26:58 // June 30th, 2026 // Ilian Tape

As someone whose favourite techno tends to come from the hazier end of the genre (i.e. between the poles of ambient, dub and minimal), I’ve made my peace with its resolutely introverted appeal. Techno is an invitation to step into a hamster wheel of dreams, to stop time, to split the atom into uncountable textural permutations all caught in the orbit of a stubborn, motionless singularity. It’s as much about murky, static interiority as dancefloor kineticism, and so what if this gives it a surprisingly antisocial scope for a club genre? I love how its ascetic repetition shuts out noise and distraction and momentary cathartic upsets, whether as a concentration aid or an ambient means for environmental awareness. That rigid kick pattern with its dub pangs and shimmering synths could hardly be better equipped to turn a dancer into a dreamer.

These observations could preface any number of atmospheric techno releases, but they preempt a set of assumptions that underscore why Fields of Mist’s latest EP Intergalactic Rose feels like a quiet coup for the style. Its five tracks may be fluent in every aesthetic trapping in the textbook, but they play far less as a prompt for introspective spiralling than as a discrete cinematic event: as a self-contained spectacle that demands attention over immersion, and is exciting enough to reward it at every turn. Minimal or not, this is techno with enough active intrigue that you don’t need to live inside its textures to get the best of it, but it’s a tough call to pin down exactly how or why.

Part of it may be referentiality: in the same way that movies and photography are ultimately images derived from other images, these tunes are borderline techno about techno, framing themselves within the margins of conspicuous genre touchstones. This often gives them a more retro-leaning quality than what I’d expect from an Ilian Tape joint: the opener “the surface of moss prime” quickly evokes Shinichi Atobe’s cult classic Ship-Scope (2001) with its nostalgic synthscapes, while “masters of the known universe!” nods to Robert Hood’s minimal precision and the title-track throws it all the way back to Basic Channel’s landmark Phylyps Trak (1993) as it superimposes rattling textures over a pounding groove. The latter two in particular are vastly influential artists with an imprint on more records than I could count, but the parallels on Intergalactic Rose are so specific and pervasive that I feel unusually self-conscious of listening to the sound of great techno. The EP sounds definite rather than derivative in this sense, so tastefully precedented that it resists the listener hoping to innocently dissolve into it.

More importantly, however, these progressions are simply too vivid not to command active attention. Whether through an incremental build or a subtle interchange of layers, Fields of Mist serves up endless points of engagement on a second-by-second basis; it’s easy to romanticise the space imagery he draws on as a blank expanse, but true to the title image, Intergalactic Rose is packed full of engaging contours, constantly playing as imminent and present rather generalised or vague (as any good soundscape should). Its out-of-genre appeal fares extremely positively as such — it runs at under a half-hour and you can listen to it for entertainment!? Spacing out to dance music from your armchair has rarely been more transportive: away you go.

8.5/10

Further listening:

Shinichi Atobe - Ship-Scope

Basic Channel - Phylyps Trak

Robert Hood - Internal Empire

Skee Mask - ISS009

The language of song structure clearly demarcates the roles of each constituent part. Verses are places of poetry, of storytelling, of words, where Bob Dylan can embody entire swathes of humanity or Death Cab for Cutie can talk about glove compartments. Choruses are best with company, inviting people to sing and dance together, or, in the case of any given boygenius member, make lonely people cry together in shared isolation. Bridges, poor bastards, are redolent of architecture, of utility. A rather unmusical etymologist might suspect bridges to be merely transitory, with any permanent dwellings belonging to social outcasts, ugly trolls like and/or Anthony Kiedis, whose smacked out opus shall not feature among the SEVEN songs I’d like to force inside your ears despite the fact that it does precisely the thing I want to explore in the guise of a clever little songwriting double entendre: it ends with a bridge!

(I’m not sure why I’ve chosen 2026 to be my year of Kiedis strays; for balance, here’s Eugene Robinson of all people actually thinking a little bit harder about this walking pile of unapologetic issues than I’ll ever bother to).

Onwards! Upwards! It’s all upwards from here! Scroll downwards to see!

[*gag* Spotify *gag* playlist is at the bottom]

mewithoutYou - “Nine Stories”

An owl propositions a walrus escaped from the circus with a bottle of matrimony wine, and perhaps a night of interspecific lovemaking of doubtful logistics. Walrus is too busy wishing to be tied up and shot to indulge, and so informs the owl that there’s better parties up in heaven, so fuck off and die or whatever. Owl, rejected and dejected, says fuck you too pal, I’ll see you in hell.

A standard repartee, you might think, but it comes out as pure poetry in a final bridge for the ages:

The following two tracks on Ten Stories (which I hereby proclaim a masterpiece, tell your local music historian) pull this very same trick, and are equally deserving of hyperbolic praise. Get this album grafted onto whatever 12-inch diameter of skin can fit it, and get yourself a stylus capable of drawing noise from human flesh.

This is perhaps the purest instance of a simply modified pop structure to grace this list, stand by for gradual dissolution of the thesis statement.

El-P - “Tasmanian Pain Coaster (feat. Omar Rodriguez-Lopez & Cedric Bixler-Zavala)”

Like almost every track on I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead, “Tasmanian Pain Coaster” sets out to achieve a lot. Two characters meet on a train platform, and they’re coolly drawn and set off against each other in an instant by El-P: “Bumped into this kid I knew / he often had walked strange / so I ignored the blood on his laces so this cat could save face”. This encounter quickly spirals into a world built from words, a grimy New York sketched from the paranoid rantings of the second person, charged as he seems to be with PCP-assisted mania.

The ambition is clear, the storytelling vivid, yet the depth that’s established can only really be gleaned from album’s end. The fact that you don’t need to invest in or understand the story at all speaks just as strongly of El-P’s craft; the beat is a glorious patchwork of samples, littered with charged sub bass, a strong hook, some extended instrumental sections to flex the nuance, and a fucking bridge feat. The Mars Volta, oh hey what up?

They only jump in for one repeated guitar melody mirrored by a lyric that serves as an ellipsis to El’s frenetic lyricism (“Your future’s uncertain here now / the plot smears on the wall”), but the way the bridge acts as a satisfying conclusion to the bombast while winding down and clearing the space for Things To Come is masterly.

Aphex Twin - “Windowlicker”

I don’t imagine I’m opening any eyes here. My associates of associates who associate with Gen Zalpha tell me that the kids are RDJing real hard, but apparently they’re into his neoclassical piano bent or something? That’s cool and all, but, for better or worse, my first exposure to Aphex Twin was Grandmas Boy (2006), when about 10 seconds of “Windowlicker” played and had me all What The Fuck Was That?, and no fucking piano trill has ever done that to me. It still impresses me now. How is that vocal sample in the verses so emotive and memorable through its four chopped up notes? Does the arrangement before the bridge leave space for the distorted synth to have such a large and unexpected impact when it hits?

I dunno, man. But I do know two things:
1) If you haven’t seen the official Director’s Version video linked above, it is sensational.
2) If you love this song, love elaborate dance choreography, love weird cinema, and aren’t too fazed by a a variety of disturbing pieces of content typical of a Gaspar Noe film, you’ve gotta watch Climax! (2018).

Intronaut - “Milk Leg”

DON’T pay any attention to this track’s title OR the hospital-grade sterility of Intronaut’s most recent album OR the hideous prick who’s handling the sticks on this track. DO lose yourself in the distended arse-end of this recording, all bass and space. Habitual Levitations seems destined to remain Intronaut’s lost gem, an album that traded in some portion of their screaming intensity for dad-weed strength ruminations on the hypnotic power of the polyrhythm and lost the support of the moshing masses along the way. Bugger them, bugger that, bugger me senseless, extend that bridge out into a limitless smear of smoky horizon, yes boy.

It bears mentioning that our song structures are beginning to get cloudy here. Variations on a verse are still a verse, and small transitional passages aren’t necessarily bridges. Don’t lose too much of your life trying to pick apart the mechanics of prog metal, there’s plenty of YouTubers that’ll do it for you, and you’ll get to keep more friends than them if you abstain.

Fat Freddy’s Drop - “Blackbird”

Look, there’s a bit going on here structurally. You’re going to hear two horn solos separated by an entire verse and chorus, and neither of those is the bridge. If there ever was a band that moves at the speed of molasses, it’s the one named after a particularly choice batch of Aotearoan LSD. Questioning such things doesn’t help. One must accept that we can’t know everything in order to transcend. The bridge is unequivocally the bit at the end that never fails to make a half-stoned crowd bop that little bit harder. Rest In Power DJ Mu.

clipping. - “Say The Name”

I like to imagine fans of Hamilton stumbling across “Body and Blood” or “Enlacing” and getting their limited love for hip-hop shook the fuck up. When clipping. are on to a winner, they’re up there with the best in the genre, and the production pairing of William Hutson and Jonathan Snipes often takes the spotlight on their best work. “Say The Name” might not be Diggs’ finest lyrical moment (that pair of horrorcore albums had their fair share of kitsch), but the way the beat is gradually enlarged through additive elements until it morphs into a song-ending bridge is one of the beatmaking boiz’ finest moments. Here’s a version where it seems like Diggs is fresh out of bed and some other bloke comes in smashing some live drums at the end. Kalimba alert!

cLOUDDEAD - Physics Of a Unicycle

Given cLOUDDEAD’s hip-hop credentials alongside a “chorus” that only occurs once, one might hear “Physics Of a Unicycle”’s second half lurch from harmonious musings on the brilliance of the Wright Brothers and unicycles into a dub-laced series of bars about nuclear weapons, war planes, and God’s tendency to lie, and be tempted to label it a beat switch. Fuck you, it ain’t. It was 2008 and that term might not have existed. Don’t waste your precious time arguing with me, just familiarise yourself with these cult heroes and then go check the new doseone.

If it’s not abundantly clear by now, I’m a descriptivist, so this exercise might not even have been accurate, let alone educational. Nevertheless, the structure of SEVEN demands that I must follow through, make shrewd determinations, tell you what to think and how to think it. Adherence to structure makes the construction of clarity inevitable, and clarity is something we all desperately want and need, whether we think the 1970s’ explosion of progressive music was a net win for humanity or not. I’ve got righteous judgments to share with you regarding exactly this, and they seamlessly link up with everything written and shared above. I’ll just have to begin a new paragraph in which I can share these thoughts, a final paragraph, perhaps the last paragraph written by real human fingers ever. Here it comes.

Death Cab for Cutie – I Built You a Tower
38:34 // June 5th, 2026 // ANTI-

Fresh off anniversary tours for their breakthrough records Transatlanticism and Plans (as well as Give Up, a one-off by front man Ben Gibbard’s side project The Postal Service), Death Cab for Cutie re-entered the studio with old memories on their minds, aiming to recapture the vivacity of their youth while molding that energy to less naïve ends. Circumstance gave them the perfect chance: writing in tandem with his second divorce, Gibbard resolved to not resort to finger-pointing or spur-of-the-moment disdain, opting instead to take stock of the fallout and wax about the push-and-pull of romantic separation and the personal factors that drive parties to construct emotional walls.

It’s a wiser record for it and doesn’t arrive at easy answers, but each sentiment nonetheless lands like a revelation—“Full of Stars,” “Pep Talk,” and “Trap Door” are all restrained, gorgeous masterstrokes of songwriting worth their economical construction, while Punching the Flowers” and “How Heavenly a State,” intertwine the more unsettled, embittered indie rock the band once considered home. Intermittent familiarity with their catalogue discouraged me from rambling on and on in a longer review, but on its own merit, I Built You a Tower is one of 2026’s finest lyrical statements, and it’s well worth the repeated spins to let each understated cut sink in. (8.5/10)

- Zack Lorenzen

Modest Mouse – An Eraser and a Maze
48:54 // June 5th, 2026 // Glacial Pace

I wouldn’t blame anyone for being skeptical about Modest Mouse’s stock in 2026: though their early days yielded a run of inimitable indie rock classics, lineup changes in the mid-aughts catalyzed the dilution of their signature sound, and with it, any semblance of quality control. 2007’s We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank and 2015’s Strangers to Ourselves respectively nuzzled into a sweet, if unadventurous spot and threw everything at the canvas to see what stuck. By the time 2021’s The Golden Casket dropped, they’d not only ceased to write music worth returning to, they’d seemingly lost any incentive to care.

At the tail end of 2022, the sudden illness and death of founding drummer Jeremiah Green evidently prompted front man Isaac Brock to cut the bullshit. An Eraser and a Maze is directly inspired in large part by Green’s death, full of candid, diaristic disclosures to a departed friend, and even in its non-eulogistic margins, mortality looms heavy over the material. In turn, it’s a dour, meditative affair—“Life’s a Dream” and “Third Side of the Moon,” for example, languidly mourn, while “Remember Yourself Not Me,” and “Speak ‘N Spell (Or Not)” bristle with something closer to joy, in awe of the great cosmic improbability of being alive. If, in our grief, the lost get to live on inside us, Brock accepts that task nobly and with little feet-dragging. A few unnecessary, inconsequential interludes don’t detract from the fact that this is Modest Mouse’s most important, artistically reassuring, and vulnerable material in a long, long time. May we not take it for granted. (7.5/10)

- Zack Lorenzen

Tujiko Noriko - Pon
70:23 // June 12th, 2026 // Editions Mego

The direction that Tujiko Noriko took with this album was a pleasant surprise given her trajectory over her quarter-century career; she’s getting back in touch with the eclectic glitch pop of Make Me Hard while leveraging her more recent experience with ambient. This combination of approaches has yielded something that feels new, strange, and challenging, even for someone intimately familiar with Noriko’s discography. I found my footing thanks to Pon’s desolate, mourning tone, which, with some attention and time, comes through even in its most experimental moments. The loss that Noriko is working through here (see our delightful interview with her for more on this album’s context) was clearly profound. After many listens, I feel a connection to the feelings she’s expressing that’s as specific as it is intense; the album conveys its theme with near-filmic clarity, even through the language barrier. Tracks that were unimpactful on early listens now strike me as essential parts of the whole, like that meditative series of establishing shots or everyday, low-stakes character moment that makes a movie’s emotional core resonate more completely and stick with you long afterwards. It’s beauty, in other words, of that precious, personal sort that only the best art can be.

I’m writing this a few weeks and maybe a half dozen listens after finishing a longer review, which I’m already acutely dissatisfied with. Many of Tujiko Noriko’s albums have been growers for me, but I’ve still been caught off guard by how much more impactful Pon has gotten over my time with it; it’s been flat-out making me cry, recently, at different moments with each listen. The rating below is probably not long for this world—don’t be surprised if by the end of the year it’s among my all-time favorites. So be patient with it, if you can. Try it when you’re feeling wistful and porous. Revisit it after some time away. Let Noriko into your life for a while, and miss her cat together. (8.5/10)

-Caleb Yarbrough

Saidan - FANGDRILLER: Scars Beneath Memory’s Wrist
47:13 // June 19th, 2026 // Avantgarde Music

The fact is black metal used to be a genre that would shock and upset conservative parents and Christians. Now the only people you can actually shock and upset are the die-hard black metal fans themselves because they’ve become soft.

Saidan - 2024 interview with Black Metal Daily

Even by black metal’s po-faced carnival standards, Saidan are a silly band. Enjoyable as it is to see anyone taking potshots at genre purists, frontman Splatterpvnk [sic]’s ragebait antics are right on the line of scrappy contrarianism, and as far as the Brand is concerned, I’ve never taken his J-horror necrophiliac schtick seriously enough to be offended by it (a good thing too judging by this album’s lyrics and the ambiguity of where the protagonist of the album’s concept got her name from [1]). As with many a band to flog edgy branding out of a morbid concept – Children of Bodom immediately spring to mind – it helps somewhat that Saidan roll with a happy-go-lucky attitude, and still more that their music is a ton of fun.

If the aesthetics portend an irreverent smattering of cheap thrills, then you’d better buckle up because that’s exactly what you’re getting: thrills, thrills, thrills, thrillingly thrilling and so dispensably plural that cheapness is a vital prerequisite for their ease of consumption. This is not criticism: Splatterpvnk has a razor-keen understanding of the mileage at which riffs-per-minute music is best enjoyed, and there’s arguably less joy to be had in pondering the distinctions of individual songs than there is in savouring the relish with which he and powerhouse drummer Hundosai deliver one incensed banger after another.

As per usual, the band take kitsch in their stride. The lofi edge they rode like a chill wind on 2022’s stellar Onryō II may have been filtered out for a more temperate airspace – that’s nu-criticspeak for copious reverb and a shitton of cinematic goth synths, keep up – but it’s churlish to demand edgier aesthetics when they get such mileage out of going full Disney (”Her Lips Pressed Against a Coffin Nail”). Elsewhere, “Kara No Bara” and “Beat to Death” are at least the equal of the meticulous songwriting refinement for which we frittered so many words over Deafheaven last year. Suddenly Saidan’s edginess seems a whole lot more welcome. Don’t call me. (7.5/10)

[1] I was unaware of this link until I read up on Saidan’s album for this blurb, and am a lot more reluctant to handwave it away as inconsequential kitsch compared to the rest of the band’s themes and imagery. For those unfamiliar, the Junko Furuta case is one of the most vile degradations of human life to occur in modern criminal history, and it’s so embedded in the mythos of J-horror that it’s implausible for Splatterpvnk to have chosen the name Junko for his protagonist without awareness of the connotations (given the sexualised gamut of isolation, captivity, mutilation and burial he puts her through).

It inspires absolutely no joy to see a historical tragedy exploited once again for gauche edginess, but from what I can tell, the Junko-character in Saidan’s lyrics is more a vehicle for fiction than an attempt to directly recycle the history. Ick-worthy? Absolutely, but I’m more prepared to view Saidan within the scope of artistic licence than, say, the way Sewerslvt directly co-opted that identity as part of her own persona. Perhaps I’m overextending my good faith out of consideration that, unlike Sewerslvt, Saidan make good music and have yet to reduce their entire sub-genre to vacuous e-bilge. Chalk the Junko reference up as a similar level of cringy postulation to Trent Reznor recording his seethe opus on a Manson killing site and leave those morbid fantasies at arm’s length, or else get your pitchfork out and decry the irony of those being loudest to call out black metal purism being the most degenerate horror freaks of all. Either way, more fool Saidan for thinking their sickly overtures to the cult of dead schoolgirls would make this album riff any harder.

-Hugh Puddle

Trooper Salute - 友達がいました [Tomodachi ga imashita]
55:16 // June 17th, 2026 // Buriki Records

Finally, as has long been foretold: the second coming! (of advantage Lucy!)

This is a very promising and impressively ambitious debut. Trooper Salute have emptied their whole fridge into this thing, and while some of the ideas aren’t perfectly ripe the full experience is perfect comfort food. I’m tempted to call it uneven, but that feels like the wrong word; I think some of the tracks are notably worse than others, or at least I have problems with them, but my enjoyment and investment while listening is near-seamless. Every moment is delivered with such heartfelt conviction and youthful energy that I can’t help but enjoy myself, even when they’re strung together ungracefully or thrown in ill-advisedly. That said, some of these tracks are unmitigated triumphs: ホーリーナイト [track 5] captures most of the sound and style of this album, showcasing well-crafted hooks in the first half and shooting for the moon in the second. 悪知恵 [track 9] is an immaculate dream pop detour with one of the easiest-on-the-ears vocal melodies I’ve heard in a minute. 友達がいました [track 11] manages to last a full 8 minutes of arena-oriented post-rock without putting a foot wrong, with keyboardist Komiya’s lead vocal performance fully vindicating the choice to share those duties with main vocalist Musashi. If you’re a fan of Station/Oolt Cloud-era advantage Lucy, or Kinoko Teikoku’s debut, or similarly passionate, maximalist rock (I’m even reminded of Ants From Up There at times), you will not want to skip this. (8.0/10)

-Caleb Yarbrough

Vafurlogi - Gneisti af eldi Guðs
48:51 // June 19th, 2026 // Norma Evangelium Diaboli

Following up their already impressive debut, Vafurlogi continue to deliver high-quality black metal in the same lineage of the post-DSO melody-forward work of Mgla, here with a pleasing dissonant edge that calls to mind fellow Icelanders Svartidaudi. I experience this album primarily as a very well-packaged series of emotionally resonant lead guitar melodies; if you prefer your black metal to lean more into infernal aesthetics, dramatic camp, or fast-paced fun, this probably won’t be a highlight of the year for you. It’s my favorite standard black metal of 2026 so far, third favorite of extreme metal more generally (well behind Miserere Luminis, a bit behind Kaatayra). My only complaint (and it’s quite minor) is that there aren’t a lot of especially standout, memorable moments. The songs all feel distinct and are consistently well-written and executed, but it’s much more a great album experience than a collection of individual bangers. That said, my favorite track is the closer. It doesn’t waste a minute of its longer runtime, and I’m a sucker for the lonely grand piano taking over the lead melody for the final 90 seconds. (8.0/10)

-Caleb Yarbrough

Ostraca – Thread
35:42 // June 26th, 2026 // Persistent Vision

Richmond, VA’s Ostraca have spent over a decade playing shrieky, dim, cathartic screamo the old fashioned way, and they’ve done it so well that every new release of theirs feels like a trusty, reliable pick-me-up of put-me-downs. Without a dud in their repertoire, I imagined Thread would be more of the same, and it is, but like, more; there’s more space for their post-rock buildups to accumulate weight, more soil for their subterranean misery to excavate, more esteem for these expectations to supersede. Thread uses all of it and then some. If you’re into emoviolence or crust or any grim, volatile music of this nature and you haven’t gotten around to checking out Ostraca yet, this is an exemplary display of their craft. Tumble on into the cavern. (8.0/10)

- Zack Lorenzen

Afstumpet - Han som gnaver
13:23 // June 6th, 2026 // self-released / Dessicated

Between the new Lithopædia and Thætas records (both excellent!), June was the month of the Æ. And where is that Latin-Siamese marriage of letters most commonly used today? If you answered International Phonetic Alphabet, you would be correct, but I was trying to hint at Denmark, you wiseacre! Between needless verbosity and flagrantly insulting the reader, July is the month of rude trainwreck intros. In my defense, Han som gnaver doesn’t lend itself to a rhapsodic multi-paragraph write-up, what with its extensively plumbed stylistic heritage and its rapid exit.

