Spring 2024 New Music Playlist

  Listen on Spotify, enjoy!

1. "It's Over, If We Run Out of Love" – David Holmes, Raven Violet

2. "Bubblegum Dog" – MGMT

3. "Coming of Age" – Van Houten

4. "Water Underground" – Real Estate

5. "Burial Ground" – The Decemberists

6. "Together Forever" – STRFKR

7. "Loved" – Four Tet

8. "Is This Love" – James

9. "Alone" – Maps

10. "Neon Pill" – Cage the Elephant

11. "Willow" – Cowboy Sadness, Bing & Ruth, The Antlers, Port St. Willow

12. "Lines" – Maxband

13. "Long as I'm Not the One" – Grandaddy

14. "Spare Me the Decision" – Nation of Language

15. "Capricorn" – Vampire Weekend

16. "Dramamine" – Middle Kids

17. "RIP Dunes" – Backwards

18. "Wall of Eyes" – The Smile

Winter 2020 New Music Playlist

Listen on Spotify, enjoy!

1. "Come Get Me" – Nada Surf

2. "Against the Day" – Wolf Parade

3. "Don't Waste My Time" – SAULT

4. "You and I" – Caribou

5. "Lost Day" – Other Lives

6. "In the Afternoon" – MGMT

7. "Ice Cream Party" – Modest Mouse

8. "The Main Thing" – Real Estate

9. "Posthumous Forgiveness" – Tame Impala

10. "Stress" – Tycho

11. "Non-Linear Time vs. Misshapen Space" – Say Hi

12. "Deleters" – Holy Fuck, Angus Andrew

13. "Losing Control" – Poolside

14. "Be So Blue" – Deserta

15. "Baby" – Four Tet

16. "Scene Suspended" – Jon Hopkins

Top Ten Releases of the Decade 2010-2019 – Plus Others Worthy of a Listen

Here's my list of the Top 10 Albums of the past decade plus a few Honorable Mentions – music loved from front to back and listened to in full many times. Check them out on Spotify at the link here if you missed any! And yes I do love my veteran indie bands, no excuses needed.

In no particular order...

1. Arcade Fire, The Suburbs
2. Arcade Fire, Reflektor
3. Arcade Fire, Everything Now
4. Spoon, Transference
5. Spoon, They Want My Soul
6. Spoon, Hot Thoughts
7. LCD Soundsystem, This is Happening
8. LCD Soundsystem, american dream
9. The National, High Violet
10. MGMT, Congratulations

Honorable Mention:
Gorillaz, Plastic Beach
Okkervil River, The Silver Gymnasium
The Walkmen, Heaven
Moby, Innocents

Winter 2018 New Music Playlist

Listen on Spotify or as a YouTube Playlist (except "Chico's Radical Decade" by the The Go! Team).

1. "Everybody's Coming to My House" – David Byrne
2. "Fluoresecent Light" – Stars
3. "Severed" – The Decemberists
4. "Gotta Run" – Lea Porcelain
5. "Listening In" – Dr. Dog
6. "Hand It Over" – MGMT
7. "Music Snob" – De Lux
8. "Taste" – Rhye
9. "Echo" – Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
10. "Sunday" – Geowulf
11. "Chico's Radical Decade" – The Go! Team
12. "Can't Stop My Dreaming (of You) – Jono Ma & Dreems
13. "Can't Get It Out" – Nada Surf
14. "The One to Wait" – CCFX
15. "The Deconstruction" – Eels
16. "Friday Morning" – Khruangbin

Here's to 2018 – New Releases Ahead by Favorite Bands (David Byrne, Franz Ferdinand, Moby & more)

What a difference a year makes... I combed through the lists of upcoming releases looking for reasons to be hopeful about 2018 and found just a few: Moby, Franz Ferdinand plus all those unreleased tracks by the Gorillaz promised ahead. Then yesterday one of my top musical heroes David Byrne not only announced a new album in 14 years (!) American Utopia but he also gave a talk in NYC entitled "Reasons to Be Cheerful." I tuned into the online stream (archived on Facebook and YouTube), hanging on every word from this wise and witty shaman. Byrne espoused about his latest project, Contemporary Colors, along with answers to world problems large and small. His talk was set to carefully chosen, although some completely random, visuals just like those at groundbreaking concerts as frontman for The Talking Heads. 

Check out the first single from the album "Everybody's Coming to My House" via the video below with fitting artwork of the artist by Doug Henders. This tune produced by longtime pal Brian Eno features danceable beats, poetic lyrics – stream of consciousness, about ordinary but which say much more – and those unmistakable vocals that have been copied, but never exactly replicated. As if 2017 wasn't awesome enough musically with a new album (after many years) from another all time fave band LCD Soundsystem, with this new music on repeat for my ears I am not only cheerful, but one extremely happy music fan. It's simply the same as it ever was!

