Album Review: Chuwi - Tierra

Apparently there is a fair amount of hype around Puerto Rican electric plena quartet Chuwi, and it stems in part from their inclusion on a Bad Bunny track last year. I haven't heard it. Probably won't either.* I know about Chuwi because I Shazam'd one of their songs while waiting for a sandwich at a Cuban restaurant. I'm an organic music forager, it's true. Chuwi's second EP, Tierra, has a noticeably breezier quality to it compared to their first EP, Pan, released two years prior, with its haunted scans of dizzy disquiet and uneven sense of crawling across a steadily eroding incline. This more recent EP instead draws forward the more outwardly tropical aspects of their sound, diverting it through riven veins of pooling electronic diffusion, like channels cut in the sand allowing fresh water to flow inland where it can replenish parched lips and cleanse calloused hands. The teetering sway and lapping melodies could easily be mistaken for a resort accompaniment at times; its accommodating abundance and ebullient affection for its subject matter are certainly pliant enough to appear insouciant at a brush and even offer overhangs of respite for tourists. But Tierra at bedrock is a carta de amor and homenaje to the group's home, a land in unsettling limbo- swallowed whole, chewed up, and regurgitated back in place in an increasingly unrecognizable form by the cold logic of commerce, the callow capitulation of corruption, and a naturalization of neglect, the compounding conditions of colonialism which, together, conspire, among other insults, to perpetuate a vampiric attrition and wringing out of the island's lifeblood: its people. What is a land without its people? At best a desert, at worst an empty crypt. Balmy as it is sonically, Tierra is an echo of the unheard, one that manages, at times, to land sweetly on the ears, but which smuggles into the open the indisputable certitude of a sour state of affairs.

*You really have to drag me like I'm a mule over a mountaintop to get me to listen to anyone big enough to play the Super Bowl (an unfortunately annual exhibition of the crassest excesses of commercialism and a monument to human sacrifice and wasted potential). That said, I don't have a negative impression of Bad Bunny himself, and I think he has a nice mustache, but the vibe I get from the obsessive celebrity cult around him is that his stuff is probably not for me. Who knows, I could be wrong... First time for everything. 

Album Review: Fulu Miziki - Mokano EP

Uganda's favorite sonic salvagers Fulu Miziki already had a recognized and well-received album under their upcycled, polyurethane waist straps (2021's Ngbaka) by the time 2024 EP Mokano sprang from the soil like a disco-ball-patterned sunflower, but in many ways this later release is their earnest debut to the world. Ngbaka, while being sonically and texturally interesting and imaginative in its own right, denied a prospective audience a proper exposition of the group's unique interchange of Cuban-inspired and East African sounds- a regrettable development for a band whose raison d'être is raising to the plane of consciousness the natural and genuine in a sea of manufactured superfluity. Mokano gives a stronger sense of this purpose, while being a more straightforward reclamation of aural authenticity, thriving amidst the mountainous cast-offs of decadence and decay- in other words, it's landfill music meant to root you back in the dirt and struggle of this planet. A call to motion and unity of action rings out from the first strike of a PVC pipe on opener "Mbanga Pasi," with its banded, jived-out rhythms, inundating percolation of improvised percussion, accompanied by a multi-tiered torrent of vibrant group vocals, a potent display of energy that heightens the senses suitable in preparation for the bopping scoot and scrapping skip of "Bopeto" with its pepper-bark puff and gum-boned slap, which then winds down just in time for the high-traction bustle of "Tamatu" to take center stage, followed by the monsoon-summoning charm "Vie Eza," the ascendant acapella of "Soki Ozwyi Yako Lia," and finally, the jerky rhythmic convoke "Mosala," which seems to pull flesh and blood from the clay of the altar on which it pivots to give body to a prancing homunculus, whose gesticular form is as dynamic as lightning and who lithe figure extends as a bridge between the plane of the sky and the terrene flats below. Not everywhere in the world has the infrastructure to dispose of the refuse generated by modern industrial output to satisfy consumer needs, and as a result, many around the world end up living with and amongst the consequences of light production and petty consumption as the terrain around them fills up with refuse and non-biodegradable elements, from both their communities and abroad, as their home becomes a dumping ground for places rich enough to have the luxury of forgetting about the debris created by their lifestyles. But in heaping and accumulating, these disregarded residues of modernity reshape the land where they come to rest, and for those who still maintain a connection to this land, even as undesirable as it is, the detritus integrates into their cosmos, augmenting the spiritual balance and flows of energy but not disrupting the fundamental obligations which the living have to the cumulative well-being of creation; instead, demanding an infusion of imagination to reintegrate what is cast off back into an integrated whole and renew humankind's commitments to the Earth in the process. Fulu Miziki play "junk music," because junk is the indigestible kernel and stubborn gallstone lodged in the belly and at the heart of the contemporary schism with the forces that sustain life on this planet- by reclaiming waste, they are reclaiming the world itself.

もしもし! はい, レコードでございます!