As a general rule of thumb, when a release has an edition of fifty copies, you know you’re in for a good time. On their latest, Afstumpet join the ranks of broadly old-school, Incantation-based Copenhagen acts such as Phrenelith, Undergang, or Hyperdontia, offering a not exactly fresh yet vigorous hulk of raspy OSDM riffage driven by what I’d describe as a deathgrindesque mindset. What elevates the material – apart from the songs’ hook-like motifs that serve as mnemonic anchor points – is the modern spirit evident in the tessellation of genres: when they’re not ruthlessly blasting away, K and N weave in set pieces from the realms of death doom, sludge, disso, and even some rudiments of post. A good chunk of the writing is groove-centric in the non-cheesiest of ways and, despite the glaring differences, reminded me of works like Iniquitous or Funereal’s The Misery Season. Some of it is a tad too patched-up, and getting from point Æ to point Å can feel overly convoluted, but even in the face of their occasionally visible sutures, I appreciated the thoughtful little diversions sprucing up the tried-and-true substruction. Ultimately, its short runtime worked tremendously in the EP’s favor (+0.5) and made returning to it scarcely an imposition, as thirteen minutes are easy to spare even on a busy day. If the Danes can work out a way to string their ideas together in a more intuitive fashion, the hopefully upcoming full-length will be something to look forward to indeed. (7.0/10)

- Nex

Truck Violence - The Weathervane Is My Body
31:51 // June 26th, 2026 // The Flenser

I first listened to Truck Violence’s debut, the half self-titled Violence, after I’d heard The Weathervane Is My Body a number of times. I don’t recommend this; TWIMB is a step up from Violence in almost every way. Gone are the folky sections that stick out like a sore thumb (excepting “House caught fire”, which has the advantage of being both fantastic and a perfect match for the album’s tone): instead, the folk elements are integrated tightly with the rest of the noise rock soundscape, adding textural/emotional depth and structural dynamics to tracks that might otherwise be one-note (e.g. the second half of “Your name, It’s walking”). Gone are the whiny vocal timbres and failed attempts at swagger: on TWIMB the vocalist has refined his style almost to the point of reinvention, with far more emotionally resonant cleans and thicker, more robust harshes. Gone, frankly, are the weak tracks: Violence has clear highs and lows, while TWIMB is uncannily consistent. The sludge metal influences are more pronounced here, contributing further to the development of a distinctive sound that will certainly appeal to fans of Chat Pile or Daughters but doesn’t imitate them. There’s still room for further improvement, especially to better appeal to me specifically, but I have high hopes for future Truck Violence releases given their considerable progress up to this point. (7.5/10)

-Caleb Yarbrough

Jalen Ngonda – Doctrine of Love
30:36 // June 5th, 2026 // Daptone

While a quick run to the dictionary clarified that it wouldn’t be inaccurate, it feels patronizing to call the music of Maryland-born, London-based crooner Jalen Ngonda a “pastiche” of 60s & 70s R&B. Reverent of it? Sure. Emblematic of all the same killer traits? It’s got charisma for days, if that’s all you need. In arrangement and appeal, critical platitudes about how imitation is the highest form of flattery ring hollow against a bundle of bops as airtight as Doctrine of Love.

Some credit ought to directly extend to producers Vince Chiarito and Michael Buckley—their intimate capture of each instrument feels aptly old-timey yet bursting with life—but Ngonda’s writing is wise, to-the-point, and irresistibly hooky on its own terms, too. Better yet, his androgynous voice—silky as Smokey Robinson’s on quieter cuts, roaring with the fire of James Brown’s on spicier ones—is ear candy in and of itself, less an attempt to mimic vintage soul than a full-bodied resurrection of it. I don’t know if a hypothetical Boomer Jalen Ngonda would’ve written Doctrine of Love if he’d operated in Motown’s peak era, but we don’t need to concern ourselves with how good it would’ve fared if he had—in the here and now, it dazzles through forces stronger than tribute or mere nostalgia. (8.0/10)

- Zack Lorenzen

Whoresnation / Nak’ay - Whoresnation / Nak’ay
17:18 // June 16th, 2026 // LIXIVIAT

You’ll know what kind of album you’re dealing with after listening to three seconds of this, so there’s zero need for me to go full Albert Mudrian on you here. It’s a straightforward affair that sees both bands shift their approach to varying degrees.

Whoresnation had become increasingly deathy with each full-length, so I was surprised to hear them go almost pure grind for their side of the split, with the end of “Tardigrada” and the Caluwian vocals constituting the last traces of what they’ve been known to dish out. While this reversion will mark an upgrade for some, I thought they had perfected the incorporation of traditional DM tropes (which sadly are pretermitted in contemporary deathgrind most of the time and thus, paradoxically, were what made them stand out) without straying too far from the core principles on Dearth, and, consequently, missed the spice those inflections could have added to the undoubtedly competent, but now fairly vanilla grind fare.

Even more tragically, Na’kay also opted for more basic song structures. Their retrogression is somewhat masked by their still relatively novel blackened leanings, but as a front-to-back listen, their side compares unfavorably to the keen and checkered writing they presented on Closed Doors / Open Veins. Just to be clear, this is very good grind in the grand scheme of things; it’s just that it fails to underline the bands’ strengths. If you’re looking for something sitting between Fake Dust’s raving technicality and the polished, PV-fueled assault of Eastwood’s new LP, this is well worth checking. (7.0/10)

- Nex

Olivia Rodrigo – you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love
50:55 // June 12th, 2026 // Geffen

All records in the Top Ten (especially those that get to Number One) have far more in common with each other than with whatever genre they have developed from or sprung out of.

The KLF - The Manual (1988)

I was rooting for Olivia Rodrigo— really, I promise. Sure, Guts was clumsy and trite almost as often as it was plucky and convincing, but whenever “Vampire” started to really grate on me, I imagined some poor gawky tween with no one in her life cool enough to get her into indie rock being inspired to learn a power chord or four from seeing O-Rod toting around a Stratocaster, and my heart would soften. When I eventually wrote a fairly ambivalent review of Guts, I concluded that those tweens might deserve to be inspired by a more interesting songwriter. But I promise, pinky promise, I also heard real inspiration! At the very least, I heard energy, which was arguably more important for her purposes.

On Rodrigo’s new album, you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love, she skirts the question of whether her basicness was or is a mere artifact of youth by intentionally leaning into it. It’s artifacts all the way down on this one! Same as on GUTS (and Sour to a lesser extent), the backbone of the Olivia Rodrigo experience is her attentive handling of forty-odd years’ worth of alt-rock radio canon. She shifts from bubbly new wave to riot grrrl shout-alongs to glossy balladry to, why not, a flash of indietronica, all so frictionlessly that they barely even scan as different genres. Her heart may belong to the ‘90s (and, regrettably, still, to Taylor Swift), but she knows and loves the ‘80s, and if she hasn’t quite reached the ‘70s, she still wants us to know that they’re on her radar:

I like your big sister

Shе has your same face

And I tried to win hеr

Over with my cynical humor and yacht rock music taste

If that scans as a whole lot of telling and very little showing, then yes: that’s the form across the board here. Her taste has steadily matured over the past five years, but her songwriting still follows the motions of rigid formalism. She’s earnest in these – caught in “expectations”’ burst of above-it-all confidence, her power chords and tight rock grooves are anything but disposable accessories – but she still sounds palpably adrift without them, not to mention a tad stilted when she aims for a flourish (see the half-hearted dissonance of “Drop Dead”’s chromatic guitar fill).

Meanwhile, her lyrics demand that you take her propensity for spelling it all out as a personality trait: in a zeit geisted over by, say, Lana del Rey’s literary aspirations and Sabrina Carpenter’s unquenchable innuendo, the party line is to take O-Rod’s routine evisceration of subtext as a USP and leave it there (And here’s the part where the girl gets pissed / And the girl is me, did you get that hint?). She seems to wield normalcy as a defence against celebrity and to identify her artistry with the cipher she offers for universal experiences.

This is valid and probably admirable, but it doesn’t quite cover for the lack of personal distinctions she brings to the table. If she’s eked out a few more hard-won life lessons from her latest heartbreak this time around (lessons in using your partner as an all-purpose piece of void fillage on “the cure”, lessons in getting over it on “expectations”), it’s more than offset by the joylessly self-aware puppy love that eats up most of the A-side and curdles over the B-side. If that yacht-rock music taste can’t give her more tools for interesting songwriting than just hanging a lampshade on her trope, she’d probably do well to get into some music that isn’t quite so trope-deferential — or, better, make her own.

So are we Gatekeep!ing her? Maybe if she were in that awkward-amusing Harry Styles territory and the chief joy in following her was a tastemaking project crudely puppeteered by unseen impresarios, but her genre engagement is earnest (hi, Robert Smith!) and she’s brought some good to the culture (see the cross-generational magic of her all-female festival lineup). Does this make us more enthusiastic about pretending we’d still be talking about her tumblr-titled portfolio record if it weren’t for the statistics and discourse surrounding it? As with most things this proudly vanilla, it’s not that deep. Judge O-Rod by her platform, and she’s the right girl at the right time; judge her by her tunes, and, well, you’d think someone this concerted about carrying all the right torches would be more willing to start an occasional fire. (6.0/10)

-Kerry Renshaw and Hugh Puddle

Want even more? Check out our full-length reviews for these other June releases:

This Week’s New Music

Aaron Lewis

Give My Country Back (Big Machine)

USA | Country

Advents

A Bitter Truth You Can’t Undo (InVogue)

USA | Metalcore // Post-Hardcore

Black Sites

For Eternity (self-released)

USA | Progressive Metal // Thrash Metal

Cinder Well

A Blooming Body (Hen House)

USA | Americana // Folk

Daisy Garland

Palomino (Strawberry Coffin)

CANADA | Alt-Country // Indie Rock

DJ Khaled

Aalam of God (We the Best/Republic)

USA | Hip-Hop

Fuming Mouth

The Ringing Bell (Triple B)

USA | Deathcore // Metalcore

Haken

In a Fever Dream (Inside Out)

UK | Progressive Metal // Alternative Metal

Helado Tropical

Helado Tropical (Psychic Hotline)

USA | Indie Pop

Loathe

A Stranger to You (SharpTone)

UK | Metalcore

The Menzingers

Everything I Ever Saw (Epitaph)

USA | Punk // Alternative Rock // Americana

Merzbow

Vapor Hoof (Etherworld)

JAPAN | Noise // Industrial

Motionless in White

Decades (Roadrunner)

USA | Metalcore // Industrial // Gothic

Protest the Hero

Within (self-released)

CANADA | Progressive Metal // Metalcore

Quantrell

Money Changed Me (GoodTalk)

USA | Hip-Hop

Quicksand

Bring on the Psychics (Equal Vision)

USA | Post-Hardcore

Rome Streetz

Sock It 2 My Pocket (Mass Appeal)

USA | Hip-Hop

Tomb Slab

Tomb Slab (Road to Masochist)

UK | Sludge Metal // Black Metal // Death Metal

Yard Act

You’re Gonna Need a Little Music (Island)

UK | Indie Rock // Post-Punk

As always, thanks for reading! Back next week!

42:06 // July 10th, 2026 // RCA

Regardless of what you think of their current trajectory and status as one of the biggest rock bands on the planet, for those of us introduced to Bring Me The Horizon via their debut full-length (when our hair was bigger than we were) it’s heartening to see BMTH haven’t shunned their origin story. By taking their most technical, immature, and rough-around-the-edges record and conservatively reimagining it, the outfit has clearly gone to great lengths to realise the album they wanted to make way back in the MySpace glory years of 2006, having spent years lamenting the original’s production (or, as frontman Oli Sykes eloquently put it during a Suicide Season-era interview: ‘Our last CD were shit…’). Unsurprisingly, expectations surrounding Repented since its announcement have been high, both from older fans wanting to re-live the days when their side fringe didn’t double as a combover, and, to a lesser extent, newer listeners curious to experience the band’s launchpad with twenty years of hindsight and modern production propelling it. On both fronts, this re-engineered nostalgia machine can tentatively be called a success, albeit one with some fairly glaring caveats.

Given CYB’s pedigree of puerility and unrelenting heaviness, it’s fair to say that musically it didn’t reinvent any wheels. It felt like a bunch of Sheffield teenagers trying desperately to convince the world they’d just crawled out of a Swedish crypt, albeit in a very cute and comparatively accessible way. Chord-liquefying vocals, kickdrum abuse, breakdowns every thirty seconds, a surprising affinity for melody and generalised At The Gates worship coursed through the experience, and although clumsy, as a mission statement it showcased bags of intent with a personality inseparable from both the songwriting and its gloriously scrappy production.

That personality is precisely where Repented stumbles.

In addressing virtually every criticism levelled at the production on the original, BMTH have inadvertently swung so violently in the other direction that much of the album’s identity has been polished away almost entirely. The guitars lack the high-end bite that gave the original its wiry menace, and have now settled into a flatter, more generic modern deathcore tone that is inferior in almost every way. The percussion possesses significantly more depth and punch, but also sounds so immaculately triggered and inhuman they now feel like an exceptionally expensive one-man bedroom project. Oli’s vocal technique may have immeasurably improved over the subsequent two decades, but hearing 2026 Oli try to imitate 2006 Oli is far less convincing than the throat-shredding gremlin-core found on the OG. With Sykes and guitarist Lee Malia wearing producer’s hats alongside Humanity’s Last Breath mastermind Buster Odeholm, Repented falls foul of that most garish of all production faults: overproduction.

Whether through double-tracking or denser layering, Oli’s re-recorded vocals alongside the album’s generally fuller presentation creates an artificial weight that doesn’t equate to the tantrum heaviness found on the debut record. Additionally, the low-end feels strangely anaemic, resulting in a texture that removes a great deal of dynamism and causes many passages to fall into that same homogenised wall-of-sound trap that plagues a great many modern deathcore/ metalcore releases, particularly the hyper-produced, suffocating variety that Odeholm himself has helped popularise. CYB wasn’t heavy because it was polished — it was heavy because it sounded ramshackle and like it was held together by prayers and sticky tape; every clipping, phlegmy retch, every muddy guitar tone and every overzealous blastbeat contributed to an atmosphere of barely-controlled chaos. Repented tidies all of that up for sure, but mistakes apoplectic volatility for a flaw rather than recognising it as part of the LP’s appeal and enduring charm.

That said, some aspects are elevated substantially by the overhauled production, notably the breakdowns — which is extremely fortunate, because this album has more breakdowns than my first year as a parent. They now feel uniformly impactful, weighty and cataclysmic in all the ways a good breakdown should, every spaced out chug or stuttering groove compounded into convincing, tangible force. ‘‘Braille’’ offers perhaps the clearest example, its revised snare tone turning the central whirlwind into something that now feels properly ugly in all the right ways.

Elsewhere, the guitar solos throughout are served tremendously by the emphasised high-end in the cleaner mix, and give the sweepy technical dexterity room to breathe where previously they were all but swallowed by the rumbling deathcore backbone. The riffs, which remain the most interesting and exciting of BMTH’s career, likewise receive their moment in the spotlight: the widdly lick on ‘‘Black & Blue’’ has never sounded so satisfyingly groovy. New closer ‘‘Dehumanized’’ is a relatively serviceable signoff that, with the exception of its unmistakeably 2020’s-era chorus, could easily have passed for a leftover from the original recording sessions. Unfortunately, it also embodies much of Repented’s broader shortcomings, saturated in the same glossy thickness that blankets the record. It ultimately feels less like a natural extension of CYB than a bonus track from NeX GEn, since while it may not conform to the general sound of that LP at large, it nonetheless traffics in the same kind of anthemic brainlessness in its chorus, and would have served the band better as a mere nod to the early days on its own terms rather than ostensibly a hanger-on to wrap up their nostalgia exercise. It’s hardly a dealbreaker, but it neatly encapsulates the slightly confused philosophy underpinning this project as a whole.

Despite all of these reservations, it’s difficult not to enjoy Repented, particularly for those of us whose nostalgia for the original borders on obsessive. The improvements over its 2006 counterpart may be marginal, but it bottles its essence well enough and its rewritten aspects feel inoffensive so as to not cause too much of an eyebrow raise, leaving which version is superior almost entirely a matter of personal preference. The bottom line, however, is that while the album is technically better, it’s sacrificed a great deal of its built-in character to get there, feeling neither as heavy, nasty or bratty as the original recording: all facets that lent it a begrudging charm. CYB was never a masterpiece, but it was through this charm that the majority of its content was held aloft… now that’s been removed, we’re left with a clean-sounding, modern deathcore experience that sounds largely indistinguishable from many of its contemporaries. In filing away the rough edges, Repented stands as a cleaner, tighter, and arguably more accomplished effort, but also a curiously anonymous one — it’s ironic that in attempting to perfect one of deathcore’s messiest cult classics (fight me), BMTH have disposed of the very qualities that made it worth revisiting in the first place.

7/10

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The generational divide when it comes to music isn’t something I’ve come across a great deal of research on, aside from numerous instances of turn that down! You call that music?! being shouted through my bedroom door as a teen. So, in the interest of science (and definitely not my own sadistic enjoyment), I subjected my mum to seven of my favourite albums in a blind listening test to get her candid opinions on each. She did not disappoint. Several long-held beliefs were challenged. Mostly mine.

In many ways, my mum was the perfect candidate for this experiment, as her personal musical preferences rarely extend beyond the ‘80s, with artists like The Beatles, The Beach Boys and Simon & Garfunkel among her regular rotation. The records were selected with variety in mind in a (misguided) attempt to potentially broaden her horizons, although I wasn’t actually expecting her to run out and buy copies of these albums anytime soon.

So, apologies in advance to anyone whose favourite album she tears to shreds, and an even bigger apology to my mum for forcing her to endure this low budget straitjacket-and-headphones-on psychological experiment.

Listener Profile

Subject ID: GLD/0001A/ (‘Mumsy’)

Age: I’m as old as my tongue and a little bit older than my teeth

Occupation: Retired

Music taste: Pop rock/ folk/ classical/ Anything you can hum afterwards, really.

Most surprising favourite: Devin Townsend

Hottest take: David Bowie was a bit weird

Favourite drummer: Lars Ulrich, probably

Risk assessment: Low / monitor for tutting and heavy sighing

Experiment Details

Objective: Determine how much of a disappointment I am

Sample size: One mum

Control group: None, I only have the one

Methodology: Three songs were played from each album without revealing the artist, LP title or genre. Reactions were recorded in real time. No mums were harmed during testing.

Duration: Longer than either participant would have liked

Margin of error: Considerable

Ethics statement: Consent was obtained. Informed consent? Well, let’s not split hairs

Results are presented in the order the albums were played and transcribed from audio recordings made by the subject. Any emotional damage sustained by the researcher was entirely self-inflicted and he accepts full responsibility.

Test 1: Billy Woods - Aethiopes

Year: 2022

Genre: Abstract hip hop

Songs listened: ‘‘No Hard Feelings’’, ‘‘The Doldrums’’, ‘‘Heavy Water’’

Intro: We’ll start gentle. This record came out in 2022, and it’s a pretty miraculous, abstract effort. Don’t worry about trying to catch all of the lyrics - just give me your first impressions.

Reaction: Okay, well, I wouldn’t want to hear much more of that, thanks. What’s going on with his voice? He sounds like a strangled cat trying to recite a poem. Such peculiar lyrics too… a mouthful of glass… what on earth was that about? It’s not inspiring in the slightest. I like my music to sound like… something. It sounds like they’re just jamming or practicing and then some bloke starts talking over it, which doesn’t exactly help. How can you get into that noise? You can’t do anything to it. All of the songs sound exactly the same: monotone, no variety — genuinely painful. Really stretching the definition of ‘music’ here, aren’t you? I’d switch that off before it even started. Play me something nice.

GLD/0001A/ rating: 0/10

Test 2: Joanna Newsom - Ys

Year: 2006

Genre: Folk

Songs listened: ‘‘Emily’’, ‘‘Cosmia’’, ‘‘Only Skin’’

Intro: Well-respected but somewhat niche singer-songwriter coming up now. This is a very special album to me — tell me what you think.

Reaction: See, I liked this. I hear the emotion, both soothing and stirring — reminds me of Amy Winehouse a little bit. I like the vocal style… is she from the Deep South? It’s reminiscent of Paul Robeson too, in an understated way. I love the harp, really accentuates her voice. Could happily sit and listen to her, far better than that first lot of rubbish. Less enthused about the third song, the sweeping instrumental backing takes away from her voice whereas the others were quite minimal, but I could definitely listen to the others again!

GLD/0001A/ rating: 9/10

Test 3: Aphex Twin - Selected Ambient Works 85-92

Year: 1992

Genre: IDM

Songs listened: ‘‘Tha’’, ‘‘Green Calx’’, ‘‘Ptolemy’’

Intro: No lyrics to focus on with this one. Just let the atmosphere do the work and tell me how it makes you feel.

Reaction: Huh. Alright. It sounded like someone in a bathroom playing something vaguely resembling music down a pipe. The first one was just peculiar noises… I suppose if you were in the bath and you wanted to soundtrack that, it could work, but otherwise it felt much too ambient to be enjoyable. Protracted inactivity isn’t something I generally like in my music - it’s another one you can’t really do anything to… you can’t sing along, you definitely can’t dance to it… I’d just call it odd. I guess if you wanted to pretend you were floating through outer space it could scratch that itch. Second one sounded like the music they play in that sleep room with the colourful lights at a spa. Definitely better than the first one, if you really needed to relax I suppose. Third track was the best; it had a beat you could latch onto and it developed nicely as it went on — it felt like the first track but more evolved. Intelligent Dance Music? I don’t know about intelligent… maybe PDM: Pleasant Dance Music. Music for washing up. Not offensive. Not particularly exciting either.

