Autumn 2024

I somehow missed this excellent bossa-nova and trip-hop mashup that was released when I was graduating high school. This album is a classic for many great reasons and listening I can hear the origin of many other bands. I'm sad that it's only one of two they released before disbanding.
Track recommendation: Jamie Pan

Like his contemporaries High Contrast and London Electricity, Logistics helped evolve the drum and bass scene out of an era of technical exercises by adding melody and playfulness to the sound. With 24 tracks spread across two albums, they can't all be bangers. However, when his tracks do hit, they sure are enjoyable!
Track recommendation: Winter Blues

Before EDM consumed the heart of electronic music, musicians were still experimenting with how to weave their humanity through synths. Rather than evoke a 1980's pastiche, The Presets arrange the instrumentation of previous decades into an emotional thrill of ecstasy and aggression.
Track recommendation: This Boy's in Love

This album is proof that Jimbo Mathus still has the essential contrarian fire of a real artist blazing deep down in his belly. You can almost feel him resisting a peer pressure to backslide into rockabilly commercialism and it saves this album. The grit is essential and his refusal to polish it off infuses the tracks with a humanity that keeps me listening again and again.
Track recommendation: Purim Nigun

This album is a joyous celebration of New Orleans and the musical stew that formed the backbone of America's homegrown musical cultures. Like a Mardi Gras night, high and low share dances through the dangerous strangeness that comes when nobody present is actually from here.
Track recommendation: Karnival Joe (From Kokomo)