Album Review: Ikebe Shakedown - Kings Left Behind

Thrones are toppled, kingdoms laid to waste, histories are reduced to sand, and all roads lead to ruin... but not if you're Ikebe Shakedown. The seven-member instrumental funk band out of Brooklyn, New York, may seem like they've abdicated and gone incognito since their 2019 LP, but their legacy has yet to be turned to ash by the ravages of time. Their sound is horn-driven, highly cinematic, stylishly psychedelic, and inspired by the soulful charm of Curtis Mayfield, the weighty rhythmic pulse of Fela Kuti, and the epic scope of '70s spaghetti western soundtracks. Kings Left Behind (as previously alluded, released in 2019)is the band's fourth studio album (and most recent), recorded straight to reel-to-reel by the band's bassist, Vince Chiarito. The album unveils an oasis of melodious intrigue with "Not Another Drop," establishing the group's predilection for gonzo grooves, which is supercharged on the following smoky, hookah-haze-infused "Unqualified," and is fully realized with a vengeance on the mid-album stinger, the momentous, bongo-and-horn-driven spanner "Hammer Into Anvil." "The Witness" takes things in a more mischievous direction, with its quivering guitars and spit-and-pucker percussion, a track that would slot easily into the soundtrack of some lost supernatural western thriller, set in a traveling carnival where all the orphaned performers inexplicably have telekinetic powers and a predilection to deploy them in a zeal for vindication. The most retro-sounding tracks on the album come near the end, with the spy-thriller-esque "No Going Back" and the rose-tinted slow jam "Kings Left Behind," a worthy pair of companions to help mask the cry of a gunshot ringing out over shifting desert dunes. It's the kind of album Coalmine Records exists to put out into the world. They dig through the rough and excavate the gems, so you don't have to.

Ain't no diamonds without Coal(mine Records).

Album Review: El Sexteto Tabala - Reyes del Son Palenquero

I promised that I would cover more African and South American acts in 2026 when I wrote my 2025 Invitational, and if you thought I was simply blowing smoke up you fanny pack, then you'd better sit yourself down and get ready to house a whole buffet of original recipe crow. Today, I am introducing you to Sexteto Tabalá, a Colombian folk group whose African ancestry and diasporic connections are so tightly wound around their sound that such lineages and histories are synonymous with themselves in the same way a cat identifies with its own striped coat. Sexteto Tabalá boasts of playing the ONLY true form of Colombian music,* in that it is free from guitars and electric instruments, in addition to pulling from the rich and dearly specific past of their nation's heritage and their familial ties to rebellious maroons, and deploying only instruments that were available to sugarcane workers in centuries past; notably amongst them the marímbula, a plucked box instrument, inspired by African percussion tools, but which owes its origins to Cuba. Further, the sound of Sexteto Tabalá is largely credited to the influence of Cuban engineers hired to supervise the sugarcane industry in the early 20th century in an area of Colombia which had been granted its autonomy by the Spanish Crown since 1713, San Basilio de Palenque. In their off hours, these Cubans would play son montuno songs and teach them to the agricultural workers of the area, most of whom were still descendants of runaway slaves. Over time, these once Cuban sounds would acquire their own distinct character as they were adopted by the Palenque people and transformed into the particular hybrid of African diasporic sound and Caribbean proto-salsa known as son Palenquero, a style that invoked its practitioners' Angolan, Central, and East African roots, sung in a unique dialect Creole derived from Bantu, while remaining independent, flexible, and conspicuously unadorned with the extraneous din of modernity. Sexteto Tabalá hold themselves out as continuing the traditions of the style's best-recognized purveyors like Sexteto Habanero, while taking care to respectfully innovate on traditional workingman's songs when inspiration strikes with indisputable serendipity. Their LP Reyes del Son Palenquero was recorded in San Basilio de Palenque but reissued by the Bogotá-based Palenque Records in 2016. Rhythmic inspiration that proudly carries the wealth of centuries of history and the debts owed to generations of pastoral workers, a burden as weighty as a mountain, which they hold aloft as if it were as light as a feather.

Palenque Records, where history comes alive!

* I have no way of verifying this, and I'm not saying that I condone such an assessment, however, it is what they say about themselves, which for a band from such a culturally rich and musically inclined country as Colombia, these are really fighting words, and the unnecessarily antagonistic character of their self-assessment genuinely amuses me. Like, why do you have to be so savage, bro? Damn!

Interview: Post-Trash + 2025 Recap

You get through your first full week of 2026? Good! Glad the year hasn't killed you yet (not for a lack of trying, I'm sure). Before you finally kiss 2025 goodbye and drop it in the dustbin of history, take a look back with Dan and Pat of Post-Trash and myself as we chat about some of our favorite albums of the past year. 

If you don't already know, Post-Trash is an incredible resource for underground and alternative music coverage with a flexible coverage philosophy and a genuine openness to fresh critical voices. I used to contribute to Post-Trash back when I was just starting my illustrious music writing career (pause for applause/laughter/rain of rotten vegetables), and I'm forever thankful for Dan being willing to give a hopeless weirdo like me a chance to air out his errant opinions. 

Listen to the conversation here:

Albums covered in this episode (in order of appearance): 

Grace Rogers - Mad Dogs

Nyxy Nyx - Cult Classics Vol. I

Hiver & Jason Koth - Offers

Danny Brown - Stardust

Prewn - System

Wombo - Danger in Fives

Militarie Gun - God Save The Gun

Hedonist - Scapulimancy

2025 Year-End Invitational

Ah, another year, another year older, another year closer to kissing dirt. I should be less glib in my introduction for this year's list because this year was not so bad on my ears. Many artists of note, prestige, and accreditation that I've managed to keep a bead on had releases. Melody's Echo loaded a hot one into the Chamber, and Stereolab made themselves heard again with a fresh sonic assay. Billy Woods dropped an album in the same year that he and Elucid ignited a heater with The Alchemist, and then The Alchemist daisy-chained that dish with a second serving of Alfredo along with Freddie Gibbs. La Dispute crashed back into view with No One Was Driving the Car, White Reaper showed they still have something left in the tank with Only Slightly Empty, and Deftones shared some Private Music with the public. Also, Turnstile released Glow On again for some reason. It's all fantastic, and you won't hear a disparaging word from these lips as far as the quality of any of it, but...  why do I still feel underwhelmed? Am I just spoiled for choice? Spiritually sick? I can't say for sure, but I just can't muster the will to commentate on any of it. 