GLD/0001A/ rating: 6/10

Test 4: Swans - Filth

Year: 1983

Genre: No Wave - industrial

Songs listened: ‘‘Big Strong Boss’’, ‘‘Power For Power’’, ‘‘Weakling’’

Intro: Here’s another relaxing one for you, from an influential band

Reaction: Someone needs to tune it in, it sounds like they’re stuck between two frequencies on a radio. Definitely wouldn’t want to listen to these people for very long, not soothing in the slightest. On top of that, the songs all sound the same: just a bunch of noise with someone shouting over the top. Is that all the album is? It’s like nails on a chalkboard, all sounds engineered to set your teeth on edge. If that’s the intention, what’s the point? Who’d choose to listen to that, apart from you? What a boring record. I thought music was supposed to lift you or inspire you. That’s just… nothing. I’d turn that off so quickly. If they’re considered an influential band I dread to think what their followers sound like. Goodness me. Still better than the first album you showed me, that one was ridiculous, but this is still just a mess.

GLD/0001A/ rating: 1/10

Test 5: Sonic Youth - Daydream Nation

Year: 1988

Genre: Noise rock

Songs listened: ‘‘Cross The Breeze’’, ‘‘Hey Joni’’, ‘‘Candle’’

Intro: This is a hugely influential record for its genre. Hoping it’ll be influential for a dramatic shift in your taste, though I’m not holding my breath.

Reaction: Yeah…. I thought this was going to be good when it first started. Not bad — they’ve got actual structure and feel like they’ve been written rather than someone just chucking a dictaphone into the street then picking it up an hour later. I can hear a bit of skill in these ones, definitely. The third song derailed it badly though; the rhythm coming in was really good at the beginning but it just devolved into odd sounds again. What’s their obsession with making the music sound as fuzzy as possible? What’s the point of that? It stops it from being rock music, in my book. You can’t rock to that. It should have movement — those songs have none. Can’t move to that. Could stand up and sit down really fast, maybe…

GLD/0001A/ rating: 5/10

Test 6: Deftones - White Pony

Year: 2000

Genre: Alternative metal

Songs listened: ‘‘Digital Bath’’, ‘‘Knife Prty’’, ‘‘Change (In The House of Flies)’’

Intro: This one’s a bit more on the heavy side, but is extremely acclaimed in its genre. Thoughts?

Reaction: See, again, when these started I thought they were going to be good, but then the singing came in. It sounds like every part of the music — vocals, guitars, drums— are all out of sync. I don’t like how any of them progress… is the sound of dripping water intentional here? I spent the whole time wishing they’d just get on with it and play the music. Reminds me of when I went to see Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention and it sounded like they were tuning and warming up the whole time and not actually, you know, performing (researcher’s note: this was my parents’ first date. For anyone else, I feel like this would be a killer way to start a relationship. Not for my parents, though). You just think, when’s this going to start? and it never does. How can you listen to this? The guitar’s okay, I can get behind that, but then the guy tries to sing, which he can’t, and then the whole thing just sounds like a noisy jumble with no cohesion.

GLD/0001A/ rating: 1/10

Test 7: Devourment - Conceived In Sewage

Year: 2013

Genre: Brutal death metal

Songs listened: ‘‘Fifty Ton War Machine’’, ‘‘Heaving Acid’’, ‘‘Carved Into Ecstasy’’

Intro: Okay, this is the last one. Don’t worry - I’ve taken pity on you with this.

Reaction: Hmm. I quite liked that.

GLD/0001A/ rating: 10/10

Conclusion: Well. At the very least we now have empirical evidence that me and mumsy listen to music for entirely different reasons.

The more I listened to her reactions, the more I realised she wasn’t dismissing albums out-of-hand because they were too unfamiliar or modern — consistent praise was directed at anything with clear melody, emotional immediacy or a sense of progression, but retracted whenever things became too opaque or prioritised atmospherics over communication. If it requires deciphering, it’s a big no-no.

It boils down to what we expect music to be. Much like artwork, intention does very little to bolster her opinion if the execution doesn’t offer an immediate hook or showcase virtuosity/ skill in a way that’s instantly evident. For mumsy, music is something to dance to, hum to, and find comfort in. Anything confusing, ugly or angular automatically forfeits its status as ‘music’.

That aside, some interesting patterns emerged: she gave a glowing endorsement of Joanna Newsom, found surprising merit in the lavatory-coded vibe of Aphex Twin, and somehow, against every conceivable prediction (and in complete disregard for the consistency of the results), saved her highest praise for Devourment. I suppose subjective taste remains a mystery in this case.

I don’t expect mumsy will be converted into a Swans fan anytime soon, but for an afternoon spent comparing notes across two generations’ musical tastes, I’d call the experiment a slight success — even if she put her head in her hands more times than I’d have hoped.

Perhaps the real generational bridge was the brutal death metal all along.

Wow zamn hi hello everybody, Kerry here, to usher in YEAR TWO of gaslight girlboss GateKeeping! Yes, it’s been 365 entire days since our ragtag team of snobs and obsessives set sail on the seas of Substack, in which time we’ve collectively published 307 posts and convinced 325 beautiful and intelligent readers to smash that subscribe button. Not too shabby! So, before anything else, kudos to each and every one of the 22 contributors who helped build our little slice of music-nerd paradise (and a special shout-out to Tom and Sunny for shouldering the ever-thankless task of compiling all those weekly release lists).

We do what we do here to entertain ourselves and each other first and foremost, but the fact that we’ve made it one notch beyond that to a handful of perfect strangers sure does wonders to keep morale up. Building any kind of audience at all on the modern-day internet is, uh, whatever the exact opposite of a surefire bet is: every person reading this has a billion other things jockeying for their attention 24/7, so we don’t take it for granted whenever somebody trusts us with a few moments of theirs in the hopes of finding something thought-provoking to listen to or read. You could be playing Elden Ring, but you decided to gatekeep! Instead. Sincerely, thanks.

We’ve got the whole team gathered here today to reflect on their innermost feelings about the past and future of this blog. Read on to enjoy musings, insights into our mystery-shrouded personal lives, and of course a curated playlist of our favorite discoveries from the past year of gatekeepery!

Best GK! experience so far

My favorite GK!-related experience was exchanging a few messages with an artist regarding one of my write-ups. It was really cool getting some insight into the recording process of the project that I wrote about directly from the source, and that little exchange serves nicely as an affirmation for me that it’s worth all the time and effort it takes to really hone our thoughts about the music we consume and present in writing.

Hopes and dreams for the next year of GK!

On an individual level, I hope to have a more substantial output of full-album reviews to hone further my own style. We have so many talented writers with varied tastes, and I’m looking forward to learning from and growing alongside all of them. A personal dream would be to have the privilege of curating some interviews with artists that don’t get much exposure from English-reading sources with the goal of introducing readers to a wide-range of dope artists that they may otherwise never come across.

Most affecting discovery of the last year

I’d have to say that Park Jiha’s “All Living Things” is the piece of music I’d consider the most affecting of 2025. It’s easy to get bogged down in modern society with all sorts of noise, both internally and externally, and at least for me, this album is the perfect soundtrack to dropping any pretense of self-importance.

As the title would suggest, the traditional (often somber and mystical) soundscape Park Jiha creates with this album is a powerful altar to connectedness; the beauty, the woes, the tragedies, and the miracles of all life are communally shared, and when listening to “All Living Things,” one cannot help but see themselves in every other thing, and see every other thing within themselves.

Playlist pick

BIBI - Apocalypse

Best GK! experience so far

The various people involved here who keep picking up the slack. That’s not a dig, just genuine gratitude for the effort we all put in whenever we can.

Hopes and dreams for the next year of GK!

I hope that we keep going! Even if that means taking breaks. It’s easy to lose motivation to write for free and get very few eyes on our work, but I’m extremely proud of how we’ve persisted, and I want us to keep going.

Most affecting discovery of the last year

The best thing I’ve done in the field of music in the last year has been going through various “best of [insert decade]” lists. It’s not my natural inclination to listen to Pitchfork’s 200 favorite albums from the 60s, or FACT’s favorite 100 albums from the 80s, but I’m really glad I did it anyway. I have a lot of time most days that can be soundtracked, and I used to spend a little too much time figuring out what to listen to. Now, if I’m not sure, I just go for the next one on the list. It’s a relief for my decision-paralysis-prone brain, and gives me a more certain sense of listening progress.

More importantly though, it’s expanded and reformed what I enjoy in music. By the time I finished listening to the Beatles’ discography, The Velvet Underground and Nico hit me much more than it would have 199 albums earlier, and now “Heroin” is one of my favorite songs. I’ve had plenty of examples of music I’d heard before and didn’t really get, but now that I’ve tried a lot more stuff, I can appreciate it all the more. Even Black Sabbath kind of clicks for me now, and if you know my taste, you know how much of a miracle that is. And the more I listen to, the more confident I am in my own taste, and the less it matters to me how it aligns with any perceived ideal. If music is getting a little stale, or you just want to explore a little more, I really recommend finding a list that seems interesting and just going for it.

Playlist pick

From another affecting discovery of this year - Queen of Soul: The Atlantic Recordings, probably the best compilation ever made - “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman” by Aretha.

Best GK! experience so far

I am far from the most active person so I am admittedly a bit limited, but ramping up gatekeep! from conception to execution in such a short time frame was such a fun process. The authorbase here has so much skill and heart that it’s been a pleasure to be a part of.

Hopes and dreams for the next year of GK!

Contributing more, collaborating more, and doing some sort of celebration for our second anniversary.

Most affecting discovery of the last year

I started volunteering with a local non-profit radio station this year out of boredom and wanting to connect with my community a bit more, and it’s been such a nice boon to my general listening habits as I get to become more knowledgeable of Chicago’s local music scene. They haven’t all been winners, but there’s some real gems that would’ve otherwise passed me by had I just stuck to the usual haunts for discovery and I’ve just about had it with any algorithms doing anything for me at all. Which dovetails nicely into Stuck’s “Optimizer”, an album all about navigating the pitfalls of becoming infinitely efficient. The hooks are sticky as hell and there’s a really playful sense of humor to keep the mood from sinking as dark as the subject matter.

And if you’re looking for a bonus rec, Moron Police’s “Pachinko” is the most life-affirming prog I have heard in some time.

Playlist pick

Palm - Heavy Lifting

Best GK! experience so far

Collabing with Tyman on the review for A$AP Rocky’s latest. Was great to be able to work closely with him on a piece.

Hopes and dreams for the next year of GK!

I hope we’re able to continue growing our platform, expanding our readerbase and (hopefully) transcend the substack format.

Most affecting discovery of the last year

In a year where I’ve discovered my passion for some of the most ignorant, ugly-sounding death metal in existence, my most affecting discovery feels somewhat unexpected. It would be the new Static Dress album, Injury Episode. I’d enjoyed Static Dress well enough since the release of their debut full-length in 2022, but I can’t say that I was fully on the hype train for the new album dropping this year. Still, I took pains to revisit Rouge Carpet Disaster in preparation, and this built my anticipation and appreciation for what the band is trying to do aesthetically. That is, channel a very specific brand of throwback post-hardcore that feels nostalgically vintage yet still assuredly modern. However, I wasn’t prepared for just how exceptional this new album was going to be.

It once again struts in the margins of accessible post-hardcore, but with more confidence, conviction and style, their blend of catchy riffing and abrasive textures coming into its own on a collection that is absurdly consistent and convincing in its over-the-shoulder nod-and-a-wink vibe. Now, I do have some reservations about the production on the record — especially the overemphasised low end of the mix that seems to swallow much of the foreground activity in a tremulous ocean of bass. However, it speaks to the strength of the songwriting that this choice neither derails the experience nor ruins the intended effect, with the emotional edge and razored intention searing through the noise with blistering intensity. It builds on everything the band has already established and somehow surpasses it, sitting comfortably as my album of the year so far.

Playlist pick

Static Dress - Adapter

Best GK! experience so far

Try as I might to distance myself from being too invested in what other people think of my opinions over sounds on the internet, I’d be lying if I said the dopamine rush of positive comments on any glowing review didn’t feel damn good. My write-up of last year’s The Armed LP stuck out in particular as a fun one to write and a rewarding one to get feedback on.

Hopes and dreams for the next year of GK!

I don’t think we’re in any danger of it, but just don’t burn out! We have a sizable enough team here to allow for dips and lulls in any one writer’s interest or time, and the fact that we’ve got consistent weekly/monthly series is a great foundation after just one year of activity. Whether or not gatekeep! blooms into an indie household name for music discourse or forever remains a niche blog for misfit critics to plug what they enjoy, I’m getting a kick out of pitching in when I can and collecting some great recommendations in the process.

Most affecting discovery of the last year

On a technicality, this is a re-discovery instead of a first-time venture, but after a decade of procrastinating on giving it another go, Number Girl’s 1999 post-hardcore classic School Girl Distortional Addict clicked hard with me on a whimsical re-listen this past winter, encouraged me to learn the majority of its songs on guitar, and is thus the only album to not leave my weekly rotation since then. The album’s successor, 2000’s Sappukei, had been a longstanding favorite of mine, a nocturnal, angsty, blaring slab of urban jungle noise rock that accompanied me through a rough stretch of depression back in 2016. I guess I bonded too closely with it at the time to give the rest of the band’s discography a sober-minded shot.

Better late than never, but as the two most similar albums in their brief but influential canon, I can’t for the life of me understand why SGDA took this long to resonate. True, frontman Shutoku Mukai’s nasal, nerdy, and helplessly pitchy vocals (not to mention the language barrier) don’t help its mass appeal, nor does his mates’ tendency to shy away from providing any melody themselves, but the scarcity of self-evident hooks gradually circles back around to a strength. As the world whizzes by and Mukai’s protagonists ruminate over hallmarks of youth so electric, so impassioned, and yet so distant, the band’s clamor churns and divebombs and on rare occasion even ensnares some ecstasy. I’ll turn 30 this fall, but it’s nice to know I haven’t lost my appreciation for catharsis via knotty, punchy indie rock. If anything, the instant 180 I made proves it comes more naturally to my ears and fingertips than ever.

Playlist pick

Opener “Touch” (タッチ) most clearly exemplifies the album’s shrill tonality and addictive, kinetic desperation—if you can stomach it, maybe even love it, the rest should go down smooth.

Best GK! experience so far

Clobbering out blurbs for Nex’s great big 2025 metal list ran me through more albums than I’ve listened to since. Just great fun, for a great list!

Hopes and dreams for the next year of GK!

I want to contribute more. Keeping up with new music is generally not my strength, but I have other ideas in the pipeline. Watch this space.

Most affecting discovery of the last year

Flying Lotus has well earned all the ink spilled over the spectacular electronic music he released through the 2010s. Cosmogramma through Flamangra (yeah, I said it) is one of the most sublime album runs an artist has ever gone on, and I’ve spent most of the last year digesting it. Glitched-out, eclectic, danceable, carefree, deeply serious - it is rather silly to try and describe FlyLo’s music when haphazardly jamming adjectives together conveys the relationship between frenetic, nigh-schizophrenic pace and deconstructive disassembly so much better. Why try and describe glitch when I can simply say ‘distending’ and ‘delicate’ and let the reader imagine an oeuvre of sonic landscapes that can credibly contain both in songs that rarely surpass two minutes. More than anything FlyLo is the ancestor of the rock opera, the upright hominid with his putty boy strut stomping all over the the australopithecus formerly known as Meat Loaf. Not to diss him, but it’s deeply refreshing to listen to music made by such a consummate nerd. The sort of nerd who scares the hoes but also isn’t trying to, because it’s just the way they are. Everything beautiful in Flying Lotus is found in the threshold where the turgid leviathan finds it also has feelings, no matter how absurd and inexpressible those feelings may be. Music as an insatiable gojira, but also as a flower.

Playlist pick

Flying Lotus - More

Best GK! experience so far

Collabs.

Hopes and dreams for the next year of GK!

More collabs.

Most affecting discovery of the last year

Humanity isn’t lost just yet.

Playlist pick

Let’s go with a traditional Comorian birthday song: Embrionic Death - Sperm to Egg

Best GK! experience so far

Interviews and the AOTY lists! I feel very lucky to have had meaningful conversations with artists I adore, and I was really happy with the format we produced for the AOTY lists, with the majority of it celebratory and unranked, and the high-stakes ranking saved for the top 10. Been looking forward to the 2026 version ever since.

Hopes and dreams for the next year of GK!

Our collaborative stuff has been really fun to work on, so definitely to do more of that more often. GK! has motivated me to put more thought and research into each piece, but I’d like to work on an off-the-cuff style so that I can cover more releases without going the whole hog every time. For the site as a whole… well, a year on Substack has made me realise how reluctant many music writers are to be viewed as ‘critics’ – maybe they’re worried about negativity in their own perspectives, maybe certain people have just made criticism hysterically unfashionable – and a lot of them seem to view their work as a direct extension of the creative industry. That’s cool and in some cases inspiring (it’s made me think a lot more deeply about responsible platform use), but there can be a very deferential, sanitary side to it too – so I guess I’m increasingly grateful that we tend to avoid that without sacrificing our good faith. I’d like to see more pieces that reflect that spirit, especially collaborative ones where different voices balance each other out. Our friendly fire SEVEN a few weeks back was great for that!

Most affecting discovery of the last year

Killing Joke have been on the margins of my rotation since I was thirteen, but I didn’t fall in love with them until a work stint in China last year. I don’t tend to look to music for anger management or to industrial rock thrashers for, well, anything at all, but Killing Joke’s fiercest stuff has somehow stepped up to the mark for me in lieu of any properly aggravated political stuff from our time (I think the last decent record I heard of that description was Soul Glo’s Diaspora Problems). Extremities, Dirt & Various Repressed Emotions and their 2003 s/t have both aged extremely well in their diatribes about post-industrial capitalism, interventionist military policy and the joyless poisonous shite we spend our lives consuming. Yes, Jaz Coleman was howling about this stuff three and a half decades ago, but it gets my blood up every time I remember how much it’s shaped the present: British rivers have been quite literally flooded with shit by the same water companies he rails against on “Age of Greed” and it’s only recently that they’re beginning to face any accountability for it.

As for China, I was based in Shenzhen, a.k.a. the poster child for Deng Xiaoping’s social market economy. Obviously that policy did a world of good for China, and as a foreigner with no next to no language skills and no cultural roots, I have a comically narrow perspective to judge it from – yet Shenzhen still felt like the most vacuous parts of capitalism, with China’s bustling overload and invasive attitude to biometrical data thrown in at a premium (I literally could not enter my apartment without first scanning my face). I’d blast “Money Is Not Our God” and “Inside the Termite Mound” stomping to work every day, and the city and I gradually started to get along better as my pissiness found a new conduit.

It’s not all politics though: anyone could have sloganeered this album’s key narratives, but I love how humanising this band is even at their most livid. Part of it is introspective subject matter across this album’s backend, but Coleman and Geordie Walker (rest in peace) are such inimitable performers that anything they play on starts to feel oddly comforting once you get an ear for them. The more time I’ve spent with this band, the more I’ve appreciated that their mulish approach to songwriting and their unyielding core sound make them one of the greats when it comes to championing selfhood as an act of resistance. How else can you explain that they sounded this good for this long? Put that way, it’s no great surprise that their single most caustic record was the one where it all finally made sense to me.

Playlist pick

This is a celebration playlist, so let’s go for zero overthinking and an anytime personal favourite: School of Seven Bells - “Half Asleep”

Best GK! experience so far

Putting together our year-end list for 2025 (it being the first time many of us had done so on our own terms) was a great achievement, and really brought the best out of every writer here. But I think i’d have to give it to the ongoing SEVEN series, which has been massively fun to read/write for and has given us a real mainstay/focus/identity to draw from as we keep going.

Hopes and dreams for the next year of GK!

I hope to return to writing more often! And especially more thoughtful content (those weekly releases posts drained me completely). But there are a lot of exciting things happening here, including some great interviews and blog-style content and I hope to become more a part of that again soon.

Most affecting discovery of the last year

Jim Legxacy - Black British Music (2025) - What a moment this was and continues to be. The UK has had a huge moment over the last two or three years in the underground rap scene, pumping out fresh and innovative artists who are truly pushing genres forward, but none have yet managed to solidify their leg(x)acy with such a genuine artistic statement as Black British Music. What (among many things) stole my heart here is the sheer breadth of UK-specific influences that amalgamate into a surprisingly cohesive project.- there’s obviously a ton of references to the last ten years of mainstream rap in the UK, but there’s also that R&B undertone, subtle afrobeats nods, jerk percussion, and a straight up landfill-era lost indie rock anthem. Starkly emotionally resonant too on the vocal and lyrical front, occupied with grief, urban decay and struggle, but with that sincere hope and determination and willingness to celebrate what you have right now and what’s in front of you. I don’t advocate for tying your mental health to a piece of media, but if you need an album to be your therapist, there’s not many better choices. A year on from it’s release, I don’t see this slipping out my rotation any time soon - this is for when your shoulders feel heavy, your feet drag along the floor, and you need something to remind you that whatever happens, life finds a way to make things beautiful if you look for it.

Playlist pick

Hearts2Hearts - RUDE! - Completely changing up my vibe from my album pick but uhh song of the year? Extremely quotable, despairingly catchy, infinitely replayable. SM’s newest girl group finally have their defining song.

Best GK! experience so far

Tie between taking my sweet time to get my OK Go review to a point where I felt I had something original and insightful and poignant to say about the arc of that band’s career and what they’ve meant to me over the years, and tossing together hot takes in a single evening for Permanent Waves. Honorable mention for the recent “friendly fire” collab, which I would like to do again as soon as possible, HINT HINT

Hopes and dreams for the next year of GK!

That I get to proofread and edit more of my peers’ work! Step it up, people, I’m a reader, not a writer!

Most affecting discovery of the last year

As far as stuff that gatekeep! led me to, Ninajirachi’s I Love My Computer is an obvious pick, but it’s the best album of last year and it was an absolute privilege to cover it for our year-end top 10 list alongside Jesper. It’s an album fundamentally enamored by the promise of the internet, even as it mines its most potent excitement from the friction of fitting such a powerful technology into a single fragile human life, and well, I shitsure wouldn’t be here on Substack if I couldn’t relate deeply to that.