UPCOMING NEW RELEASES IN 2018:
January 19 – De Lux, More Disco Songs About Love (Innovative Leisure)
January 19 – The Go! Team, Semicircle (Memphis Industries)
January 26 – Django Django, Marble Skies (Ribbon Music)
January 26 – Calexico, The Thread That Keeps Us (Anti-Records) 
February 9 – Franz Ferdinand, Always Ascending (Domino)
February 9 – MGMT, Little Dark Age (Columbia)
March 2 – Moby, Everything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt (Mute)
March 9 – David Byrne, American Utopia (Todomundo/Nonesuch Records)
March 9 – of Montreal, White is Relic/Irrealis Mood
March 16 – Yo La Tengo, There's a Riot Going On (Matador Records)
March 16 – The Decemberists, I'll Be Your Girl (Columbia)
April 6 – Wye Oak, The Louder I call, The Faster It Runs (Merge)
April 27 – Dr. Dog, Critical Equation (Thirty Tigers)
April 27 – Okkervil River, Rainbow Rain (ATO) 
Gorillaz – TBD
Arctic Monkeys – TBD
Vampire Weekend  – TBD

Late Fall 2017 New Music Playlist

Listen on Spotify or as a YouTube Playlist (except Wye Oak's "Wave Is Not the Water," not found there!)

1. "875 Dollars" – De Lux
2. "Plimsoll Punks" – Alvvays
3. "Wave Is Not the Water" – Wye Oak
4. "Hurts to Liv" – liv
5. "All About Waiting" – Dhani Harrison (featuring Camila Gray)
6. "Los Ageless" – St. Vincent
7. "Soul and Cigarette" – Daniele Luppi & Parquet Courts
8. "Feels Like Heaven" – Ariel Pink
9. "Tic Tac Toe" – Django Django
10. "Deadly Valentine" – Charlotte Gainsburg
11. "Tinseltown Swimming in Blood" – Destroyer
12. "How It Feels" – Ages and Ages
13. "Little Dark Age" – MGMT
14. "Wallowa Lake Monster" – Sufjan Stevens
15. "Sleeping and Falling" – Jonti
16. "North" – Yotto
17. "Redlining" – Dan Deacon

New Song by Bear Hands, "2 AM" (New Album Out April 15)

Bear Hands (photo via BearHandsBand.com)

The new kicky tune "2 AM" by Brooklyn-based Bear Hands was an easy pick for my next playlist. Filled with the yore of house parties and a chorus with the parental admonishment of "Nothing good happens after 2 AM," this witty song extols the longing of the ageless. It will appear on the upcoming release You'll Pay for This, due April 15 via Cantora Records.

Self described as both post-punk and indie rock, Bear Hands was formed in 2006 and have two albums plus two EPs to date. The early days began after Dylan Rau and Ted Feldman met at Wesleyan University, forming the band with Val Loper and TJ Orscher. College classmates (and label compadres) MGMT provided a few opening slots which quickly brought the attention of a wider audience. Their song "Giants," from the last album Distraction, appeared on my Winter 2014 Playlist and I can't wait to give a listen to the new album. Check out the video for "2 AM" below as directed by Sami Jano and Steve Meierding, technically a "lyric video" with signage displayed appropriately throughout the scene.

A Playlist of Songs In Honor of Mother's Day (Bands Heard In the Background Over the Years as a Family)

With fond memories of homemade gifts...

Here's a rather personal playlist honoring the Mother's Day holiday - 22 songs encountered along the way during my own days fulfilling a maternal role in the family.  It's a nurturing list of fave bands over the years, musical accompaniment to household activities or even sing alongs, providing that collective pull of related spirits with mouths wide open.  I've especially enjoyed sharing so much new music discovery, as band names were passed about until it became not mine or yours, but simply ours. 

I've never wanted anything festooned with the "World's Best Mom" on it, but I am extremely proud of the simple fact that both of my kids value the arts as something necessary and ever evolving in their lives. You can argue the nature vs. nurture possibilities, but I'd rather think this is also the result of my own mother continuing her role as cultural ambassador. She gladly squired the grandkids to concerts, museums and plays, while having a house with a piano and other instruments at the ready, along with a personal collection of music and books everywhere (plus passing down a wonderful habit of listening to music at full volume.) These are all things I was exposed to growing up as well and continued in my own life as an adult -- taking it all for granted until I found out this was not always the case in other families. 

Link to listen here and remember you can always listen to my new music playlists here!

1. "Stay Up Late" – Talking Heads

2. "Kid"– The Pretenders

3. "Modern Art" – Art Brut

4. "The Youth" – MGMT

5. "Loser" – Beck

6. "Song 2" – Blur

7. "Dirty Harry" – Gorillaz

8. "Home" – Brian Eno & David Byrne

9. "Home" – Dan Croll

10. "The Man Who Love the World" – Nirvana (From MTV Unplugged)

11. "Life On Mars?" – Arcade Fire & David Bowie (From Fashion Rocks)

12. "The Dark of the Matineé" – Franz Ferdinand

13. "What would I want? Sky" – Animal Collective

14. "Stickshifts and Safetybealts" – CAKE

15. "Roam" – The B-52s

16. "Beautiful World" – Devo

17. "Sticks & Stone" – Jónsi

18. " The Perfect Life" (featuring Wayne Coyne) – Moby
19. "Undone (The Sweater Song)" – Weezer

20. "No Surprises"  – Radiohead

21. "Louise Louisa"  – Mew

22. "On Your Way" – The Album Leaf