vocal whipped cream on top courtesy of the great Bootsy Collins. 
• Shelley FKA DRAM, “Chocolate Covered Strawberries” – Playing on similar histories of R&B, Shelley FKA DRAM (apparently the formerly is part of the current stage name) works from an angle, with a more laid back approach. The silk of his voice and the rim-heavy drums, drenched in synth washes, create a mood that lets that beckoning melody rise up out of the mist.  
• MJ Lenderman, “Hangover Game” – MJ Lenderman’s Boat Songs is a delightful mélange, playing with genres and modes of writing and playing, absorbing his influences more deeply into something truly his own. This elliptical lead off track that starts about Michael Jordan and ends with the narrator growling “I like drinking too,” over a jangling, bursting at the seams guitar riff. 
• Patty Griffin, “Get Lucky” – TAPE: Home Recordings and Rarities gave me a fresh look at one of my favorite singing and writing voices. Hearing that powerful voice in such an unvarnished and close way shines a light on the nuances of her approach and on songs like this, creating a feeling that’s simultaneously almost claustrophobic and intensely hopeful, crumbling wall cracking with new morning light and air pouring in. “We can talk about the things no one really knows or sit out on the front steps and let it all go, one more time, one more day. Maybe we’ll get lucky along the way.” 
• Diatom Deli, “Massive Headships of Centering Tiles” – Vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Delisa Paloma-Sisk’s Time-lapse Nature weaves finger-picked guitar and layers of harmonies and synthesizers to build whole worlds. Hearing songs like this one gives me the same uncanny – veins pulsing with multiple sense of wonder bouncing off one another and also a little unsettled, a little scared – feeling as looking at one of those Mike Kelley Kandor sculptures or walking through a Pipilotti Rist installation.  
• Plunky, “Now You Know” – More directly addressing day to day realities, Juju Jazz Poetics from J. Plunky Branch, is the kind of bracing tonic I didn’t realize how much I needed until I stumbled upon it. A creeping, subtle groove under a declaimed poem ending with a question echoing out in the world, punching me right in the chest: “Who didn’t know that?” 
• Editrix, “Hieroglyphics” – Working in a similar tempo and similar frustration as the last tune and declaiming with Wendy Eisenberg’s ferocious, frayed-at-the-edge guitar and the crunching rhythm section of Steve Cameron and Josh Daniel. As soon as my head starts to bang, I’m brought up short by Eisenberg’s switchblade whisper and those first couple of lines make my blood go cold every time, then those two sensations fuse in exactly the cathartic but also denying easy catharsis way I’m craving. “I hate this part. It leaves me so exposed. Don’t talk about that.” 
• Spodee Boy, “Neon Lights” – Anne and I caught Spodee Boy – Nashville’s Conor Cummins and a rotating cast – a few years ago at a particularly packed Murphy’s day show at Gonerfest (the only thing I miss in the new and much better by every other accounting location/structure) and this new EP is a perfect example of their slightly country-tinged classic punk. That jubilant stomp of the drums and growling guitar is exactly what I want in this flavor of rock and roll, a party about to come off the rails at any moment. 
• Kevin Morby, “This Is a Photograph” – I love Woods and liked those couple The Babies records but somehow had never caught up with Kevin Morby’s solo work until mentions from people I like, and respect all seemed to hit a critical mass with the new record. It’s stellar and this title track, especially, is one of my favorite songs of the year. The unsteady gallop of the tune, with that infectious guitar lick and a perfect, ramshackle but everything in its place arrangement featuring an all-star cast including Daptone secret weapon Cochemea Gastelum on sax and Alecia Chakour on backing vocals, perfectly maps to the unreliability and seductiveness of memory and our slippery fingered attempts to capture it in photographs or songs. “A window to the past of your mother in a skirt in the cool Kentucky dirt, laughing in the garden where it all started. With a smile on her face; everything in its place. Got a glimmer in her eye seems to say, ‘This is what I’ll miss about being alive.’” 
• Steve Earle, “Hill Country Rain” – Earle continues his streak of beautiful memorial records with Jerry Jeff, his tribute to cosmic cowboy Jerry Jeff Walker. By approaching the songs as songs without ignoring the huge personality and persona of Walker but without treating that as the point, he finds new angles and ways in, refreshing my love of songs I knew really well, and songs like this one I’d missed even though I definitely owned a copy of the self-titled record it came off of. The bounce added by the perfectly simpatico current version of the Dukes helps remind us that joy has been a crucial part of Earle’s best work, even when it gets not-talked-about (I wouldn’t say ignored) in light of the heaviness. “Sometimes I just wake up hummin’, feeling like the world is right. Want to jump right up and run outside, take in the morning light and feel the music running through me. Makes me want to dance.” 