Honorable mention for Endling’s wonderful “Constancy to an Ideal Object” album, which I wish I’d found time to write something about by now- is it never too late? Sound off in the comments!

Playlist pick

N’Draman Blintch - Self-Destruction (my favorite disco-very from Permanent Waves so far)

Best GK! experience so far

Cliche answer, but just getting to write with everyone! We’ve got one hell of a group of Gatekeepers here, and I couldn’t be happier.

Hopes and dreams for the next year of GK!

More consistent content on my end for sure (if 2027 is less turbulent than 2026 has been). I would love to do more throwback content, I feel like I could talk for hours about some of these older, defining albums.

Most affecting discovery of the last year

One of the most fun things I attempted during this year was the Discog Diaries series, which I had to put on immediate hiatus in the wake of some turbulence in my real life behind the scenes. While two of these entries were bands I were familiar with already, one of them, Poison the Well, I had never listened to in full beyond a couple individual tracks. Doing that discog run reminded me of just how thrilling the discovery of classic music is. Once You Come Before You started, and Ghostchant kicked into high gear, it was all gravy from there.

Playlist pick

In honor of their grand return, Revenant by Loathe!

Best GK! experience so far

My occasional appearances on this esteemed publication serve as a ragged disguise to get the inside line on Music Happenings from a dedicated cast of diverse tastes. Accordingly, I have abandoned all other forms of music journalism and have a richer taste for it. This is the essential gatekeep! experience, the only gatekeep! experience, and if you haven’t experienced it you don’t deserve to (check our end-of-year list for 2025 if you’d like to experience this exact experience).

Hopes and dreams for the next year of GK!

I hope that our Hugh “boots on the ground” Puddles interviews more artists, for he gets’em talking and is alert and sensitive. Yes!

I dream that I might find an underappreciated album and give it an appropriate platform, but at this stage it seems I’m closer to posting an unasked for analysis of William T. Vollmann’s Europe Central (*sincere*)

Most affecting discovery of the last year

Keen as I was to break some rarefied wind your way, By Storm’s “debut” record has taken me, uh, by...

This might have something to do with my elation at their singular approach to songwriting (those unlucky few who recall my name might also recall a certain 5/5 review for By The Time I Get To Phoenix), but it might also have something to do with the empathy my increasingly advanced age gives me from the album’s outset (”things been slow / things been sweet / it’s been us two / it’s finna be three”) that cuts me through most of the album despite the fact that I am categorically quite far removed from the Texan MC who’s happy to let his incomparable musical companion take the reins and ride any given song into a perception-altering anomaly.

This might not be for you yet, but it might well be for you in time.

Playlist pick

Tears for Fears - Head Over Heels

I had comprehensive conversations with everyone I love and everyone I live with about how love songs are mostly shite, and then this one’s sensually fluctuating vocal memories wended their way into my soul decades after I first heard them. Hell yeah.

Man, it always warms my heart to see the gang all coming together like this… Happy birthday, gatekeep!, and here’s to many more! In year two, we’re after MORE likes, MORE reposts, MORE comments, MORE arguments, MORE great music that you just can’t resist telling us about! Don’t be shy, folks: who we really want to hear from is YOU! Head down to the comments section, and let it all hang out: Do you have a favorite gatekeep! review? Should Select Frequency return and do battle with SEVEN? Should we hire you yes you as a rookie hotshot pseudo-journalist??? We won’t know until the comments say so. Go forth and be at peace, and we’ll see you all again real soon.

45:05 // June 5th, 2026 // Students of Decay

Several days ago, I posted the following:

I remain doubtful that there’s any substance to add here.

Yet.

The facts of the matter:

• Remnants is one of the most compelling ambient records I’ve heard this year,

• its chief power does not lie in its beauty (of which it has plenty) or mournful overtones (even more),

• it is remarkable for the hazy sense of the here-and-now it conveys with its succession of tones, textures, voices, memories slipping away,

• as a consequence, it has made me feel intimately in tune with myself every time I’ve put it on.

This makes it extremely hard to pay tribute to the music without simply holding up the cognitive effects it produces in me and praying that they look like the index of something valuable. I could not attempt a song-by-song rundown in good faith, and my analytical insights are few. Here is probably the only good one: whether synthesised or sampled, the album is full of vocal textures that drift around the margins of the arrangement (often hemmed in to the left or right of the stereo field), but they are never presented with the clarity of a live vocal track. The upshot is equal parts voiced and disembodied, mute and elegiac. As for context and framing, the Bandcamp description is just too good to paraphrase:

recorded using minimal equipment in what Suzuki describes as a ritual-like atmosphere, [Remnants’ pieces] began as a way of processing the loss of her father in 2019. But beyond this, they also come to speak to the ways in which loss changes our relationship with someone, and our experiences of the world. Indeed, the experience of loss is not marked merely by a single event, but is instead a process that unfolds over time. Despite the other’s absence, a particular location, the smell of a certain brand of tobacco, a look on a friend’s face - traces such as these are enough to bring about a renewed presence.

It is through these subtle traces and remnants, encountered over time, that we come to understand loss as not only the acceptance of absence, but the recognition of a continued presence. As Suzuki says, “this is not a solo album.” (Zefan Sramek, 2026)”

This nails what the album suggests so effectively: episodic glimpses of an enduring absence-presence. It plays like a departure but ultimately feels like a return, and I would be hesitant to categorise it anywhere close to dissociative ambient as such, as opposed to the following from Ghosttropics (which is a fantastic page and deserves your attention regardless of how much you agree with this description):

“Remnants is an album defined by a gentle indistinctness, like staring out of a foggy window into a landscape that slowly loses its definition; a lucid dream slowly forgetting itself.”

The album’s contours are indistinct in their gauzy drift, but why then does it feel so specific in the way it acts? There’s a shape beneath all this that carries through no matter how indistinct the form — if anything, it asserts itself harder the more the surface trappings blur. Is this how loss acts? Watching the world take on an unrecognisable shape while the past exerts its gravity on planes we wouldn’t even notice otherwise? I taught an English class today on Elizabeth Bishop’s “One Art”, a poem I love for how it illustrates loss weighing all the heavier if you try to shrug off its imminence; I scarcely had to go off-script to find myself reiterating my thoughts on this album.

Few of those thoughts seem to demand further interrogation, which is unusual for me. Getting immersed in a piece of music typically makes me want to dive deeper, plunge into it, write on it, record a thousand thoughts that emerge from its great central feeling, and so on; Remnants just makes me feel uncommonly present. It’s morose but not in a way that invites wallowing. Writing about it at all feels like I’ve missed a cue, like I should be channelling the headspace it inspires in me into reconnecting with people I’ve accidentally ghosted or dealing with obligations I’ve been stalling on.

Writing further into the album seems outright disingenuous, though selling it is an easy task: its palette and gentle, swelling progressions are ambient catnip, even if its cognitive effects are the polar opposite of what I typically turn to ambient for. I am clearly reviewing my own mindset far more than the album itself, even if ambient is the music of mindsets. Enough of that. It is testament to the respective, universe-spanning dimensions of both Ayami Suzuki’s exquisitely personal meditations and my own ego that I have made it this far without writing her name. Fuck. I’m grateful that her album has found me where I am. My reflections are incomplete and subject to future listening, of which I anticipate a great deal. I am travelling and exhausted and surrounded by the transitory, all of which pair beautifully with this music. A haiku came to me yesterday shortly after listening to it:

young neon town—                         
only my drying sweat                      
looks back with me

新明都乾く汗しかかえりみぬ

It runs so contrary to the spirit of my engagement to stamp a rating on the album, but if you suffered through this piece hoping for a high number at the end then I guess consider it an 8.5/10. You’re welcome. Listen to it.

Further listening:

Alio Die - Deconsecrated and Pure

Tujiko Noriko - Crépuscule I & II

Natalie Rose LeBrecht - Holy Prana Open Game

This Week’s New Music

Adam Lambert

Adam (self-released)

USA | Pop Rock // Pop

Allison Russell

In the Hour of Chaos (Fantasy)

USA | Americana // Folk // Roots Rock

Billy Gardner

Last of the Natural Light (Anti Fade)

AUSTRALIA | Punk

Blueneck

Moonlighting (independent)

UK | Ambient // Post-Rock // Progressive Rock

Bring Me the Horizon

Count Your Blessings - Repented (RCA)

UK | Metalcore // Post-Hardcore

Damian’s Ghost

Universalis (Astrophonica)

UK | Drum & Bass // Jungle

DevilDriver

Strike and Kill (Napalm)

USA | Groove Metal // Metalcore // Melodic Death Metal

The Durutti Column

Renascent (London)

UK | Post-Punk // Post-Rock

Future

The Real Me (Freebandz/Epic)

USA | Hip-Hop // R&B

Houndmouth

Lordy (Dualtone)

USA | Americana // Roots Rock

If These Trees Could Talk

The Hidden Hand (Metal Blade)

USA | Post-Rock // Post-Metal

Jack White

Frozen Charlotte (Third Man)

USA | Alt-Rock // Blues

Jaco Jaco

On the Levee (label unknown)

USA | Funk // Pop // Psychedelic

Kelela

New Avatar (Warp)

USA | R&B // Pop // Garage

Luluc

Sweet Thief (Community)

USA | Indie Folk // Art Rock

Molh

Dream of the Mounds (Attractor)

UKRAINE | Atmospheric Black Metal

Ne-Yo

Highway 79 (Ten Thousand Projects)

USA | R&B // Country

Panda Bear & Sonic Boom

A ? of When (Domino)

PORTUGAL | Psychedelic // Alternative Rock

The Plot in You

The Plot in You (Fearless)

USA | Metalcore // Nu-Metal

The Rolling Stones

Foreign Tongues (Polydor)

UK | Rock // Blues

Shadow of Jupiter

Bones (Ripple)

USA | Doom Metal // Stoner Metal

She’s Green

Swallowtail (Photo Finish)

USA | Dream Pop // Shoegaze

Sojourner

Gateways (Avantgarde)

NEW ZEALAND | Atmospheric Black Metal // Gothic Metal

Sound Quelle

Higher Note (Colorize)

RUSSIA | House // Progressive Electronic

Tomosla

Moor to Sea (Home Normal)

UK | Ambient // Drone // Field Recordings

Wailin’ Storms

The Arsonist (Season of Mist)

USA | Gothic // Post-Punk // Doom Metal

Will Sheff

Extra Mile (Solid Ghost)

USA | Indie Folk

Xiu Xiu

Eraserhead Xiu Xiu (Polyvinyl)

USA | Experimental // Post-Punk // Industrial

Thanks for reading, as always! Until next week!

As participants of a heartbreaking world, in an era when billions of dollars are constantly funding as much distraction from that pain as possible, it’s healthy to let our hearts break as often as they need. Here are some songs from the last six months that have helped me fall and get back up again, over and over.

1. Quiet Light - “Berlin”

Quiet Light is a uniquely 21st century artist, arranging soft textures and speech samples in an enigmatic yet targeted way, songs rearranged. These loops build into songs in ways that most wouldn’t even consider, but make obvious sense in hindsight. Her latest, Blue Angel Sparkling Silver 2, is her best yet, a frontrunning candidate for album of the year, and in her own words: “ruleless and dreamy.” “Berlin” is an easy recommendation, a stained glass mosaic of deconstructed indie pop, intensely special.

2. Babyfather - “bono talk”

Fans of Babyfather are certainly well aware of the elusive, shifting nature of not only the band but the music. At the risk of sounding like every other critic since Tinymixtapes’ heyday, it often feels simultaneously confused, distant, and essential, like a tangled mess of truths hidden in daydreams, or the restless ghosts of uncertain thoughts. “bono talk” is nothing new in that regard - a 45 second beat with five bars, it’s barely even there. What is there tickles the brain, beautiful keys complimented by a typically understated vocal performance, enough to make one reflect, if only for a moment.

3. username - “CC house”

I’ve advocated for username’s music here before, and if they continue at this rate, I imagine I will for years to come. “CC house” is a high point on yet another great footwork project (password 2), not only for its playful and true-to-form rhythmic tension, some of the best in the genre, but for its pillowy, sample-led beauty. It would have likely been more straightforward to make something that’s less gentle in a genre driven by drums that are often so frantic they’re not humanly possible. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate tracks in footwork or other genres that aren’t just the sweet, delicate extremes, but it’s hard not to fall in love with something like this, a crystal so stunning it ends up more serene than sharp.

4. Ana Roxanne - “One Shall Sleep”

Despite its reputation as a melatonin substitute, ambient music can exude maybe the widest range of feelings of any music I know. Distilling down other songs into just their most definitive elements, it dismisses all the bullshit and gets right down to the core of sound, atmosphere, and emotion itself; in this example, poignant delicacy. It’s tender, sad to the point of breaking into tears at any moment, yet unshakably grateful, like hugging a loved one goodbye as they move on to a better stage in their life. “One Shall Sleep,” despite its name, could have been a ballad that millions sang along to at the top of their lungs. It’s just too focused for that.

5. Lauren Auder - “say nothing”

As music writers, the expectation on us, whether we admit it or not, is that we are never supposed to be anything but early or fashionably late to a party. Either we can heap praise (or better yet, hot takes) on a widely known artist, or we should act like we’re breaking them to the world for the first time. In an effort to fight that urge, I’ll admit that The Avalanches (my favorite band) in the production credits was the primary reason I hit play on this song, but hearing this song made me instantly interested in anything Lauren Auder has to offer. Every element here works perfectly together, from Auder’s lyrics (“The lack is all I have”...“I wanna life I would die for, to smile till it comes”) to the subtle harmonizing of the introductory vocal samples and her background vocals. Intense drums and touching pianos, empty moments and walls of sound, these extremes work not in spite of each other but because of each other. Where the other songs here are soft in ways that coax responses, “say nothing” is the sound of the question and the response all at once, quiet in a way that feels like turning it up.

6. Olivia Rodrigo - “the cure”

Rodrigo has a lot of range to her music, as her excitingly unfamiliar new album proves once again, but if her discography had to have one thematic definition, it would be bitter insecurity. Personal life aside, her music clearly jabs at betrayal and expresses trauma, creating a pattern of frustratedly picking oneself up. Various related hits later, she’s rethinking it now, facing it for what it is - a mood that can turn to habit that can turn to toxin. At its most confessional moment, she processes a quietly popular self-destructive routine:

“Used to play a game in my head when I’d date a guy

Tally up the girls that he fucked ‘til I start to cry”

Repeatedly declaring her instability and listing each issue she faces, the song takes off, launching straight into the sky, until she’s soaring to her conclusion - that nobody else can love her pain away.

7. underscores - “The Peace”

As contenders on her best and least conceptual album yet, it’s surprising that the song that fits most on this list is not the one about falling in love with feeling in sync or the one about letting go of closure. Even though both of those are surefire recommendations for the tenderhearted, the softest song here is the one about cyclical harm in relationships. There are hints here of something much harsher (the title’s irony, the repeated line “I don’t speak unless I’m spoken to”), and it could have been a fitting dynamic to pair acapella-stacking Imogen Heap worship with lyrics about the elephant in the room. In typical underscores fashion, though, it’s sneakier than that, kindness and good faith pretending to be bitter self-loathing pretending to be sweet nothing.

This Week’s New Music

The Black Dog

Feral Grace (Dust Science)

UK | Techno // IDM // Ambient

Deep Purple

Splat! (Earmusic)

UK | Hard Rock // Heavy Metal

Dominum

Night is Calling (Napalm)

GERMANY | Heavy Metal // Symphonic Metal

doseone & Height Keech

Wood Teeth II (Handsmade)

USA | Hip-Hop // R&B // Electronic

Frank Lloyd Wleft

The Actual Kids in Actual America (Kitchen Practice)

UK | Art Rock // Jangle Pop // Alt-Country

The Heavenly Bodes

Green Hills (Fuzz Club)

UK | Psychedelic // Garage Rock

Ian Prowse

No Names (Learpholl)

UK | Americana // Country

In Throes

Sink Towards the Light (self-released)

AUSTRALIA | Atmospheric Black Metal // Sludge Metal

Javano

Juncture (Peer Pressure)

UK | Drum and Bass // Garage // Techno

Jens Lekman

Other People, Other Wedding Songs (Secretly Canadian)

SWEDEN | Indie Pop

Maask

Lyonesse (Nous’klaer)

UK | House // Ambient // Field Recordings

Madonna

Confessions II (Warner)

USA | Pop

Miko

Petals and Marbles (Room40)

JAPAN | Ambient // Dream Pop // Electronic

Moonspell

Far From God (Napalm)

PORTUGAL | Gothic Metal // Black Metal

Red Dwarf Star

LP1 (Pelagic)

SWITZERLAND | Post-Hardcore // Post-Rock // Shoegaze

Solace

Fading Failing Ruin (Magnetic Eye)

USA | Stoner Metal // Heavy Metal

Soothsayer

The Unbinding (Apocalyptic Witchcraft)

IRELAND | Death Doom Metal // Atmospheric Black Metal

Thurnin

Termina (self-released)

NETHERLANDS | Dark Folk

Topdown Dialectic

Topdown Dialectic (Peak Oil)

USA | Techno

Tricktheriddle

A Chance Encounter with the Everpresent (self-released)

USA | Gothic // Punk

Thanks for reading, as always! Through the dog days of summer and beyond, we’ve got you covered.

40:39 // March 25th, 2026 // 魚住造船

For all her fondness for the contradictory and carefully nurtured air of aloof cool, Erina Uozumi is among the most emotionally incisive folk artists of her generation, and her latest album Eien nante only cements her credentials. Alternating between gossamer reveries and lofi scrappers, this record thrives on songwriting decisions both over- and (more often) understated as it traces and retraces its series of slice-of-life snapshots.

Admittedly, her lyrical voice is elusive throughout the album, whether you’re puzzling over it from the other side of the language barrier or fixating on its many fragments and non-sequiturs outside of context. Uozumi is fond of dissolving the material framework of her scenes into queasy magical realism (Everyone’s a kid and you’re a mama too / Even the teacups can go flying in this house), yet her intimate arrangements – all her and her guitar, no conspicuous overdubs – demand that we locate the emotional centre of her delivery. How else do you listen to such fragile confessionals?

The unifying threads are there to see, chief among which is Uozumi’s deep ambivalence to commitment and attachment. This pervades the album even at its most opaque: we hear it most conspicuously in her relationship narratives, as she illustrates uneven compromises and egocentric cravings. Take the tongue-in-cheek selfishness with which she demands that her partner pay her more attention rather than go to work on “Watashi no tame ni shigoto yasume” (Take the Day Off for Me (track #3)), or the romantic idyll she finds in the opener, where she and her partner take it in turns to look the other way while they humour each other’s egos. She writes playfully on these tracks, but they introduce an interpersonal distance that later curdles into violence and scorn over “Amanita Pantherina” (track #7)’s ghoulish waltz time, and eventually congeals into mutually alienated tedium on the ferociously pithy closer.

This interrogation is uneasy and full of nuance: every time Uozumi laments the hopelessness of approaching romantic love as a basis for selfhood, she finds herself begrudgingly desiring it anyway — perhaps the perfect, perfecting soulmate is a myth for her, but that doesn’t make loneliness any less real. Unsurprisingly, her most complete statement on this topic is titled “Kekkon Shiyou” (Let’s Get Married (track #5)). This track is a longstanding feature of her setlist, and it parses out as follows:

生きることを馬鹿にしてないと死ぬことの方が正しく見えるし
生きる事に馬鹿に見えないと死ぬことの方が正しく見えるし

結婚しよう家族になろう
結婚しよう家族になろうよ

抱きしめて側にいて自分のことが分からないの
抱きしめて側にいて簡単な心で家族になろうよ

生きることを馬鹿にしてないと死ぬことの方が正しく見えるし
生きる事に馬鹿に見えないと死ぬことの方が正しく見えるし

結婚しよう家族になろう
結婚しよう家族になろうよ

抱きしめて側にいて自分のことが分からないの
抱きしめて側にいて簡単な心で家族になろうよ

結婚使用　家族になろうよ　結婚しよう
家族になろうよ　結婚しよう　家族になろうよ　結婚しよう

誰かと居ても孤独だよ
誰かと居ても孤独だよ
誰かと居ても孤独だよ
誰かと居ても

抱きしめて
抱きしめて
抱きしめて

家族になろうよ

生きることを馬鹿にしてないと死ぬことの方が正しく見えるし
生きる事に馬鹿に見えないと死ぬことの方が正しく見えるし

If I don’t make a joke out of life
then dying looks like the right thing to do
If I don’t seem a fool in life
then dying looks like the right thing to do

Let’s get married
Let’s be a family
Let’s get married
Let’s be a family!

Hold me
Stand by me
I don’t understand myself
Hold me
Stand by me
Let’s be a family
With simple hearts

Being with someone
is still so lonely

[repeats preserved in the Japanese but omitted in the English]

While this is by far the album’s most lyrically contingent offering (good luck navigating its nervous acoustic syncopations otherwise), it’s highly characteristic of Uozumi’s voice and style. She uses simple language to touch on complex fault lines, and there’s an intimately human shape to her contradictory utterances and abrupt changes of perspective — the song’s opening lines don’t so much ‘make sense’ as they illustrate the insecurities and warped logic that do inform many people’s life-defining commitments. She maintains a certain aloofness, per the ironic distance with which she romanticises naivety (Let’s be a family / With simple hearts) and self-erasure (I don’t understand myself / Hold me), but she never sounds anything less than sincere. Her interplay between perspectives reflects the doubts, confusions and insights that churn together within the same mind, and it speaks to her strength as a songwriter that she trusts her audience to trace a deeper narrative as she flits from one to another.

On “Kekkon Shiyou” and elsewhere, she gives us more than enough to intuit the gist, however opaque her phrasing. Even on my first listen, I was practically waiting for her to deliver the song’s defining couplet by the time she reached it (Being with someone / Is still so lonely); the truth of those lines is all the more resonant for how she folds us into the thought process it takes to get there.