"Saying thing is your job! You have one job! Why you no do job good?!?" I hear you shrieking at me (hypothetically). Firstly, no, my actual job is much less interesting than writing about music (and incidentally pays much better too [emphasis for exaggeration]), and secondly, none of the "big" releases this year are of the kind that I even entertain for coverage here, normally. They're all either on major labels (or on labels that are large enough that they can run in the same pack as the majors on occasion), and they all have large enough audiences that my throwing 2 cents into the coffee can doesn't do much for either of us (emotionally, commercially, artistically, etc...)  

Then there is the fact that they're all huge la discourse artists, aka music makers that you have to have an opinion on (mandatorily sanguine btw unless you're carving a niche brand as a "discerning" contrarian [ie a fussy little bitch]) in order to build a reputation as a take-haver, taste-contriver, and cultural instigator (read: gatekeeper). None of that interests me. I'm not looking to become a marketable personality, one who imposes a canon on people, enforces a listening regimen, or gives people anxiety about what they are or aren't committing brainpower to enjoying (however low voltage). My goal here is to share what I find interesting/invigorating with you as a supplement to your other habits of listening and engagement, as a personal labor of love and expressive outlet, and hopefully in a way that is enough off the beaten path that you escape the dehumanizing torrent of algorithmic optimization- at least for the one minute to an hour or so it takes to read/listen one of my reviews/interviews (hey, a minute of fresh air in the prison yard a day helps reduce stress and illness in inmates according to leading studies on the subject, so you can think of me as providing a similar benefit). 

The other thing about all these big, crucial names in music (really any flagship standard-bearers in the moment) is that even when what they're doing is good, worthy, and platinum standard (which, in my estimation, it mostly is), emotionally, for me, it just lands like more "content." Like, I like what they do, but keeping up with them kind of feels like being on a treadmill long after the buildup of lactic acid in my system has caused my organs to begin humming with a concerning arrhythmia. As in, "Oh, so-and-so has a drop on the way, I should probably know what that's about," instead of IDK, giving my brain a break, or whatever... Continuing as before, it often feels like running an extra mile after I've already completed a 5k. I have to ask myself, am I doing this for my own health, or am I doing it because other people are going to run that extra mile, so I should too...? It's a paradox I've wrestled with for a while without a clear or satisfying resolution. 

Something that Danny Brown (whose LP, Stardust, was an essential release for me this year) said in an interview recently that resonated with me is that there are "too many artists, and not enough fans." This was in response to a general question about why it's harder than ever to find fresh-sounding music, and it's a sentiment I understand deeply. Everyone is trying to sell you something and no one is happy with what they've got. Too many proclaimers, and not enough people to hear their pronouncements. Too many profits, and not enough disciples. Too much butter and not enough popcorn. Especially as someone who considers themselves both an artist (don't laugh) and an avid listener (ok, fine, laugh), I think I have to get better at being the latter and be more comfortable with modest ambitions towards the former. In other words, I need to focus on listening more deeply and thoughtfully, and being more selective about what I hear, while having fewer expectations as to my status as an indie/DIY/punk/emo/blowhard/etc...etc... blogger. After all, appreciation is the point, and if something doesn't call out to me, it's alright to leave it unexamined, resting, at peace where it lies. I've already started to do just that, filtering more of what I hear and not chasing things down if they don't immediately grab my attention. But as far as content here, I'm definitely looking to make a notable pivot in coverage- after I clean out the current backlog of albums angling for my assessment (said list is about 900 albums long btw). 

It might be a minute, but where I'd like to direct my focus in the future is at more international artists, specifically those coming out of Africa and South and Central America. For various reasons, these parts of the world are on the rise and rapidly more self-sustaining, and these trends are going to result in a cultural output in the coming years that I'm excited to see blossom into maturity. I've already received two emails in the last week of this year from publicists promoting amapiano artists, so the shift might be easier than I realized, as the universe may be pulling me in that direction with or without my conscious assent. 

In sum, my goals for 2026, for this blog and my life, are to be more chill towards myself and music, and to be a better listener, appreciating what I have and looking towards a brighter future (even if the brightest stars are not shining nearest to my home). As for 2025, below is a list of 25 albums I thought were rad as hell and/or touched my soul but didn't get around to writing about in the preceding 12 months. Have at them and have a Happy New Year!

Weatherday - Hornet Disaster (Topshelf Records)

2025 really was off to a good start when Hornet Disaster dropped in March. I had no idea it was on its way until Top Shelf emailed me about it, and it's been at the top of my mind since. There are some top-notch emo elegies here (naturally, again, issued on Top Shelf), and some that will affirm and ensure Weatherday's status as a seminally influential underground artist for decades to come, tracks such as "Hug" with its dreary sense of yearning and crawling, as well as the anguish-sickened passages, biting blizzard-y feedback swells of "Blood Online" and the wired-warp and seething surge of alienated implosion that is "Nostalgia Drive Avatar." Funnily, even though its predecessor Come In was only released in 2019, Hornet Disaster has the feeling of a revival album for the artist, which is understandable, as the impact that Weatherday has had on the modern underground music scene at an international level is almost incalculable, and frankly, that meant that they had a lot to prove with this release. It's not as overtly reclusive or peculiarly scratchy and experimental as what we've come to know Weatherday for, but it's just as daringly sentimental and compelling in its wounded gait, maintaining its shadowy eminence without sacrificing its emotional core. Despite everything, Weatherday is still themself. Forever.

 

MJ Noble - Songs From My Castle Tower (Doom Trip)

The immediate and insistent impression that I was seeded with upon beholding the cover of MJ Nobel's third album, Songs From My Castle Tower, was that it was the vessel of a cybernetic current and celestially radiant flow of ethereal inspiration, cascading over and between the battlements of an Avalonian spire, pouring down on the teeming mass of mortals below like cool, molten starlight... Now, it may be somewhat anticlimactic to acknowledge, but these initial impressions, gleaned from appearances alone, were impeccably precise. An elfin excursion into a vespertine grove of dark illumination is exactly what this album is- emancipation in a fantastical world of blissfully incarnate passion, rendered in arresting fidelity at the nexus of wondering daydreams and fiber-optic fanned eudaimonia. Folk music for a digital dynast with root privileges to your heart.

