I don’t mean for these playlists to keep getting longer, but they just keep putting out great music – I end up cutting a few tracks every month to avoid them reaching three hours. This month’s has 34 songs and runs two hours, eleven minutes, with two of the year’s best albums released in June as well.
As always, if you can’t see the playlist below, you can access it here. And if you have a streaming service beyond the majors that you like, throw it in the comments.
Little Simz feat. Michael Kiwanuka – Lotus. The title track from Little Simz’s latest album is the jewel in this particular crown, an eclectic, ambitious record that seethes with indignation. The rapper loaned $2.2 million to her longtime friend, collaborator, and producer Inflo for the first-ever live SAULT concert, but he didn’t pay her back, causing her to be late on her taxes that year; she’s now suing him, and nearly every song and lyric on Lotus is in some way about her feelings of betrayal and hurt over the experience. Other standout tracks include “Lion” (feat. Obongjayar), “Blood,” “Thief,” and “Blue” (feat. Sampha). Remind me never to piss her off.
Kate Nash – GERM. Nash’s new single is a spoken-word affair that attacks transphobes like J.K. Rowling by pointing out that there’s no actual evidence that trans women pose any risk to cis women, while these so-called ‘feminists’ ignore the actual harm done to all women by cis men.
Creeper – Headstones. The British goth-metal throwbacks released this thrashy lead single ahead of their next album, Sanguivore II: Mistress of Death, which is due out in late October.
Hotline TNT – The Scene. Hotline TNT’s Raspberry Moon was the second-best new album I heard in June, a big step forward for this rock band – I hate when they’re called shoegaze, that’s flat-out wrong and a misunderstanding of the term – with stronger melodies from their heavily-distorted guitars. Other standout tracks include “Julia’s War” and “Candle.”
Lord Huron – Bag of Bones. The fourth single released ahead of Lord Huron’s newest album, The Cosmic Selector Vol. 1, is the strongest one yet; the record comes out on July 18th.
Elbow – Timber. The four-song EP Audio Vertigo Echo is also part of the deluxe edition of Audio Vertigo, the album released last year that featured “Lover’s Leap.” All four tracks on the EP are solid, with “Adriana Again” the best of the set.
Calibro 35 – Reptile Strut. Thistrack from the Italian band funk-rock band sounds like Jethro Tull recorded the score for a 1960s spy film.
TAKAAT – Amidinin. TAKAAT is the band that backs up Mdou Moctar, and on their first EP as an independent act, they sound … well, a lot like Mdou Moctar’s music, just with a little less of the shredding. It’s still excellent.
WITCH – Queenless King. WITCH is one of the original Zamrock acts and returned in 2023 with their first album in 39 years, re-forming with a new lineup; they’re back again with Sogolo, released last month, with the same ebullient sound that melds 1970s psychedelic rock with traditional Zambian music. Only singer Emanuel “Jagari” Chanda remains from the original band, as the others all died from AIDS-related causes by 2001.
Sudan Archives – DEAD. Sudan Archives’ last LP Natural Brown Prom Queen was my #2 album of 2022; this is her first new music since then, although I can’t find any word of a new LP.
Emma-Jean Thackray – Weirdo. Thackray’s latest album, also called Weirdo, is largely a reflection on and document of her grief when her partner, producer Matthew Gordon, died unexpectedly in 2023. The record is similar in style to her last full-length, 2021’s Yellow, and despite the somber subject matter includes a lot of upbeat jazz/funk tracks, including this one and “Wanna Die.” I feel like Laufey gets a lot of the attention that should go to Thackray, whose music is more authentic to jazz but less poppy.
Nathan Salsburg – Ipsa Corpora (Excerpt). Salsburg’s latest album, Ipsa Corpora, is just one 40-odd minute track of him playing acoustic guitar, with nothing else, and it’s mesmerizing. I wasn’t familiar with him at all before finding this on the NPR new music playlist. This is just a two-minute excerpt from the back half of the album, and it includes one of my favorite sequences.
Suede – Trance State. The second track from Suede’s upcoming album Antidepressants continues in the dark post-punk vein of the previous single, “Disintegrate,” and I couldn’t be more excited for the full record. It feels like it’s squarely aimed at my age cohort, anyone who came of age as a music fan in the early 1980s.
Just Mustard – Pollyanna. Okay, this is real shoegaze. The Irish band’s last album, Heart Under, was also in my top 10 for 2022, as one of the purest distillations of the original shoegaze sound of the early 1990s, including some of its harsher elements. This track softens some of that, so vocalist Katie Ball is a little easier to hear above the music, but the result is that they sound a little more like Lush and less like MBV.
Steve Queralt feat. Emma Anderson – Lonely Town. Speaking of Lush, here’s their guitarist Anderson on another track from Ride bassist Queralt’s first solo album, Swallow,and it turns out when you mix Lush and Ride together you get a song that sounds like both bands. Weird.
World News – Don’t Want to Know. Dreamy jangle-rock from London. These guys look too young to be making music like this.
Lake Ruth – An Offering. Lake Ruth’s new album Hawking Radiation was inspired by Adrian Tchaikovsky’s novel Children of Time, the Heaven’s Gate suicide cult, and the art of Paul Klee, a diversity of sources that shows up in the music, which draws on psychedelic rock, electronica, and even some pop elements.
