October 2, 2026  ·  2 comments

Music update, September 2026.

Lot of big albums coming in October, I think, so September turned into a solid month of new music, with many of these songs coming from albums/artists I haven’t had on playlists this year. This doesn’t even include new albums that came out in the last few weeks from Beck, Blondshell, The Tubs, Gurriers, or Slow Pulp; the first two didn’t do much for me, and I still have to listen to the last three. As always, if you can’t see the widget below, you can access the playlist on Apple Music or Spotify.

CHVRCHES – Roses. I think this is my favorite CHVRCHES track since their second album, Every Open Eye, and maybe since their debut record, which this song really evokes musically. There’s more going on here lyrically than most of their output, even just in quantity – Lauren Mayberry is way more present here, which is nearly always a good thing. I don’t love the production on the chorus, but otherwise this feels like they’re recalling “The Mother We Share” and “Gun” as they lead up to album #5.

The War on Drugs – Who’s That. I can vouch that this song sounds amazing live, having seen TWoD’s incredible show at the Queen here in Wilmington, which was packed because you don’t often see a band this big playing at a smaller venue like that. Every time I see this song’s title, though, I want to say “BROWWWWWWWWWN!”

Moses Boyd feat. Amber-Simone – Criticise. Jazz drummer/composer Boyd announced his second solo album Songs for Sinners will drop on October 30th; this funk-tinged track is a big step up from the first single, “Say Yeah,” and gives me more hope that the album will be a worthy follow-up to the tremendous, boundary-pushing Dark Matter, which gave me my favorite song of 2020, “Shades of You.”

Wishy – Sensational. Wishy’s second album Nature’s Pill ought to be their big breakout, with two incredible singles already in “Lovesick” and “All the Rage” along with a couple of other above-average tracks like this one and “Mona Lisa.” It’s power-pop with a jangly edge to it, fun and funny lyrics, and some great back-and-forth among the vocalists.

Lambrini Girls – Bang Bang Bang. This British punk duo announced its second album, No Refunds, will be out on January 15th; this song has a tremendous, high-octane guitar riff driving it, while Phoebe Lunny’s sung-shouted lyrics are, as always, both witty and incisive.

Anxious – Secret Weapon. This emo-ish band released its second album, Bambi, early in 2025, and they’re back already with two new singles, “Don’t Move” and this one, that sounds more like harder 1990s alternative than the emo tag usually applied to them. (I feel like we’re far enough from the first emo wave that bands doing it now should get a new tag.)

Tom Morello feat. KNEECAP – Unconquered. Morello’s latest solo album Everyone Gets Everything They Want just dropped on September 25th, with some uninspiring collaborations (Serj Tankian’s song is particularly bad), and then this one that seems almost obvious in hindsight given the Irish group’s politics. It helps that Morello provides a strong guitar riff behind them.

Sampa the Great – Simon Says. This Zambian rapper calls herself great, but it’s no lie. “You say all my demons is coming/I say all my demons is dead” feels like a great call-and-response for live shows. Her third album, Nu Zamrock, comes out on the 30th.

Rakim, Kurupt, & Masta Killa – I’m Good. This hip-hop supergroup dropped The Godbody LP on September 18th, and on this and all of the tracks I’ve heard, Rakim towers over the other two rappers.

Tiakola feat. Jorja Smith – Jet Lag. Tiakola is a Congolese-French rapper, formerly a member of 4Keus, while Smith is one of my favorite singers in any genre and just released a new album this summer. This collaboration has her rapping more than singing, with her lines in English and his in French. It’s pretty catchy, with a UK garage beat behind their lyrics.

Locust feat. Natasha Morrow and Neil Halstead – Long Distance Lover. Locust is 60-year-old Mark Van Hoen, an electronic music artist from London, who just released his 13th album, Spectral+, in September. This song features Halstead, guitarist and one of the vocalists in Slowdive; and Irish singer Morrow, whose voice isn’t totally up to the challenge here, although I found the song catchy enough to put on this list.

Adult DVD – Jesus Christ Supercar. A surprising banger that draws on early new wave/post-punk while still sounding reasonably modern. “I thought I was Jesus but the drugs wore off” is one of the best lyrics of the year.

GIFT – Hand to the Flame. GIFT announced a new album, Frenzy for the Thrill, due out January 15th, with this lead single bringing their standard psychedelic-rock approach to a more uptempo beat, with more prominent guitars and a poppier melody.

World News – The Way It Goes. That little note on the last beat of every fourth measure feels like it’s straight out of 1984. They’ve got a great sense of melody, and lean hard into their 1980s influences, with Fader comparing them to Talk Talk and the Smiths. They’re more melodic and upbeat than those bands, though. In Purgatory, their long-awaited (by me) debut album, comes out on the 15th.

This is Lorelei – The Kid with the Crown. I haven’t loved Nate Amos’ solo stuff, but this song kicks ass. It’s like Belle & Sebastian tried to write a bluegrass song.

Sharp Pins – Face of Youth Today. Sharp Pins is 21-year-old Kai Slater, whose songs “are low-fidelity to the point where they often sound as if they’re being played from another room of your apartment.” (Hat-tip to Post-Trash for that quip.) Imagine if early Cloud Nothings was more inspired by 1960s pop than noise-rock and punk.

Beabadoobee feat. Hayley Williams – Nothing to Prove. Pylon might be Beabadoobee’s best album to date; it’s at least as good as her last two records, maybe a little more polished, although that cuts both ways. I have been disappointed to see how much of the publicity around the record seems to focus on her looks, which, who cares? This isn’t 1985 and MTV doesn’t play music any more.

Sports Team – Billy. I loved Sports Team’s 2022 album Gulp! and was very disappointed by their 2025 album Boys These Days; this track, for now a non-album single, sits somewhere in between the two, with more energy than the latter album and more humor, although it’s not quite as catchy as “Dig” or “The Drop.”

Soccer Mommy – Rings of Saturn. One of Soccer Mommy’s better singles, this marks her first new music since 2024’s Evergreen, with a very ‘90s vibe and a vocal line that reminds me a ton of “Tractor Beam” by Snail Mail … with whom Soccer Mommy is touring this fall.

Morphine – Cocoon. Morphine seemed like they were on the verge in the 1990s, with “Thursday” and “Honey White” gaining some crossover success, when lead singer/bassist Mark Sandman died after suffering a heart attack while performing on stage in Rome in 1999. The remaining members have completed the album Cocoon, started in 1998 but never finished, and will release it on December 4th, marking the first album of ‘new’ material from the band in 26 years. Totally unrelated, but I saw some pictures of Sandman when reading about the new album and going down a bit of a Morphine rabbit hole, and I keep thinking, man, he looks like he might have had Marfan syndrome. I don’t know anything about this stuff, so take that with a grain of salt.

Kiwi Jr. w/Protomartyr – Landscape with Limousine. I did not see this collaboration coming, but it works, producing a song that sounds a lot like … hard-rock Pavement?

Gilla Band – Alogia. I’m still working through Gilla Band’s album Pugnello, which has received glowing reviews, but is a difficult listen; I believe Paste called them “post-punk” but they’re borrowing from way more traditions than that, including early industrial like Throbbing Gristle.

Lost in Kyiv – Tróia. Theycall themselves“post-rock,” which I assume is because nobody wants to be “prog rock” in 2026 because people might think King Crimson, and that’s not the vibe here at all. It’s closer to prog metal, inspired by Russian Circles, with some Wheel or Porcupine Tree or even Dream Theater. Their latest album We’re All Going to Be Fine came out in June; this track is off the Pelagic Records compliation album The Dungeon Tapes.

