Recommended Albums: February 2023

Posted on March 21, 2023 by Very Warm

In this month’s edition of Recommended Albums, we feature new records from established favorites on the blog (Yo La Tengo, Kelela), relative newcomers (Miss Grit, mui zyu), and more SUPER great records from artists I’ve admired for a while (Avey Tare, BIG | BRAVE, Young Fathers).

There’s also A LOT of great tracks that came out last month from Tennis, Anna B Savage, En Attendant Ana, Uh Huh, Jacques Greene, Meernaa, U.S. Girls, Pearla and more. Below that you’ll find what else I listened to in February aside from the new stuff. Spoiler alert, it wasn’t much! It was a lot of Miles Davis, to be clear.

If anyone had been waiting for this, apologies! From preparing for SXSW, to actually attending the festival, my time was sunken into many other things. Hopefully you still dig the tunes as you progress through March’s offerings.

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Listen: Jacques Greene – “Believe” [2023]

Posted on March 13, 2023 by Very Warm

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You wanna dance? You wanna have a good time? You wanna add another burner to your running playlist like I did? Jacques Greene has got you covered with his new single “Believe”, out now via LuckyMe.

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Listen: Fever Ray – “Carbon Dioxide” [2023]

Posted on March 10, 2023 by Very Warm

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Fever Ray (aka Karin Dreijer)’s third album, Radical Romantics, is out TODAY via Mute Records, and ya boy is ultra stoked. Fever Ray is one of the first artists I posted about on Warm Visions, all the way back in 2010 when I ranked my favorite albums of 2009, when their debut arrived. If you’re not in the know, Fever Ray is one half of the seminal 2000s electronic pop duo The Knife, and their career as a solo artist has been particularly inspired, nearly taking ten years to make a follow-up to their amazing debut, and morphing into these manifestations seen on their album artwork and music videos. Radical Romantics ushers in another new era for Fever Ray, and I wholeheartedly approve of all the new changes.

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Listen: Bodywash – “No Repair” [2023]

Posted on March 9, 2023 by Very Warm

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Coming in with a little shoegaze for your Thursday, how does that sound? Montreal’s Bodywash put out one of my favorite records of 2019 in Comforter, one that I’ll always associate with that year’s fall, specifically with the trips I’d make by ferry to go visit my partner, who had just moved to the city. There was one trip in particular where the sunset was framed in a large hole in the clouds on the horizon. Paired with Bodywash’s “With Heat”, with the sounds of the East River sloshing beneath my feet on the jetty, and the colder air nipping my neck: it was bliss. But enough living in the past. Bodywash are back with a new LP, I Held The Shape While I Could, out April 14 via Light Organ Records. They just dropped a new single from it, “No Repair”, and it’s the closing track. You know how I am about closers.

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Listen: Scree – “Half-Death” [2023]

Posted on March 8, 2023 by Very Warm

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Get to know Brooklyn-based trio Scree ahead of their new album Jasmine On A Night In July, out March 10 via Ruination Record Co. I was put onto this record after seeing a few music writers talk about it on Twitter, so I’m glad that I got in on this party early. From the singles out so far, this record is shaping up to be an ambient country-lounge-jazz-western odyssey, with plenty of nuance, emotion, subtle drama and more. We’re not simply drifting away on some exotica-laden raft with Les Baxter in the captain’s chair, nor are we only in a French parlor room with Francois Hardy playing softly in the background. Scree takes elements from each and creates their own vibrant world, one that gets me incredibly excited to hear the full product.

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Listen: Uh Huh – “Redemption Pause” [2023]

Posted on March 7, 2023 by Very Warm

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Sometimes when you run a blog on your own you get caught up by stupid, limiting factors that hold you in place when you really want to post about new music. That could be life tasks or chores (boring!), other hobbies (ok getting better) or just plain glazed-over, void-gazing laziness (chef’s kiss).