Sophia Stel – Everyone Falls Asleep in Their Own Time. Stel is a singer and electronic musician who released one EP last fall and is back with this single; it reminds me of Beth Orton, the better aspects of Sarah McLachlan’s music, even a little Tasmin Archer’s “Sleeping Satellite.”
Rocket – Crossing Fingers. This LA-based band took its name from the Smashing Pumpkins song, perhaps influenced by a desire to find the least SEO-friendly name possible, and their sound reflects that vein of early-90s alternative, guitar-driven rock. Think early Weezer, Helmet, Dinosaur Jr.
Mike Bankhead – Something that I Can’t Explain. Mike’s a longtime friend of the dish, long enough that I couldn’t even put a finger on when he started reading and commenting. He’s also a singer and bassist, and this alt-rock song is his first new track since 2023’s EP I Am Experienced.
flowerovlove – new friends. One of the weirder comments I’ve gotten on my music posts over the almost fifteen years that I’ve been writing them has been the claim that I dislike pop music. Like a lot of people, maybe most, I started out as a fan of pop music, and that’s still reflected in my playlists in music that reminds me of that era of pop. It has also made me wary of contemporary, big-label pop, because it’s so overproduced, but there’s plenty of good pop music out there if you’re willing to look a little harder for it. flowerovlove is a perfect example – she started out releasing her own music in the pandemic, and although she’s now signed to a major label, so far she hasn’t compromised her bedroom-pop sound.
Obongjayar – Gasoline. This song is from the soundtrack to F1, and continues the year of Obongjayar, as he released his second album Paradise Now in May and appears on two of the best tracks on Little Simz’s new LP. (Her appearance on his record, however, is its worst track. This song isn’t on his album but would fit quite well there with its mix of Afrobeat, electronic, and western pop traditions.
Young Fathers – Promised Land. Young Fathers did the entire soundtrack to 28 Years Later, most of which is background music rather than full-fledged songs. It also includes a reading of Rudyard Kipling’s poem “Boots.” “Promised Land” is its most traditional track, at least in line with the Mercury Prize winners’ typical output.
SPRINTS – Descartes. This Irish punk band’s second album, All That Is Over, is due outon September 26th, and this first single is one of their best tracks to date.
The Minus 5 – We Shall Not Be Released. Another friend of the dish, so to speak, as I interviewed Scott McGaughey on my old podcast and have met him and the other members of The Baseball Project. The two bands are touring together this fall.
Arc de Soleil – Sunchaser. Arc de Soleil is composer/producer Daniel Kadawatha, who does a pretty solid Khruangbin impression – as does Balthvs, who I nearly included on a playlist earlier this year. I don’t think any of these knockoffs are as good as Khruangbin, but they’re good enough to listen to in their own right, and the guitar melody here reminds of some of the better stuff from the brief heyday of guitar instrumental albums from when I was in high school/college.
Wavves – Spun. The riff at the start of this track reminds me a ton of Superdrag’s “Sucked Out the Feeling,” a song that I love until the chorus until it seems to try too hard to be edgy; then Nathan Williams shifts gears slightly for the second half of the song without losing that core melody. This is the title track from Wavves’ latest album, their first of new material since 2021.
The Beths – No Joy. The second single from the Beths’ upcoming album Straight Line was a Lie, due out on August 29th, isn’t one of my favorites from them, actually. The hook isn’t as good as those on their best singles, and I think the super-short lines in the verses take away from the wordplay in Elizabeth Stokes’ lyrics.
Jehnny Beth – Obsession. Jehnny Beth’s latest single is pure madness – cacophonous, disjointed, just glorious – and an excellent sign ahead of her new album You Heartbreaker, due out August 29th.
Puffer – Jimmy. Puffer are a Montréal-based punk band who seem to have a DIY ethos, recording and releasing their debut album, Street Hassle, themselves. They don’t have much of a previous footprint, just two EPs to their name prior to this record, but it’s great if you’re a fan of classic, old-school punk.
Lowen – Waging War Against God. This track is actually from Lowen’s 2024 album Do Not Go to War With the Demons of Mazandaran, a superb blend of doom and extreme metal with Persian music. It would have made my list of the best albums of the year had I heard it in time.
Tulip – Arabella. I linked to the Texas Monthly story on Tulip’s origins in a Saturday roundup earlier this month; they blend symphonic metal and death metal elements, slightly overproduced in my view, and I’ll give anyone who escapes from the sort of controlling religious environment they escaped some extra points.
Unleashed – Hold Your Hammers High. Unleashed is one of the pioneers of Swedish death metal, before the ‘melodic’ death metal movement that grew out of the Gothenburg scene … but this track, from Unleashed’s upcoming album Fire Upon Your Lands, sounds a lot like late-80s thrash with vocals that are more shouted than growled.
DRAIN – Nights Like These. DRAIN is a crossover thrash (meaning a blend of traditional thrash and hardcore punk) revival band from Santa Cruz, which makes sense given that sound’s deep roots in the San Francisco area (Metallica, Exodus, Testament, and Death Angel all came from that scene). The vocals are a bit death-growly for me, but the riffage behind them should satisfy fans of the genre.