I Built the Sky – The Start of Something Beautiful. I Built the Sky is the project of Australian guitar wizard Rohan ‘Ro Han’ Stevenson, who just released another album of progressive instrumental metal called Promise Me You’ll Thrive. It’s heavier than the sort of instrumental guitar records I loved as a teenager – I’m thinking of Steve Vai’s Passion & Warfare in particular – but I love both the virtuosity of his playing and the ambition of the songwriting.

Coroner – The Favorite Game. This isn’t a new track, but it was actually new to me because it only appeared on their 1995 compilation album, also called Coroner, and I really just know their albums (primarily their last two before their breakup, Mental Vortex and Grin, two of my favorite metal albums ever). This comes off the upcoming EP Ex Nucleo (The Remastered Extraction), which will include five tracks from Coroner.

Godflesh – Master and Slave. The opening track from Godflesh’s latest and penultimate album, Decay, is mostly instrumental, and reminds me of their debut album Streetcleaner but slower and sludgier. Singer/guitarist Justin Broadrick, who wrote and produced this entire album, underwent abdominal surgery this spring and is no longer able to sing live, so Godflesh won’t be touring, and this entire album has about 150 total words of lyrics.

Sleep – Arrival of the Industry Ships. The longest of the five tracks on Sleep’s newest album Hempispheres is deeper and doomier than the rest; the album has received middling to poor reviews for the mediocre lyrics (I get that, but also, no one is listening to Sleep for the lyrics) and, I think, because Matt Pike isn’t the guitarist any more. I’ve written this before, but given his embrace of antisemitic conspiracy theories I’d rather have Sleep without him.

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September 26, 2026  ·  6 comments

Stick to baseball, 9/26/26.

One column at The Athletic this week, my hypothetical award ballots for the five major player awards other than NL Rookie of the Year, for which I actually voted this year. My minor-league player of the year column will run tomorrow (Sunday).

Plans for my free email newsletter this past week were derailed by a few things, not least of which was me losing a day and a half to getting my flu & COVID shots. For socials, I’m still mostly on Bluesky, Instagram, and TikTok. I’ve noticed an uptick in folks trying to reach me via DMs with baseball questions – I can’t possibly answer all of the individual questions I get, but I do answer the majority of questions I get in public spaces, like the comments under my Athletic stories or on Bluesky.

And now, the links…

  • Mike Rogers, the Republican candidate for the open Senate seat from Michigan, claims he worked on an auto-plant assembly line helping build Chrysler LeBarons, using that as a way to position himself as someone who understands Michigan workers. The UAW says he’s lying: He worked at an aftermarket facility that modified cars, never worked at any Chrysler factory, and was never a UAW member.
  • A new UN report says that women in Gaza are facing heightened risks of sexual violence as a result of the war, due to the breakdown in the societal order. The Jerusalem Post story I linked noted that the UN report doesn’t mention Hamas’ role, which seems like a large omission for reasons they explain in the article.
  • Utah Republicans are subverting democracy there, overruling the voters and setting up extralegal courts to avoid giving Democrats a single Congressional seat from the Mormon-run state. Some LDS women are fighting back.
  • A group of researchers are suing NIH over the blatantly political policy of screening grants for anything that hints of DEI or woke or whatever bogeymen scare the Trump Administration.
  • The same AI-detection tool, Pangram, has also ruled that an acclaimed novel by Haitian-Canadian author Thélyson Orélien was likely AI-written, causing the Prix Goncourt committee to remove the novel from its shortlist. The case is more complicated, in part because the author writes in French while Pangram was trained on English texts, and because of subsequent discoveries that Orélien plagiarized content in articles he wrote over a decade ago.
  • DoorDash spent $1.4 million in the NYC mayoral race last year, most of it to a super PAC that ran disgusting anti-Islam ads targeting Zohran Mamdani. Turns out they did it to try to avoid consequences for wage theft, as Mamdani’s office just settled with the company for $131.5 million.
  • A measles outbreak that began earlier this year in Bangladesh has killed over 1000 children since the spring. This outbreak isn’t due to anti-vax propaganda, but due to poverty, where malnutrition weakens the immune responses even of vaccinated people, and the country’s extreme population density, which helps the highly contagious virus spread.
  • What came before the Big Bang? We’ll never know, of course, but Scientific American talks about how physicists come up with theories about it.
  • The mother in that viral clip at a Giants game, where she was carrying her baby and a substantial amount of food while no one appears to be helping her, wrote a response to the online reaction, where she defends her husband and explains that they’ve even received death threats over the video.
  • New Order/Joy Division drummer Stephen Morris spoke to Vulture about the best songs by those two bands to help promote the release of the 16-CD Eternal (Live) box set of previously unreleased live Joy Division concerts.
  • The New York Times covers two men in England who are doing a podcast about their efforts to learn and play a board game called The Campaign for North Africa, which is known for being abstruse, extremely detailed (Italian units get a “pasta ration”), and long enough that few, if any, have ever finished it. There is at least one user on BGG who says he has finished the game, and I see no reason to doubt him.
  • Two pretty big Board Game Kickstarters this week: John D. Clair’s Electrify, co-designed with Ian Hutchinson, has some shared DNA with Clair’s Space Base. They’re both engine-builders, but this game has less luck than Space Base, at least in the base game.

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September 3, 2026  ·  4 comments

Music update, August 2026.

August was a monstrous month for new music in a great way, so much so that I posted a list of album grades on Bluesky covering LPs that came out in July or the first three weeks of August, which was before we got new records from Mastodon, Russian Circles, Elephant Stone, Billy Strings, flowerovlove, Interpol, and Alabama Shakes on the month’s final Friday. Anyway, as always, if you can’t see the widget below, you can access the playlist on Apple Music or Spotify.

The Afghan Whigs – House of I. The Whigs sound as good as ever, with their latest album, Soft Control, maybe their best yet, at least rivaling 2017’s In Spades, and up there with Gentlemen from the band’s first incarnation. This song and “Loose Talk” were two of the best new songs I heard all month; I picked this one because of the guitar riff that opens it.

Kiwi jr. – Pure Michigan. The answer to the eternal question: What if Vampire Weekend made a song that wasn’t twee as fuck? Anyway, this Canadian band’s latest album, Blowing Up, came out on August 14th, featuring their usual blend of jangle-pop sounds and sardonic lyrics.

Do Nothing – Act Natural. This song reminds me so much of peak Wild Beasts, whose farewell album Boy King remains one of my favorites of this century, that I have come back to it repeatedly since first hearing it a few weeks ago. Do Nothing’s sound is a similar blend of art rock and post-punk, but here with big, almost bombastic vocals. Their second album, Friend World, comes out on November 6th; they previously released another single, “Stars,” that’s a little blander and less catchy.

Squirrel Flower – Cleveland. Squirrel Flower is Ella O’Connor Williams, a multi-instrumentalist from Boston by way of Grinnell who has released five albums, with the latest, Say a Prayer to the Gods of Getting Going, among my favorites of the year so far. She blends indie folk with shoegaze elements, but the real star is her strong voice that communicates deep longing and sadness on much of the album.

she’s green – close your eyes. The final song on this Minneapolis shoegaze band’s debut album is seven minutes long, but it’s a stunner, calling to mind Slowdive and early Lush, with waves of sound washing over you beneath Zofia Smith’s atmospheric vocals.

Smidley – Love in Every Direction. Smidley is Conor Murphy, lead singer of the maybe-defunct band Foxing, who is set to release his second solo album Murphy Horse on the 25th. It’s different from most of Foxing’s work, especially their last album, and feels more like the kind of indie rock that was popular in the wake of the Killers’ massively successful debut album.

Keo – That’s Me. Based in London but with roots all over Europe, Keo will release its first album, Put A Smile On For Me, on the 25th, with this song sounding like the Gin Blossoms by way of the Amazons with a lyrical reference to R.E.M. in the chorus.

