We can only hope that your breaks were as blissful as ours, but in the meantime enjoy these album recommendations and stay tuned cause we’ve got some great stuff in the pipeline.
Willow - symptom of life (single)
complicated, yearning, authentic
Willow’s newest single, a follow-up to her 2022 album <COPINGMECHANISM>, presents the artist's calmer, more introspective side. The song’s vocally forward approach and intricate piano and drum accompaniment are a testament to her unique style. The jazzy backing instruments pick up on unexpected downbeats and add a layer of complexity. Willow’s vocals play with the drums and piano rhythms, further accenting the jazz influence. Her distinct vocal patterns, a recurring theme in her 2022 album, have now become her signature. This single, a precursor to an assumed 2024 release, will leave you eagerly anticipating more. – Ru Alonso
Malcolm Holcombe – A Hundred Lies
wizened, magnificent, gnarled
Being introduced to someone's music via memorials posted by your favorite artists is bittersweet, but goddamn, I've spent the last few days captivated. I thought I'd heard a few Malcolm Holcombe songs before he died on March 9th, but I'm not sure. At least I'd like to think I'd have remembered them, because the man's songs are guttural letters from a burning heaven. Justin Townes Earle once said that Holcombe is one of only three American songwriters who seem to have written without progenitors; listening to A Hundred Lies might lead you to the same conclusion. Holcombe's voice howls like an uprooted tree. He occasionally sounds out of step with the straight and clean production, but his spirit and songs clear any issues. His most beautiful songs tend to be his knottiest. I've been obsessively watching live versions of "Who Carried You," which ties together a stream of seemingly disparate memories with a powerful refrain. Holcombe's odd syntax will often give way to fascinating, powerful lines. I don't know anyone else who'd open a country song with the lines "I've heard misfortune blossoms / and wasted ways before me by the cause / of givin' someone time enough for spending / Love only borrowed" (from "A Far Cry From Here"). At first, it makes no sense. Then the sentence's form becomes clear and all you can do is listen in awe. If you're in the mood for craggy vocals and discursive writing, find any Malcolm Holcolmbe bootleg on YouTube. Then, play A Hundred Lies. – Jonah Covell
clust.r - Ever Chance
mysterious, burbling, earnest
I almost always know what I'm going to listen to when I listen to it. The backlog of bands, artists, albums, etc., that I’ve collected is quite extensive, and because of its heft, I often feel as though I'm barred from checking something out on a lark. So what a joy it is to find a random discovery!
I found this on Twitter somewhere from some shitpost of the day, and I couldn’t stop thinking about the cover and what was hiding inside. I had no preconceived notions about this artist or record. For the most part, the song titles are one word long and completely inscrutable — and from the content of the songs, completely meaningless.
This album packages a wonderful trove of glitchy, vocal-heavy electropop. When I say “vocal-heavy,” I mean it literally, as the singing often pools in on itself, bounces around, gets chopped up, or gets blown out by the instrumental. When the singing is intelligible, it’s surprisingly raw and often directly sincere. Ditto for the lyrics.
clust.r has foiled another of my listening habits: that of playing researcher. I always comb through an artist’s Wikipedia, Bandcamp, or label page or catch a review from an online publication to get the gist of their work. I like having context, but Ever Chance has given me a new lease on life. The music is all I have to think about. I have no idea who this person/people/emotional automaton is. I just love what they’ve made, and nothing more. – Sebastian Cruz
The Milk Carton Kids - Monterey
reminiscent, poetic, raw
March is brutally bittersweet for me. The only way to get through it is to lean into the painful nostalgia. So, what do I listen to when I need to get a hold of myself? This month, I’ve decided to return to my roots to immerse myself in the album that filled almost every free period of my freshman year of high school. Monterey by the Milk Carton Kids features the most flawless demonstration of a vocal blend I’ve ever heard — whether in my headphones or at a live performance. Their incomparable fingerpicking weaves between haunting harmonies and leaves nothing to be desired. Evocative lyrics enhance the group’s instrumental storytelling and complement their sound. The gorgeous simplicity of these tracks will ground you and give you a new appreciation for folk. – Eliana Simpson
The Last Dinner Party - Prelude to Ecstasy
fantastical, ravenous, shameless