This is hardly the only device through which Uozumi achieves psychological unity within her work. Her metaphors tend to rub against her aesthetics, and so Eien nante is full of the sky, both lyrically and otherwise. Uozumi makes such extensive use of reverb that it’s practically a third party to the otherwise uncompromised pairing of her and her guitar (see the gloriously gauzy midsection of “Amanita Pantherina”), while her lyrics see her forever raising her gaze to the heavens as though to diffuse her material dissatisfaction and fleeting emotional impulses across their expanse. This is far from mere escapism: her brief moments of flight are unnerving, gravity-bound and heavily gendered in “Norlevo” (track #4, named after the Japanese morning-after pill), while the opener’s title-lyric – entrusting my body to the winds of indifference – is a giddy acknowledgement that the forces governing her are entirely impassive. The sky is a consistent metaphor for her yearning for the formless, the transitory, the space to treasure the ephemeral and to accept emotions as inherently mutable rather than allow them to impose a fixed sense of self.

It chimes with this that Uozumi places great importance on the inconsistent and the trivial, as on the stunning “Boku wa gyoza wo yaku BOY” (track #6), a track so beautiful you worry it would disintegrate if she raised her voice above a whisper. The chorus line delivers the clearest digest of the sharp-edged wabi sabi spirit that pervades the whole album (The plums are in bloom / and I can’t stand fate at all), and the rest of the song is one tribute after another to the joy of passing irregularities: she gets lost on her usual route through town, pushes back her dinnertime, messes up her recipe, and, of course, slips out of herself and into the eponymous persona: a boy frying gyoza.

And why not take comfort in inconstancy? It’s emotional prescriptivism that provides the most concern here! On her feistiest number, “Ballad” (track #8), Uozumi recites a diatribe against the titular song style and its tendency towards calcified sentimentalism, strumming moodily as she alternates between direct critique and barbed satire of the target audience (which, for her, is a zombie hooked to the saccharine promise of frictionless pish). I’m longing for the moment I’m not myself anymore / Someone else will take care of it, she growls, as much to us in warning as to herself in admonition.

She goes further still on the flatly devastating “Shūden” (Last Train, track #9), where she confronts herself as a shell of a person too fatigued by commitment to lead a meaningful life and joylessly preoccupied with petty banalities. In the album’s most disarming twist, Uozumi lays the blame for the narrator’s decline not on weakness of character or an interfering third party, but on a vapid ideal of happiness that led her to lose sight of herself:

大体のことは自分の心を掻きむしるから
面倒になった約束は二度としないわ
最低と言ってくれそうだったあの人は簡単に幸せと言ってしまうようになった

簡単に幸せにするなよ
簡単に幸せになるなよ
簡単に幸せにするなよ
簡単に幸せになるなよ

Things on the whole claw at my heart
My promises burden me, so I won’t make them again
She was the type to have said “that’s the worst”
But now she’d just say “I’m happy”

Don’t ‘just’ bring happiness
Don’t ‘just’ be happy
Don’t ‘just’ bring happiness
Don’t ‘just’ be happy

Her delivery of those central lines is profoundly affecting in its strain and frayed edges, and it offers a visceral centre of catharsis that the other songs shy away from. Even then, it’s far from relieving — how could it be? It’s the penultimate track of an album where she has done nothing if not refute the prospect of an easy way out to complex emotional binds, where she has expertly mapped out the pitfalls of stale routines and strained co-dependency, yet still can’t bring herself to abandon the allure of everyday contentment entirely. No one who’s made it this far will be holding out for a convenient burst of closure.

“Shūden” aside, Eien nante’s aversion to climactic flashpoints sets it firmly apart from Uozumi’s last record ISO1600 no hanayome (2021), which distinguished itself with adventurous song structures and a fondness for tearaway cathartic bridges. Eien nante is arguably the more refined of the two, but the centre of this refinement lies in the mutually enriching link between Uozumi’s lyrics and delivery, in how her personality shines through the frosted-glass gloom of her subject matter and offers a glimpse of something so tenaciously personable that, by sheer virtue of its presence, it momentarily redeems the same purgatorial Everyday it stews within.

How does one get a handle on all this as a non-Japanophone? These are good folk songs on anyone’s terms and the gist is sometimes graspable from performance alone, but I cannot imagine engaging nearly as intently with, say, “Norlevo” minus its contraceptive subtext, or “Watashi no tame ni shigoto yasume” minus its biting undertone of self-reproach. Perhaps I’m overstating this hurdle having been drawn to the lyrics from my first listen (and having pored over the booklet since), but it’s a real shame if not: Eien nante is a flooringly coherent snapshot of all-too-familiar existential uncertainties, and it speaks its truths too powerfully to be gatekept by language.

8.5/10

Further listening:

Erina Uozumi - ISO1600 no hanayome

Oomori Seiko - Zettai Kanojo

Renge - Lights

Saya Gray - 19 MASTERS

Neko Case - Middle Cyclone

Welcome, or welcome back, to Permanent Waves, a weekly expedition into the power pop (and beyond!) of the year 1980.

After a two-week absence, your favorite weekly retro music column has finally returned in all its glory! I’ve had family visiting, plus none of the albums I was listening to were quite clicking with me, and it only made sense to wait until I had a proper ZAMN in the barrel. So get ready for a seventeen-course feast of 1980- surely, there’ll be a little something here for everyone. Let’s mindset!

WEEK 23

Cheap Trick - Found All The Parts

On their debut album only three short years ago, Cheap Trick were scrappy rock omnivores, blending glam sex appeal and garage snarl with the kind of ruthless efficacy that can only come from years of nonstop touring. And you know what? We got “Surrender” out of it, and from a certain perspective that’s enough proof of their method. By the time the band was headlining The Budokan, they certainly had a more legitimate claim to the power-pop throne than The Knack. In my estimation, though, the ability to drive throngs of teenagers into hysterics is a far more trivial thing to have in common with the Fab Four than many industry-types would like to believe, and Cheap Trick, true to their name, are cheaper artists than the bands they worship— and not just as in less expensive. This bite-sized patchwork of live and studio odds-n-ends has substantially more charm to it than last year’s flop LP Dream Police (seriously, their “Day Tripper” might out-riff the original article), but the three originals leave me no less unconvinced that Rick Nielsen is the sort of cynic who can either harden his heart against the allure of celebrity, or find much interesting to say about it. Lucky thing that frontman Robin Zander, who co-writes the soppy “Take Me I’m Yours”, sings pretty enough to come on as soft-hearted as he pleases.

VERDICT: NICE

The Kinks - One for the Road

I’ve never really been convinced that Ray Davies is truly one of The Great Rock Songwriters, but he clearly wants to be, in a very compellingly Mindset way, and that gets me through most of The Kinks’ 70s albums even on the many, many occasions he tries too hard at an idea that just isn’t substantial enough to justify the effort. The best thing I can say for this double-live album is that it doesn’t sound like anybody is trying too hard: the whole band sounds confident and comfortably in-their-bag. I wish the material was a bit more evenly spread across their oeuvre, though— the six songs from their not-that-great last album Low Budget drag it down a lot. Plus, y’know, all these songs are already available elsewhere, without the crowd noise.

VERDICT: SKIP

The Chords - So Far Away

Can there be any such thing as too much power pop mindset? Do you think I’m just going to roll over for any old punk band who covers “She Said, She Said?”. Look: The Chords seem like nice kids, kids I have a strong instinct to root for, kids who believe in the power of rock. But both primary songwriter Chris Pope and primary singer Martin Mason are believers not because of what Paul Weller and Pete Shelley’s music did for them, but because of what it did for Paul Weller and Pete Shelley, and that makes all the difference: their adolescent angst is a copy of a copy of a copy. There are hints here that they at least have a sense of humor (“Hold On, I’m Coming”, a promise to fuck their girls’ woes away, is a cute joke, if not necessarily a clever one) and a touch of the ol’ existential dissatisfaction (“Happy Families”, get this, suggests that many families aren’t happy at all, and pretend otherwise to keep up appearances! The rank dishonesty!!). But Paul Weller and Pete Shelley have both already been prolific enough that none of us should have to settle for hints. The “She Said, She Said” cover really is quite nice, though. Mindset of the week: Now the kids have gone, so you can’t pretend / You’re both like strangers, you can’t comprehend / No one but yourself, with who to fight / Everything’s the same but nothing’s quite right

VERDICT: FINE

Iron City Houserockers - Have A Good Time But… Get Out Alive!

This Philly five-piece seems to be getting pegged as Springsteen wannabes, and I do hear the similarity, especially on “Old Man Bar”, but what I really hear is Tom Petty, with a splash of Graham Parker. And don’t get me wrong, The Houserockers hit the mark genially enough for the most part: I like The Heartbreakers just fine, occasionally I even love ‘em (and a splash of The Rumor is the exact right amount). There’s certainly nothing that tugs heartstrings like “American Girl” on Have A Good Time, though, nor even anything that rocks as hard as “I Need to Know”. They’re just an ordinary bar band, really, with a lot of ordinary songs about bars, containing ordinary observations of the things that happen in bars (from “Junior’s Bar”: she’s just seventeen, but she’s old enough for me, how insightful). Joe Grushecky should probably stick to those pleasant, jangly riffs— not every lyricist can be a Springsteen, but Petty’s whole appeal is that anyone can do it, and regardless of how true that actually is, coming up shorter than him is a dire sign indeed.

VERDICT: SKIP

Pharoah Sanders - Journey to the One

Pharoah Sanders has the kind of resume that should intimidate anyone writing about jazz, let alone a novice like myself, so it’s a lucky thing that Journey to the One is so palpably dominated by a very classic, almost rockist double-album enthusiasm and excess. This is certainly no dinner background ambience, but John Hicks’ backdrop for Sanders’ trademark screeching sax on album opener “Greetings to Idris” is unfailingly warm, even generous, “After the Rain” and “Soledad” are both soothing, meditative and nearly skronk-free, and “You’ve Got to Have Freedom” is downright earwormy. So, lest you turn away for fear of some atonal Ornette Coleman-y racket, for 72 minutes this really didn’t tax my ears too badly at all, and unlike Splendido Hotel It’s deeply-felt enough that I could relax to it without falling asleep. It’s not over-slick either, with the possible exception of “Think About the One”, which wouldn’t be far out of place on an Earth, Wind and Fire album. Dangerously close to a ZAMN, but the standards are higher for Coltrane associates- one more track with a sitar, and he’d probably have me hooked for good.

VERDICT: NICE

Ted Nugent - Scream Dream

No.

VERDICT: NUGE

WEEK 24

Klaatu - Endangered Species

The fifteen minutes of fame which these prog-pop softies got out of baseless speculations that they were secretly the Beatles is about up. Thus, the meanie bobeanies at Capitol records are now twisting the poor lads’ arms into making formulaic soft-rock pabulum. That’s the word from the fans, at least. Personally, I think failure to weather a little corporate arm-twisting is a telltale sign your prog-pop wasn’t worth that much to begin with, and I find about half of this album to be exactly as charming as (albeit plainer than) “Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft”. “I Can’t Help It” sounds like Brian Wilson finding his way back to the simple pleasures of the electric guitar after years in a psych(edelic/ological) wilderness, “Knee Deep in Love” would have outclassed most of The Hollies’ 1974 reunion, and “All Good Things” is a tender, Harrisonian requiem for John Woloschuk’s loyal doggy— awww! Sadly, the rest of the album tries for perkier, crunchier rock, to eye-rollingly unconvincing results. “Sell Out Sell Out” would be trite coming from any punk, and it’s doubly so coming from actual sellouts like these. Mindset of the week: Sell out, sell out / that’s the name of the game / Sell out, sell out / Everybody can play

VERDICT: FINE

The Motels - Careful

This one was especially disappointing: not only is this album not good, it’s bad enough that I revisited the Motels’ 1979 debut to see if it was as solidly good as I remember it being, and it wasn’t! Not at all!! This is the kind of album that makes me sympathize with the crowd who write off “new wave” as a cop-out term for artists who want to borrow a bit of punk’s cool without committing to its iconoclasm. Turns out, what I liked about Motels was “Total Control”, a tormented slow burn played so low-key that it becomes gripping in a banality-of-evil sort of way. It proves Martha Davis has a very real eye for the hollow social fictions perpetuated by boomer-era pop, but for some ungodly reason she’s convinced that her only medium ought to be five-piece rock so slight and so mirthlessly well-behaved that everything about it vanishes from your mind the instant the song ends. Meta-commentary on the ephemeral nature of her subject, I guess, but that’s no excuse for being boring.

VERDICT: SKIP

Al Jarreau - This Time

Al Jarreau sings much of This Time in a panicked, almost Barry Gibb-esque staccato I find quite entertaining, but the music just isn’t enough fun for him to really shine. Basically every song is an interchangeable slurry of overpolished smooth jazz and easy-listening R&B, even the Chick Corea cover. Committing more whole-heartedly to either slick pop or fussy fusion would probably do him good— it’s hard to imagine he couldn’t at least get a few more memorable hooks out of the former, or solos out of the latter. That dreary-looking album art doesn’t say it all, but it certainly says enough. Too professional and pleasant to hate, too generic to like.

VERDICT: FINE

George Jones - I Am What I Am

I get why people are wild about “He Stopped Loving Her Today”, really: refusing to let go of lost love until your dying breath is a quintessentially country sentiment, and George Jones, Bobby Braddock and Curly Putman render it to a rare degree of purity. In all honesty, I still find it pretty saccharine, a real pity party of a track. And I’m sorry to say, the lion’s share of I Am What I Am winds up in the same boat. This all just sounds like fogey music to me. 49-year-old Jones tackling both the showbiz of courtship (“A Hard Act to Follow”) and his prodigious alcoholism (“Bone Dry”) with a measure of good humor sees side two off nicely, and I’ll concede the melodies are mostly sticky after only a couple spins, even if only by dint of their predictability. But I can only tolerate so much drinking-to-forget-her. The world’s moved on without you, old man: we do uppers to forget now, and Jones certainly knows enough about uppers by now to justify some disappointment that he comes across nearly as square as he was twenty years ago.

VERDICT: FINE

Pere Ubu - The Art of Walking

As a lover of a powerful, charismatic voice and a firm skeptic of the avant-garde, I was put off by David Thomas’s “singing” within about 2 seconds of the first song on his band Pere Ubu’s first album, and possibly even more put off by the sour, grating tension of the band’s playing. Give me a damn award for open-mindedness, though, because after only a few short listens I was kinda nodding along to it! Pere Ubu are certainly not power pop in any sense at all, but they’re true-blue punks nonetheless. Their liberal use of abrasive guitar and keyboard textures is tempered by their keen musicianship (and in particular by a propulsive drummer in Scott Krauss), and their overall tunelessness can’t stop them from coming up with memorable lyrics or infectious, shout-along hooks. Pere Ubu fans, up top, how about that “Final Solution”? Hell of a song, hell of a song. All that said: The Art of Walking is crap. Pretentious, ugly, goes-nowhere, unlistenable crap, an amplification of everything annoying and much-too-much about this band and an abandonment of everything that made those qualities shine— most crucially, a fucking pulse. The lyrics are all dadaism at its very most nihilistic, and by “nihilistic” I really mean “apathetic”, and by “apathetic” I really mean “lazy”.

VERDICT: SKIP

Blue Öyster Cult - Cultösaurus Erectus

The hard-rockin’ Long Island stalwarts follow up Mirrors, their little-loved bid for mainstream stadium stardom, with a set of songs that firmly reconnect the Cult to the gonzo irony and fanciful lyricism of their earlier years, and you’d hardly know they’d ever taken a break from it. Much the same as Mirrors, and Spectres, and even Agents of Fortune, this album too rarely gets weird enough to escape the feeling that the band doesn’t fully trust the audience to follow their literary aspirations beyond their crunching riffing. Unlike those albums, Cultösaurus Erectus is produced by metal heavyweight Martin Birch, which means that the riffing can be an end to itself (See: “Monsters”, “Lips in the Hills”). Even if “Deadline” comes in a hair shy of “Don’t Fear the Reaper” or “Godzilla” or “In Thee” for radio potential, I’m daresay it’s their most consistent album yet.

VERDICT: NICE

WEEK 25

The Angels - Dark Room

Thank god for third chances, because that’s how many it took for me to admit that I L-O-V-E the fourth album from Sydney hard rockers The Angels (known as Angel City outside their native Australia to avoid confusion with a much worse glam band called Angel). On Dark Room, I hear the pure, distilled essence of what power pop mindset has to offer the dudebro pub-metal crowd spearheaded by The Angels’ buddies AC/DC. This band’s instincts are for tough, simple slash-and-burn riffing, shout-along choruses, a certain macho swagger. To be sure, all three of those things are present and accounted for here. But to my ears, it’s undeniable: these songs sound like hard-drinkin’ hard-rockers saying to themselves “Who’s to say we can’t we be just as witty as a guy like Nick Lowe?” And sure, maybe they are not, in fact, nearly as witty as Nick Lowe. But unlike Lowe, whose instincts are for sarcasm and cynicism, these blokes are exactly earnest enough to make their punk-adjacency homey and inviting without sacrificing an ounce of power, and frontman Doc Neeson has a good voice for the stuff to boot. And they’re certainly wittier than AC/DC. Mindset of the week: The Tonight Show on closed-circuit TV / Close investigation shows the star is me / Making jokes about your mental health / No names mentioned, look at yourself

VERDICT: ZAMN

Bob Dylan - Saved

Eugh, the multimillionaire p-p-poet is still all-in on the Jesus-freak stuff. Thanks but no thanks. I haven’t heard a note the man’s recorded since the wildly overhyped Blonde on Blonde, to tell the truth, and this album makes a strong case that I haven’t been missing out on much. A bigger fan than me would probably go into this hoping that Dylan’s oh-so-lauded pen had produced any halfway original musings on the matter of Christian faith— No such luck. My agnostic ass was just hoping for a little folksy charm, and Dylan’s tiresome reliance on that cheesy gospel choir leaves me as SOL as the true believers.

VERDICT: SKIP

Tequila - Viva Tequila!

Viva Tequila! benefits a lot from my having heard fellow Madrileña new-wavers Radio Futura only a month or two ago. This hot young five-piece has actually been kickin’ around the movida since ‘76, three years longer than Radio Futura, and you can definitely hear it on their third album, both in how tight the band is and in the heavier classic-rock influence that dominated the early days of the punk explosion. They’re not quite as handy with a reggae groove (see: album lowlight “No Llores”), but they more than make up for it with lead singer Alejo Stivel’s winsome delivery, and with their command of the Chuck-Berry-on-crank kickassery made famous by such luminaries as Wreckless Eric and The Sex Pistols. A damn shame I’m stuck appreciating this album from across a language barrier.

VERDICT: NICE

The Lambrettas - Beat Boys in the Jet Age

Like The Chords, The Lambrettas could be comfortably dismissed as Jam wannabes, but the difference to my mind is the Lambretta’s commitment to capital-F Fun. “Da-a-ance” (perfectly stylized to remind you of that infectious chorus non-melisma every time you read it) and “Beat Boys in the Jet Age” both soar, unencumbered by the furtive meaningfulness their more lauded peers can’t do without. The rest isn’t as special— the single “Page 3” is much more we-have-All Mod Cons-at-home, and their ska rendition of the Coasters’ classic single “Poison Ivy” stinks like rotten cod. I still think they have a lot more potential than The Chords; low bar to clear, innit?

VERDICT: NICE

Bread and Butter - Monday Morning

This recording-studio product masterminded by two lyricist/composer brothers makes what’s known in Japan as “city pop”, which blends all manner of Western pop influences, typically with a predominant streak of smooth jazz and/or soft rock, into a glitzy soundtrack for Toyko’s rapidly-expanding upper middle class. A lot of it, you may have guessed, winds up a bit too rich for my blood, but on an album like EPO’s Down Town, which we covered back in week 12, it can also make pure pop confection out of the kinds of disparate stylistic reference points that only seem disparate at all until their subcultural baggage gets lost in translation. If there’s one thing I miss on Monday Morning, it’s a central, charismatic vocal presence like EPO— I can’t even find any vocalists credited as performers here! It’s faceless in a pretty literal sense, and that makes it forgettable, but one good melody forgives a lot, and “Japanese Woman”, helpfully sung in my native English, is a prizewinner, a breezy delight that I hope I never tire of. Hope to hear more of whoever that singer was at some point!

VERDICT: FINE

They say opinions are like assholes, that everyone has them. I prefer to think of opinions as bodies in general, if I’m being honest. They grow, become more complex, and, most importantly, they change. And thus, as critics, we are faced with one of the most difficult challenges and conundrums: how do we review an album knowing that our opinion might change as we change alongside it? This is especially true as the general consensus of an album changes. Do we change our opinion and be labeled as fickle? Do we remain resolute and be called stubborn or wrong? Do we take a shot every time I use the word “change”? Probably not, or you’d be dead of alcohol poisoning otherwise.

Anyways, in my case, I am more than happy to admit fault and bias and change of opinion. We’ve covered SEVEN times the critics changed their minds overall. But this time? We’re getting self-indulgent up in this list, because we’re rounding up SEVEN albums that I changed my opinions on. I’ll do my best to explain what changed for me, as well as my former and current rankings for each album. Feel free to yell at me about whichever ranking I’m terribly wrong about. Let’s do it!

The Beatles — Let It Be (1970)

The final LP from the legendary Fab Four is a… complicated affair, to say the least. Released after the band had officially broken up, Let It Be was supposed to be an album that would revitalize the Beatles’ camaraderie. Instead, the album, for the longest time, remained a monument to one of the supposedly most turbulent recordings in music, a legend immortalized in the documentary of the same name. And for the longest time, I heard that. The songs felt simpler, but more barren as a result, not helped by the fact that young me was raised on the premier examples of Beatles maximalism like Sgt. Pepper’s and Revolver. I considered it the worst of their output by a country mile.

So, what changed? A few things. One was the release of the Get Back documentary, which put a lot of the album’s recording process into new light. The second, in conjunction with those negative assumptions being stripped away, was that I just began to grow sick of maximalism. Young me was always looking for the next mind-blowing thing, but too much of one thing gets old after a while. As I relistened to the album, I began to appreciate the simpler compositions beyond the obvious big singles. What once felt like annoying studio chatter became a simple joy, a reminder of what the band were trying to accomplish. And I found it far easier to get behind the four chords and the truth approach, from the acoustic softness of “Two of Us” to the rollicking “One After 909”.