Sailor Honeymoon – Click Click. This South Korean all-girl punk band’s debut album The Worst of Sailor Honeymoon came out in August and shows plenty of promise, although it’s pretty short (27 minutes) and gets a little repetitive over 13 songs. This song, “I Wanna Leave You,” and “Bad Apple” are standouts.

Ceremony – Dark Summer. I did not like Ceremony’s latest album, Tell Me Your Dream, which has no real identity and features a lot of filler tracks. This is one of two tracks on the record I liked, along with “Other Hells,” but there’s nothing here to rival In the Spirit World Now.

DIIV – The Fountain. DIIV’s critical acclaim has always outpaced their music for me; this song, from their upcoming fifth album Zirp! (due October 30), might be my favorite song by this Brooklyn indie-rock band, blending genres while maintaining a consistently strong hook in the chorus.

Quicksand – Bring on the Psychics. The title track from this seminal post-hardcore band’s third post-reunion album is one of its strongest, and the record as a whole might be their best. It’s certainly their most cohesive, and stays true to their musical roots while tightening up some of the noise-rock elements more present in their first two records.

Elephant Stone – I Got a Pill. Elephant Stone’s latest album ASHA came out on August 28th; I’ve heard three songs, this power-pop track, the tremendous rocker “Everything Evil,” and “Fascists Killed Yer Rock ‘n’ Roll,” which made NPR’s best songs of the week list last week. I wasn’t familiar with the band before this year, but they’ve been around since 2009, and I’m a fan of what I’ve heard so far.

The Olivia Tremor Control – Garden of Light. OTC was part of the Elephant 6 collective in Athens, Georgia, that also spawned Apples in Stereo and Neutral Milk Hotel, releasing two albums of jangly power-pop before internal strife ended the band’s first run in 2000. Founding members Bill Doss and Will Hart recorded most of a third album before Doss died in 2012, and the band released two singles from the record in 2024 on the same day that Hart died at age 53. The band’s final album, The Same Place, comes out on October 23rd, including this song and the just-released “Advice from the Oceans.”

Billy Strings – Burn the Other End. Strings won the Grammy for Best Bluegrass album in February, and he’s already back with a new LP, So Much for Goodbyes, which came out in August. He also hopped on stage with the latest version of Canadian death metal band Cryptopsy at his own Ionia Freak Fair last week.

Wolf Alice – Hammond Song. How the hell is this a B-side from The Clearing? It would have been among the five best songs on the album, easily, maybe top three after “White Horses” and “Bloom Baby Bloom,” and it’s the best showcase of Ellie Rowsell’s voice of anything from those sessions.

beabadoobee – Memories. This is the third single ahead of Beatrice Laus’ fourth album, Pylon, due out on the 18th, which apparently is not a note-for-note cover of Killing Joke’s final LP.

flowerovlove – KISS KISS KISS. Joyce Cissé’s debut album MINI SKIRT WARRIOR dropped on August 28th, and it’s one of the best pure pop albums of the year. Her ear for a great melody is incredible, and the album is littered with songs that should be all over pop radio, including this one, “American Wedding,” “I’m Your First,” “girls will be girls” (featuring Willow), and “shady.” I hate the term “sophisti-pop” but it would certainly apply here.

Iben – Dead End. A Norwegian singer who just released her debut album Hulder, Iben blends folk music, atmospheric metal, and morbid lyrics for an intriguing combination that somehow also sounds … not poppy, but potentially mainstream. I can’t figure out if she’s the same Iben who released a pure pop song a few years ago called “Childish;” Spotify has them as separate artists but I wouldn’t swear those are different voices.

Heathers – Bite. Heathers is Heath Michael Thomas – there’s an Irish pop duo of the same name, but this ain’t them – who’s released three singles so far this year, with his debut album Awesome coming out on October 30th. It’s very lo-fi, DIY, garage rock; sometimes he sounds like he’s singing with his mouth pressed up against a screen door. There’s a real melodic sensibility here, though. Props to Jon Natchez from The War on Drugs for the rec.

Soft Science – Fade. More power-pop with some shoegaze elements, reminiscent of Velocity Girl and Belly, from this long-running Sacramento band whose fifth album, Sand, comes out this Friday.

Gang of Youths – Things Take Time. This one-off single is the Australian band’s first new music since 2022’s Angel in Realtime, which had a couple of stellar singles in “The Angel of 8th Ave.” and “In the Wake of Your Leave.” This feels like a lyrical throwaway, and singer/songwriter David Le’aupepe has said the song isn’t really about anything. The music’s fine, though.

Ezra Collective – Jubilee Feeling. This Mercury Prize-winning jazz quintet will release its fourth album, Here Because of Hope, on September 18th. This single is the first instrumental and third single they’ve released from the LP, after “Only Love” (feat. Pa Salieu) and “Well Organized” (feat. Lila Iké).

Jorja Smith – Dancing. I love Jorja Smith’s voice, but prefer when she leans more towards jazz or classic R&B sounds than EDM. Her latest album What Are the Odds bridges the gap between the two, with largely electronic beats but less frenetic tempos, allowing her voice to remain front and center, as on this Afrobeat-tinged dance track.

Jungle – Sunshine. The best song off Jungle’s disappointing new album is the title track, which has a good enough hook to stand out over the sea of sameness on the rest of the record. There’s no “Busy Earnin” or “Happy Man” to be found anywhere on the LP.

Rakim, Kurupt, Masta Killa, & Kokane – Goin Down. The first three MCs here have collaborated on The Godbody LP, which was supposed to be released on August 28th, and has now been pushed back to September 18th. This lead single is basically an average Rakim rhyme and some other dudes. By the way, there are a couple of new Rakim collaboration videos on Youtube that I think are AI slop – they sound entirely plausible but there’s no media coverage whatsoever and the videos are just stitched together from old clips.

CZARFACE & Frankie Pulitzer feat. Method Man – Mad Technology. CZARFACE is Inspectah Deck, 7L, and Esoteric, but more importantly, Frankie Pulitzer is Tom Hardy – and he can rap a little! He’s better than Esoteric, at least, and isn’t embarrassed rhyming after two Wu-Tang members.

Royal Blood – Ten Over Ten. This heavy-rock duo’s fifth album, Dead Company, comes out on November 13th, with this track the first single. It might be a sign they’re returning to their heavier roots from their first two albums after Typhoons went for a little more funk and pop and Stuck in the Water Below felt like a lesser version of their previous work.

Sleep – The Morrisist. Sleep’s newest album, Hemispheres, comes out today, featuring only Al Cisneros from the original lineup; guitarist Matt Pike is out, replaced by Bubba Dupree of the early ‘80s punk band Void, while drummer Jason Roeder has been replaced by Melvins drummer Dale Crover. I know some Sleep fans are pissed about this, but 1) Pike’s public comments and his embrace of antisemitic conspiracy theorist David Icke are a serious problem and 2) this song is great, so just enjoy it.

The HU – Second Face. HUN, the latest album from this Mongolian folk-metal band, is one of the best albums of the year for me – it blends a genre I know nothing about with a genre I know a lot about, classic heavy metal like that of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal. It’s no surprise that the Hu covered Maiden’s “The Trooper.”

Mastodon – Snakes for Dinner. Mastodon’s latest album and their first since the death of Brent Hinds, Marrow Deep, is solid but unfocused; it’s a collection of songs, some pretty good, including “Your Ghost Again” (which, I’m calling it now, is going to get a Grammy nomination and maybe win) and this track. I only felt like one track was a miss, “A Vampire’s Demeanor,” and thought the closer “The Three Fates” was a strong finish that recalled some of Mastodon’s more ambitious and longer tracks.