Citric Dummies - Split With Turnstile (Feel It Records)

My esteem for Feel It Records grows by the day. Sam's work with the label became a gold standard in my personal punk headcanon after splunking into Why Bother?'s catalog; now it's going platinum with this Citric Dummies LP, Split With Turnstile (which, ironically, is more vital than the album that the actual Turnstile released this year). A bio that I read of them alludes to their sound jumbling and interlocking odds and stray crumbs from Barely Legal era Hives, the Dwarves, and the buzz-bomb of contemporaries Dark Thoughts, and while that's all enough to stake your life on when it comes to this record, in essence, it's a vindication of that classic early hardcore style as a means of liberating your crown clean off your dome- fast, irreverent, catchy, and uncontainably hostile- they're like a dog that bites your leg and, via a metastatic psychic mutation, is able to inject a scathing and scandalous rejection of the human condition in its current-year craven state, directly into the mainline of your arteries like snake venom. This record is the good kind of sick!

Shallowater - God's Gonna Give You A Million Dollars (Self-Released)

With one of the most Coen brothers-esque titles I may have bonafided with these tired eyes, Houston "dust-gaze" bowlers Shallowater grant a sip of succor to the people lost in the godless desert of 2025 with their second LP God's Gonna Give You a Million Dollars. Much has been made of the "country" side of this record, and while it does have quite a bit of twang tucked in around the trim, it's really only "country" in the way that an old windmill left in a fallow wheatfield to oxidize into an indigestible cereal of sharp, coarse particulates could be considered "country," or an old barn cat caught in a snare laid for a fox outside the henhouse- a dark reflection and a fateful and justly cruel metaphor for the silent, progressive decay and barrenness of spirit and soil that has exhausted the heartland. That kind of "country."

life - we won't say a word until tomorrow (Self-Released)

It's been a banner year for Damián Ojeda. Ok, every year is a big year for Damián, but between his various black metal, shoegaze, emo, and skramz marquees, he's dropped something like 40 separate albums- the majority of which I have not heard because I have a job and a wife—but more than life simply getting in the way of bingeing on his output, I'm frequently stricken with an awe-induced paralysis by his work, wherein I feel compelled to spend long stretches of time simply wallowing in and soaking up the vibe and nuances of each release, incapable of moving on until I've wrung all the serotonin I can out of it. Case in point: I haven't been able to step past his summer release, we won't say a word until tomorrow, under the life honorific, to get a taste of the other three or four other life titles he's dropped since. It's just a beautifully painful listen. Conscious and cathartic, patient and devoted, bleak and blissful. Most bands are lucky to come within spitting distance of something this compelling in their entire career, and yet, this probably just felt like another Friday to Damián when he unveiled it to the world. Now, this is a fantastic record; I've already said as much, and the semi-final track "allusion to summer distance" was literally my song of the summer, but what really wins it a bushel of roses from me is the locket-shaped snippet on the cover of this album which encloses Nana Osaki and Nana Komatsu in an eternal embrace and whirl of intractable kismet. Ai Yazawa is a genius, an inimitable talent, and her manga about tragically fated love and diehard friendship vibes so hard with this album that it almost feels like they were made with each other in mind. It's all the heartbreak you can handle- sealed with a kiss.

Menace4Hire - With All That I Know Now (Self-Released)

On With All That I Know Now, Chicago MC Menace4Hire invokes a nostalgic and contemplative frame of mind, weaving observations and hard-wrung conclusions together like a colorful ribbon that connects the sun-faded images of a life in reflection as they lie static in a heavy photo album. Dust-tripping skips and loops rotate under Menace's studious reels of commentary, and lissome yet graceful flow like the treadmill of his mind, propelling him forward and sparing him from stagnant complacency, as the wheels turn and epiphanies emerge like daylight pouring over the horizon. There will be plenty more for Menace to come to know, as he is still young and the world has yet to put its full weight on his shoulders, but he's already got sure footing, clear eyes, and wisdom to bank, and that counts for a lot.

Flora Hibberd - Swirl (22Twenty)

Lucky you that you get to share a planet with Flora Hibberd. And what good fortune that she has an album out this year, called Swirl. And while we're counting our blessings, there is a song on that album titled "Lucky You," a peppy and sardonic twist on Americana and a tender take on garage-pop that sizzles with impulsive fluorescence- kind of like the record on the whole. Swirl was recorded by the London-born, Paris-palisaded guitarist/singer/songwriter in the Northwestern city of Eau Claire, which since at least For Emma, Forever Ago has garnered a reputation for sublating the traditions and trappings of standard American playing styles- in other words, Flora Hibberd, who on this LP exhibits intersecting qualities of Haley Fohr and Cat Power, happens to find herself at ease and in good company in her circuitous yet delicate evasion and amendment of orthodoxy

Superdestroyer / Leave (Nelson) B - NCTV Vol. 2: Negative thoughts about myself and people I love dearly (Lonely Ghost Records)

Superdestroyer and LNB are moots irl. That's pretty much it. That's why this album happened. You can learn more about its precursor in this interview I did with the guys last year. Ok, bye! *shoving noises, muffled commotion* Alright, fine! So my editor (ie my conscience) is telling me that I need to say more about this record, because it's made by good people, who happen to be two of my favorite emo/DIY personalities, and it's a very fun and edifying listen... which is exactly why it's hard to come up with things to say about it... Like, have you ever looked at that panel of Dr.Manhattan sitting ponderously on the surface of Mars, gazing longingly starward, and thought to yourself, "yeah, same." Alright, now imagine there are two Dr. Ms, and they both just lost someone irreplaceable to them. That's the vibe of this LP, only less forlorn and crowned with a finish of stardust and cosmic dynamism.

