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I've been obsessed with Waterstrider for a long time. Not as long as the last two months have felt, but more than four years by my calculations.  I've actually whipped out the first song I fell in love with from them TWICE since the pandemic hit. If you need a reason to tap on your fucking knees right now, go listen to "Redwood" from the album Nowhere Now. That shit is money as fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu. And if you disagree, that's ok, you're just wrong.  BUT BACK TO THE LECTURE AT HAND BRUH. The new new that Waterstrider dropped this morning, "Liquid", arrived JUST as I was about to step into my shower after my home workout. How timely for a song about wetness should ping to my phone as I was both sweaty AND about to get all of...

I found Wilderado on a random Spotify playlist last year and spent the better part of a month obsessed with their single, "You Don't Love Me". They grabbed me ballsies with a huge ass fucking screamable-in-my-car-alone chorus, and then hooked me further by releasing the same track all stripped down and acoustic. The songwriting felt compelling and intentionally anthemic without feeling disingenuous. It felt super fucking late 90s and that made me fucking happy. Fast forward to meow, I get a new Wilderado single in the emails just meow and I pop the fucker in my imaginary tape deck and BOOM: late 90s indie rock makin' me feel all comf and like the world isn't burning to shit around me. This dude's throat has that lilt that I can only install...

I have no idea who Jonathan Something is, but I clicked through some emails late yesterday and lined up a bunch of links to peep on the way home.  Seeing as I haven't been able to listen to anything but TOOL albums for the last week, this was the one track that sort of made me clutch my pearls to my chest and sing like I'm singing along with a song I've known forever. "Heartbreaker" has that Alabama Shakes vibe to it, but with a reference to smoking menthol cigarettes and having an erection with some falsetto sensuality, I've had this fucker on repeat without even realizing it.  Super retro and comf, this shit is sunny Saturday afternoon in slow mo, with the kids all gigglin', and the rainbows all poppin' from when we soak em with the hose while they run over...

Never heard LACES before, but c'mon, I'm big on names that are single words in the plural form, and I super appreciate anything that references what I normally wear under these jeans.  (HEY BACK OFF, I AM ALLOWED TO FEEL PRETTY.) This jammer, titled "moved", is exactly what you want your first foot forward to sound like. This woman doesn't just sound like she has her (musical) shit together, basically it's just her, a piana (YEA, PIANA), and a tasteful amount of reverb (and that womwomwomwom I love so much). No fluff, no muss, no fluss, no muff. This track is fucking gorg. It's like a much more mature Billie Eilish without spiders in mouths, or heck, a calmer Tori Amos without all the uncomfortable bench humping and those vocal riffs I can't duplicate so I find...

Blisses B hold a special place in my SYFFAL heart. One of the first bands, maybe ten years ago or so, where I developed an honest friendship with the guys based solely on my love of their tunes. Turns out, it's totally possible to establish meaningful friendships with complete strangers when you have something like the love of music in common.  Fast forward about ten years, Blisses B are back with another album, AND IT IS PERFECTLY TITLED: Tell Your Friends You Love Them And Why drops on June 21st, 2019! If there was ever an album titled named for me, it's this one. HELL YEA. I spend more time than ever before reminding the people around me that I love and appreciate them, and this album title here just massaged me in the feelies. The first...

Altered Tapes STAY makin' every damn day feel like Sunday afternoon. I'M SAYIN'! With this latest release, DJ Trew and Maker, who form the Voltron of dusty grooved sample orgies known as Altered Tapes, drop a whimsical trumpety flam jam with inspiration from De La Soul's "Ego Trippin'" on their latest, "Ego Drip".  Like I mentioned above, when every track they drop feels like a Sunday afternoon barbeque , it's difficult to concentrate on much else besides the booty drop. It's like the musical equivalent to your second beer, with the smell of charcoal in the air, and a fresh pile of cubed watermelon sitting in those old school tupperware bowls in the center of a kitchen table that's dressed in a plastic...

Altered Tapes is back. AGAIN! Again with the smooth. Again with the head nods. Again with the "hell yea". No bullshit, this music makes me want to light the grill. "They Said (An Ode to Chicago)" drops at the perfect time. It's supposed to hit 60F this week and most of us have been going crazy stuck inside after one of the worst and longest winters in modern memory. Maker and DJ Trew come back with the SPRING FATNESS and I wanna step the hell outside with this as my soundtrack. Whenever new Altered Tapes mixes drop there's a reason to celebrate, but freal freal, I've never felt more cooped up in my entire life and tracks like this make me wanna make a Michael Jordan hoop video starring myself with this as the soundtrack. I'm that...

AUDeGO are one of my weaknesses. That gorgeous lilt on her voice makes me feel like I'm in some strange dream and the daughter of Beth Gibbons is slowly pulling some magical sword out of some mythical stone and with every slow pull I get more and more anxious.  Not like the shitty anxiety that living in 2019 causes all up inside me, but like that sexual anxiety of knowing you're about to get some and you have all the time in the world.  YEA, THAT'S IT. AUDeGO sound like I'm about to get some stank on my hanglow (as the catholics are calling it these days).  Actually, if I really think about it, and if I focus on the title of the track, maybe this new single "Ode To Self" is the song that plays while we set up for an evening of self-love and pampering. I know that...

Tom sent me this band because he knew I needed it. This band's latest album, Go Farther In Lightness, hasn't really left my routine since Tom sent it to me.  Gang of Youths sort of have everything I need in a favorite band: beautiful instrumentation, powerful lyrics, similarities to bands I've grown up on, incredible crescendos, song topics that literally step on my throat.  I know many of you don't remember when the Wallflowers released their version of Bowie's "Heroes", because you're all 15 years old right now, but that chorus is forever burned into my memory as being one of the few times the chorus of a song has pushed me to tears (before I became a sensitive Stanley that is).  And it's perfect timing for Gang of Youths, not just...

Sometimes I listen to music just to hold my arms out at my sides like I'm flying a cute little airplane. Sometimes I breathe through my exposed teeth as I stare blankly out of my window.  Sometimes I do both of the above things with the proper soundtrack. Rare Monk came through with a gang of tanqueray on "Happy Haunting", sounding like a blissed out Band of Horses but without all that unnecessary plaid and clove cigarettes. It's like these jagbags hacked into my dreams, downloaded what I wanted to feel like, and then proceeded to both create and murder my original wants and transform them into these Rare Monk-ian demonstrations of audible perfection. Here's hoping this band doesn't go down in history as having the best intentions but the worse...