I’ve been wanting to post about this Toronto band Uh Huh for a while now, primarily the great “Babylon”, the second single they put out from their upcoming debut, out April 14 via Telephone Explosion, but have been held back by said clutches. Is it pure luck that I find a stroke of inspiration on the same day that they release a NEW single, making this post not only desire-fulfilling to talk about a new band I like, but also achieving a sense of making a deadline? A time-sensitive success? Only time will tell. Ok, enough getting meta, let’s get into the track at hand.

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Listen: Kate NV – “mi (we)” [2023]

Posted on March 3, 2023 by Very Warm

In the summer of 2017, I happened to see Kate NV perform in Brooklyn three times in a two week span. Once by chance (opening for Jessy Lanza @ House of Yes), and twice by seeking out her gigs since she was visiting from Russia, and I was impressed enough the first time that I wanted to catch a full set. She was in town for the now-defunct Northside Festival, mind you – I didn’t think I could get this opportunity for a while after. One of these shows through Northside was an Orange Milk Records showcase, where I got to see Honnda, Giant Claw, Kate NV and Foodman in one space: in the basement of a seafood restaurant. Pretty cool! All this to say, NV put on a great set, despite me being super unfamiliar with her material up to that point. The closer especially was a ton of fun, with its clattering bells and janky stops-and-starts. Like I mentioned before, I wasn’t super familiar with her 2016 debut album, but thought that such a fun closing would definitely be on it. Wrong! Ok well maybe it would come on her 2018 album – nope! And 2020? NAH! I didn’t even know the actual name of the track! Would I have to solely listen to the song via live clips on YouTube? Would a studio version of this track ever come?

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Listen: Meernaa – “I Believe In You” [2023]

Posted on March 2, 2023 by Very Warm

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Holy smokes, is that what I think it is? A standalone post about new music on Warm Visions? That’s right folks, I’m willing up the effort to post about music on my own personal music blog. It’s true, I can’t let these allegations of “not a music blog” bog me down any longer. And what better way to break the funk than by posting about one of my more anticipated + exciting musicians to come out in a while: Meernaa, aka Oakland-based musician Carly Bond!

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30 Years: Warm Visions’ #1 Albums of 1992-2022

Posted on March 2, 2023 by Very Warm

On October 24th, 2022, I turned 30. I didn’t have any big plans for the momentous date which is convenient for me since I also came down with covid the day of. While marinating in a fever-addled haze, I thought it might be special to construct some kind of tribute to the music that has proliferated while I’ve been here on Earth. What I landed on is picking (or at least, attempting to pick) one ultimate album from each year I’ve been alive, from 1992 – 2022. I meant to get this out closer to the date of my birthday but man, writer’s block, my obsession with furthering the 80s project I’m working on and the effort put into my Best of 2022 lists put this to the wayside. Well, here it is now.

Going through the choices, I’m realizing I’m not blowing any minds or picking anything out of the canon of historically great releases, but it was nice to collect a little portfolio of what has been artistically accomplished over the last 30 years. It’s easy to collect and observe artistic output and achievement through decades, but how about a little snapshot, a rather tight one at that (limiting how many albums I can feature for each year).

Now there are two examples in this list where I couldn’t pick just one record. I know the whole point of this exercise was for me to pick ONE favorite per year. Well, it’s my blog, and sometimes the emotional distress of leaving something off was too much to bear. I know you’ll be able to understand. This only happens twice. I think we all can live with that.

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Recommended Albums: January 2023

Posted on February 13, 2023 by Very Warm

Welcome to 2023! Okay, we’ve already been in the year for over a month, but Warm Visions Recommended Albums is back for another round: my eighth year of this feature! Feels wild to even think that. Keeps me honest, I guess!

And honestly, I gotta try and make these a bit more interesting. Sure I listen to new music regularly and try to highlight my favorites, but there’s so much more that I’m enjoying other than tunes from that year. For instance, I was HARD at work getting through my 1980s to-listen-to list, finding a few major favorites, as well as listening to a few other things on repeat. I thought I’d not make it such a stress to include 10 albums every time. Maybe that month I only enjoyed four records enough to talk about (like this month). I’ll still highlight my favorite songs, as well as point out my other favorite things I’ve been enjoying from the past. It’ll be more like a newsletter, I guess. Hope you enjoy!

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