Sarcator – In Search of Oblivion. This young blackened thrash band from Sweden came up with its name by combining the names of two of their favorite bands, the early death-metal act Sarcófago and German thrash titans Kreator. You can really hear the latter’s influence in the vocals on this track from the band’s upcoming fourth album, The Ones We Follow, due out October 30th.

Flotsam & Jetsam – The Edge of Nowhere. Flotsam & Jetsam were probably best known in the 1980s for being the original band of Jason Newsted, who served as Metallica’s bassist after Cliff Burton’s death; and for their commercial track “Wading Through the Darkness” from 1992’s Cuatro. Unlike many bands from that first wave of American thrash, however, they never stopped recording, and I loved “Primal” from their last album. Their newest, Rats in the Temple, seemed a little heavier to me, and thus less like the classic thrash sound I love.

Russian Circles – Seventh Seal. This instrumental metal band’s latest album, Nine, is heavy and proggy and pretty endlessly interesting, which is what I want from this kind of music. It’s seven tracks, one of which is just shy of two minutes, with the others all 4:57 or longer.

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August 29, 2026  ·  1 comment

Stick to baseball, 8/29/26.

Over on the Athletic this week, I had a new minor-league scouting notebook, covering some Mets, Orioles, Nats, and Phillies prospects, including two guys the Mets just acquired at the deadline. I’ll have another one early next week. I’m not bylined but I did contribute to this newser on Walker Jenkins’ first callup.

You should sign up for my free email newsletter, which I’m hoping to get back to on Monday. For socials, I’m still mostly on Bluesky, Instagram, and TikTok.

And now, the links…

  • Longreads first: This New York cover story on the proliferation of travel teams for young athletes, and the harm it’s doing to our kids (at great cost to the parents), is a must-read for anyone interested in sports, even professional ones, because this is how we fumble our future and create leagues full of the privileged at the expense of anyone unable to access this narrow pipeline. I have long had a personal policy to avoid pay-to-play events, but it’s a little easier for me because the amateur players I’m seeing are the best of the best.
  • German actress/journalist Collien Fernandes was being stalked and impersonated online by someone sending men explicit images and videos purporting to be of her. It turned out her assailant was her husband.
  • A Christian cult in Idaho called Followers of Christ keeps killing its babies by ‘praying’ instead of seeking medical care, and Idaho law lets them do it.
  • There’s been a lot of attention over the two reported deaths from measles in Pennsylvania, but that’s the tip of a giant iceberg. There’s an outbreak in Wisconsin now, almost entirely among unvaccinated people, with 41 reported cases.
  • Finland had set a goal to end homelessness by 2027, and was well on its way there until a right-wing government took power in 2024 and started cutting social welfare programs, reversing a long-standing decline in the country’s homelessness rate.
  • Rep. Max Miller made a writer delete a tweet that said he had broken his toddler daughter’s collarbone. She did so, because this remains an allegation, and in response she wrote about a bunch of violent things he’s done to women that are not mere allegations.

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July 29, 2026  ·  2 comments

Music update, July 2026.

This one took some work, with the draft and my prospect rankings in the middle of the month, plus the misfortune to have two audiobooks I’d requested from my library months ago both show up in the same week, with 14 days to listen to each of them. Anyway, this playlist features the return of the greatest MC in hip-hop history, several of my favorite contemporary artists, some great metal and post-hardcore tracks, even a good dose of psychedelic rock. And I still have to listen to the rest of the new albums from Jack White, Pond, and Quicksand, and give a second spin to Yard Act. As always, if you can’t see the widget below you can access the playlist on Apple Music or Spotify.

Rakim – A Different Kind. The R returns with his first true solo track in 15 years, and I’d argue his best since at least 1999’s The Master, as he sounds rejuvenated, with something close to the pacing and rhythm of his peak output. I didn’t know if we’d ever hear Rakim sound this good again.

Noname feat. DRAM – Squatter. The second song from rapper Noname’s announced, unscheduled mixtape Cartoon Radio comes nearly a year after the first one, “Hundred Acres.”

Moses Boyd – Say Yeah. Boyd’s 2020 album Dark Matter was fabulous, spawning my top song of the year (“Shades of You”) and showcasing his talent both as a percussionist and as a jazz composer. It was gloriously dark, so this return, his first truly solo song in six years, is a big surprise – it’s a gospel-influenced track and very bright. I don’t know if I want a whole album of this, but it’s interesting to see Boyd try something new.

Jorja Smith feat. WizKid – Alive. Smith’s latest album What Are the Odds comes out on August 21st, with this sultry track featuring Nigerian Afrobeats star WizKid as the first single. Smith also appeared on Nia Archives’ “Get Me Down,” but that’s the sort of electronic/drum-and-bass music that I think wastes Smith’s voice.

Meaningful Stone feat. Jay Som – 1+1=0. Meaningful Stone is Kim Jimin, previously a member of Sailor Honeymoon (see below), and her latest single has Jay Som on vocals. It’s dream-pop, driven by a shimmering acoustic guitar, reminiscent of Hatchie and even the Sundays.

mary in the junkyard – Thou Shalt Sprout. I have heard at least half of the songs on this London folk-rock band’s debut album Role Model Hermit, but none of the singles grabbed me at all. Even this one was getting close to the skip button until around 1:35 when the electric guitar shows up and brings a darker counterweight to the vocals.

Wishy – All the Rage. That’s two for two, as both of Wishy’s singles this year (the other was “Lovesick”) are modern jangle-pop bangers. Their second album, Nature’s Pill, comes out on October 2.

The Tubs – Who’s Gonna Love You Now. More jangle-pop goodness from this Welsh group founded by two former members of Joanna Gruesome, one of whom has since left the band. Their third album Hard Life comes out on September 11th, featuring this and another single that just dropped called “Stoop to Me” that’s solid as well.

Echo & the Bunnymen – Brussels is Haunted. Ian McCullough and Will Sergeant will release their 13th album, Apples for Isaac, on September 18th. It’s not “The Killing Moon” or “Bring on the Dancing Horses,” but it’s pretty good for a band approaching its 50th anniversary.

Slow Fiction – turning down flowers. Slow Fiction are a NYC-based quintet that leans into post-punk with some synth-pop and shoegaze revival, but most impressive to me is that this song is six minutes long, which had to give some record label exec a coronary. Their debut album dollhouse comes out on August 7th.

DMA’s – Killing Time. DMA’s put out a four-song EP this month called Killing Time, with “Heatin Park” the best song, followed by this one, plus two other slightly more tepid numbers. DMA’s are at their best when they go big, earning or re-earning the Oasis comps that they have seemed eager to avoid since their second album For Now came out in 2018.

Westside Cowboy – Pin Up Boys. This Mancunian quartet toured with Geese last year, and there’s some similarity in the guitars, although Westside Cowboy’s vocals are more straightforward and I get a Phish vibe from the chorus on this rousing song. Their debut album It Goes On drops on August 21st.

Temples – Megalith. This psychedelic-rock group’s latest album, BLISS, came out in July, highlighted by “Vendetta,” “Jet Stream Heart,” “Glimmer,” and this midtempo track.

Arab Strap – Fighting for You. A satirical number about pining for “the halcyon days” of measles, nuclear war, and high unemployment over a driving rock track.

Elephant Stone – Everything Evil. I don’t think I’d heard Elephant Stone before, but this Canadian psychedelic-rock band is about to release its tenth album, ASHA. This song is punk-influenced in music and lyrics, although they often incorporate Indian elements into their songs (as you might have guessed from the new album’s title).

Sailor Honeymoon – I Wanna Leave You. Feminist punk from Seoul, with their debut album The Worst of Sailor Honeymoon coming on August 14th. The first half of the song has them singing the title over and over; the second half offers a list of reasons to leave a partner.