While still nowhere near my favorite Beatles album, or even a top 5 for me, I have far more respect for what Let It Be represented and achieved. It’s a respectable swan song for one of the greatest rock bands of all time.

My original rating: 6/10

My current rating: 7.5/10

The Beatles — The White Album (1968)

So, when I said I was growing tired of maximalism? Yeah, this album is the apex of that. At one point in time, I thought of The Beatles (or, as everyone else calls it, The White Album) as one of the best examples of the Fab Four’s creativity and forward thinking. I was obsessed, I would spin it constantly on my CD player as a kid, and then constantly again on my iPod and phone later down the line. They were some of the songs I used to teach myself chords on the guitar.

And then, years later, I kinda realized something: I had never listened to the album in full. Really I had only listened to the big tracks, like “Back In the U.S.S.R.”, “Birthday”, and “Helter Skelter”. So I went and listened to the whole two discs without skipping a single song. Oh my lord, was it ever a different experience. See, the thing about The White Album is that these big tracks are spread out over two discs and an hour and a half of music in total. An hour and a half of the most disconnected music The Beatles had ever released, since The White Album was basically recorded less as a band and more of The Beatles as individual acts contributing songs to the project, and you feel that heavily. This is a meandering album, with so much of the big tracks being broken up by filler that ranges from goofy to downright odd and weird (looking right at you, “Wild Honey Pie”). The band throws everything at the wall, and very little of it sticks as well as it should have. I’m more likely to keep the highlights to my playlist these days.

My original rating: 8.5/10

My current rating: 6.5/10

Radiohead - OK Computer (1997)

Oftentimes, a classic album’s reputation precedes it to an unhealthy extent. Albums that are often regarded as genre-defining or classic have a perilous line to walk between holding up and aging poorly. And, if you’re Radiohead, you have even more expectations working against you in that regard. OK Computer is often name-checked as one of the greatest albums of all time, which is high praise already, let alone the fact that it has consistently maintained high acclaim decades after its original release.

And I… never really got it. Don’t get me wrong, I was taken by the opening riffs of “Airbag”, and “Climbing Up the Walls” is legitimately one of the creepiest songs I’d ever heard, but something about the album as a whole wasn’t clicking 100% with me. It was good, but I didn’t understand why this was so often hailed as one of the greatest albums ever released. What was it about this album that had people so spellbound? For the longest time, I kept my pretentious hat on, believing that the album had spawned so many imitators in its wake that improved on the formula.

What ended up changing would be the state of mind I was in when listening to this album. Earlier this year, after going through an incredibly rough patch, I turned the album on again, listened closer to the lyrics, and… something changed. I now believe that, the more angsty your life has become, the more sense this album makes. And that might sound flippant or sarcastic, but I honestly genuinely mean it. OK Computer’s magic lies in how blatantly it tackles isolation, depression, and alienation thanks to the onset of technology. At the time, it was a revolutionary concept, but it’s become even more resonant in the modern day, and when you yourself feel those emotions, it strikes a chord in you. “Let Down” hits so different these days compared to when I first listened to it. I still don’t necessarily consider it a 10/10, but I am so much more keen on it now that I understand its themes and concept more intimately.

My original rating: 7/10

My current rating: 9/10

Invent Animate - Heavener (2023)

In some cases, the backlash of hype hits immediately rather than decades after the fact. I had stumbled onto Invent Animate thanks to their incredible release, The Sun Sleeps, As If It Never Was, and was so intensely hyped for their follow-up full-length, Heavener. And then… something about it didn’t hit for me. The music was effective and well-played, but it all felt like it was fading together, blending into one another. There was this dreamlike atmosphere about the album that caused me to legitimately start zoning out, and even when I focused and tried to listen, I had a hard time picking out the variations between songs outside of a couple notable ones.

As with a lot of the albums that my opinion has improved on, I found a lot more to enjoy once I started to read the lyrics, after giving the album a break for a year-ish. I still maintain that Invent Animate kept a very consistent sonic profile on this album, almost to the point of monotony, but it was a bit easier to pick out some minute differences from track to track, helped in no small part thanks to the absurd vocal performance from Marcus Vik (that chorus in “Shade Astray” is just perfect). It also helped that I listened to Sun Sleeps almost directly before my relisten, helping me to better understand where this album built off that single’s release and sound, as well as understanding the continued themes of grief and loss that pervade both works. It now stands as one of my favorite metalcore albums of the past few years, and if IA can continue their streak (which their new single proves that they absolutely can), then I think their next album will blow everything beforehand out of the water.

My original rating: 7/10

My current rating 9.5/10

Silent Planet - SUPERBLOOM (2023)

Let’s make one thing very, very clear: I am a Silent Planet fanboy until the day that I die. These guys are masters of their craft when it comes to writing emotionally resonant, oftentimes devastating progressive metalcore. When the leadup to their newest album, SUPERBLOOM, began, I had already devoured all of Iridescent, and the album’s incoming release sent me on a deep dive of their discography. To say the least, I had Silent Planet fever when I turned on SUPERBLOOM, and I immediately felt the electronic DNA of Iridescent buried deep in the bones of this release, combined with some of the most pummeling riff-work of their career (good fucking god, “Annunaki” and “Nexus”). I was obsessed, I couldn’t get enough of it.

And then I returned a little while later to recheck it, and my opinions changed ever so slightly. This album is still incredibly solid in my opinion (again, fanboy), but there’s a few criticisms that stick out to me more. Firstly, you feel the absence of Thomas Freckleton. Not that Garret Russell doesn’t do a great job with the cleans, but one of the best parts of previous Silent Planet releases were Freckleton’s smooth cleans juxtaposed with Russell’s roaring screams. I can’t help but wonder how songs like “Dreamwalker” would’ve sounded if Freckleton was still with the band. Secondly, the album’s lyrics aren’t necessarily as good as what came before. There’s certainly a lot of incredible personal stake here (“Antimatter” in particular being based on a harrowing crash the band sustained in Wyoming), but I feel like the more sci-fi focus almost takes away from some of the tracks here. Not to diss experimentation, but with time, the album has grown off me a little compared to Everything Was Sound or Iridescent, which still get routine full plays from me. (Still one of my favorite album covers though)

My original rating: 9.5/10

My current rating: 8/10

ERRA - Cure (2024)

This one took a little longer to grow off me compared to SUPERBLOOM. ERRA’s newest (at the time) album was marked by an absurd amount of hype, coming off the back of their landmark self-titled album. What we got was a hard left turn involving Meshuggah-inspired djent rhythms and industrial soundscapes, still recognizably ERRA, but different enough from their self-titled that a lot of fans raised eyebrows. I, personally, never saw the hate that this album got in some corners. In some ways, I still don’t understand it. But, at the time, I fell in complete and utter love with this album, appreciating the different choices made, still loving Jesse Cash’s lyrics, adoring the more melodic approach to songs like “Blue Reverie”.

Does it even need to be said that my opinion changed here? As the recency bias slowly wore off, the monotony set in, “Pale Iris” stuck out like a sore thumb because of how self-titled it sounded, the lack of Jesse’s weaving patterns on the fretboard became more and more noticeable. There’s still a lot to like about this album, in my opinion, from barn-busters like “Slow Sour Bleed” to the more accessible tunes such as “Past Life Persona”, but a large chunk of this album has suffered with time, even more so now that silence outlives the earth has shown what ERRA can do when they take the sound of Cure and merge it with their self-titled’s sound.

My original rating: 9/10

My current rating: 8/10

Deafheaven - Sunbather (2013)

And we end on one of the weirder entries here. Not because of its sound, but because this is definitely an album where my opinion has changed… I’m just not sure how yet. To clarify further, black metal and I have had an… odd relationship, and not always the most stable one. I have tried to get into this genre time and time again, from pure black metal to punkish black metal to symphonic to the blackgaze realm that this famous album occupies. I have always had mixed success at best. Most of the time, it’s the vocals, which have never really managed to click with me. I can recognize that the music itself is good… but man, it was never going to get a high ranking from me. However, Deafheaven in particular ended up catching my attention in a completely different way. Once their newest release, Lonely People with Power began blowing up, I checked it out… and really, really enjoyed it!

Naturally, I expected this meant that I would be ready to return to Sunbather, give this landmark album a new shot, and… I definitely don’t outright hate it like I once did, but I’m not sure if I love it either? There’s inherent beauty in a lot of the passages here, but the distinction between the shoegaze and black metal elements are so sudden as to be completely jarring. “Dream House”, I understand the hype for, but then I keep listening and something in me just wonders if I’m still missing something, some new angle that lets me see what everyone else is seeing. I just feel like Lonely People merged the gaze and black metal elements into a damn-near perfect harmony. So, for now, the jury is still out on this one, and I’ll keep smashing my head against this wall of fuzzed out noise until I can find some definitive answer.

My original rating: 5/10

My current rating: Hell if I know/10

This Week’s New Music

Abul Mogard & Rafael Anton Irisarri

When Light Pauses in the Silence of the Sun (Black Knoll)

ITALY/USA | Ambient // Drone // Experimental

Ascera

Nadir, in Another Realm (independent)

TURKEY | Progressive Metal // Djent // Deathcore

Beth Orton

The Grand Above (Partisan)

UK | Folktronica // Downtempo // Alt-Rock

The Bouncing Souls

Born to Be (Pure Noise)

USA | Pop-Punk // Punk

Castlebeat

Castlebeat II (Spirit Goth)

USA | Dream Pop // Chillwave // Alt-Rock

Cobalt

Carpe Diem (independent)

USA | Black Metal // Sludge Metal

Dead Pioneers

Wagon Burner (Hassle)

USA | Punk

Duir

Catarsi (AOP)

ITALY | Black Metal // Folk Metal

Gold Panda

Ton Up (Studio Barnhus)

UK | Downtempo // House // IDM

Helen Svoboda

Headwater (Room 40)

AUSTRALIA | Drone // Jazz // Experimental

Ibeyi

Offering (independent)

FRANCE | R&B // Trip-Hop

The Infinity Ring

The Isle of Skye (label unknown)

USA | Folk // Gothic

Iskandr

Sacraal (Eisenwald)

NETHERLANDS | Black Metal // Psychedelic // Ambient

Junius

Sotera (Prosthetic)

USA | Post-Metal // Post-Rock // Post-Punk

Knitting

Souvenir (Mint)

CANADA | Indie Pop // Shoegaze // Psychedelic

Mantra, Decibella & Tim Reaper

Force 32 (RuptureLDN)

UK | Dubstep // Jungle // Breakbeat

Muse

The Wow! Signal (Warner)

UK | Alt-Rock

Ostraca

Thread (Persistent Vision)

USA | Screamo // Post-Metal // Hardcore

The Pretty Reckless

Dear God (Fearless)

USA | Hard Rock // Alt-Rock

Proun

Maybe Luck (Good English)

USA | Indie Rock // Emo // Shoegaze

Rodney Crowell

Then Again (New West)

USA | Country // Americana

Shane Embury

Bridge to Resolution (Dissonance)

UK | Electronic // Experimental // Noise

Siamese

Dissolution (Long Branch)

DENMARK | Metalcore // Alt-Rock

Sincere Engineer

Probable Claws (Hopeless)

USA | Punk // Emo

The Strokes

Reality Awaits (RCA)

USA | Indie Rock // Alt-Rock

Switchfoot

Forever Now (BMG)

USA | Alt-Rock // Hard Rock

Temples

Bliss (V2)

UK | Psychedelic // Indie Rock

There Were Wires

Vessel (Iodine)

USA | Post-Hardcore // Metalcore // Emo

T.I.

Kill the King (Grand Hustle/Empire)

USA | Southern Hip-Hop

Tift Merritt

Sugar (One Riot)

USA | Country // Americana

Truck Violence

The Weathervane is My Body (The Flenser)

CANADA | Hardcore // Metalcore // Folk

Verdun

Abyssal Womb (Transcending Obscurity)

FRANCE | Sludge Metal // Doom Metal // Black Metal

YOASOBI

The Book For (Sony)

JAPAN | J-Pop // Synthpop

Zorza

Twilight of the Golden Star (Godz Ov War)

POLAND | Black Metal // Post-Metal

Thanks for reading! We’ll be back next month to start the second half of 2026’s new release calendar.

Noriko sets off today on a release tour of her native Japan, but she found the time to speak with us about the album and the grief-stricken context it emerged from, as well as the distinctions she makes between making ambient and writing songs, her new project CxBxT, her past collaborations with Aoki Takamasa, and her discovery of Kendrick Lamar and Charli XCX as family go-tos. It was a real pleasure to chat with her, and we’re excited to share her insight.

Hugh Puddle (GK!): So you were saying that you’ve got some vacation time at the moment?

Tujiko Noriko: No, actually, it’s... I just mean it’s like a vacation. I’m working but I have relatively a bit more time.

Hugh: Well, I hope you’ve been able to relax — but you released your new album PON last week! How did it feel to get it out? Are you happy with how people have been reacting to it, or have you switched off and just let it happen?

Noriko: As you know, you make an album, and then it takes time to be ready after making copies, so during this time, I tend to go forward for other things, and I don’t really look back. I didn’t have an account on Instagram, for instance – I was totally too lazy to do social media – but I asked my daughter to open it, like some months ago, in January or something, and I can see a small feedback, like, you know, like a personal message. That makes me think okay, yeah, there are people who are listening to it and appreciating the album, so I really appreciate that I’m not just blind about what I did, which happens to me sometimes.

I really appreciate that, especially as it’s dedicated to our cat, and then in the album there are sounds from my children and my friends’ children, you know, and they are all kind of related to this cat as well. So, yeah, it makes me feel quite... I don’t know, but then, even now, sometimes I’m emotional when I think of… Yeah, it’s kind of crazy. Like my friend was laughing at me, not mocking, but kind of laughing to make things look lighter, maybe, but it still makes me feel sad to think about the loss, it’s a bit more how it happened, and everything.

Hugh: When I read that the album was dedicated to your cat, I imagined that it would be very solemn and very heavy-hearted — I guess it is both those things, and it moved me a lot in that way, but in other ways I was quite surprised. This is just my impression, but it sounded like the most accessible and poppy music you’ve made in years. Was that the intention going in, or did it just end up like that?

Noriko: It ended up like that because I started to make some songs already before the cat passed away, because the cat was deaf. I was totally excited to make music for the deaf cat, like, you know, it’s a bit more like an abstract idea about making music for someone who is in total silence.

Hugh: So it was always going to be an album for your cat, and then your cat had an accident?

Noriko: Yeah, even before. Some songs were made a long time ago, so I was not planning, you know, let’s make ambient this time, or let’s make pop. It was more about singing — like, singing to the cat, singing to the... It was a more poetic idea to sing a message to the silence or something, and to make sounds for the silence, but not in an ambient way, more like a lullaby.

So it followed this mode, and at the same time I’m always interested to make more ambient music or music for images, so it depends on the timing, but the start was more for, like, singing to a baby, or singing to your cat, or, you know, a lullaby.

Hugh: That makes a lot of sense to me. When I first came out of the album with all these different impressions, the thing that stuck with me was this huge sense that it hadn’t been a sad record, although it had parts that were very sad knowing the story behind it — it was full of this tenderness and love, and it made me really curious to know more about your cat, about how it inspired those feelings, and about what was like bringing up a deaf cat, if you’re happy to share?

Noriko: Yes. When I was a child, of course, there were many dogs at home, but I never took care of them. Apart from my three children, I never was responsible, I never had a pet. And of course, they don’t talk, right? So it’s like, okay, I’m learning how to relate myself to them, and besides, when I found [the cat] Pon – Ponpon – on the street, he was totally small, like three months old, running around dirty. We could see a worm coming out from oshiri [his bottom], and he looked totally abandoned, and after a while we found that he was deaf. I was pregnant, and my daughter wanted to have a pet since always, then my father was passing away, like everything at the same time.

Around the end of my pregnancy, just before my son was born, my papa passed away, and because it was the end of the pregnancy, my doctor said to me, No, no, no, you don’t go back to Japan. Because even to buy a flight ticket, I was told I needed the doctor’s certificate to fly, and the doctor said no.

All right, but when you’re pregnant, it’s like you’re protected. I mean, I felt I was protected. Maybe my brain circumstance was working like that, so it was not dramatic. I’m also always a very optimistic person, or not so stressed. Okay, I could not go back, but thanks to technology, I could catch up, I could follow how my father was from the telephone. My partner was completely freaked out, like, are you okay to watch all this? Like, your father totally in agony? — and then I’m watching it.

But, in a way, I preferred at least to confront what was going on, even if it looked totally… and then thanks to my mother, you know, she didn’t really make a fuss about it that my sister was making — or even my papa didn’t make a fuss about it, that he was shot [filmed] by telephone. It can be kind of oppressive or intimidating for some people, maybe, to be shot when you are in total agony, but no one said that. I really appreciate it.

Hugh: So you were still able to be there as much as you could.

Noriko: Yes. I missed so many things, but at least my sister made a real effort to share. Yeah. But still I was in this kind of strange universe in pregnancy, and after that I was just very busy with the baby, right? It’s just there are so many things to do, and there was no time to… even now, it’s weird to lose someone while you are pregnant, while you are not there, so it’s like this strange form of mourning. It’s like it’s never ending mourning, right? It just didn’t start, and I didn’t finish.

I’m telling you that because my friend told me when I said to him, look, I find myself quite very strange to be so into this cat, like really overprotecting him because he was deaf, perhaps that, but I was like putting this cat in the poussette [baby buggy] to hang around in the town, and maybe I was like a crazy cat obasan [old lady] or something. I put my son, the baby in, and then under the buggy there is a pocket, and then I would put Ponpon in this, so we’d go out all together.

And so my neighbours knew Ponpon because I went out with the cat and they looked at me like a little crazy Japanese woman. I live after the suburbs, so it’s kind of countryside, though it’s quite close to Paris, but yeah, it’s not a big town.

Hugh: The kind of place where everyone knows everyone, and you get used to seeing the same faces?

Noriko: Yeah, kind of, we know each other a little bit from the face. Then, when Ponpon got lost, people would help because they’d make it possible — did you see my cat? Did you see my cat? I would look for Ponpon, because of course, when you are deaf, you are very fragile, so he had a car accident, and it was really bad. I mean, before he passed away, he had already had an accident, so it made me traumatized again, so I would become even more overprotective…

Hugh: Like you were worrying something was going to happen, and then it nearly did, and then…

Noriko: Yeah! Every day, every day, but then I cannot always put him in the house. He wants to go out, so I let him go, and then… I was like a crazy cat obasan, and eventually I lost him in a very bad way, like I saw him run over by a car, and then he was run over by my friend’s car, so I’m really sorry for my friend as well.

Anyway, after that I was really under the shock, then my friend told me… I said to him, I feel kind of weird that I’m so shocked. Also, I was already so much into Ponpon… and then he easily said yeah, but maybe you kind of replace, or compensate, or whatever, your mourning for your father, because it happened kind of at the same time.

Hugh: And it was one thing, one thing, one thing, and then suddenly…

Noriko: Yeah, yeah. And I said to him at the beginning — honestly, it’s not that I was offended or something, I just felt that — for me, it has nothing to do with losing my father, and I kept thinking that, but I do remember he just easily said that to me. Even now I don’t know if it’s one part of the explanation, I am not sure if what he says is how my psychology worked, mourning papa through Ponpon, but it might be indeed partially true. So this cat, Ponpon, was very special for me, and yeah, it’s hard to explain.

Hugh: I think sometimes when people release things or make music or art, they say, you know, it’s about this, but having it fall midway through such a kind of heavy series of things happening for you, maybe there’s no need to explain it.

Have you performed any of the music live yet, will your Japan tour be the first time? Are you excited to share it with people, or are you nervous about being stuck in such emotionally heavy material for a long time?

Noriko: Totally not. I’m okay to share. I mean, there is always this personal emotion that I have towards my experience when I look back, but what is nice about when you make music, or when you write the book, or whatever – I imagine – when you make something, I mean, you give it to people – no one is asking me to, but I’m just pushing it to the people [laughs] – and it feels free!

So I’m just happy that it’s taken another shape in this light, on the earth, and it’s not mine anymore. I’m not stuck in it, I’m not someone in general who is very... I don’t see myself as a performer at all in that sense. Whenever I perform any music that I’ve made, I feel a little bit shy, or a lot shy, especially when I’ve never played it, which is PON.

I think I’ve never [played it], maybe one or two tracks I might have played a little bit when it was still not really done. Yeah, I remember I played some music from this album, but not really, so it makes me feel a little nervous, but let’s see…

Hugh: Well, break a leg! On a different note, the new album has a very different sound to the other music you’ve made recently. Like, Crépuscule I & II and Echoes on the Hem are so airy and acoustic — they make me imagine a giant concert hall with all these different instruments in different corners, and people playing just one or two notes at a time, so you have to listen to this huge space to hear where they’re coming from.

PON sounds very electronic compared to that. It reminds me much more of your 2000s albums, which a lot of people perhaps know you best for. It’s really intimate, but so synthetic too — what prompted that return?

Noriko: It’s a good question. Maybe there is a functional reason, not in general, but maybe in me… I’m thinking now, why? Because maybe in some tracks there is, I would say, this describing or descriptive sound, almost like a cinematic feeling. You know, because in cinema you hear the sound from out of the picture or from him, from her behind [the camera]. It’s quite a big space, and when I make more ambient music, maybe my motivation or inspiration for that music comes from space [and] image, probably.

That’s why maybe the sound is trying to describe what I have in my head, which is more image or space, and then when it comes to a song, I always have more like a literature side, which is confining everything in… not meaning, but in words.

Hugh: So there’ll be something you want to say in words, and the song kind of grows out of that?

Noriko: Yes, so words are like singing, like very personal, not the message, but, you know, the voice. A song has a very different origin in my head. It doesn’t have so much space. So when this music comes for the song, maybe it comes more in this direction.

