2020's
Hallucinating Love by Maribou State
Hallucinating Love
Maribou State
2005
I bask in the heartfelt joy radiating from this album. It is a sunset walk through the neighborhood, cars and pedestrians zipping by, as you enjoy the sun playing off of the trees as you walk under them. As its moods swing from shuffling dance rhythms to slower introspections, the vibe insists that everything is gonna be alright.
Recommended Track: Otherside
A La Sala by Khruangbin
A La Sala
Khruangbin
2024
This album is contemplation in the half-light between moments of the day. The sounds of your mind facing inward as your eyes look out to something beautiful that stopped you in your tracks and caused you to reflect for a time. As someone who doesn’t really care about lyrics, Khruangbin is a band I wish I had discovered sooner.
Recommended Track: May Ninth
EUSEXUA by FKA twigs
EUSEXUA
FKA twigs
2025
Apparently conceived during her exploration of Prague’s nightclubs, Twigs has created an album that is creative and fresh. The production work is where this album really soars, reaching back farther than her contemporaries for pop and electronic influences and weaving each track into surprisingly different directions. The best compliment I can give this album is that, whenever I dip back in to listen to a track, I always end up listening to the whole album from wherever I started.
Recommended Track: Girl Feels Good
Lost Songs of Doc Souchon by Squirrel Nut Zippers
Lost Songs of Doc Souchon
Squirrel Nut Zippers
2020
This album is proof that Jimbo Mathus still has the essential contrarian fire of a real artist blazing deep down in his belly. You can almost feel him resisting a peer pressure to backslide into rockabilly commercialism and it saves this album. The grit is essential and his refusal to polish it off infuses the tracks with a humanity that keeps me listening again and again.
Recommended Track: Purim Nigun
Jump Rope Gazers by The Beths
Jump Rope Gazers
The Beths
2020
Ballads may be popular but they suck the uniqueness from many bands and weigh them down. I miss the raw, youthful punch of The Beths first album. Their sophomore effort includes just enough energetic tracks to save it but the energy drain is palpable. I’m rooting for their third album to be a rediscovery.
Recommended Track: Dying to Believe
Expert In A Dying Field by The Beths
Expert In A Dying Field
The Beths
2022
This album is a breath of fresh air. The Beths have crawled their way out of the boring balladry in their sophomore album and recentered themselves into the energy that made their original so compelling. They’re not regressing either as these tracks mature their sound into more complex arrangements. More like this please!
Recommended Track: Silence Is Golden
Up in the Air by Bent
Up in the Air
Bent
2020
Discovering Bent had released a new album in 2020 was like finding a favorite snack that I didn’t think anyone was making anymore. I’m just as in love with it as I am with their previous albums. Their lush production connects with something deep inside my brain and makes me feel like I’m being welcomed into a fantastical world that I never want to leave. I think I’ll just hit repeat.
Recommended Track: When You Come By
Jazz Du Jour by Djangophonique
Jazz Du Jour
Djangophonique
2020
I first encountered this band at the Detroit Jazz festival where they literally stopped me in my tracks. Since then, I’ve had the pleasure of seeing them live many more times and I can’t get enough of their Jazz Manouche style. I can personally say this live album is as close as it gets to the real thing.
Recommended Track: What is This Thing Called Love?
Momentary Presence by GIFT
Momentary Presence
GIFT
2022
This is an energetically dreamy album. GIFT blends synths of the 80’s with the vocals of 90’s shoegaze over 2000’s rhythms. It makes for music that feels out of time in the best way.
Recommended Track: Gumball Garden
Celebrate by Halo Maud
Celebrate
Halo Maud
2024
Adventerous and difficult to pin down by genre, Halo Maud feels like somebody who grew up listening to some of my favorite artists. The French sensibility she brings to familiar sounds and structures is refreshing and something I want more of.
Recommended Track: Last Day Song
For That Beautiful Feeling by The Chemical Brothers
For That Beautiful Feeling
The Chemical Brothers
2023
I had all but given up on The Chemical Brothers after my disappointment with Born In The Echoes but this album finally feels like one of my favorite bands found their voices again. I especially love how the brothers managed to find new sounds without resorting to a collaboration album. It is a swirling escape that I want to ride until its crescendo ending.
Recommended Track: The Darkness That You Fear
Lovesongs For Underdogs by Tanya Donelly
Lovesongs For Underdogs
Tanya Donelly
1997
The same year of this album’s release, I was released from high school and we spent many happy hours driving in my car together. If you fell in love with Tanya Donelly from her days with the band Belly like I did, this album has more of those wonderful sounds in store for you.
Recommended Track: Landspeed Song
playpen by Juliet Ivy
playpen
Juliet Ivy
2023
A surprising new find from my wife. It would be easy to blow it off as playful and short but the unapologetically fun and feminine-forward emotions Juliet Ivy has packed into those five tracks makes me want to hear more.
Recommended Track: boytoy
How Lost by The Fauns
How Lost
The Fauns
2024
I can’t stop listening to this amazing album! I’ve apparently heard single tracks from The Fauns before, sprinkled into playlists, but never stopped to give them a proper listen. I was missing out on some of the most innovative shoegaze being made today.
Recommended Track: Shake Your Hair
Ghosts by Hania Rani
Ghosts
Hania Rani
2023
Ghosts is an appropriate title for this beautifully haunting album. Hania Rani moves beyond her pure piano works to compose atmospheric and compelling tracks that express her hopes and fears.
Recommended Track: Hello
Bewitched by Laufey
Bewitched
Laufey
2023
Laufey’s popularity gives me faith that pop won’t drown into a sea of screaming melisma. Her songs are a magical concoction of dreamy and self-assured jazz that draws you into a wonderful sonic hug.
Recommended Track: From The Start
Black Halo by Hybrid
Black Halo
Hybrid
2021
I enjoy pretty much every Hybrid album and this one is no exception. Their albums are soundtracks, even when they don’t actually have a media property attached, full of epic soundscapes for me to imagine my own plots. (I’m someone who ignores lyrics as much as possible.)
Track recommendation: Seven Days
Tear It Down by My Brightest Diamond
Tear It Down
My Brightest Diamond
2007
I’m usually shy about remix albums but there is so much great artistry at work here. If you’re struggling with unhappy emotions, Shara Nova’s beautiful voice will travel with you through the dark.
Track recommendation: Golden Star - Alias
Here Is Everything by The Big Moon
Here Is Everything
The Big Moon
2022
These are the sounds of life’s unstoppable movements changing everything around you. You can’t stop them so turn to face them as bravely as you can and stand fast in your refusal to be crushed.
Track recommendation: 2 Lines
Blue Weekend by Wolf Alice
Blue Weekend
Wolf Alice
2021
If I were a professional reviewer, I would list the multitude of genres and influences each track on this album shape-shifts between. I would also point out its “hot single” but that would be like recommending a random chapter in a book. This whole album is a voyage that rewards you listening to its entirety.
Track recommendation: The whole damn album