Recommended Albums is in its sixth year of operation, which frankly is absurd to me. This started as a way for me to get more involved in my blog as I’d been slacking on it going into 2016. Kind of like a New Year’s resolution or something. Maybe I’d continue it for a few months and then get tired of it. Welp, 72 months later I’m still at it – picking 10 or so records from each month to highlight. Hope some people find this helpful in seeking out releases they may have missed, or maybe even seeing which ones to check out first to begin with. 2021 has started off well music-wise, although to be perfectly honest it’s been hard to concentrate on just the music. Despite this, I’ve collected a pretty cool group of records, from airy ambient, to confessional singer/songwriter, to dirty laundry R&B, to calming, virtuosic guitar. Hope you enjoy. 

Abul Mogard – In Immobile Air [Ecstatic]
Hanging upside-down off the front of an arctic freight ship, watching an inverted view of the ship plow through sheets of ice over black water.

Anna B Savage – A Common Turn [City Slang]
Having recurring nightmares about being closed in pages of your diary (a giant dream version) like pressed flowers.

Buke & Gase / So Percussion – A Record Of [Brassland]
A port town at danger of being swallowed by the rising sea enlists inventors to excavate the town with steam-powered diggers and fly it into the sky in one big chunk.

Carmen Villain – Sketch for Winter IX: Perlita [Geographic North]
Steam rising from a hot spring catches sunlight reflected off a frozen waterfall.

Fievel Is Glauque – God’s Trashmen Sent To Right The Mess [la Loi]
Dystopian hackers reprogram Hit Clips to play bootleg recordings of Brazilian jazz radio broadcasts.

Insides – Soft Bonds [Self-Released]
Feeling steadily more detached from reality until a familiar, unseen hand covers yours.

Jazmine Sullivan – Heaux Tales [RCA]
A convincing stump speech alleging being horny on main will bring world peace.

Madlib –  Sound Ancestors [Madlib Invazion]
Drawing soul records from memory in a journal while out to eat (sitting at the bar with a direct view to the kitchen, secondhand steam and kinetic energy filling your spirit).

Rhye – Home [Loma Vista]
Slow dancing at 2am in your dark living room, with only the moon and the red coils of a space heater providing any form of light.

Yasmin Williams – Urban Driftwood [Spinster]
A picturesque view of a mountain range next to a gentle stream for a daytime picnic.

I’ve also started my Best of 2021 playlist – it’s pretty short, but it’s going! 
Check it out –> HERE.

GR8 SONGS OF JANUARY 2021::

I’d say out of all these songs, Smerz’s “Believer” is probably the best thing I’ve heard all year. The bass gives me goosebumps.

• Abul Mogard – “Sand”
• Anna B Savage – “Baby Grand”
• Arlo Parks – “For Violet”
• Bicep – “Sundial”
• Buke & Gase / So Percussion – “Over The Hill”
• Cassandra Jenkins – “Hard Drive”
• Fievel Is Glauque – “Simple Affairs”
• Insides – “Undressing”
• Jazmine Sullivan – “The Other Side”
• Kalbells – “Purplepink”
• Logic1000 – “Like My Way”
• Matthew E. White & Lonnie Holley – “This Here Jungle Of Moderness-Composition 14”
• Rhye – “Come In Closer”
• Sara Bug – “Rosebank”
• Smerz – “Believer”
• SOPHIE – “UNISIL”
• Yasmin Williams – “Urban Driftwood (feat. Amadou Kouyate)”