• Lizz Wright, “All the Way Here” – Lizz Wright’s Holding Space: Live In Berlin reacquainted me with an artist whose Verve debut I loved but had sadly lost track of and makes me kick myself for not having seen her live with an eye to remedying that soon. This tune, co-written with Maia Sharp and originally on Grace, tugged my heartstrings almost through my chest, with a marvelous, sympathetic band, including an organ solo that makes air move like glowing honey.  
• Cal Parker, “I Want You to Win” – I got turned onto this Columbus singer-songwriter from my pal Faith who contributes some nuanced backing vocals that round out the warm, Laurel Canyon-roots sound of this infectious song. Cal Parker has a honeyed moonshine voice that – along with the keening harmonica in the background like a train leaving the station and the intertwined organ and guitar – manages to evoke nostalgia and an implacable sense of promise, of hope. 
• Shilpa Ray, “Bootlickers of the Patriarchy” – I’ve been a fan of Shilpa Ray since her first band Beat the Devil and with every record she sharpens and refines her attack, getting stranger and broader but also more potent. Portrait of a Lady is another worldbeater and this song, with its slow creep of suspended organ chords and a grinding creep of a drum part as backdrop for a cry of anguish, then shifting gears into a dancefloor explosion, putting that anger into relief under a different light. 
• Soccer Mommy, “Don’t Ask Me” – Soccer Mommy’s third record, Sometimes, Forever, strikes me as a significant leap forward. What I liked about the songs before feels sharper, catchier, richer. This is also another example of producer Daniel Lopatin’s continued march into the pop world which I never could have imagined when I was listening to – and seeing live – those earlier Oneohtrix Point Never records. “No longer vacant, no longer chasing, no longer searching for something that will set me free from who I am and who I’ll always be.” 
• The Linda Lindas, “Growing Up” – This band of LA-based teenagers (the oldest member is 17) got my attention when I heard they opened for Bikini Kill and the debut album is a breath of fresh air that burns off any sense of predictability or that this project is a novelty. Crunching guitars, a furious rhythm section, and shimmering harmonies send killer pop songs straight to the stars. 
• Leon Timbo, “Let Me Go” – This standout song from gospel singer Leon Timbo’s stellar EP Lovers and Fools Vol. 2 distills what’s so great about his voice and his grip on these secular songs that don’t betray his keen faith. The swelling strings and organ support and highlight his voice in its searching and its determination. 
• Billy Woods, “Remorseless” – I became aware of Billy Woods through his collaborations with fellow poet-rapper Moor Mother and his new album Aethiopes lives up to my enthusiasms. Over a subtle backing track, laced with vocal samples and centered around a mournful flute, Woods declaims one of the most eloquent readings of the burn it all down feelings we have – some more than others – with sly humor and witty allusions that never make the work top heavy or collapse it. “Sweet old ladies poisoning pigeons in the park. For a lark, make mine strychnine. Life is a zipline in the dark; spare me the Hallmark Karl Marx. I was in the Dollar Tree breakroom playing cards with quarters. Stop Loss posters on the wall, brick and mortar. I watched the planet from orbit. Remorseless.” 
• Duke Deuce featuring BabyFace Ray and Doe Boy, “Money Bandana” – The subtle menace of the beat on this favorite song of mine on Duke Deuce’s Crunkstar rubs against the choppy brags of the trio with their contrasted vocal tones and flows, artfully sliding in and out of time. “None us strangers took no loss, now we all bosses. Lame, you ain’t the gang. Boy, you false. Nail ‘em to the cross.” 
• Kraked Unit featuring Mike Ladd, Lyrics Born, Lateef, “If I Had My Way (DJ Khalid Remix)” – Kraked Unit, a project of French electronica artist Loik Dury, enlists an A-List of underground ‘00s rappers Mike Ladd, Lyrics Born, and Lateef (the latter worked as Latryx and appeared on countless Quanuum Projects) with a slick, summer-ready remix from  DJ Khalid. 
• Makaya McCraven, “Seventh String” – This first taste of the new record drummer-composer McCraven told me about when I interviewed him, his debut for storied label Nonesuch in collaboration with International Anthem, delivers on the promise of building on his magical deconstructions while adding new textures. This track continues his playing with relatively static forms and letting the detail fill in and bleed through the cracks, creating drama and shifts in a way that strikes my ears like no one else’s jazz records are doing right now. 