The Last Dinner Party, a five-member band from London, released their debut Baroque-pop album just last month. Since then, I have not gone a day without this album in my rotation. Framed in biblical narratives and fantastical storytelling, Prelude to Ecstasy is a brilliant, imaginative, and raw record of love and pain experienced by queer people and women. The title track opens the album with a beautiful orchestral ballad, setting the stage for their mix of Baroque, Gothic, and opulent aesthetics. The album then dives into the band's destructive nature and high energy through a wondrous take on 1970s glam rock (think ABBA and Queen) with some elements reminiscent of Kate Bush. Their influences don't overpower their originality – all five band members (Abigail Morris (vocals), Lizzie Mayland (vocals, guitar), Emily Roberts (lead guitar, mandolin, flute), Georgia Davies (bass), and Aurora Nishevci (keys, vocals)) bring a powerhouse of inventive and bold artistry that I have no doubt will prove to be an influential force in contemporary music. – Lily George
Life Without Windows - Any Other City
offbeat, lively, towering
Short-lived Scottish indie band Life Without Buildings’s Any Other City is tragically their only studio album, an idiosyncratic tour-de-force that seamlessly blends mathy midwest emo and that particular loveable brand of late 90s/early 00s meat-and-potatoes indie rock. I’ve seen a number of music journalists and music forum users talk about how unrelentingly joyful this record is, and while its energetic drumming and vibrant guitars make it a fun one, there’s an underlying melancholy in some tracks that can’t be ignored. Vocalist and songwriter Sue Tompkins’s patchwork lyrics and eccentric delivery lend themselves to fragmented, conflicting emotions. This is especially true in my two favorite tracks: “The Leanover” and “New Town.” “The Leanover” is a true achievement, a five-and-a-half minute collage of pop culture references and musings on the passage of time. And “New Town” is one of the few songs that I can say has brought me to tears all on its own, particularly in the soul-stirring repetition of “every color of you fall out step out.” Recommended for a wintry day when it’s supposed to be spring and there’s something kind of sad in the beautiful smattering of snowflakes. – Sloane DiBari
Norah Jones - Little Broken Hearts (Deluxe Edition)
angsty, wistful, understated
I recently got a new pair of headphones, and ever since I’ve been on a mission to find the best album to play while looking super cool and mysterious as I walk around. Here’s some of the criteria: there’s got to be a good variety of tempos, but no *super* slow songs. I am a speed walker at heart. Also mandatory is at least a little bit of angst. Little Broken Hearts nails this one over the head. Though I haven’t a clue what Norah is saying half the time, her sultry voice carries me perfectly from one building to another as I traipse across campus. I’ll give the deluxe version bonus points for being two hours long – sometimes you’re not ready to pick a new album after only 45 minutes! – Ozzie Frazier
Katy Kirby - Blue Raspberry
metaphorical, sparkling, tender
Katy Kirby’s sophomore album is one of the most impressive projects to come out of 2024 so far. Her highly conceptual writing works in cohesion with sparse, yet heavy instrumentation. This is the type of record you need to listen through a few times in order to really get it. Through several recurring motifs about finding beauty in artificiality Blue Raspberry tells a complex narrative of a dissolving relationship. Two of the most prominent images are that of the title (the man-made flavor) and cubic zirconia (a common substitute for diamonds). In “Salt Crystal'', my personal favorite track, Kirby calls back to metaphors established throughout the record with a heightened sentimentalism. “Party of the Century” and “Drop Dead” have bubbly soundscapes where Kirby sings of being swept off her feet by beauties that others may overlook. Other songs like “Wait Listen” and “Alexandria '' have an almost-medieval dramaticism to them that weighs on the listener. Over-explaining Blue Raspberry would deny you the wonder of experiencing it and pondering it over yourselves. So I will leave this recommendation in the hands of all lovers of sonic poetry. – Sophie Montague
Karen Dalton - 1966
intimate, bare, cathartic
Karen Dalton is the forgotten singer of the 1960’s Greenwich Village Folk scene, but easily my favorite. After a listen to 1966 she might become yours as well. We wouldn’t be alone in that opinion either; in his autobiography Bob Dylan wrote "My favorite singer...was Karen Dalton. Karen had a voice like Billie Holiday and played guitar like Jimmy Reed.”
Her lack of popularity is partly due to a lack of recordings. Dalton hated the studio. She hated even more the studio executives who circled her like sharks after her live sets, chomping at the bit to get her soulful sound on tape. The city life proved too shallow for this small town indigenous woman from Oklahoma, so she packed her bags in 1966 and moved to a cabin in the Colorado Rockies with her two children. That’s where this recording would surface from later that year, recorded in her cabin with a beat-to-shit hissing tape deck. The low quality of the sound recording heightens the intimacy in her sound, as if each song needed to be sung at that exact second, without being filtered through a producer or extended studio release. There seems to be no distance between the emotion she felt and the song she was singing. What we hear is her sound, on her own terms. - Hayden Asiano