they are gutting a body of water - LOTTO (ATO Records)

They Are Gutting a Body of Water... what, do they live near a data center or something? You think I'm just being funny, but there is something somewhat prophetic about this Philly group (who everyone insists are shoegaze, though to my ears they're doing a grunged-up version of Sunny Day Real Estate, but WHAT DO I KNOW? I'm only an expert when it comes to these sorts of things) and their album LOTTO, a distorted, weathered tome and sonic manuscript, depicting a world drained of vitality and its sense-making structures, where people filter in and out like flames in the dark, choked to a snuff by a high wind. Apparitions glide around the periphery of a séance circle, a distant zone blighted by a spiritual fugue of amnesia. It's bleak enough of a setting that it could almost be mistaken for our own broken system of sinking pirate-ocracy. Don't you feel fortunate to have lived long enough to witness a fanatical state of parasitism, once only imaginable in fiction, become grounded reality? Maybe fortunate isn't the right word. But only the depths of irony can do justice to the inheritance of such a wretched windfall.

Cola Boyy - Quit to Play Chess (Record Makers)

Look at this photo of Matthew Urango, aka Cola Boyy. Look at this little pimp! Bro looks like he's got the world at the end of a yo-yo string- give it a flick and let it ride like a platinum disco record at a late-night house party. Quit to Play Chess is the gold-hearted, neo-disco-funk auteur's final record, unfortunately, as he passed away earlier this year, but it contains his best realized efforts to date. "Abundant" is a term I would use liberally to describe the passionate and distinctive confluences of crunchy Caribbean rhythms, surfy chop chords, drum and bass rattle, equitable yacht rock, and big hairy disco grooves that generously extend over the whole of this album and breathe a technicolor authenticity into its plentiful vision of the world's potential. You'd have to have a piece missing from your heart not to vibe with the pure mood manifest on this record. RIP Matthew. Thank you for this solid gold send-off.

Lealani - Beep Bop Boop (Self-Released)

It's a tale as old as... well, AOL chat rooms. Girl goes online. Girl falls in love... with a machine. What, you think she was going to get a boyfriend? Well, sure, ok, but what can a man do for you that an optimized hard drive and fiber optics connection can't? Ok... I'm hearing something about... jars? Jar opening can be automated. What can't be automated is girls (well, a girl in this case) leveraging their love of technology to approximate sonic encounters with extraterrestrial travelers party-crashing from digital destinations unknown. Beep Bop Boop is Lealani's second solo LP, a neon-aura glam bath of leisurely gratifying and marginally disquieting, petite pop-epigrams and escapist codas that function like little trap doors in the floor of a stuffed animal factory, which drop into recesses of dayglo laughter and pots of harmonizing amphibians. AI could never match what Beep Bop Boop is rolling out, and if it tried, Lealani would likely glitch-prompt it into oblivion with the chaos seed of her psyche.

Faetooth - Labyrinthine (The Flenser)

Personally, I'm psyched that bands are starting to describe their music as distinct and definite genres of their own making more and more often. It shows a real clarity of vision and a desire to control one's own narrative. Take Faetooth: they're calling their style "Fairy Doom." There are a number of ways that you could interpret said designation, but it gets the point of their sound- a combination of the earthen whimsy of Chelsea Wolfe, the witchy desperation of Ragana, the avant-chaos of Thou, and the ambient fury of Show Me the Body- across to you like a flaming bolt to the breastplate. The cold majesty of their latest LP, Labyrinthine, feels best appreciated in the absolute, most dismal spans of winter, the periods during which it genuinely seems sane to ponder whether a thaw will ever grace the land again. We haven't hit that point quite yet in the Midwest as of this writing, but when we do, I'll be thankful to have the frigid solace of this album to keep me company.

Johnny Football Hero - Contingency Plan (Lonely Ghost Records)

Johnny Football Hero sounds completely pissed off on their LP, Contingency Plan. Their outrage and the outpour of grievance is at such an extraordinary, heated degree of fervency that it's transformed them into an entirely different band. The thing that makes them somewhat recognizable on this release, when compared to their '21 EP, Complacency, is the subject matter of their songs, which remains a reflection of the near-ubiquitous batter-thick spread of suffering that blankets the swelter of our modern hell world. It's all post-hardcore, incoming like a cloud of Nerf-footballs strapped with c4- whistling, blazing, and hot with intent, striking with precision and spreading the fever of their indignant fervor like a plague of premeditated epiphany and motivated malcontent. Emergencies call for action, and action is what Johnny Football Hero aims to inspire.  

84 Tigers - Nothing Ends (Spartan Records)

I'm presuming that the Reed brothers zeroed in on the name for their band because '85 Bears would have been too traitorous and '83 Lions would have been too obvious for the proud Motor City denizens, and for a project birthed to examine themes of nostalgia, loss, and maturation, you don't want a nom de plume that distracts too much from the subject matter, or the music for that matter. 84 Tigers’s second LP, the affirmatively titled Nothing Ends, offers a tightfisted, sober strain of melocore that raises the gut-plunging introspection of Chuck Ragan's repertoire, with a deservedly grungy afterburn to its headstrong chord crunch, and possesses a bitter acidity in the absorbing plateaus of its marrow that stings in nettling distinction with the pragmatic yet replenishing assurances of its lyrical content. A tyrant and a confidant, folded into one.