Disgusting Sisters – Sorry Mister. Definitely for fans of Wet Leg, this duo – actual sisters – have released a few singles over the last three years, with their first album Skin & Blisters coming out on October 30th.

Getdown Services – The Bins. This was the first track I’d heard from this British duo, half of which is a guy named Josh Law, so I have some investigatin’ to do. The song reminds me quite a bit of Yard Act’s first album if YA used a drum machine instead of actual percussion, with a dose of Confidence Man, too. Their second album Massive Champion comes out on August 14th.

Yard Act – Fiction. I’ve only gone through You’re Gonna Need a Little Music once so far, and that’s not enough; it’s a complicated, genre-bouncing album, consistent with this British post-punk band’s history of pushing their own boundaries with each release. “Thrill of the Chase” is probably the most Gang of Four-like song on the record, just with more of a punk tempo and heavier flourishes in the chorus; the title track is very Arab Strappy. “Fiction” is a dark, funk-inspired track, with a rhythm that’s consistently off beat so you feel unstable for much of the song.

Gurriers – Nobody’s Coming to Save You. The title track from this Irish post-hardcore quintet’s second album, due out September 24th, is a harsh, dissonant song that still manages to find a hook in the chorus. “Party Lines” came out at the same time and would have made this playlist if they hadn’t released an even better track.

Quicksand – Regenerate. I haven’t gotten to this seminal post-hardcore band’s latest album, Bring on the Psychics, which came out five days after the draft, but I’ve liked the three songs I’ve heard – this one, “Crystallize,” and “Get to It.” Quicksand and Thrice are the two bands who most define what I think of as “post-hardcore.”

Protomartyr – Sounds We Cannot Hear. Tigers fan Joe Casey & co. return with this lead single off their upcoming seventh album Hotel Usona, and if this is any indication it’s going to be a darker affair than their last LP, Formal Growth in the Desert.

Mastodon – Snakes for Dinner. So “Your Ghost Again” wasn’t just a one-off tribute to Brent Hinds, but the first single from Mastodon’s upcoming album Marrow Deep, coming out on August 28th. This second single features vocals from QotSA’s Josh Homme.

Index – Fractured. Control Top was a short-lived DIY punk band from Philly that broke up after releasing one album in 2019. Singer/bassist Ali Carter appears to be out of the music business, but the other two members have founded Index, whose first track leans more into hardcore punk with some faint metalcore elements as well.

The HU – Grey Hun. This Mongolian folk-metal band’s latest album HUN is out now, combining thrash and classic heavy metal with Mongolian throat singing, creating something that’s clearly kin to some of the less extreme folk and Viking metal coming out of the Norse countries (and a little bit of Entombed’s death-and-roll style too).

Insomnium – Gleam in the Black. This Finnish melodic death metal band has that country’s quirky combination of unusually hooky, major-key melodies with typical death-growl vocals, like peak Children of Bodom.

Amon Amarth – Gjallarhorn. More melodic death metal, this time from one of the pioneers of the form. Their lyrics often focus on Viking history and mythology, and their music borrows more from thrash than typical death metal.

Russian Circles – Eluvial. Prog-metal from a Chicago trio who’ll release their ninth album, pointedly titled Nine, on August 28th.

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July 11, 2026  ·  7 comments

Stick to baseball, 7/11/26.

Happy Draft Day! I posted my final mock draft on Friday and held a Q&A to answer your questions about it, after posting one on Monday and holding a Q&A that afternoon. I posted my final Big Board of the top 100 prospects in the draft class, ss well as some scouting reports on prospects beyond the top 100 who will probably still be drafted. I also previewed the Futures Game rosters, and posted a scouting notebook on Atlanta, Baltimore, Washington, and Mets prospects.

I appeared on KIRO-Seattle to talk Mariners prospects and the trade deadline, and on The Score Chicago to talk about the draft and some big-picture baseball questions.

I’ll send another issue of my free email newsletter once I clear the draft stuff. You can also find me on Bluesky – I’m only posting links on X at this point, not replying to anything and not allowing new followers – and I continue to be more active on Instagram and TikTok.

And now, the links…

  • Longreads first: This Vulture story by Irin Carmon on Today’s handling of the Nancy Guthrie story, including the environment behind the scenes and the difficult questions the show has had to face, is absolutely fantastic. I can’t even do it justice in a sentence or two here.
  • America is entering a postliterate age, as succeeding generations read less and comprehend less of what they read, writes Rose Horowitch in The Atlantic. Those of us who do still read account for an increasing share of books purchased in what Horowitch refers to as a “niche hobby.”
  • America is self-destructing, writes Stephen Marche in The Guardian, arguing that this was written in our founding. I loved the line “Donald Trump is the ultimate nostalgia act.”
  • Florida is the new Texas: Gov. Ron DeSantis is killing prisoners at an unprecedented rate, signing death warrants and leading to the state’s highest execution levels ever. Two of every five U.S. prisoners put to death were killed by Florida.
  • Rep. Mike Collins (R-GA), who is running for the Senate seat held by Jon Ossoff, spent $400,000 in taxpayer money to make campaign ads, which is illegal. That’s in Judd Legum’s Popular.info newsletter; I see zero mainstream coverage of what sure seems like misuse of taxpayer funds.
  • The U.S. District Court judges of the Western Washington District wrote an editorial about how tyranny threatens an independent judiciary, whether it’s threats of violence against jurists on the bench or claims that someone is above the law entirely.
  • Also in The Atlantic, Spencer Kornhaber examines Lizzo’s latest album flopping and how easy it’s become to fall into the “Khia Asylum.” I liked Lizzo’s 2022 album Special, and didn’t even realize she’d released a new one, Bitch, until I saw this story.
  • So many Kickstarters for interesting board games: Ringyo, the latest game from the publishers of Distilled and Luthier. It’s a simultaneous worker-placement game and is in beta on Board Game Arena.
  • The Isle of Penguins, the latest game from the designer/publisher of The Isle of Cats and its various spinoffs.
  • Galileo’s Truth, from two of the designers of Egizia (one of the best complex games ever), Lorenzo il Magnifico, and Coimbra.

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June 30, 2026  ·  3 comments

Music update, June 2026.

June was heavy, in a good way – this list has more psycheledic rock, post-hardcore, or metal tracks than most of playlists do. If you want to rock out, I have a few songs for you. As always, if you can’t access the widget below, you can access the playlist on Apple Music or Spotify.

Mastodon – Your Ghost Again. How could I start this playlist with anything but this new track from Mastodon that pays tribute to former member Brent Hinds, who left the band (or was kicked out) in March of 2025, then died in a motorcycle crash in August?

Jack White – Dollar Bill. I’m very into this new Jack White vibe, which seems to be carrying over from 2024’s No Name, such as on that album’s “Archbishop Harold Holmes.” (That track got a surprise video last year starring John C. Reilly, who came up with the concept. It played at Tribeca this spring.) White’s new album Frozen Charlotte comes out on July 10th.

Liminal – The Crop. Unabashedly late ‘60s psychedelic rock, very in line with what Temples typically does but a little darker in tone. Hailing from the Northern Rivers region of eastern Australia, this quartet has put out two albums to date, and promised a new and more experimental one this year, with this the only song released so far.

Temples – Glimmer. Oh, hey, speak of the devils. Bliss came out on Friday and it’s more of the usual, which is a good thing in my mind, as I love Temples’ guitar-forward psychedelia.

Pond – Skyworks. More psychedelic-rock, although Pond’s flavor is more experimental than Temples’ is. This Australian band put out their latest album, Terrestrials, on June 19th, and it’s a little more pensive than their last few albums – I didn’t find anything as immediately compelling as “Neon River” or “America’s Cup,” but songs like this one, which is more powered by the beat than the guitars, still landed for me.

