The theme of this month’s Recommended Albums post is “One Of These Things Is Not Like The Other”. You’ll find that the predominant mood or sound in this collection of ten albums is dreamy, pensive and euphoric. The one glaring omission is Daughters’ You Won’t Get Want You Want, a poison-dripping, splintering record that will leave your head pounding with agony (in a good way). There are definitely some HUGE albums in this crop here and I’m happy how the month went. Really looking forward to everyone seeing my favorites of the year already!

Adrianne Lenker – abysskiss [Saddle Creek]
A baby gradually gains cognitive function and starts to recognize its parents and stimuli surrounding it, like the smells of the kitchen to the color of the changing leaves outside.

boygenius – boygenius EP [Matador]
Going home for Thanksgiving to confront and repair years-old trauma and wafting embarrassment with assorted parties in your small town.

Cat Power – Wanderer [Domino]
A wizened traveler regales a forgotten desert bar crowd with tales from the eternal road.

Daughters – You Won’t Get What You Want [Ipecac]
Being trapped in a haunted house for 12 hours with intensely vengeful spirits, intent on constantly torturing you to the edge of consciousness until morning.

Domenique Dumont – Miniatures de auto rhythm [Antinote]
Being granted the ability to shrink, you evade responsibilities and create a wondrous paradise out of mundane objects now turned fantastical by your drastic size difference.

Julia Holter – Aviary [Domino]
A hidden passageway to an ancient wonderland opens up in the botanical gardens if you take care of your plants at home like you would a loved one.

Miya Folick – Premonitions [Interscope / Terrible]
A soundtrack for using other people’s soaps and conditioners at an absurdly fancy airbnb.

Robyn – Honey [Island]
Shooting personal audio messages into deep space to hopefully land human contact with a long-lost friend.

Yowler – Black Dog In My Path [Double Double Whammy]
Picking up musings of a wandering spirit on a remote radio frequency in the mountains.

1010 Benja SL – Two Houses [Young Turks]
One motivated youth trains flocks of birds to spread the message of rebellion across the city through distinct flight patterns during the changing of the morning guard.

–> Also want to give a shout out to Young Jesus – The Whole Thing Is Just There [Saddle Creek], which I discovered after writing all ten of these little blurbs and there’s no way I’m deleting any of them. This thing is good!! And ya I picked the 20-minute track as my favorite.

SINGLE SPOTLIGHT::

Jessica Pratt – “This Time Around”
In a moment of serious, gobsmacked musical admiration without a hint of irony (something that doesn’t happen often on this site), I have to highlight Jessica Pratt’s “This Time Around”, the first single from her upcoming album, Quiet Signs (out February 8th via Mexican Summer). Since its release, Pratt’s 2015 record On Your Own Love Again has been continuously creeping higher and higher into the upper echelons of my favorite records of the decade. Its sour, fuzzy, psychedelic-without-doing-too-much approach to folk music has continued to sprout new flowering growths of personal admiration, where some records in the same vein have wilted as time passed.

This formula of almighty not-doing-too-much is being used on this new song as well, as the song is purely a repetitive, ultra-simple guitar line, polite blushes of mellotron, and Pratt’s otherworldly, spindly voice, drenched in a good amount of reverb with occasional overdubs. The meditative, trance-like nature of the guitar pattern is easy to get locked into, which allows Pratt to twirl around the listener with smoky wisps of voice, at points passing through unnoticed, but at others conducting an intricate performance of web-spinning. Pretty remarkable that this song is so simple, yet I find new folds over multiple listens. Much like the Mountain Man record from this year, sometimes we just need moments of quiet introspection to right our heads. That’s definitely what’s happening here with me. Right now Quiet Signs is sitting high as my most-anticipated album of 2019.

GR8 SONGS OF OCTOBER::

Listen to all these songs and more on my Best of 2018 Playlist!

• Adrianne Lenker – “symbol”
• Beach House – “Alien”
• boygenius – “Souvenir”
• Cat Power – “Woman”
• Clarence Clarity – “Naysayer, Magick Obeyer”
• Connan Mockasin – “Les Be Honest”
• Daughters – “Guest House”
• Daughters – “Long Road, No Turns”
• Daughters – “Satan In The Wait”
• Empress Of – “Trust Me Baby”
• Farao – “Truthsayer”
• Fucked Up – “House Of Keys”
• Graham Van Pelt – “Vanishing Point”
• Harrison – “Atmosphere (feat. Daniela Andrade)”
• Jamila Woods – “Giovanni”
• Jerry Paper – “Baby”
• Joji – “SLOW DANCING IN THE DARK”
• Julia Holter – “Another Dream”
• Julia Holter – “Words I Heard”
• Kero Kero Bonito – “Flyway”
• Kikagaku Moyo – “Gatherings”
• Marie Davidson – “Work It”
• Miya Folick – “Stop Talking”
• Mr Twin Sister – “Alien FM”
• Robyn – “Human Being”
• The Samps – “Hit N Run”
• Sam Wilkes – “Hug”
• Sharon Van Etten – “Comeback Kid”
• Sheck Wes – “Gmail”
• Swearin’ – “Untitled (LA)”
• Thundercat & BADBADNOTGOOD – “King Of The Hill”
• Young Jesus – “Gulf”
• Yowler – “WTFK”
• 1010 Benja SL – “Tragic X”