Arriving late aka arriving on time for Warm Visions, it’s May’s Recommended Albums post. Unfortunately I didn’t make the 10-album ceiling, but these are eight very quality records. Also, cut me some slack. I had to move at the end of the month, so I’ve had a lot going on. Either way, I hope you enjoy per usual.

billy woods & Kenny Segal – Maps [Backwoodz Studioz / Fat Possum]
The fourth hour of a six hour flight, sleeping pills have worn off, finished your book, and all the text messages you sent before you took off have yet to be replied to.

Colin Stetson – When We Were That What Wept For The Sea [52Hz]
A small dinghy cast out into the open ocean, its ferocious waves rocking the vessel without abandon.

Gia Margaret – Romantic Piano [Jagjaguwar]
The dust blown off a book you’ve been meaning to read, pirouetting in a morning sunbeam.

Mega Bog – End of Everything [Mexican Summer]
Making your way through the final chapter of a book you’re reading and as the remaining page count shrinks, so too does your grip on the certainty that only this alternate reality you’ve temporarily lived in is ending, along with your own as well, once you finish the book.

Overmono – Good Lies [XL]
A billowing human being blown up into a net-like grid, its blood vessels and nervous system delicately flowing conjoined in an orderly pattern, light from street lamps casting waffled shadows.

Salami Rose Joe Louis – Akousmatikous [Brainfeeder]
A miniature civilization exists on a chunk of floating space debris, warped by passerby galactic radiation, and one growing microbial entity yearns for a different life beyond the stars.

Tinariwen – Amatssou [Wedge]
Sitting atop a small mountain in the desert, watching cyclones of sand carve intricate patterns into pristine the dunes below.

Westerman – An Inbuilt Fault [Partisan]
Walking through a crowd of people on a sunny day but only thinking of one person.

GR8 TRACKS OF MAY 2023::

• billy woods & Kenny Segal – “FaceTime (feat. Samuel T. Herring)”
• billy woods & Kenny Segal – “NYC Tapwater”
• billy woods & Kenny Segal – “Year Zero (feat. Danny Brown)”
• Colin Stetson – “The Lighthouse II (feat. Brighde Chaimbeul)”
• Colin Stetson – “The Lighthouse V (feat. Iarla Ó Lionáird)”
• Colin Stetson – “One day in the sun”
• Gia Margaret – “April to April”
• Gia Margaret – “City Song”
• Gia Margaret – “2017”
• Jam City – “LLTB (feat. Wet)”
• Jam City – “Wild N Sweet (feat. Empress Of)”
• Kassa Overall – “Ready To Ball”
• L CON – “Hold”
• Madison McFerrin – “God Herself”
• Mega Bog – “The Clown”
• Mega Bog – “Complete Book of Roses”
• Mega Bog – “Don’t Doom Me Now”
• Mega Bog – “Love Is”
• Overmono – Arla Fearn”
• Overmono – “Calling Out”
• Overmono – “Good Lies”
• Overmono – “Is U”
• Overmono – “So U Kno”
• Overmono – “Walk Thru Water (feat. St. Panther)”
• Rahill – “Futbol”
• Rahill – “Tell Me”
• Salami Rose Joe Louis – “Akousmatikous (feat. Soccer96)”
• Salami Rose Joe Louis – “Always On My Mind”
• Salami Rose Joe Louis – “Proof Is In The Pudding”
• Symphony Orchestra – “Concerto”
• Symphony Orchestra – “Intersection”
• Tinariwen – “Anemouhagh”
• Tinariwen – “Tenere Den”
• Westerman – “A Lens Turning”
• Westerman – “Idol; RE-run”
• Westerman – “Take”
• 79.5 – “As I Wait For Your Love”

MORE NON-2023 LISTENING::

Ferkat Al Ard – Oghneya [1978, reissued 2022]

A friend visiting Beirut inspired me to look into some recent Habibi Funk reissues and found this awesome Ferkat Al Ard album, which I played a few times in the mornings as I made breakfast before work. It reminds me of an Arthur Verocai-level record, with a full orchestra + inspiring fat bass and drums, only with Lebanese pop and folk elements woven in. Incredible record.

Led Zeppelin – “In The Evening” [1979]

While I was packing, I decided to go through my iTunes and find records I hadn’t listened to in some time. A lot of them in the dusty, back corners of my library. Led Zeppelin’s In Through The Out Door was one of those selections, and I can say that “In The Evening” is one of Led Zep’s finest songs to this day. Definitely stuck in my head while packing up my partner and I’s stuff, while also bringing me back to early high school, the last time I consistently listened to the project.

Mass of the Fermenting Dregs – “If A Surfer” [2008]

What a beautiful thing living in New York is. I was scrolling through my timeline and saw that Elsewhere, a club in Brooklyn, was hosting Japanese rock band Mass of the Fermenting Dregs in November. MotFD has one record that I like A LOT that I frequently listened to on my own in college. But to live in New York, I now have this chance to see a band from Japan I probably wouldn’t have gotten to see anywhere else (despite them touring the US for the first time – who knows). I have a ticket so if you’re reading this, see you at Elsewhere in November.

Vampire Weekend – “Hannah Hunt” [2013]

This May the world celebrated the 10-year anniversary of Vampire Weekend’s best album Modern Vampires of the City, which kick-started a whole lot of emotions early on in the month. May 2013 is the point in my life where I feel like current life trajectory started, more or less. I started working as the music director of my college radio station, and I was living off-campus in an apartment for the first time. I worked multiple jobs, rode a bike around, hung out with friends occasionally, but listened to a lot of Vampire Weekend that summer. 10 years later it’s not hard to reflect on the time that’s passed and how the music impacts me now. I wasn’t as big on “Hannah Hunt” when the album first came out, but I think I’m in the camp that thinks it’s the best song on the record. Hard to say.