Hugh: That makes a lot of sense. What you said about rather than a message, just having a voice — that made me think that although you’ve been based in France for almost your whole career as an artist, most of your music is still in Japanese and I guess most of your audience can’t understand it word by word. Even then, I speak Japanese, but when I hear your music, I don’t hear all of the words together unless I really try to concentrate — you put so much into every syllable and each sound that I feel like I can understand the feeling without having to hold onto every word.

How much does language matter to you? Is it the place that the song starts from but not so important by the end, or is it still very much the heart of the song when you’re finished with it?

Noriko: I’m singing in Japanese, yes, because when I say language— I like words, I like making narrative, kind of small stories, and of course, there is an image to it, but more emotion, or… yes, I do love writing. That’s why, when I made the film Kuro with Joji [Koyama], I took such liberty to write all the narrations. Oh my God, it was so fun. I can do more and more, you know. It can go very far, and I can write many things, and then maybe Joji knew very well that I like it.

It’s a bit like singing or making narration, and I can make up things. I can make a story up, and it’s not an enormous story, there is always something that I go with my emotion on, and I can’t do that with other language, really. You know, Japanese is my first language, and I feel so free in it. I feel I can arrange little things with Japanese, so that’s why I use Japanese.

Yeah, words are totally important for me. I know some people don’t like words in music. You know, it can be too emotional, or a lot of people don’t necessarily listen to songs, more like abstract music. It can be more stylish sometimes because of being free from very specific meanings — but me, I like it. I like prose. For me it’s important, words. Like, a Chinese letter has a very, like – phwuh! – sparkling of a big world from a small world source.

Hugh: Like you have the word, you have the sound, you have the way it looks, and you have all the little shapes inside it, and all the different ideas of meaning?

Noriko: Yes.

Hugh: And then you can turn that into music.

Noriko: Yeah, I know sometimes it’s not stylish, but… [both laugh]

Hugh: I’ve never thought of it that way. Maybe there are unstylish words, but are words themselves stylish or not… it’s a funny thought! What about the French part on — which song was it, “Boko Wa Obake“?

Noriko: Ah yes, yes!

Hugh: Where did that come from?

Noriko: This is my daughter, she’s now 20 — tomorrow, she will be 20! Yeah!

Hugh: Aw, happy birthday!

Noriko: Yes, yes, but in this recording, maybe she was seven or very small, less than ten. I found a video where she is singing this with her cousin, my sister’s son. I had to ask her, what’s this music? I don’t know where she learned this music, but it’s saying I’m a ghost from the beginning. Yes, since always I’m a ghost, I’m living in a castle, and it looks fun, sounds fun I liked it. Because… in a way, this album is [2014 album] My Ghost Comes Back 2, and it chimes in me, you know, it’s a ghost-y album from me, making it for my dead cat.

So I took it as a sample – yay, she made a nice [piece of art] by chance, and the boy who made the lyric version, he is the son of my best friend in France. Ponpon passed away at her place. So we were all at my friend’s place, and of course I brought Ponpon, even in a vacation — crazy, I shouldn’t have done it, I’m full of regret that I took Ponpon to the vacation. It was a vacation house of my friend’s place, and Virgile was there as well when Ponpon passed away, so they all shared this tragedy, and then they saw me getting totally useless after losing Ponpon. So I asked Virgile to make a lyric for Ponpon, and well, he’s French, so naturally he made it in French.

Hugh: So he came up with these French words, and then there are two voices saying them on the record…

Noriko: My sons, yeah.

Hugh: What are they saying in French?

Noriko: He is talking about this place he loves – the vacation house in the middle of nowhere, a lot of beautiful nature – he is describing this place, and then Ponpon in this place with the beautiful nature. Because Ponpon was — there is a picture left in this vacation house, he’s on the window outside on the first floor [US/Japaese second floor], but high, and if he falls, maybe Ponpon will die. So Virgile remembered this: Ponpon on the first floor at the outside of the window, and then he described how Ponpon jumped from there and then disappeared.

Then he also says sometimes life is a bit mean to us, ijiwaru to us, méchant to us. So I thought it’s cute to use it as a word — it’s a little bit cute, you know, life is sometimes méchant, ijiwaru to us so I’m repeating this voice with him — because he’s a young person, and I still feel it’s kind of cute what he is saying.

Hugh: I love the way that part fits into the album — like, the song grows into it, and it feels extremely you, and then [the French rap section] was a really fun surprise. So, the vacation you were talking about was when Ponpon had his accident?

Noriko: Yes, that’s why I regret that I took him there. I should have just, you know…

Hugh: How old was Ponpon when it happened?

Noriko: He was only, like, four years old.

Hugh: Ah…

Noriko: Yeah, very young.

Hugh: I’m so sorry.

Noriko: He had already had one big accident, so it’s tough, I think, to be just very free, and then deaf.

Hugh: At least he had a good free life. It’s tough — my sister lives in London on a houseboat. She adopted a cat who hung around and lived a very kind of free, wild life on the boat and would go around and kind of climb all the trees and hiss at all the dogs that came past. Then one day, she started a fight with a dog and ended up losing one of her legs completely, and it was a big shock for everyone…

Noriko: Oh yeah, yeah…

Hugh: I think, for a while, my sister was… she didn’t talk about it too much, but there were times when you could tell that she thought was this my fault? Was this my fault because I let the cat run around, because I live in this environment with the cat? I don’t know, she probably still thinks about it a bit, but I think what people said was, well, maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t — it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that the cat could have a free life, and it’s not really something you can look at yourself too much for. The cat still likes being around people, she still likes moving around — she’s making the best of it.

Noriko: It’s great that she is still there and enjoying life, but I totally understand the feeling. I think that everyone, when you lose someone, there is always regret. Even when my father passed away, you know, we always felt like maybe we shouldn’t insist on this treatment — all that. Oh, maybe I should have said that, like, you know.

Hugh: Yeah.

Noriko: It’s like that.

Hugh: Moving on from the new album, you’re off on your Japan tour next week. You’ve been based in France for so long that it must be very much your home, so what’s it like going back to Japan to perform, or generally?

Noriko: I feel I have a privilege of looking at only good things in Japan, like a guest. Me and my children are totally like many of our friends in France, you know, Japanese friends, Japanese families. They are completely happy, excited to go back to Japan. There is some kind of magic. I know too, if you are living there, that there’s a lot of dark sides, but I look at only the nice part of Japan. And yeah, how do I feel? You know, I feel at home, but of course if I went a little bit deeper I would feel a bit stranger as well. And you must feel… how long have you lived in Japan?

Hugh: I moved back just a couple of months ago, but I was here for two years during Covid, and yeah I think I can understand a lot of that. Obviously people treat me differently or expect different things because I’m foreign, but there’s a real sense of being able to enjoy it in a very superficial, privileged way. I try to not exploit that or take it for granted, but then sometimes I think can I have a deeper life here if I try? And then I question whether trying to have a completely ‘Japanese’ life and fit in completely would be an attractive idea even if it were possible. It’s a strange balance.

Noriko: I would say… I don’t know, it always has a good side and bad side. I’m here in France for about 20, nearly 25 years now, but I never really went deep. It’s possible, just to be… yeah, you can stay. It could be bad, but I ended up not assimilating myself to it... I couldn’t, you know. I just, I don’t go to the office, or just... yeah. It’s okay.

Hugh: Were you based in Paris or in the cities to begin with, before you started a family?

Noriko: Yes, it’s because of having children that took me to the countryside. If I become alone, then I would come back to the city.

Hugh: What’s one thing about France that you miss when you’re in Japan, and one thing about Japan that you miss when you’re in France?

Noriko: When I’m in Japan… often people start to miss food, right? So I guess me too. I might miss some tomatoes. Of course, there is human behaviour too. I would miss a good side… French people have a very big reputation that they are not really friendly, which is true, but there is a certain directness in their behaviour which makes things a little bit less stiff than in Japan. Yeah, I sometimes feel incredibly stiff in emotional expression in Japan.

And then, when I’m in France, I miss people’s very simple kindness. I feel, with strangers in Japan, they need almost permission to be kind or to be related, so maybe we have to ask for something, but if we ask – do you know, where is the shop? – they always help you completely until the end. It happens in France too, sometimes. But people are nice in Japan, they can be very cold too, probably, but there is a certain kindness. I miss it sometimes, and I miss all the food, fish… fish, oh my God, it’s crazy. In France it’s not possible to find fish like that.

Hugh: In the UK, too! I’m not sure why — France, at least, has less coast proportionally. In the UK, we’re terrible at putting fresh fish on the table. That was one thing I was really excited for here, but then again, finding French-style bread or cheese in Japan is a nightmare.

Noriko: Yeah yeah yeah! It’s totally wet — like if you buy a baguette, after five minutes, it’s soft.

Hugh: I bought one from this bakery the other day, and then the next day it was exactly like that! It was like a bread-shaped banana, I was really sad about it.

Noriko: Yeah, exactly!

Hugh: Could you tell us a little bit about your new improv project, CxBxT? How did that come about, and what are your plans for its future?

Noriko: There will be. I think I just saw on Instagram that I have to share the story with Adrian. Adrian is Adrian Corker, that’s why Corker – C – and then B is Barton, George Barton. He has this really great duo, in which he plays with his girlfriend. They assist a lot of musicians, because he has a classical background, so for instance, there is this very ambitious, very interesting musician, Oliver Leith: George played in his opera. He has a classical music career, but at the same time he made some electronic music. He does percussion, his percussion is really great. GBSR Duo is George’s duo, and then he’s the Barton in Corker-Barton-Tujiko, in CxBxT.,

I knew Adrian through a music supervisor with whom I worked on some film music, and then Adrian has been making musical films, so I met him and we got along. Adrian and I independently have the same agent for film music composition opportunities, and the agent said maybe we can look for a director or a film who can hire us together. At that time we didn’t have any music together, and the agent said that maybe we can try to make some quickly together, just to make an example.

Then I saw Adrian’s face, and then he was like no no no, we don’t have time, because Adrian kind of stopped making music for a while. He had a problem to keep making music — not a problem, but he was a little bit bored, because he does many other things too. So it felt like, oh, Adrian, you feel like it’s boring to make music with me? I didn’t say that, of course [laughs]. So we didn’t do anything, but I know Adrian: he’s very flexible, very open, very kind.

So after some months I had a small vacation, solo time without kids. I thought okay, I’ll go to London. I have some days. I will propose to Adrian to record something with me. He will not say no.

And then we recorded without any plan and without any re-takes, so the album has our very first take of each recording. In that sense, it was amazing to work with Adrian knowing that we both are not good musicians. We play instruments really badly, you know. We don’t have our instrument. Some can be a pianist or guitarist or bassist — we are nothing, and we play many instruments, but all very badly, but we did simple music with only one thing. After, we asked George to add some percussion. Well, it was made quickly, and now in a week, or very, very soon, that will be a remix album from this original album. Really nice remixes. Yeah, we wish to play concerts, but I don’t know when.

Hugh: Yeah, I saw the announcement for that – the remix album – go up just before this! I had an image of you pressing go on the announcement and then jumping into the interview.

So the music on the album after is you and Adrian doing a one-take, improvised performance of the whole album, and then the percussion was added later?

Noriko: Yes, most of the album was made like this. For one track we exchanged files, maybe two tracks were a file exchange, but otherwise it was all recorded in the studio, and then George added to it, and it made the music a little bit bigger. Yeah, so without George the original version was even more simple.

Hugh: While we’re talking about your collaborative projects, I saw that you remastered and reissued your album with Aoki Takamasa last year, 28, which… where is it? [pulls out an old CD copy and holds it up]. I love this album a lot, I used to listen to it all the time.

Noriko: Oh, thanks!

Hugh: For a deep-diving question, I saw that the vinyl reissue had a really different track list from the original version.

Noriko: Yeah!

Hugh: I was wondering if that was just to make it fit on two sides or if there was another reason behind it?

Noriko: It’s to make it fit, but I wanted to change the order. Because I’m not a huge music listener, sometimes I don’t have empathy for the listener. My friend Joji said to me, No, Noriko! Sometimes people hate that they change the order! [both laugh] Okay, sorry, I didn’t think about it!

Hugh: So there were any points when you thought this one should definitely have gone here to begin with, or something?

Noriko: Yeah, I just thought the order is nicer like this, because I think we had to reduce some tracks to make it fit, I guess some tracks are missing. I mean, the CD had a bit more tracks, right? And then the record has less, one or two, I don’t remember exactly. By reducing something, it changed the whole picture, or something. I don’t remember exactly why I wanted to change the order, but I thought [the new LP] order is nicer. I didn’t know that can be disturbing!

Hugh: I’ll try listening to it in the new order. I always loved how the last two tracks landed at the end of the old tracklist. I guess they’re now at the end of Side A, it’ll be fun to hear it a different way.

What was it like looking back at that music now? Had it been a long time since you’d thought about it or listened to it?

Noriko: By the way, Aoki-kun will DJ when I play in Tokyo, so I’m very happy to see him because he moved back to Japan a long time ago. When we made this album, he was still in Paris. I do remember he was in Paris when we were working on several tracks, I guess. I don’t remember… but then memory changes, right? So when we were interviewed for the reissue, what Aoki said and then what I would say was different, right? It’s interesting.

Hugh: What kind of differences?

Noriko: Like just where we were when we made this, or he was saying we exchanged files, like you know, distantly, it was quite distant, maybe… but I already had maybe half the tracks, and then like George, Aoki-kun added more sophisticated beats, and then mixed it in a cleaner way already for one or two tracks, even one track which is not on this album – “Karappo” – one track was on Make Me Hard.

And then when I was making concerts in the summer, I would play this track from Make Me Hard, but Aoki-kun was committing himself already to make “Karappo” a bit nicer with his beat. So we said let’s make more, more tracks…

And so when I listened back, which I never did until the reissue, I rather enjoyed listening to some tracks, which Aoki-kun initiated for the creation. We can hear it immediately — it’s totally different. I mean, it’s kind of one texture, maybe, because Aoki-kun mixed everything in a nice way, but some tracks are totally songs, and some tracks are abstract, so yeah, I appreciate listening to Aoki-kun-initiated tracks. It feels fresh. I appreciate his work, it gave a nice place to breathe in this album.

Hugh: I saw there was a joke that one of you – I think it was you – made about making a 51 album.

Noriko: Oh yeah, true! Yes.

Hugh: Was that a joke, or is there anything more we can hope for there?

Noriko: Oh, I’m totally motivated. We said that already when we were 40, I think, but I have to talk with him more in Tokyo, because there is his very solid attitude that, for some reason, he doesn’t really want to make music. I mean, even the concerts… he does a lot of DJing recently. Yes, he’s a DJ, and then he produced someone’s music, or he mixed it. I think it’s more that he kind of drew a line. He’s a little bit reserved from making his own music, and I wonder why. So already 10 years ago, if I say let’s make it!!, then he’s like yes, yes, and then he never does. So, I – [laughs]

Hugh: Well, fingers crossed. I guess he’s changed his style so many times since. I remember hearing RV8, the techno-style album he made [in 2013], and thinking wow this is great, damn, I wonder if this was his new sound and he stuck with it — and then, of course the next thing was totally different [and didn’t happen until years later].

Noriko: Yeah, I understand. Maybe it’s important to be that way as well. I’m quite loose about my self-image, and how you know, and how I produce myself. But yeah, Aoki has a more self-producing self.

Hugh: We touched on this earlier, but since PON sounds maybe the most similar that you have in a long while to the old work, how does it feel looking back to that time and the way you used to produce? Many parts of the album sound somehow cleaner or more precise, or you do things with electronics or some acoustic sounds that I don’t think your old work was leaning towards so much — is that something that makes you do you look back and think this is how far I’ve come, or okay, I just want to keep on exploring new things?

Noriko: I don’t have enough competence to self produce like… not strategy, but [deciding] which kind of style I would present next time. I’m not too conscious about it, and then, of course, at the same time, I don’t suddenly become a different person, and I don’t try to become a different person, so there is this limit. Also, in a positive way, it’s my style. In a way, I have only two differences in me, like it’s either I’m singing or not singing.

Hugh: What you said earlier about it being about the songs, or about space and ambience?

Noriko: Yeah, so it’s like for the next album, I will not sing. I was so happy not to sing only recently, though, and I found it’s really nice not to sing, so I will definitely do that again.

Hugh: Awesome! For some reason, what you said about not being a huge music listener didn’t surprise me much — within those two modes, your music has such a consistent style and personality to it. I can’t imagine you as the type to worry about who to listen to or who you’re inspired by.

Noriko: Yeah…

Hugh: Is there anything you have been listening to recently?

Noriko: I listen to a lot of music with my children, because living in the countryside, we have to drive, and while we drive, the kids are just playing music using my phone. And sometimes, you know – next mama! You choose – but I appreciate it because I like very pop music too, like Kendrick Lamar. I really like listening to Kendrick Lamar in the car, and kids shouldn’t… because, you know, you can sing the lyrics together, and they are not English speakers, so sometimes they have no idea, but they would copy the lyrics, and I’m like — [makes a shifty face].

But still, some Kendrick Lamar. I was making an NTS mix for new music, and then, for instance, I was introduced by my daughter to Charli XCX. Okay, yeah, some tracks are really cool, and recently there was this track with John Cale, very dark, it’s super cool.

Hugh: Oh, off the Wuthering Heights soundtrack!

Noriko: I love the story as well. I was really interested in this book, it’s crazy, I love this book Wuthering Heights, and I was interested in the film. I haven’t watched it, so I was interested in this album. So I was listening to this album, or I like, of course, more ambient. I always like Oren Ambarchi. I always find what he is doing is totally stylish, whatever he does, like very nice music. I was listening to Oren recently, or I found a Japanese band and I like noise music always, whenever. Especially if it’s a concert, I like noise.

With any music, if there is not a bit of experimental mood, I get bored. It has to have, for me personally, a little bit of humor, or a little bit of experimentation, a little bit of strangeness, or you know it’s free — and then, maybe it’s bad, but I quickly find it or don’t find it, and if I find it, I like it in any genre, any music. I’m not a big listener, but I’m totally always excited to listen to music, and if I listen to music, I’m just listening. Listening and driving is the max thing I can do, but if I’m in the room, and if there is interesting music, I just have to stop and listen.

Hugh: Like if someone’s playing music in the background and you’re at a party, you’re either listening to people or you’re listening to the music, that kind of thing?

Noriko: Yeah, and if I find nice music by chance, like in the party, I just need to listen to it! I get a bit rude.

Hugh: Like, if you’re at a cafe or a party, and maybe there’s a group of people you’re talking with, there’ve been times when I’ve slipped my phone out and been like, what is that sound?

Noriko: Yes yes yes, I understand [laughs].

Hugh: One last thing — you’re touring the album in Japan, but then do you have European dates when you come back?

Noriko: Oh, I think in autumn, October, something like that, but not a lot. I’ll maybe look for a little bit more. I need to earn money, of course, but as I’m not too much a fan of doing performances, so that’s fine.

Hugh: So, Japan for summer, Europe for the autumn, but not overdoing it. Well, awesome — thank you so much for everything you shared, it was really lovely to hear your insight.

Noriko: Thanks so much for chatting.

Hugh: Likewise!

Tujiko Noriko’s album PON is out now, and CxBxT’s remix album .After Again releases July 24th. Her latest NTS mix will air soon.

For too long now, there have been whisperings in the wings: if it’s called SEVEN how come only ONE of these dorks sticks their head above the pulpit every week? Why can’t I decapitate a whole half-dozen (plus one) of them in one showing? Enough! You were right and we were cowards — but now we are here. All SEVEN of us.

In this series’ first collaborative instalment, those of us assembled undertook the following assignment:

1. Submit one of our favourite artists, along with one album to represent them,

2. Receive another writer’s pick of the above,

3. Ruthlessly, meticulously deduce exactly what this choice says about them as a statement of identity, or otherwise.

The upshot is about as disturbing and incohesive as anyone could have hoped for. Tyler smells demons, A.R.O. smells Kerry; Hugh scratches his head as Gen-Z stare at their feet, while Adam grapples with the ins and outs of tapping your toes to racial violence; Milo finds a salient basis of comparison between WWI and K-Pop marketing; BOFF makes a brave attempt at ambient listening. This isn’t your neighbourhood panel show(?); this is SEVEN.

Read on for further horrors.

Default Genders - Main Pop Girl 2019

Submitted by Kerry // Diagnosed by A.R.O.

Pop // Indietronica

Based solely on this artist, as far as music-based horoscopes go I can safely say that me and Kerry are the same person??? Ok, I hadn’t heard Default Genders yet, but the artist had been on my radar since their blend of indie/electronic/dance/pop seemed absurdly up my alley, and goddamn was I right. I knew from previous experiences/recs that our tastes aligned, but holy wowza did that not prepare me for how wholeheartedly I loved this. I wish I had jumped into their music back in 2019, it’s hard to imagine how much more concrete my love for this kinda music could’ve been if I did.

But what does loving this artist say about Kerry? Sorry guys, I can’t think of anything uncomplimentary—anyone who feels this artist in all of their knotty forms clearly loves a LOT of music, falling hard for countless subgenres and niches, as evidenced by the kaleidoscopic influences that feed into Main Pop Girl 2019. As tempting as it is to project my own experiences onto this music (as someone who just found a new queer icon in Default Genders), all I’ll say is that this clearly is the palette of someone with big feelings, a great sense of humor, and (probably?) some very high emotional peaks and deep valleys. Keep loving music Kerry! And please recommend me more music like this at your earliest convenience.

— A.R.O.

Curve - Doppelganger

Shoegaze // Alternative Dance

Submitted by A.R.O. // Diagnosed by Hugh

Doppelganger is one of the few shoegaze records that just about anyone will agree holds up a treat, regardless of how sceptical they are of the genre as a whole: let’s give that it’s due before we go any further. There are plenty of reasons it fares so well — so many, in fact, that I am none the wiser about what this preference says about you. Maybe “Horror Head” is a genre classic and it took me until now to notice how hard “Lillies Dying” went; maybe surging noise, driving breakbeats and achingly fragile pop hooks are a perfect cocktail; maybe the record’s Cranes-esque macabre side gives its more outgoing qualities a neat gloomy edge? Moot points all round.