Samba Touré - Baarakelaw (Glitterbeat Records)

Literally the last time I wrote about a blues artist was when I interviewed Deludium Skies back in February. So, for this next pick I'm going to be discussing a tribute to the Rolling Stones' Sticky Finge—NAHHHHHH, psych! Screw that Boomer-slop impostor Americana- listen to Samba Touré's Baarakelaw. It's better for you, it's more soulful, it's got more heart, it's real; it's about the sweat and scratch required to dust up the dough to make a loaf of bread, and the blood and clay that build the foundations of communities. Transcendent, rhythmic guitars woven in poetic patterns, pulling threads and mosaic imprints into a tapestry of contemporary life in conversation with the traditions upon which it is founded. It's not technically the blues, but it's how you can best translate what Samba is up to if you're not Malian.

Liaam - Dancing With My Clothes On (Self-Released)

There is something about Liaam that makes me think he'd thrive in a standard-cable package slot where he's allowed to make surrealist skits with sock puppets... but maybe that's entirely because he reminds me of another twiggy, wiggly man with a similar-sounding name. It has nothing to do with his music, which sounds like he's afflicted with an itchy case of Half Japanese, with a far more terminal secondary diagnosis of Swell Maps... I'm afraid it's inoperable, ma'am. The best thing we can do for him is let him dance with his favorite collegiate blazer and tapered slacks until the friction starts to spark and he goes out in a puff of pyrrhic glory. I think it's what he would want, ma'am... that and his own TV show...

Sallow Moth - Mossbane Lantern (Lilang Isla)

The Sallow Moth saga continues with Mossbane Lantern, named for a vegetated artifact of either profoundly magical or obscure technical origins that rests discreetly hidden in an icy inlet and grants its possessor the ability to teleport long distances, or even interdimensionally... It would probably be helpful if I mentioned that Sallow Moth is a conceptual sci-fi sound project by super-industrious metal master Garry Brents, in which he explores a universe set into chaos by mutant celestial moths who have degenerated from their positions as cosmic gardeners and naturalist stewards into a force that threatens the fabric of reality itself. Mossbane Lantern is Garry's only LP with this project in 2025 (the other releases under the Sallow Moth banner being a demo and a pair of EPs) and is technically a continuation of the Vial EP from 2024. This all might sound crazy, but it really pales in comparison to the actual music on this beast, which sounds like Cynic performing some manner of manic, fungus-flavored jungle-jazz to appease a disturbed Quetzalcoatl-like apparition. It's the farthest thing you can imagine from normal and restrained, and that's why it rules!

Bones Shredder - Morbid Little Thing (Sunken Teeth)

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! What the actual fuck?!? This record makes me feel like it’s 2002 again! Dark, bruisingly catchy and beguilingly haunting pop-punk is not something I ever thought I'd hear with fresh ears posterior to the Bush-era implosion of everything charmingly irreverent about punk in the daunting umbra of perpetual imperialism and economic disarray. I guess things just had to get bad enough for people to stop worrying and embrace the terminal glissade enough to welcome morbid make-out anthems like the sanguinely pining "Let Me In" and tuneful tug of "Pulling Teeth" into the crypt of their heart chamber. It helps that there is as much Pinkerton as From Here to Infirmary in this venomous brew, helping to balance out the persistent allusions to tragedy with an obliging antivenin of hope.

YHWH Nailgun - 45 Pounds (AD 93)

The last time I encountered NYC quartet YHWH Nailgun was when I stumbled across their 2022 EP while killing time in an Airbnb in Louisville. I have such a vivid memory of that place, as well as the way YHWH's ricochet and recoil contrasted with its pseudo-Victorian decor, dark-shrouded interior, and sturdy but ancient furniture, shattering the idle calm of that place as if it were a radiation-laden satellite tumbling back in time to Deep Impact the house Wuthering Heights was based on. Their LP 45 Pounds eternalizes the freak energy that captivated me initially, while continuing to be just as incongruously alien within the modern setting of my home as they appeared to me while I was hibernating between the folds of an Emily Brontë novel. On this album, YHWH articulates something sonically akin to a lobotomized David Byrne, whose frontal lobe has been partially replaced with an outdated TV antenna that only picks up scrambled broadcasts of West African variety shows and rejected episodes of Later... with Jools Holland from an alternative dimension where Xiu Xiu had pivoted to become a particularly bizarre and brazen, hemp and barbed-wire necklace-hawking jam band. It's called 45 Pounds, but to me it's as dense and massive as a black hole caving in God's forehead.

Summer 2000 - Blue Meringue (Self-Released)

What is a Blue Meringue? According to Summer 2000, it's something along the lines of a wake pool filled with tar- an undulating state of paralysis where you're somehow always propelled forward while simultaneously sinking deeper into place- like trying to use a bungee cord to escape a whirlpool, or a Toyota pinned in place by a block of cement gouging into its undercarriage while it spins its wheels. It's a good metaphor for the necessity of growing through one's experiences while still feeling inadequate with the results. In the end, you can't really ever escape yourself due to the inertia of your flaws; you can only ever learn to live with and accept yourself and make the best of the consequences, even if you're perpetually aggrieved by how far you have fallen short of expectations. You're only human after all, and even when you've run over the median barrier and bent up your axle, as long as you're alive, you can always call a tow and get back on the road... eventually. Your insurance agent and/or SO might not be too happy with you, but as long as you're trying your best, you run a good chance of being forgiven for your roadside mishaps... probably. That's what I'm getting from Summer 2K's Blue Meringue, at least. A simple reminder of your inescapable humanness from a deeply thoughtful album.