Les Big Byrd – Artificial Sunlight. Sticking with a theme, this is a psychedelic-space rock group from Stockholm whose latest album Ruin Everything came out on June 5th. The first track is called “Hökvind” (featured on one of my previous playlists) if you want a sense of what they sound like.

The Afghan Whigs – Jungle Roux. The Whigs will release their tenth album, Soft Control, on August 21st, featuring this driving lead single. I was never into the band in their 1990s heyday, but I’ve really enjoyed their second phase, especially 2017’s In Spades.

Suede – Emotionally Unavailable. Suede continues to evolve and surprise; this extra track from the deluxe edition of their 2025 album Antidepressants is in that album’s post-punk vein, but has a harder edge and rocks out in a way they haven’t really done much since their 1990s peak.

Quicksand – Crystallize. Another band I didn’t get into in their original tenure – which, in Quicksand’s case, lasted just two albums, and came way before I was at all a fan of what is now called post-hardcore – but whose work post-reunion I’ve loved. Their fifth album, and third since they got back together, is titled Bring on the Psychics and comes out on July 17th.

Zoh Amba – Dead End Street. Amba is a multi-instrumentalist whose previous output was mostly free jazz, but on their latest album, Eyes Full, they’ve changed it up to a hybrid of alt-country and grunge to better tell stories of their childhood growing up in Kingsport, Tennessee.

beabadoobee – Sun Has Set. Beabadoobee’s fourth album, Pylon, comes out in Septeber; this lead single is a real rocker, and while it’s still clearly her sound, it feels like there might be some Olivia Rodrigo inspiration behind it.

Big Truck – Central Reservation Blues. Big Truck is the brand-new side project by Laurie Vincent, who is half of the English punk band Soft Play (ex-Slaves), but there’s no punk at all on this jangly indie-pop song or their other released track, the jazzier “Collided.”

feeble little horse – Poison. Bitknot is probably going to end up on my top albums of 2026 list; that swirling guitar lick between the verses here is a good example of why. It’s their first album since their founding guitarist left the group, but I don’t think I’d have noticed had I not read that fact, because this is still guitar-driven rock, pop and anti-pop at the same time, with harsh and even dissonant rhythms set against sweet melodies in the vocals and some of the lead guitar.

Slow Pulp – Better Man. I was mixed on Slow Pulp’s last album, 2023’s Yard, preferring their harder, more grunge-tinged stuff to some of the material that better matches their name. This track is the former kind – heavier, very ‘90s alternative rock, with a great hook in the chorus.

Young Empress feat. Prides – Never Enough. Young Empress is a duo of two unrelated people with the surname Davies, hailing from the West Midlands; Prides is now a solo act of Stewart Brock, the only remaining member, whose distinctive singing voice helps elevate this electro-pop song to something more demanding of your attention.

Rosa Walton – Romance is Dead On. Both members of Let’s Eat Grandma put out solo albums this year; Walton’s was my preference over that of bandmate Jenny Hollingsworth (who records as Jenny on Holiday). Both record in the same experimental dance-pop vein as their main band does, though, and I didn’t find either solo album that much a departure from LEG’s stuff.

Wishy – Lovesick. Wishy’s 2024 debut album earned them plaudits all over the music press, but I found most of it lacking in hooks, other than “Triple Seven,” which landed at #91 on my top songs of that year. This one is fucking banger, though. I name-check Velocity Girl a lot around these parts because that specific sound – power pop with distinctive, bright vocals above a rougher-edged backdrop – will always speak to me, and this song does it, too.

Meg Stalter feat. MUNA – Gay. It’s a novelty song, but kind of slaps? I have to admit I always thought Stalter’s Pride Month corporate videos were a riot, so perhaps I was primed to like this.

La Sécurité – Deny. La Sécurité started as a side project during the pandemic, but their debut album Stay safe! was such a success that they’re back with a new album, Bingo!, featuring more of the same dance-punk from the first LP.

Lakecia Benjamin feat. Terence Blanchard – Beyond the Dawn. Jazz saxophonist Benjamin released her new album We Dream on June 5th; this track includes jazz trumpeter Terence Blanchard, twice nominated for Oscars for his scores for Spike Lee films.

Yard Act – New Beginnings. This post-punk band’s third album You’re Gonna Need A Little Music drops on July 17th; their sound continues to evolve from their first record, which was practically an homage to Gang of Four, to something more expansive musically, merging art-rock and even alternative hip-hop with that post-punk basis. This track has a very slow start, but the back half pays off with layers of sound behind an intense chorus.

Trashcan Sinatras – Melodramatic. This was actually the third single from the Scottish band’s upcoming album Ever the Optimist, due out July 31st, and came out in May, but I prefer it to the June release “Games for the ZX Spectrum,” which is more maudlin and lacks this song’s hook.

Car Seat Headrest – Joe Drives Again. I’ve never loved CSH, mostly because of the vocals, but the vocals are more ‘normal’ here and it’s a catchy, bouncy melody. The first line of the chorus is definitely borrowed from another track that I can’t place.

Sleep – Have Spacesuit Will Travel (4;20 Flexi Edit). Sleep announced in June that guitarist Matt Pike is no longer part of the band after 25 years; their new lineup features Melvins drummer Dale Crover, ex-Void guitarist Bubba Dupree, and original vocalist/bassist Al Cisneros. I don’t know if this was related to Pike’s embrace of the work of antisemitic lunatic David Icke, but unlike most Sleep fans, I’m fine with them moving on. This song sounds a bit more commercial than what I think of when I think of Sleep, but I do like the melding of space rock and stoner metal, so I’m happy to see what else they produce.

Tygers of Pan Tang – Forevermore. Tygers of Pan Tang were part of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal in the late 1970s, churning out four albums over a three-year span, but their biggest success was a cover of “Love Potion No. 9” and they disbanded for about 13 years before original guitarist Robb Weir restarted the group in 2000. They’ve been prolific since then, with their new album Electifyed (due out in September) their eighth in 25 years, and frankly they sound pretty damn good. If you like Maiden, Priest, Angel Witch, or Saxon, this should be in your wheelhouse.

Lost in Kyiv – Liminality. Instrumental “post-rock” music from a Paris quartet, turning more towards metal on their third album (and changing the spelling of their name from Kiev). It reminds me a bit of Alcest, without the shoegaze/blackgaze elements.

Insomnium – Shadow Life. This Finnish melodic death metal band has put out some interesting stuff over their nearly 30 years, with flirtations with progressive/technical metal and even some overtly commercial elements – there are clean vocal harmonies in the chorus on this song – alongside the death growls. I can’t say I’ve listened to everything they’ve done since their great 2014 album Shadows of a Dying Sun, but this is the best track of theirs I’ve heard since then.

Warning – Night Comes Down. There’s doom metal, and then there’s Warning, who make Candlemass sound like EDM. Warning isn’t heavy like Cathedral; they’re slower, darker, more depressing musically. If you like Candlemass or Saint Vitus, check these guys out.

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June 13, 2026  ·  3 comments

Stick to baseball, 6/13/26.

My second mock draft of 2026 went up this week, with a new name at #1. I also held a Q&A on Wednesday to discuss it. Last Sunday, I posted a scouting notebook on Theo Gillen, Miguel Sime Jr., and other Rays & Nationals prospects.

I sent out a new epistle of my free email newsletter this week. You can find me on Bluesky for text-based commentary and links, and TikTok and Instagram for short videos, mostly on baseball.

I appeared on The Fan LA on Wednesday to talk about the Dodgers’ farm system.

