#3476 Eris Drew and Octo Octa - Devotion

3.5/5 the Octo Octa track versions leave me cold, too many clashy harmonics. But Eris Drew does this thing where she drops the loop and leaves this little half-beat of silence that I'm enchanted by. Brings the whole feel back to physical vinyl looping, leaves a little spot for your stomach to drop again and again. Is this her invention or a genre standard thing I'm just ignorant of? Great execution either way

#3475 Daphni - Sizzling EP

4/5 Daphne's still got it after all, the most dancy thing he's ever done, raucous, downright disco, with his signature fearlessness about when to clip the loop

#3474 Thom Yorke - Anima

2.5/5 clever, clattering, forgettable, sounding like king of limbs bsides, made me feel nothing

#3473 White Denim - Performance

3.5/5 white denim's always solid, rumbling, dancable, jam bandery tightened up and spiked

#3472 Black Midi - Schlagenheim

3.5/5 clattering, angular, hitched, as knotted as you can make rock music and keep it listenable. The Dismemberment plan with the uncertainty and heart drained out, replaced with sneering swagger

#3471 Daphni - Joli Mai

3/5 warm synths and clever eliptical beats, vocal snippets ruin a few songs though, and he's capable of doing them right (Yes I Know)

#3470 Pom Poko - Birthday

3.5/5 impossible to avoid the comparisons to deerhoof and ponytail and danananakroyd and the other angular, shrill, giveafuck weirdos. Hookier, more pleasant than most, but the lack of that unpleasant edge is doublesided - i miss it a bit - this never feels quite like the horses have taken over, steering to the cliff

#3469 Haruomi Hosono - Hosono House

4/5 weightless japanese Americana, with the creak of a chair just out of sight, wrapped in the pull of nylon. sweet and clear, with a spike of dr john swagger. doubly recommended for anyone looking for something unexpected

#3468 Woob - New Program

4/5 after work i wandered to the docks outside the aquarium and watched the planes land, boats in the foreground, and track 8 played and was the perfect slow motion soundtrack. and elsewhere it builts, slowly, with great earning, towards something a bit more beatsome, but this is the sound of patience, of the earth hardening, of planets drifting from orbits

#3467 Etienne de Crecy - Super Discount

3/5 hasn't aged overly well, groovesome, but a little stilted, especially those vocal samples

#3466 Wells Fargo - Watch Out!

3.5/5 rough edges all the way down, budget Hendrix and maybe more charming for it. tight enough to get by, loose enough to charm. kids had heart and chops, feel that cry from The Crowd and try to stay on the ground

#3465 Mouse on Mars - 21 Again Collaborations Volume 1

3.5/5 mainline MoM is a little abrassive for sensitive ears, but these collaborators weave enjoyable throughlines into the sound. Some of the spoken bits are momentum crushers, doubly so with whatever pretentious dissonant slop A Hawk and A Handsaw (jesus!) put together; otherwise a loose fun romp (hi Siriusmo!

#3464 Kenny Kirkland - Kenny Kirkland

3/5 know nothing about jazz. pleasant enough, but seems a bit overpolished in that kind of well-whatreya-gonna-do-at-this-point 90s jazz kinda way. Kirkland's playing does have a mouthsome kinda sway to it

#3463 Leif and Donna Lea - Dinas Oleu

2.5/5 it sure is minimal beats and washes and squiggles and goddamn if it will really improve your mood in the moment or leaving a lasting impression so what are we doing here

#3462 Kraus - Path

4/5 shoegaze jolted back to life by livewire drums and a subtle, endlessly-layered approach to vocals. Will Kraus has a magnificent knack for production, but I do I miss the overblown, jagged edges of End Tomorrow

#3461 Liily - I Can Fool Anybody In This Town

2.5/5 endless, identical spiky arpeggios with shouty conviction pushing endlessly forward. probably plays better live

#3460 Said the Whale - Hawaii

3.5/5 an undeniable knack for a hook in that unabashed 00's spirit, flecked with the Beach Boys, Radiohead, the Decemberists and a rogue's gallery of one hit wonders. All rather nice, a couple of weird forays into raps and drops notwithstanding

#3459 Bruce Springsteen - Western Stars

3/5 there's no illusion that the protagonists of any of these ballads is Bruce himself, or that the America he's describing exists anymore. The theme is restlessness, so tuck these stories away from here. Ballads that work best when they touch on the universal (Hitch Hikin', title track). His voice is still there, well suited to these low-key ramblers, stuck in place