Bug Moment - The Lazer Collection (Self-Released)

The first (and actually only) time I've seen Milwaukee's Bug Moment was when I caught them opening at a show at the Cactus Club where Blind Equation, Hey, ily, and Heccra were also playing... It was one of the most stacked lineups I can recall seeing outside of Chicago this year, and it's still one of my 2025 highlights. Being in that kind of company should give you a good idea of what to expect on their EP, The Lazer Collection, but then again, they're their own breed of shimmering, polychromatic anomaly, separate from their peers. Bug Moment certainly favors twinkly guitar antics, extreme metal vocals, and micromusic-esque infusions of electronics, but they also have this huge, whirlwind quality to their music, as well as perfectly calibrated pop-punk and alternative songwriting instincts that make comparisons to Paramore and Flyleaf unforced and positively apt. I like this album a lot. You could even say I've got the Bug Moment bug! ...at least for the time being.

La Rat - La Rat (South of North)

Sometimes to find the good stuff you have to dig deep... or look in the gutter. That's where I presume La Rat spends most of their time (although I found them via my Bandcamp feed, which, seeing as it mainly consists of solo noise and ambient projects at the moment, could be considered part of the internet's sanitation drainage system and digital superfund site, and might require government intervention to regulate accordingly). The Amsterdam-based duo's self-titled LP is a strange and vibey hip-hop volume detailing accounts of urban scavengery, that pack-rats together sooty soul samples and rough-cut R'n'B grooves into clumpy tangles of dirty delights, which vocalist Goya van der Heijden burrows into and gnaws to pulp with the scissors-like incisors of her squeaky but breathy, hushed but boldly furtive flow. This one is all cheddar, hold the cheese.

El Michels Affair - 24 Hr Sports (Big Crown Records)

I don't have to shout it out every time Leon Michels releases an album, but then again, it feels like I do, as I find them so compelling. To me, Leon is re-engineering the soul album one effort at a time, understanding the influence that soul had on hip-hop, and then working backward from hip-hop back to soul while conserving the marrow of each: the cool swelter and richness of sentiment from soul, and the scrappy, pioneering drive of hip-hop, and forging something unique and unpredictable in their fusion. For his 24 Hr Sports LP, Leon drops the Ghanaian hand-painted movie poster shtick in favor of '80s-uncle's-parlor nostalgia, with a soft-focus photo of a giant trophy adorning the cover. He certainly earned the reward pictured here for past efforts as much as for present ones. We should really give the man a medal every year in an Olympic-style ceremony. Maybe if we start saving our change in a coffee can, we'll have enough to put on that kind of production in time for his next LP in '27-'28 or so.

Mildred - Pt. 1 (Dead Mothers Collective)

Does the apocalypse need a prequel? I guess every disaster has its stages. LA's Milred jumped right to the conclusion of their conceptual drama in a hymn to a tragedy of errors and eras with Pt. 2, and now follows up with this year's Pt. 1, a significantly more involved piece of work spanning more than two hours in run time and incorporating the talents of more than 23 musicians. Still, even at the length of a Golden-Age Cecil B. DeMille biblical epic, this noisy eruption of Birthday Party-esque provocation and Kakotheos-oriented post-hardcore will likely feel shorter and less dyspepsia-inducing than your average Sunday sermon- especially if you have the misfortune of being dragged to one of those houses of "worship" that have incorporated bespoke addresses from a Kirkified-AI prompt into their liturgy- an accepted state of affairs in this country, despite it being outwardly more blasphemous (and unintentionally surreal) than the band Liturgy's entire catalog- not for lack of trying, of course.

Dikembe - King (Skeletal Lightning)

If there was any doubt that I'd save the best for last, fear not, for "best" is a subjective concept, but actually, the King EP from Dikembe is an unexpected delight this year. Not because Dikembe isn't in the habit of delivering catchy, heartfelt, and momentously urgent melodic hardcore, but because it's so effortlessly straightforward and on-point. They really do make it look easy, and that's really what you need after a long year: something that can throw the emergency brake on during the spin-out and give you about 20 minutes or so of breathing room. If that doesn't earn them the right to unilaterally appoint themselves "king" for the moment, then they should stop handing out crowns because they're passing them out to all the wrong people for all the wrong reasons. Long live the squatchy sonic sovereign!

That's it! You made it to the end. Congratulations! Now get out and seize the night! Good luck out there bud. Onward to 2026!

Pictured: Me trying to enjoy my evening.

Album Review: Baba Commandant and the Mandingo Band - Sonbonbela

 
Even in the shadow of death, there is the presence of light, for what casts the shadow if not the blazing facticity of the sun, the giver of life? Sonbonbela is the third full-length album from Mamadou Sanou, aka Baba Commandant. Mamadou passed sometime after the release of this record, but in life, he was a veteran of the West African DIY scene, getting his start in Victor Démé’s respected Mandinka funk band. Hailing from Burkina Faso, Mamadou knits together the last 30 years of Burkinabe funk and Mandingue guitar music to give life to an afrobeat sound that is as fresh and soothing as a cold drink of mango juice on a sweltering, cloudless day, while remaining as urgent and arresting as an air-raid siren sounding overhead. Sonbonbela is vibrant, raw and spontaneous, perfectly capturing the vivacious energy of a live performance while clearly honing the benefits of precision offered by studio recording. "Chasser Les Sachets" is a shapeshifting and fluid, guitar-groove ushered gallop, "Afro Mandingo" is an enlivening clatter and heed-snaring tumble through the calming confluence of rhythmic catharsis, while the title-track “Sonbonbela” crashes into your senses like it was airdropped into an afterparty, relying on more traditional funk instrumentation to achieve its groovy gravitas, it manages to be serious in tone but affectively jovial in delivery. Death is but a door, life is only a window, truth is found in the eternal expanse that unites our present with our past and a quickly cohering future. There is no hiding from something that is everywhere—in the air, in the water, and sewn into the fabric of both flesh and memory. You cannot silence a dead man. Rest in power, Mamadou Sanou.