And now, the links…

  • WIRED (reprinted on KFF Health News) explored the devastation caused by vaccine denialism in Utah, where a measles epidemic has sickened many infants too young to be vaccinated and strained hospitals unprepared for a highly contagious disease that had been eradicated from the Western hemisphere. We all pay the cost for these grifters and the idiots who follow them.
  • San Carlos Lake in Arizona is now closed to visitors after drought and a water release from a dam upriver killed all of its fish.
  • A 21-year-old Seattle man who was recently playing basketball for his junior college team was arrested for running an abusive pornography content mill, kidnapping, threatening, and beating girls to get them to produce pornography for OnlyFans and similar sites.

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June 4, 2026  ·  1 comment

Mood Machine.

Music journalist Liz Pelly has spent most of her professional life working and living in indie music circles, which gives her a distinct and important perspective on the consolidation of the music industry around just a few streaming services, with Spotify foremost among them. In her book Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist, she explores the birth of Spotify, how it took over the streaming space, and how pernicious its effects have been on indie musicians and labels – as well as listeners who want to hear anything but the most anodyne music available.

Spotify began as an idea to sell ads, not as a way to save the music industry, or even just as a way for its founders, including the military-minded Daniel Ek, to get rich while working in music. Songs were just a vehicle for selling ads and collecting user data to do so more effectively. Ek and other Spotify execs have retconned their history to make Spotify out to be some kind of savior for music and musicians, even as their practices have proven predatory, including bringing back payola, and they’ve cracked down harder on musicians with tiny followings than they have on scammers posting fake music tracks and clips to try to deke Spotify’s algorithms and rack up streams from listeners who aren’t paying much attention to what’s playing.

Pelly spoke to over a hundred current and former Spotify employees, got access to internal Slack logs, and interviewed musicians, label executives, and others to research Mood Machine, and two consistent themes emerged (among many smaller topics). One is that Spotify’s entire structure, built largely around algorithmic playlists, which are made by machine-learning systems and are distinct from curated ones, assembled by humans, like the ones I post every month, is both corrupt and tends to funnel listeners to a small number of artists from major labels, while paying artists from outside of the big 3 labels a pittance (and paying no artists anything close to fair value). The second is that a huge portion of Spotify’s audience isn’t actually listening to the music: One of their main goals is to get listeners to stick on a playlist as some sort of background noise – similar to Netlix’s “second-screen” nonsense – and let it play for hours and hours, and if it runs out let Spotify’s algorithm just keep playing more songs, so they can serve more ads. Playing a song costs Spotify less than half a penny in royalties. Their dream scenario is The Lost Weekend except with some algorithmic chillwave playlist going in the background for 72 hours.

Harper’s excerpted a portion of Mood Machine in 2024 as a story called “The Ghosts in the Machine.” It exposed Spotify’s program to commission fake tracks from outside vendors under its “Perfect Fit Content” program, where those companies would supply songs by ‘ghost artists’ to pad Spotify’s playlists for deeply discounted royalty rates, allowing Spotify to deliver the same quantity of music to listeners for a lower cost. Spotify execs defended the practice, saying that listeners of those playlists were “half-listening anyway,” so why deliver them real music? Pelly spoke to a number of employees dismayed by the practice, saying it was unethical to deceive listeners and harmful to the music industry they were supposedly supporting. The few editors remaining who curated playlists themselves reported increased pressure to use these ghost artists on their playlists, even though that was antithetical to their mission (and, I would presume, their music fandom). Some of the companies Pelly cites as ghost-artist producers are now getting into AI-generated tracks, such as Epidemic Sound, which also sells royalty-free background music to video producers. It’s the most interesting chapter in a book that’s full of them, and the most overt explanation of why Spotify is harmful to the music industry.

Pelly wraps up with a chapter (not the epilogue) about how listeners can support artists better in the streaming era. The obvious answer – and I’m not criticizing Pelly here – is to buy music. You love an album? Pay for it, whether digitally or physically. Buy it direct from the label or from the artist. Going to shows and buying merch helps as well. Streaming an artist’s music barely makes a dent; you’d have to stream a song around 300 times to get them $1. She points out that while Spotify is generally presumed to have the worst payout rates to artists – no one knows because Spotify’s agreements with major labels are confidential and protected by NDAs, which seems like maybe a restraint of trade, but I’m not a lawyer – the other major streaming sites, like Apple and Amazon, aren’t that much better. I don’t believe she ever said not to stream music, but her message is more like “stream responsibly, and buy liberally.”

The book is so thoroughly researched, with citations as well as quotes from relevant sources, that it can bog down a little in the details, but I will gladly accept that tradeoff to get such an academic take on a popular topic. It is easy to find reasons to hate streaming and find people to tell you they hate streaming. It is a much harder task to explain just why streaming is bad for music, and culture, and explain why it’s also going to be hard to fix the problems streaming, and Spotify in particular, has created. Mood Machine does all of this, without once allowing you to forget that the reason you downloaded Spotify in the first place was because you, in fact, like music.

Next up: Susan Choi’s Flashlight. Dun dun, dun dun dun.

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June 3, 2026  ·  No comments yet

Music update, May 2026.

Thirty-six tracks might be a record for one of my monthly playlists. May was loaded beyond the normal boost from having five Fridays, and I think it’s going to be a tremendous summer for new music given how many albums were teased with strong singles this past month.

As a side note: NPR appears to have put an AI-generated track by a fake band on its latest New Music Friday playlist. I can’t promise I’ll never be fooled, but I do not intend to ever put an AI-generated song on any of my playlists on purpose, and if I do so, I’ll own up to it. They’re spreading like ice-nine.

As always, if you can’t see the playlist below, you can access it on Apple Music or Spotify.

KNEECAP – Carnival. I loved the movie Kneecap, but I thought the group’s music was a little more of a novelty – they were certainly serious about their politics, but the music itself wasn’t that sophisticated. Their latest album Fenian turns that entirely on its head; as it’s smart, experimental in places, and surprisingly polished, without losing the urgency and power of Mo Chara and Móglaí Bap’s lyrics. It’s one of the best albums of the year, buoyed by a cavalcade of guest appearances, with some incredible hooks as on this song as well as the title track.

The Waterboys – Don’t Even Have to Say His Name. A one-off track by Mike Scott – the singer, not the 1986 Cy Young Award winner – that’s about you-know-who without ever having “to say the motherfucker’s name.”

Blondshell – Heart Has to Work So Hard. Blondshell just put out her second album last year, but she’s back with this new, way more uptempo rock track that’s one of her best songs yet. There’s a new album and a big tour coming, but there are no details on the LP yet.

DMA’s – Heatin Park. This Australian trio started out as a very Oasis-like rock band, with “For Now” and “Too Soon” among their best early songs, then tried an electronic sound for a few years, but now they’re back with what appears to be a return to their roots. Their new album, just called DMA’s, comes out August 7th.

Mystery Jets – Black Sage. This is Mystery Jets’ first new track in over six years, with their last album releasing in April of 2020, so just in time to sink into the abyss of the pandemic. The British indie-rock band will release their seventh album, A Hole To See The Sky Through, in August; I don’t think I’d ever heard anything from them before, but I love the Amazons-style guitar riffs here.

Ceremony – Other Hells. Ceremony’s last album was my #1 LP of 2019, their post-punk/new wave In the Spirit World Now, with the opening 1-2 punch of the title track and “Turn Away the Bad Thing.” They’d released all of two songs since then before this single dropped in late April, and this one harkens way back to their early hardcore punk sound. No word yet of a new album.

Yard Act – Redeemer. My favorite group of Gang of Four fans return with a darker track that still features singer James Smith’s wry, sesquipedalian lyrics, ahead of their third album, You’re Gonna Need a Little Music, due out on July 17th.