#3458 Daedelus - Baker's Dozen

3.5/5 It's nice to see Daedelus just doing what he does best: rolling around in artisanal samples, making hooky, dusty little ditties, without the need to attach some grand conceit or get outside his wheelhouse for its own sake. Playful, pleasant, quietly classic

#3457 Karper Marott - Keflavik EP

3/5 title track's got a great urgency, weaving through its own reverb deftly, but Megatu goes nowhere and Microworld falls into that weird Selected Ambient vol-1 middle ground and can't commit to a stance

#3456 Karper Marott - Forever Mix EP

3/5 slowrolling techno with an ensemble cast of washes and flourishes that gesture at some gauzy paradise, somewhere way up outside the hole, mottled shadows swaying

#3455 Rodriguez - Cold Fact

2/5 folk music, how does it sound so halfassed and so overwrought at the same time? it's like backpack rap without the beats or the conviction. the scant scraps of guitar fuzz are the only consolation. Actual song title:

This is Not a Song, It's an Outburst: Or, the Establishment Blues

can't make this shit up

#3454 Dennis Coffey - Goin' For Myself

3/5 Never stops sounding like an album made by studio musicians, except when it starts to sound like library music, but pretty funky considering

#3453 Maethelvin - Continuum

3.5/5 Maerthelvin puts a lot of voice in his synths, gives a lot of sunny expression to the maths. Most of this EP is right pleasant, a welcome reprieve to all his night-stricken neon-obsessed peers. It's a shame about the two versions of Party All Night, which, man, name says it all

#3452 Blouse - Blouse

2.5/5 Reverbey postpostpunk that's smothered itself into nothingness, slow, muffled, familiar, numb

#3451 Zoos of Berlin - Instant Evening

3.5/5 Slight, easily dismissed, and yet pretty in its small way. The kind of thing you might find finding purchase in your heart if you can listen with patience, like its 2003 and there's still newness in the world, and a compact disc costs money. Production that turns every hard edge into feathers, even the angular leaps smoothed into curves. Could be a grower

#3450 Tengger - Spiritual 2

3/5 I've got a lot of tolerance for meandering krauty repetition, but this strains patience. Not pure enough to be ambient, too limp to propel, like a Neu! 2 song that didn't commit to really cranking the bpms

#3449 Cavern of Anti-Matter - Hormone Lemonade

4/5 There aren't many bands out there this committed to repetition, blurring electronic automatic loops with motorik man-precision. Just enough texture to grip onto, hypnotic and propulsive and full of energy, a machine with enough flaws to spark

#3448 The Pilgrim Jubilees - Homecoming

4/5 Gospel soul masters record a live show long after their prime, and they fake you into thinking they've lost their touch. The first nine tracks are introduced almost apologetically; they rock here and there, but the group's checking boxes. But then they go full raveup revival, and that last 35 minute is endless fire, stoking the crowd, flowing and cresting with effortless control, all the more exciting from the slow windup

#3447 Nico Yaryan - What a Tease

2/5 That first song was just interesting enough to trick me, with those huge swells and spaceship flybys. Every bit of adventurousness used up, ten too-smooth, utterly risk-free love songs follow

#3446 Pools - Prettiest Eyes

2.5/5 Garage crunch too tightly locked into middling tempos and the same blownout, muddy mix

#3445 Caterina Barbieri - Ecstatic Computation

2.5/5 Harsh arpeggios warp and fade. Music that sounds composed by one computer and performed by another, each gifted with an algorithmic notion of how to slowly surprise, but incapable of real interest in human listening. These hypothetical computers are very clever, and that might be enough to pique your interest, but it left me cold

#3444 Das Vag - Scenbuddism

3/5 A fascintatingly weird crosssection of styles, reggae-drenched postpunk dragged back around through Europe, a Modern Lovers breadcrumb marking the way. Not quite chill or thrilling, but a fun curio

#3443 Tall Boys - Homes in Boston

3.5/5 The first spikey little songs remind me of the best plucky 00's weirdo indie bands and I love em. But the slower songs drag, wall-to-wall Greater Boston easter eggs notwithstanding

#3442 Daedelus - Taut

2.5/5 Daedelus's missing his playfulness, hooks, and heart. Surges and and squiggles totter around in untrackable rhythms - a trip into new territory without breadcrumbs back to anything compelling