Exalted sounds, echoing through the aether of the now and the soon-to-be hereafter (Sublime Frequencies).

Album Review: Jah9 - Note To Self

Jah9 is a Jamaican singer, blessed to be known by friends and family as Janine Elizabeth Cunningham. Her style has been described- by herself, mind you- as “jazz on dub,” combining vocal performances inspired by Nina Simone and Billie Holiday, over Augustus Pablo infused dub rhythms and elements of dancehall- an honest self-assessment if there ever was one. It sometimes pays to be a little skeptical of the ways that artists describe themselves, but as I said, she speaks the truth! Spot the lie and I'll put a pin in my eye.* Essentially, Jah9 has the soul of a classic jazz crooner, thriving in living color on God's green Earth while carrying out the mandates of King Jammy to the letter.** Note To Self, is her fourth studio album and follow-up to her 2017 collaboration with Mad Professor, appropriately named Mad Professor Meets Jah9 in the Midst of the Storm. The themes of NTS album are apporiate to the artists style- confidence, power, and Jah9’s connection with the universe... this last one I can apprcate a lot as the universe can often feel like a foreign place, even to to those of us who are native to the Milky Way, and so it's nice to have someone who feels at home here to show us around and make sure we don't get lost or fall down a well/blackhole/whathaveyou. “Note To Self (Okay)” is a pretty good place to start with this LP, as it has a silky R’nB vibe with a cool, cleansing ripple of reverb flowing through its essence and out its pours. Tracks like “Field Trip” are slightly more complex, and while it's driven by a bold and funky rhythm, its true heart can be found somewhere halfway up a cosmic elm tree, as a harbor between roots and stars. For a more traditional taste of dub, all you have to do is get your arms around the loving slinky squeeze of “Feel Good (The Pinch),” while modern soul parishioners will find their prayers answered by the scorching path of passion and possibility pioneered on “Could It Be” as it lays down some funky soul rhymes with a delicious dub coating. Note To Self: drop the needle and let it ride.

Get your pass to the VIP Area (VP Records).

* Speaking purely metaphorically here. Don't expect any follow-through on this one. 

** When it move yuh soul, of course! ... when the music hits, you feel no pain… but, you affi move!

Interview: 2:00AM Wake Up Call

Had the chance to talk with Emily about her latest LP with her 2:00AM Wake Up Call project, called Dead City- an examination of abandoned places, distant pasts, and a contemplation on the inevitable revolutions of time- often towards death, but also towards a fresh flowering of life when circumstances conspire to allow it. Emily has such an eclectic sound, combining early '00s pop, folk, and indie with contemporary approaches to emo, pop-punk and electronic music to create a sound that is intrepid in its pursuit of the novel modes of popular expression that still achieve some semblance of the familiar. I really didn't think I could do Dead City with a review alone, so I'm thrilled that Emily was willing to mic it up with me and offer her insights as well. Check out our conversation below: 

Listen to Dead City below. It's self-released, so be sure to show her some love. 

Album Review: Batuqueiros e Sua Gente with Douglas Germano - Partido Alto

It's getting to feel more and more like summer in my zone of the Midwest, and it's got me in the mood for some samba- particularly singer and composer Douglas Germano's 2021 collaboration with Batuqueiros e Sua Gente, literally titled after the style of samba to be found on their record, ie Partido Alto. It's generally a nectarous ensemble of spritely and spiritedly animated tracks characterized by bustling rhythms, cavorting percussion lines, trading call-and-response melodic choral cues, and the overwhelming sense that you've just stumbled upon the most fabulous block party of your otherwise parochial existence. From what I understand, the record is felicitous in its reproduction of the styles of samba that were popularized in Brazil during the '70s, but I wouldn't have known that just from hearing the record, as it feels very fresh and unburdened by nostalgia or any covetousness for a bygone era, instead representing a fashionaly conscious if almost timeless party record, steeped in the culture and dignified history of Latin America as it manifests in the modern day. That's more or less what you want from a record like Partico Alto, honestly- something that you can listen to anytime, and every time feels just as rich as the first. 

Album Review: Alsarah & the Nubatones - Seasons of the Road

Alsarah & the Nubatones has been around for more than 10 years, elegantly matching North African music with a lively cross-stitching of neo-soul and R'nB- unsealing the potential that this harmonious integration contains to embody history and the patterns of global migration. Seasons of the Road is the group's third LP, and likely takes its name from the constant state of motion through which the well-traveled and tour-forged crew has earned their reputation. It may also reference the sense of alienation that being witness to a world that is unremittingly committed to tremendous acts of violence can engender in a person not yet ready to forsake their humanity. When horror is commonplace, living with a feeling of placelessness inevitably becomes normal. While Alasarah's resplendent vocal prowess and fluid sense of melody, and the band's overall accomplished sense of rhythm and composition, can, and often does, lend itself to some extraordinarily intriguing and accessible acoustic folk hybrids, the fact that they're willing to embrace a kind of futurist outlook to their radiantly retro style makes each listen that much more engrossing- almost like your encountering a backdoor into an alternative past, one that is more abundant and gracious than our own- an envelope of possibility where brutality of the present was not inevitable. "Fa3el Fi Eldawam" begins the album with a suitably restless rhythm and poly-percussive pastiche of caravan craft, which moves in consonance with Alasarah's wondering, plaintive bawl. "Bye Bye" is more stripped-back and playful, ridding a reticent, shuddering chord progression on a star-catching offering to the seizing draw of spellbound devotion. "Disco Star" feels like a nomadic astral march through a needle's eye of chance and determination, while the evocative textures of "Tendo" feel like being baptized in the ocean. There will always be rough road ahead, not just a season, but a whole lifetime, and when conditions are inhospitable underfoot, something lovely in your ears can be a balm for the pain of our pilgrimage.