• Rayvn Lenae featuring Mereba, “Where I’m From” – To my ears, there’s a similar sound world in this song, and a shared taste for subtlety and texture. This evocative, atmospheric track features Mereba as co-writer and featured vocalist and feels as refreshing as an ice-cold martini in a cool, dark bar when you know the blistering sunlight is right outside. “As a girl, I dreamed about it. Maybe if I was a queen, I’d wear it. Whisper my name so I can hear the people sing whenever I’m lost.” 
• Amanda Shires, “Take It Like a Man” – With every record, Shires stretches her canvas wider and takes bigger risks with arrangements, melodies, and specificity in her lyrics. This intense, cinematic title track from her upcoming album is another stunner, orbiting around heavy, thick drums and a potent lead guitar part from Jason Isbell. The sweeping vocal balances an uncanny vulnerability with an earthshaking power. “Falling further, and falcon-swift, I know what the cost is in the octaves of consequence. I know the cost of flight is landing and I could take it like a man.” 
• Sylvan Esso, “Your Reality” – This new track from Durham-based electronic duo Sylvan Esso, made up of Amelia Meath and Nick Sanborn, boasts an airy but intricate arrangement from Gabriel Kahane – Meath also guested on Kahane’s magical new one The Magnificent Bird – and drums from TJ Maiani that perfectly compliment the searching, questing energy of this song. “Let me help you, let me fight, let me remember how to live my life. Were the rules originally or are we learning how to be?” 
• The Submissives, “Sick Kind of Love” – For me, this song by Montreal’s art-pop band The Submissives off their Wanna Be Your Thing album, plays with similar questions to how to make an authentic life and similar expansive connections between interior landscapes in the wider world, but through a beautifully wobbly, hazy lens. “I’m breathing through a boulder. I’m waiting on your signal. I’m several years older.” 
• The Bogie Band featuring Joe Russo and Colin Stetson, “God in Us” – Stuart Bogie, longtime sax player and musical director of Antibalas, has been a thread connecting the various New York music I love for as long as I’ve been going and with his record as The Bogie Band featuring Joe Russo, The Prophets in the City, he finally assembles a nine-piece band and ties these strains together into an accessible but searching record about connection, community, and mythology. This miniature, one of the first songs that stood out to me from the collection, also features reeds magician Colin Stetson. 
• Anteloper, “Earthlings” – If you’ve read any of these, or my writing elsewhere, you know what a fan I am of trumpeter/composer/vocalist Jaimie Branch, and this collaboration with drummer/synth player Jason Nazary (Helado Negro) as Anteloper more than lived up to expectations. The record Pink Dolphins is produced by Jeff Parker who also adds guitar and bass. This track conjures that moment when a conversation starts to fragment, when your inner monologue comes unstuck from the words you’re speaking, when the past comes on you like a barreling train and you have to deal with it at the same time you’re clinging desperately to living in the moment. As beautiful as it is uncomfortable, as hard to unpack as it is sensuous and addictive. “We are not the earthlings that you know. It really makes you think, though. Really makes me think, yo. Really makes me drink, yo.” 
• PUBLIQuartet, “At the Purchaser’s Option” – String quartet PUBLIQuartet take on Dvorak’s American Quartet, improvisations around R&B classics and free jazz, and new compositions on their powerful look at race and the ways America has let too much of its populace down forever in their stunning What Is American album. One of my favorite pieces is this new arrangement of a devastating Rhiannon Giddens song. 
• Sarah Plum, “Flowering Dandelion” – Violinist Sarah Plum’s Personal Noise is a wild ride through new compositions and this Kyong Mee Choi piece is one of my favorite tracks on an album – like the previous three – I couldn’t find anything I didn’t want to hear again.  
• Joan Shelley, “Amberlit Morning” – As is my wont, we end with a piece that feels to me like a prayer, a benediction, a wishing us all well on our way. This slice of clean light from her best record yet, The Spur, features Bill Callahan on additional vocals and lyrics, life partner Nathan Salsburg on guitars, and it sums up that hopeful sense I always want in morning, that I try to notice and appreciate when it’s here, and more often notice when it’s missing. “I am sorry. And I thank you. Every child sees it, every child knows, as a child I saw it all. Even I see it, even I know, even I see it all.”