Bob Mould – Here We Go Crazy (Granary Music / BMG)
Here We Go Crazy could be viewed as a companion piece to Blue Hearts, with Bob Mould returning to ask, “what the fuck?” instead of “what now?” It can become easy to take artists like Mould for granted. He returns every few years with another stellar set of songs that are, in the best possible way, just what was expected. However, that would be a mistake, especially on “Here We Go Crazy”. With many of us trying hard to find our bearings and the energy to take up another four-year fight, Mould delivers a clear-eyed, but not despairing, song cycle that might help you get through the next four years. He can’t help but be a true believer, even when everything seems so wrong. – Brian Stout
Mourning [A] BLKstar – Flowers for the Living (Don Giovanni)
Mourning [A] BLKstar are an Afrofuturist collective from Cleveland, weaving a fascinating tapestry of jazz, soul, hip-hop, and experimental music to investigate the shifting shape of Black music and culture in the 21st century. Obviously, this will include far too much pain, hardship, injustice, and inequality. A lot of media reduces the Black experience to suffering, flattening the beauty, strength, and complexity into just more trauma porn.
They also give voice to Black joy and excellence on Flowers for the Living without succumbing to saccharine corniness. Lyrically, thematically, it’s incredibly positive, powerful, and uplifting. Musically, it’s got shadows as well as light, delivering a rich, nuanced album that lives and breathes, dancing and singing as well as shouting and occasionally throwing stones. – J. Simpson
OHYUNG – You Are Always on My Mind (NNA Tapes / Phantom Limb)
With You Are Always on My Mind, OHYUNG has gathered shards of ambient murk, pop’s most delirious possibilities, and huge, 4/4 slabs of percussion as repetitive as the album’s dreamily crooned lyrics for something that conjures nods to the Flaming Lips‘ “Race for the Prize” and its sweeping keyboard-derived string sounds as well as Yves Tumor‘s Safe in the Hands of Love. It’s an album of ecstatic release, following the most beautiful self-discoveries. Ultimately, this is its own beast, coming as it does at a point of literal transition in Lia Ouyang Rusli’s life as they discovered their true identity thanks to the freedom they witnessed at “raves and in dark, hazy rooms”. It’s the first genuine OHYUNG pop album. – Bruce Miller
The Ophelias – Spring Grove (Get Better)
Spring Grove is the defining statement the Ophelias have been steadily working toward, a convergence of the best songwriting and production in their impressive discography. Everything is just a little better this time out. Lead singer Spencer Peppet’s hooks have never been stronger, and her voice has a new confidence in it, even in the most delicate moments.
Her lyrics are full of vivid images, including clouds hanging around as the things that went unsaid, unsettling images of consuming organs, and out-of-body experiences. These more propulsive songs give Mic Adams opportunities to shine, and together with bassist Jo Shaffer, they ground the songs and deliver some of the record’s most rewarding new wrinkles in the Ophelias’ sound. – Brian Stout
Ora the Molecule – Dance Therapy (Mute)
Nora Schjelderup is one of Norway’s leading DJs. She is also the creative force behind Ora the Molecule, who has recently released Dance Therapy, which might be the most accessible avant-garde disco pop concept album you’ll hear this year. Ora the Molecule has existed since around 2015, releasing a series of singles that were compiled on Human Safari in 2021.
Human Safari is filled with modern Euro-synthwave, with just enough throwback sounds to conjure up the feel of a lost Thompson Twins album for fans of 1980s technopop. While that album is technically Ora the Molecule’s debut record, Schjelderup has noted that Dance Therapy is the first album that fully represents her as an artist. – Rich Wilhelm
Bill Orcutt Guitar Quartet – HausLive 4 (Hausu Mountain)
We’re playing this music that I made on a record called Music for Four Guitars,” says Bill Orcutt in between songs on HausLive 4. “That record is 30 minutes; this show is an hour, so we’re improvising.” Orcutt‘s matter-of-fact explanation is admirable in its self-deprecation, but the music that comes before and after those words is thunderous, menacing, and revelatory.
Most of the music is jagged edges mixed with a sense of minimalism and repetition reminiscent of Steve Reich. There are bluesy runs and metallic lunges, but the execution seems very much rooted in punk (or post-punk). Orcutt’s three fellow conspirators have combined experience in heavy rock, avant-garde jazz, contemporary classical music, blues, folk, and various forms of experimentalism. Clearly, they understand this music and what’s required to pull it off.
Pachyman – Another Place (ATO)
Pachyman (also known as Pachy Garcia) undoubtedly understands the complexities of the Caribbean — and of dub, whose innovative, anti-establishment histories he cites as informing many of his choices. He’s demonstrated that on each of his releases, but it’s on his new album, Another Place, that he makes some of his most interesting moves to date.
If you haven’t been paying attention to him so far, now is the time to jump on the Pachyman bandwagon. What he’s doing is too fresh to ignore, crossing enough lines that even the most cynical reggae skeptic will find plenty to enjoy here. Another Place is vital and sincere, and Pachyman is a sonic sculptor whose loyalty to one genre does not limit him. – Adriane Pontecorvo
Pelican – Flickering Resonance (Run For Cover)
In more than one way, Flickering Resonance sees Chicago instrumental post-rock outfit Pelican step back to move forward. Joined by guitarist Laurent Schroeder-Lebec, who hadn’t played with the band since the excellent 2009 LP What We All Come to Need, the quartet softens the harder post-metal edge of their more recent albums by drawing from a range of 2000s coded styles, from indie and post-hardcore to emo and space rock.
This collection of eight gorgeous instrumentals is at times wistfully melodic, reminiscent of Karate and June of 44 (“Evergreen”), at others liberating rather than oppressive in their heaviness (“Indelible”) and cosmic headiness (“Wandering Mind”). The second half of the album is particularly delightful in its airy and light quality, as if the songs had finally decided to drift away, reaching for the stars. Listened to it from start to finish, the record feels like falling, eternally, into an ocean of celestial energy. – Antonio Poscic
Jesse Quebbeman-Turley – Hosana: Le Messe de Nostre Dame (Whited Sepulchre)
I’ll admit, when Hosana: The Messe de Nostre Dame, the debut from Jesse Quebbeman-Turley, was pitched to me as “West Coast Medieval Ambient”, I was intrigued and mildly amused. It almost sounds like something that a Genre Name Generator would spit out for fun. However, listening to Quebbeman-Turley’s debut EP, the label makes sense, and the result is what you would expect it to sound like: otherworldly, meditative, and unique—certainly a style all its own.
Hosana is directly inspired by the French 14th-century composer Guillaume de Machaut’s “Messe de Nostre Dame”. Taking that sacred music, soaking in its inspiration, and essentially retrofitting it for a sort of West Coast ambient sound, is exactly what happened here. – Chris Ingalls
Rodeo Boys – Junior (Don Giovanni)
Laura Glipin’s powerful poem “Two-Headed Calf” inspired Rodeo Boys’ first single from Junior, a raucous heartbreaker of an album that has staked a claim for one of my favorite albums of the year. The Lansing, Michigan-based band self-describes as “the sound of a quiet rebellion of a queer, blue-collar heart” and “what happens when the Miller High Life gets legs and starts walking around”, and this is apt.
Junior‘s bending of blue-collar rock to its own will is fresh and thrilling. Fans of Mannequin Pussy, Wednesday, Destroy Boys, and the Hold Steady take note. Junior could be your new favorite record. The record is a powerful statement from a unique perspective, making it essential listening. – Brian Stout