As for general takeaways, yes, it’s nice to like things that came out an unintimidating number of years before we were born that have aged well because trendy revivalists have ripped them off badly. And you got there without riding on the old Slowdive/My Dying Bride [fuck off I am not fixing that] hegemony — look at you go. Do what your birth certificate could never and claim those ‘90s: no Gen Xer can come near you without cowering in their boots over their failure to fully appreciate this universally acclaimed album in its own time. Your peers are out there checking themselves into psych wards for cultural capital, but you future-proofed yours by loving that album everyone likes. Incredible.

However, this is not about Doppelganger being your favourite album, but Curve supposedly being your favourite band. What’s the statement there? Honestly, fuck knows. A quick glance at neighbouring artists in the shoegaze pantheon narrows things down somewhat – if you were after brownie points for sleazed-out Kool, we’d be looking at Medicine; if you wanted to be the rockist’s answer to a sophisticated mood-reader, you’d have gone for Bowery Electric – but that’s no substitute for a clear read. A broader look at Curve isn’t much help either: Cuckoo is a passable set of diminishing returns on Doppelganger but hardly an advancement on its appeal, though Wish‘s pairing of downtempo and cookie cutter alt rock probably stands as a stronger statement for the y2k nostalgia you may be fishing for here. They have other albums — for all I know, you’ve even heard one or two of them.

What does it say about your favourite artist that I don’t take general familiarity with their catalogue for granted? What if neither you nor Curve needed an identity beyond Doppelganger‘s hedonistic downer aesthetics in the first place? That would certainly explain a lot. Why bother with an elaborate statement when smudging your mascara says all you need. Why stand out from the crowd when you can cultivate your aura mooching in it. I hope you are happy. Who am I writing about again?

— Hugh Puddle

Vladislav Delay - Anima

Ambient Dub // Glitch

Submitted by Hugh // Diagnosed by BOFF

I’m aware that Hugh’s tastes are broader than the exhaustive list of things I’d rather be doing than listening to this, so psychoanalysing his personality type based on this one record would be a big disservice to his openness to new things, and would likely equate to little more than character assassination. However, this is my piece and I’m taking the recommendation as a direct attack on my sanity, so I’m going to do it anyway.

I don’t doubt that a person who would spin this album out of choice has a more refined audio palate than I (or at least a far more robust tolerance for bullshit, which I can also respect/ point-and-laugh at), but in this case, the person almost certainly lists attention to detail and performs well under pressure (amongst other non-statements) as assets on their CV. They would undoubtedly subject themselves to Anima with comically overpriced headphones to fully appreciate the depth of that one click at 36:41. Either that or call queue hold music really gives them the horn. As such, this record tells me I would not enjoy hanging out with this person.

To give the album (and I suppose, Hugh) some credit here, the sound design is incredible. To its detriment though, it’s in service of absolutely fuck all. There’s certainly a place for albums that exist to be appreciated rather than enjoyed, but this album doesn’t conform to this ideal either: the focus has to be on the atmosphere, texture and negative space because discussing what actually occurs here would be a far shorter conversation. Hugh is evidently a person who views enjoyment as some kind of vulgar distraction, having spent so long painstakingly cultivating his taste that he’s accidentally weeded out pleasure. To him, the album’s opacity isn’t an issue: it’s a convenient filtering mechanism that allows him to separate the enlightened from those who have lives to lead.

And bizarrely, I understand that level of elitism and, to an extent, relate to it. Deep down, we’re all terrified of being perceived too ordinary lest our NPC tastes give us away. Unfortunately, it’s possible to go too far in the opposite direction, and next thing you know Hugh’s stood at a busy intersection snapping his fingers and tapping his toes to the curious synchronicity of revving engines and squealing tyres. Hugh: self-flagellation of this degree makes you seem less of a music nerd and much more of a martyr. I’m still unclear on why this unpleasant, time-consuming slurry would strike you as the hill on which to stake your aural superiority, but perhaps that’s the final joke: an album so devoid of tangible rewards (and not even an operator picking up at the end) that its greatest achievement is making its listeners feel clever. But then, I suppose every personality needs a coping mechanism. Some drink. Some gamble. Some listen to Anima.

— Benjamin Jack

State Faults - Clairvoyant

Screamo

Submitted by BOFF // Diagnosed by Kerry

SUBJECT: Benjamin “Boff” Jack

ALBUM: State Faults - Clairvoyant

HOROSCOPE: Kind of a gimme— there’s literally a track on here called “Moon Sign Gemini”. Boff, you are uhh, intellectually curious, adaptable, and communicative, as per otterspirit.com! What really jumps out at me reading this horoscope, however, is that Gemini Moons are easily bored, and for all the cinematic emotional anguish Clairvoyant evinces, it strikes me as fundamentally immediate, an album of physical thrills made-up pretty and proper enough to convincingly pitch itself as a serious statement (about what? Something something endless sanguine, something something love is a rose— surely, you get the picture).

If State Faults are your GOATs, your #1 criteria for Great Art™ is an endlessly fascinating surface gloss that offers only the occasional t-t-tasteful glimpse of anything beneath; you’re more than happy to supply your own dark, conflicted depths, otherwise a heart more bloodily on-sleeve like Converge or Touché Amoré would be here. Moment-to-moment writing that loves to move fast and break things is a top priority too, which I’m guessing is what gives this the edge over its siblings in the Jack Shirley production discography (mostly more formalist punk and borderline muzak-metal). And apparently, screeching banshee wails aren’t a deal-breaker. It takes all kinds, I guess.

Your pick conveys a certain refined ear for the intersection of texture and catharsis, but that’s just the thing: if you come to screamo of all genres for refinement, I probably don’t want to know what qualifies as a guilty pleasure in your book. Grow up and listen to real post-rock already.

— Kerry Renshaw

Vince Staples - Big Fish Theory

Hip-hop // UK Garage // House

Submitted by Tyler // Diagnosed by Adam

Unless one has grown up under similar socio-economical and racial tensions, there is an uncomfortable dynamic at play as a listener and consumer here; on one hand, it is natural for music consumption to be used as a tool towards building personal empathetic development, but at the same time, there’s almost an innate bedrock to how deep you’re actually able to dive into the subject matter. Just when the topic starts getting too heavy, the party kicks in to alleviate any uncomfortability. Vince does this by design, but that doesn’t mean the mirror is any less difficult to look into.

It’s disingenuous to label your pick as a disaster tourism listen, but I do find that, in some ways, this is an emblematic album for the type of consumption habits a lot of folks looking in from outside of the black community in America tend to have. Police brutality and street violence cutting dreams short turned into poetry is haunting to listen to (and to watch unfold), but just when you think your empathetic jar is about to overflow into tangible action, the album ends and loops back to the beginning and the hook in “Big Fish” starts repeating again: “I was up late night ballin’, countin’ up hundreds by the thousand.” Your head starts to bob. Damn, that beat is funky. What was I mad about again?

— Adam A.

TWICE - Twicetagram

K-Pop // Dance Pop

Submitted by Adam // Diagnosed by Milo

Here we sit; a collection of prized arses wallowing in our own odour, trying to amplify the kind of art that we believe humanity should aspire to. To dedicate your spare time to such a fruitless endeavour in an age where Popular Opinion’s media presence outweighs Thoughtful Criticism is an act that usually sees its proponents gathering together at the margins, celebrating art that might never get the flowers it deserves. In these circumstances, poptimism is often deployed tactfully, a drawbridge left open so that more people may enter your castle of criticism and discover what it is that actually furnishes Your Taste™.

Not so for Adam! Asked for a favourite among favourites, they wracked their brains and came right out with the band so nice that the bloke that brought all nine of the members together named them Twice, a group whose Wikipedia page—effectively an exhaustive account of every survey of their popularity ever put to publication—has more references credited than the page for World War I. I’m clearly too old and cynical to look past just what kind of marketing hell this kind of stuff emerges from, but Adam’s pure adoration for the group makes me feel as if my cynicism is more weakness than strength. There is, of course, a serious adroitness to the music of Twice and the ragtag pile of influences they pull from in order to release at least one chart-smashing album annually, along with a cultural significance to their endless virality that I’m sure I’ll never understand seeing as I’ve never looked at TikTok and don’t know what the hell point choreography is. Critics should be invested in trends with such depth, nuance, and multimedia presence as Twice, whose career seems to be central to the continuing K-pop phenomenon. I guess Adam is sensitive to most of this, or at least lives in a country where karaoke doesn’t suck arse (sounds nice!). The distance between their pick and the others tells a story of a pure enjoyment of music, a spark of joy in a muddle of melancholy, and a wake-up call to the ignorant cynic in all of us. Be more Adam.

— Milo Ruggles

Bark Psychosis - Hex

Post-Rock

Submitted by Milo // Diagnosed by Tyler

First let me start off by saying I had never heard of this band before, so I went in completely blind. I won’t dive too much into the album (because as we all know, that’s not the point here), but I found the record absolutely gorgeous. The atmospheric post-rock sections are stunning, and the weird, cacophonous moments do a great job of breaking up the beauty with sections of eerie and uncomfortable sensations. Which leads into my newfound impression of Milo here:

This band tells me everything I need to know. They are a laid back individual for sure, it’s no surprise given how dreamy and ethereal their favorite artist is. But those short spurts of disjointedness point to one thing: they cannot for the life of them get rid of the musical demons inside of them. Now I’m no therapist or psychiatrist, but there is something deep down inside Milo that tries to escape but is constantly pushed under the rug by the facade of post-rock beauty. It’s as if the early twenties desire for darker Swans and Godspeed You! Black Emperor bursts its way to the surface before being shoved under by the blanket of eerie tranquility and laidbackness. It’s almost terrifying.

At least if someone listens to something downright terrifying and haunting, we know there’s something entirely wrong. But this is far worse. The beauty of Bark Psychosis feels like a cover up. There is something musically sinister going on with Milo and I can’t put my finger on it. On the surface everything is fine and dandy, but underneath, there is something downright improper… and I’m going to do everything I can to get to the bottom of this Milo.

Or there’s nothing wrong at all and Milo has outstanding taste and is as awesome as this album is, you decide.

— Tyler White

That is all! Who deserved worse, and whose hospital bills should we paying? Let us know down below, and forgive us if we revert to one-writer-per-SEVEN from next week…

11:09 // June 11th, 2026 // 4AD

YHWH Nailgun are technically a Philly band, but they’ve been based in New York for most of their career — and if there’s one thing that vindicates the move, it’s that their new record Magazine reeks so much of self-conscious half-arsery and aesthetic jumble that it’s practically smothered by visions of Brooklyn basements. Bar the sole, minor highlight “Sewer Tree”, these ten tracks in almost as many minutes uniformly lack the focused narrations, structural precision, or else sheer intensity that support shortform delivery, and if they attract any praise for innovation, then it will inevitably come from the stuffy cohort that struggles to mask their wish for all music to be templated from This Heat and Xiu Xiu.

If you are in this camp, well, the aesthetics are all there! Synths and guitars shriek like water bowls, while vocalist Zack Borzone occasionally threatens to growl and/or sob over an otherwise passable U.S. Maple impression. There is no bassist, and so in the midst of all this textural frittery from his three bandmates, it falls to drummer Sam Pickard to make good on the group’s experimental it-band credentials: his interplay between a stubborn, splintering assault and tom-heavy cascading grooves makes him easily the most engaging performer here, all without any use at all of his trademark rototoms.

Pickard’s contributions would probably pack more clout if the band weren’t so intent on making the point that none of these tracks should break the two-minute mark. Or even the minute-and-a-half mark (the opener clocks 1:36, and even that feels a little transgressive). They claim that this is an act of restraint, but there’s something gratingly exhibitionist about implying that these fleeting art attacks are substantive enough to obviate traditional songwriting, especially because the individual ideas are rarely even singular. Get your head around the album’s repeated alternation between hulking foghorn menace (”Stillness Blues”, “Give Blood”, “Burns”) and piercing melodic accents (”Ballerina”, “Magazine” and “To the Devil”), and it’s hard to resist the misgiving that any given track in either camp could be freely exchanged with any other on the tracklist; if the band had circumvented my formalistic handwringing by releasing the record as an 11-minute track1, then this would hardly make the cycle any less tedious by the time its final iteration comes to a close.

4/10

Further listening:

U.S. Maple - Long Hair in Three Stages

Otori - Digitalized Human Nature

Water From Your Eyes - Everyone’s Crushed

Xiu Xiu - Girl with Basket of Fruit

Quick-fire Roundup is our chance to highlight a few of the albums we’ve been digging from the past month that we may not have had the time or energy to pump out full essays for. These releases nevertheless deserve a gold star and a spot on the podium.

otay:onii – Love Is in the Shit
32:28 // May 8th, 2026 // Pelagic Records

For all the knees destined to be jerked in response to its confrontational title, Love Is in the Shit is an astounding exploration of loss, longing and hope that speaks with devastating clarity and draws on some of the year’s most bracing aesthetic clashes. In some ways, this all comes as little surprise: Lane Shi Otayonii has never been one to flinch in the face of an emotional onslaught, whether in her solo work, as part of Elizabeth Colour Wheel or in collaboration with Uboa. Possessed of one of the most distinctive voices in today’s landscape, she sings with the force of some uncanny prophecy that howls its way across post-industrial wastelands and slips deftly through the cracks of windows we had thought firmly closed, only to lodge itself deep in the listener’s own dreams. Once there, her clattering beats or eerie keyboard lines say all that remains to be said.

The upshot of this in previous outings has been as spellbinding as it has morbid, but Love Is in the Shit is as much a work of trauma as of growth, life and of course love, both in its inspirations and in the most colourful tracklist otay:onii has furnished to date. The album’s most excoriating purges sit alongside playful cabaret-esque showstoppers; its most authoritative declarations quickly give way to glitchy netherspace. Opener “Have You Ever” dips from blaring synths into a fragile reverie sung in her native Haining dialect, while the rampaging midway highlight “The Plaice” cements the qualities that have made her such a hit with the European metal scene. By the time it all contorts itself into a resolution the abstracted wringer of the closer “Tears Won’t Tell”, we’re listening to an artist at her peak. In her exclusive interview with us, Lane shared how her process follows her emotional impulses outside of songwriting territory into unfamiliar territory, and Love Is in the Shit is nothing if not a testament to the shattering empowerment latent in individual creativity. This is the one to beat this year. (9/10)

- Hugh Puddle

Gyrofield – Your Fight
16:23 // May 6th, 2026 // Field Research

While most IDM locks you into your own headspace, Your Fight feels far less internal. Instead, it evokes traipsing across an alien planet, its rippling drums and pulsing electronics conjuring a constantly shifting landscape. Rather than moving your feet to the beat, it’s as if the surface itself is wriggling out from under you, forcing forward motion. And even at its strangest and most uneasy, it’s at least as calming as it is anxious, a dichotomy that only grows more fascinating with every visit. (8.0/10)

- A.R.O.

Genesis Owusu – Redstar Wu & the Worldwide Scourge
50:26 // May 15th, 2026 // Ourness

If there’s one thing Genesis Owusu has never lacked, it’s confidence, but his latest LP operates on a whole other level. Fusing beat-heavy post-punk with stabs of neo-soul and hip-hop, he backs it all up with warm live instrumentation that evokes the energy of a block party celebration, even at its most lyrically caustic. And as Owusu displays on thrilling rap songs like “THE WORLDWIDE SCOURGE” and “LIFE KEEPS GOING,” there’s no shortage of things to be pissed off about in our modern era. But it’s the way he transforms those frustrations into something vibrant and life-affirming that makes the album so compelling. Elsewhere, he evokes the syrupy funk-soul of Yves Tumor on “FALLING BOTH WAYS” and the spiky art-punk energy of TV on the Radio at their most rambunctious on “MOST NORMAL AMERICAN VOTER”. Even when the back half can’t quite capture the catharsis of the front, it maintains an impeccable flow throughout, with songs building off of each other like scaffolding. The result is Owusu’s most expansive and infectious statement yet, a record that invites you to dance through the apocalypse, rather than merely endure it. (8.5/10)

- A.R.O.

Marmozets – Co.War.Dice
41:45 // May 22nd, 2026 // Nettwerk

On their first studio album in 8 years, Marmozets waste no time getting down to business. Despite missing some of the raw angst of their debut, the towering opener “A Kiss from a Mother” quickly silences any fears that they’d mellow out with age. It maintains a furious momentum for the majority of its runtime—only slowing down for the brooding “Swear I’m Alive,” which contains everything that Metric’s latest LP was missing, and the pretty / quaint “Dandy”. The first half is packed with excellent dance-punk offerings, especially “Cut Back” and “Running with the Sun in Your Eyes,” offering a new bag of tricks without skimping on the yowling vocals and snarling guitars, leaving us head-banging and toe-tapping in equal measure. These Marmozets’ claws are still razor-sharp, ready to rip into a new generation desperate for pop-rock with a real bite. (8.0/10)

- A.R.O.

Triángulo de Amor Bizarro - Mi catedral
42:01 // May 15th, 2026 // Sonido Muchacho

This Galician trio has long championed an ambidextrous approach to sunkissed fuzz-rock, setting your blood on fire one moment only to recede into gauzy heartache the next, but it took them until 2020’s oɹɹɐzıqɹoɯɐǝpolnƃuɐıɹʇ to realise all their strengths in one package. That record’s versatility and spellbinding keynote tracks are enduringly awesome, but Mi catedral might be the closest they’ve come to a similar calibre of roof-raiser.

Hollering their way over whatever combination of clamorous, dream-adjacent subgenres take their fancy, vocalists Isabel Cea and Rodrigo Caamaño bring an unmistakably melodious sensibility to one glorious noise pop banger after another. The early run is particularly formidable, but every listen I find myself taking stock around the three-quarter mark (somewhere around “Este contra oeste”’s anthemic shoegaze meltdown) and wondering how on earth this record still has energy to draw from, how its hooks still sound so fresh, how its rush has lasted this long.

How long can it last? The majority of the record, it turns out, although its stretch of earworms is bookended by two centrepiece tracks in “SMT en el palacio real” and “Pat a trenca”. These both aim for a more cinematic sense of gravity that the rest of the album is too zested to bother with. If “SMT en el palacio real” in particular proves a little incongruous to this end, the album as a whole still promises essential summertime listening for months to come. (8.0/10)

- Hugh Puddle

JPEGMAFIA - Experimental Rap
54:58 // May 21st, 2026 // AWAL

The mask that separates JPEGMAFIA from the real human being behind the posturing must either be light-bendingly thick or completely transparent at this stage. Outrage as an attention-stealing schtick isn’t exactly a novelty in the 2020s, and Peggy’s latest Pigeons & Planes interview (check the posse) is exactly the kind of content-generating content that one should expect from him. In the past, though, his media appearances have painted him as a fairly entertaining individual, whether he’s dodging a spin kick from a man that later shoves a fistful of weed in his hand in a New Zealand shopping mall or managing to communicate lightly and lucidly while drunk enough to blow chunks mid-interview, there has, until EXPERIMENTAL RAP, always been a number of interesting lenses to view the real man and his character(s?) through.

Kudos to the lad; whether his mask is slipping, his personality is diminishing in the spotlight, or he feels obliged to ramp up the negativity in order to attract more ears to what is supposed to be a Statement Album, he has a bottomless bag of compelling beats and samples that’s longevity is only threatened by the limited range of flows (heard ya like triplets) and modes of delivery (talk-yell-talk, we Nirvana now) alongside the length of this project. It’s a strange notion to abandon previous experimentation on an album titled for its experimentation (even Pitchfork picked up on this), and stranger still that JPEGMAFIA’s exhausting litany of money-making sexscapades, delivered with so much less humour and self-awareness than previously, still aren’t heavy enough ballasts to sink EXPERIMENTAL RAP (case-in-point, if you press skip when the fairly intolerable “GYBB” hits, “Mask On” rewards your impatience with a beat whose sample is the only stable element in a fairly active sonic journey that sees the surrounding music turn itself on its head in under three minutes).

Barrington Hendricks’ lowest hour may be upon us, and as some of the same people who helped inflate his burgeoning career through hyperbolic praise and parasocial hope begin a public process of cutting all ties and We Should’ve Knowns (it’s okay to be grey, team), and as the hate he actually receives makes steady gains on the hate he claims to receive (at Coachella or whatever), the way he flips a wide array of samples while literally murdering his own beats still has me spinning this repeatedly. (6.5/10)

- Milo Ruggles

Want even more? Check out our full-length reviews for these other May releases:

This Week’s New Music

Blood Mother

Blood Mother (independent)

USA | Black Metal

Graham Coxon

Castle Park (Transgressive)

UK | Britpop // Rock // Folk

The Hanging Stars

Just a Day (Loose)

UK | Cosmic Americana // Country // Jangle Pop

Julien Hauspie

A Distant Familiar (Whitelabrecs)

BELGIUM | Ambient // Drone // Modern Classical

Life

Abstract/Natural (Launchpad)

UK | Alt Rock // Post-Punk

Loneshore

Nothing Left to Deconstruct (Willowtip)

BRAZIL | Progressive Metal // Doom Metal // Post-Metal

Pond

Terrestrials (Mangovision)

AUSTRALIA | Psychedelic // Alt-Rock

Quiet Houses

We’re All in Love (independent)

UK | Indie Pop

Saidan

Fangdriller: Scars Beneath Memory’s Wrist (Avantgarde)

USA | Black Metal // Gothic Metal

Tucker Zimmerman

Dream Me a Dream (Big Potato)

USA | Folk // Country

The Veils

Fragile World (V2)

UK | Indie Rock // Art Rock

The War and Treaty

The Story of Michael and Tanya (Atlantic)

USA | Blues // Soul // Americana

Warning

Rituals of Shame (Relapse)

UK | Doom Metal

YG

The Gentleman’s Club (10K Projects)

USA | Hip-Hop

As always, thanks for reading! We’ll be back next week, at (approximately) the same time - don’t set your clocks for it.