Y – Duplicate. Y is a fairly new band that crosses many genres and talks about it a lot in interviews, but it ain’t bragging if you can bring it. Their music is interesting, and unusual, and seems to combine elements of several musical styles while also pushing the boundaries of what you hear in a typical radio-length rock song. This is the first track off their second EP, ENTER, released in early May. T was unavailable for comment.

1000 Rabbits – White Horse. There’s some wildly inventive music coming out of the UK right now, with My New Band Believe, KNEECAP, Dry Cleaning, Yard Act, Plantoid, JJerome87, and 1000 Rabbits, just to name a few artists, all putting out new music so far in 2026. 1000 Rabbits is a five-piece experimental rock band from Suffolk who’ve put out three singles so far, all rather out there in arrangement and song structure.

Genesis Owusu – Life Keeps Going. I liked Owusu’s last album more than his newest, Redstar Wu & the Worldwide Scourge; this record seems more electronic, more dance-oriented, although the lyrics are more political and more (appropriately) angry than his previous work. This is the best song I’ve heard from the album, with the best hook, even though it’s one of the most dance-oriented tracks on the record.

Chanpan – confessions part ii. Chanpan are a trio of Asian-American musicians who try to blend drum & bass, jazz, and indie-pop with occasional dashes of other genres. The driving bass line is the big hook here on their second single of 2026, with one EP, Endlessly, to their credit before this year.

Weird Nightmare – If You Should Turn Away. Weird Nightmare is the side project of Alex Edkins of METZ, and just dropped its second album, Hoopla, at the start of May. This song is almost a 180 from METZ’ music; it’s mellow, jangly, and subtly catchy.

youbet – Ground Kiss. Shoegazey bedroom-pop from Nick Llobet and new bassist/vocalist Micah Prussack; Pitchfork referred to part of their sound as “country-grunge” and I had a similar thought on this specific track.

feeble little horse – Dior.  FLH released their third album, bitknot, on May 26th, with this extremely Smashing Pumpkins-esque track as the lone single that I could find. It’s more straightforward than thir last album, 2023’s Girl with Fish, at least.

Swim Deep – Mud. The second single from this shoegaze/dream pop band from Birmingham is one of their strongest yet. Their fifth album, Hum, comes out in June, almost exactly two years after There’s a Big Star Outside. If you’re going to go for a slower tempo like this, vast guitar sounds like Swim Deep has on “Mud” help give the song some textural contrast.

TV Star – The Package. Speaking of “country-grunge,” that may apply to this TV Star track even more than it does to youbet’s. It’s got the acoustic guitars of the former, the lo-fi distortion of the latter, and vocals that sound like early Miki Berenyi.

Failure – Crash Test Delayed. With Location Lost, Failure has now released more albums since they reunited (four) than they did before they broke up in 1997 (three). This track reminds me quite a bit of Pinback, which is funny because 1) Pinback debuted after Failure’s first hiatus began and 2) I only really like one Pinback song, “From Nothing to Nowhere.”

Lip Critic – Shoplifting. There’s definitely a media/label push behind this dance-punk band’s second album, Theft World, as their tracks have shown up on all sorts of playlists, both curated and algorithmic, over the last month or so. The story behind the new album may be better than the album itself.

The High Curbs – RACER #23. Fun California surf-punk with a great melody and perfect run time. Also, check out the band name’s acronym.

False Advertising – Next Big Thing. I wasn’t familiar with this British duo, which features the niece of the original lead singer of Madchester band Inspiral Carpets, before this song, which comes off The Sorry Window, their first album since 2019. It’s close to a punk, with the slightly sung-talked cadence of many post-punk bands.

MUNA – Eastside Girls. MUNA’s latest album Dancing on the Wall is more MUNA-y, but I don’t think that’s necessarily better, and I much preferred Katie Gavin’s solo album to this. “Eastside Girls” is the best track here, and also a good example of the direction of this LP.

Radhika – Since Yesterday. I don’t include many covers on these playlists because they’re often boring and/or cash grabs. This is neither: It’s a cover of a wonderful 1980s new wave track by the one-hit wonders Strawberry Switchblade, sung in a late-60s folk-pop vein by an Indian-Scottish singer from Glasgow. Music is fuckin’ awesome, man.

Arab Strap – You You You. Like a dark synth-pop track sung by Brian Cox. And I’m into it.

Jorja Smith – What’s Done is Done. Smith’s vocals win every time, even when the music is just mid as it is on this electronic track. Also, she’s blonde now.

Alabaster DePlume – Bringing up the Nakba. DePlume is a saxophonist & jazz musician who often adds spoken-word lyrics with strong political content to his songs … or just gives them highly political titles, like this one, which refers to ethnic cleansing during the 1948 Palestine War.

Knats feat. Geordie Greep – Carpet Doctor. Knats are a “nu jazz” trio from the UK who sprinkle in various rock subgenres on top of many of their tracks; their latest album, A Great Day in Newcastle, was produced by Greep, former lead singer/guitarist of black midi, who also appears on this track.

Ezra Collective feat. Pa Salieu – Only Love. Salieu is the star of this track – less than two years after he was released from prison – with the Mercury Prize-winning Ezra Collective fading a little into the background with music that feels more jazzy than jazz.

Tamikrest – Imanin. Tamikrest is a desert blues (or assouf) band from Mali with a sound very similar to that of the Nigerien musician Mdou Moctar. They hadn’t released anything since 2020 before their sixth album Assikel came out last month.

They Are Gutting a Body of Water w/Horse Jumper of Love – charter spec. TAGABOW just put out an album in October, and now they’re back with this track, which alternates My Bloody Valentine-level shoegaze with what sounds like detuned guitars playing arpeggios without distortion alongside mumbled lyrics. It’s almost metal in its own strange way.

Gurriers – Nobody’s Coming to Save You. Noise-rockers from Dublin who clearly take some inspiration from post-hardcore bands like Thrice, while the chorus here reminds me quite a bit of Irish shoegaze revivalists Just Mustard. This is the title track from the band’s second album, due out September 25.

Monolord – Iodine. I’m new to this Gothenburg doom metal band, whose sixth album, Neverending, just came out on Friday, but I love what I’ve heard from them so far, including this, “You Bastard,” “Oozing Wound,” and “It’s Neverending.” It’s heavy, Pallbearer-level stuff with occasional dashes of the melodic death metal that’s a hallmark of Gothenburg bands.

Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats – I’ll Cut You Down. I thought this was a pretty dumb name for a band, but there’s some history here, as their music is heavily inspired by the proto-metal band Vanilla Fudge, which devolved into Cactus, whose lead singer Rusty Day later had a band called Uncle Acid and the Permanent Damage Band. This Uncle Acid is from Cambridge, England, and their sound is bluesy hard rock mixed with doom metal and, appropriately, a dose of psychedelia, so the result is lighter than that of Monolord.

All Them Witches – Red Rocking Chair. The opening track from this hard rock/blues/stoner band’s latest album House of Mirrors, whichcame out on Friday, is a very slow burn, bordering on doom metal in pace and heaviness.

If These Trees Could Talk – Blurry Creatures. This “post-metal” band is a metal band. I hope that clears that part up. It’s instrumental, layered, with elements of post-hardcore (a genre name I accept), with more focus on atmosphere than melody.

Karmanjakah – Diamond morning. This Swedish progressive metal band produces highly technical, textured metal tracks that incorporate less traditional elements like synths and choirs, while also working in some of the dropped-tuning riffs common to extreme metal. (I’ve seen their music called “thall,” a subgenre of technical metal.) I’m into the big riffs near the end here and the way the song builds on its earlier textures for a finish that feels conclusive.

Cemetery Skyline – Dream Delusion. A bonus track from the new deluxe edition of this metal supergroup’s lone album to date, Nordic Gothic.

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