-
·
Crackazat, Vince Staples, Boards of Canada, and more of my favorite albums from June 2026
My birthday month, Father’s Day, and summer solstice: June is such a great month, and there was lots of good new music too. I also got on some oldies too, like Steve Miller’s Fly Like An Eagle and Melvin Spark’s Spark Plug, both of which are classics. Sunny days are here indeed. Crackazat – SUN…
-
·
Black Milk, Judy Bailey Quartet, Telehealth, and more of my favorite albums from May 2026
Another good month of new music. Tina Edward’s Jazz-ish Jazz Club continues to provide a great source of discovery to augment my KEXP/Spotify/internet pipeline. Black Milk – Ceremony One of my all-time favorite rapper/producers. Nine albums in. Seems like he’s just getting better. Judy Bailey Quartet – Colours Amazing album. Originally from 1976 but just…
-
·
Flea, Aaron Shaw, Blu & Exile, and more of my favorite albums from April 2026
This month was a bit of a blur. I went to Istanbul for a week. I was sick for a week. Music still kept me company. There were some pleasant musical surprises for me, in particular the three albums mentioned in the title. Flea!? So many great jazz and jazzy dance-adjacent instrumental albums this year,…
-
·
The thing about Marathon (the game, not running)
The new shooter, Marathon, is proving to be pretty great against all odds and conventional logic. Rather than the Goldilocks rule applying (it doesn’t here at all), it’s actually great because of how imbalanced and hard it is. But only if you have a good crew to play with (and I’m lucky enough to have…
-
·
Mammal Hands, Alexis Taylor, Champagne Bubblebath, and more of my favorite albums from March 2026
This music update is way late. I’ll blame spring break and the nice weather here in North Carolina for keeping me away from my laptop. There has been no break from new music, though, and here is what I loved most in March.
-
·
Death of the Author
I finally got around to reading Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor. I can’t remember where I found out about it, just that it was a sci-fi book people were loving. It wasn’t what I expected and it didn’t seem science fiction enough, at least at the start. It was interesting enough to keep…
-
·
Natural Magic, WAAN, İlhan Erşahin, and more of my favorite albums from February 2026
It’s the end of February and I’m so glad that spring is coming as I’m totally sick of this winter weather and ready for some sun! The new album damn definitely felt like it broke towards the end of the month though, so that is going to make this update all the more interesting. Here…
-
·
Fabiano do Nascimento, SML, and more of my favorite albums from January 2026
January is a bit of a weird month for new music. It’s great because there are so many albums from last year still to discover (on best-of lists, etc) and there are always some gems dropping that tend to get lost in the mix. I’ve had a solid rotation this month though. Here they are.
