Holy smokes. New music in 2023 had been pretty slow so far, in my opinion. Then September 2023 happened and I had to put 17 albums in my Recommended Albums post. You read that right: 17 albums are listed below. The record for the longest Recommended Albums post is from May 2016, where I listed 23 individual projects. That was excessive and I won’t ever do that again. But to be real for a second: that crazy, 12+ number hasn’t happened in a while – years, even! In September we were gifted examples of raucous 90s+00s rock, brilliant pop, devastating hip hop, dreamy bliss, dub reggae, an incredible remix and so much more. It’s a whole cornucopia of goodness, and there are even other high-profile releases I didn’t care for that are missing! Cmon now folks, there’s too much good new music out there!

None of these records are currently sticking their hand out and screaming as my top favorite release of the year. It’s surely a strong showing though, and they all will be bringing me happiness throughout the rest of 2023 and beyond.

RECOMMENDED ALBUMS OF SEPTEMBER 2023::

Alan Palomo – World Of Hassle [Mom + Pop]
Having a fabulous night out on the town, a multi-colored city drenched in neon lights and palm trees. And then you realize you’re just walking around the back set of a pinball machine, and now you need to figure out how to escape.

Armand Hammer – We Buy Diabetic Test Strips [Fat Possum / Backwoodz Studioz]
In a not-so-distance future, phone numbers are abolished so you have to find who you’re trying to call in a vast landscape of fellow callers, being privy to real conversations happening across the world, acting as an audience to people’s traumatic experiences.

Blonde Redhead – Sit Down For Dinner [section1]
An incredibly strong, floral fragrance knocks you unconscious for a moment, your resulting dreams populated with visions of navigating down endless white marble passageways lined with vases of ornate flower arrangements.

Bombino – Sahel [Partisan]
Riding a motorcycle over tall sand dunes and across an open flatland at sunset, a cloud of dust trails you for hundreds of miles.

Cleo Sol – Gold [Forever Living Originals]
A walk at sunrise, observing the beautiful light and shadows cast in ways you aren’t used to seeing.

Colleen – Le jour et la nuit du réel [Thrill Jockey]
A candle eternally burns at a shrine on a remote island that has been colonized by cyborg rodents and insect test subjects, using their augmented intelligence to build towns and farms across the island.

Devendra Banhart – Flying Wig [Mexican Summer]
Shivering in your nicest outfit, soaked by passing rain, huddled in a phone booth, waiting out the deluge, your warm breath casting a foggy circle that censors your face.

Laurel Halo – Atlas [Awe]
Engulfed in a thick fog on an overcast morning at the park, listening for people going about their days in the impenetrable haze just beyond your sight line, occasionally breaking your routine to observe that some of the people might be watching you.

Loraine James – Gentle Confrontation [Hyperdub]
In a locked back room full of decaying desktop computers from the early 00s, a snaking network of cords has connected each of the machines together. Suddenly each machine hums back to life, each attempting to reach out to its previous operators, sending glitchy texts to their current, modern devices.

Matana Roberts – Coin Coin Chapter Five: In The Garden [Constellation]
A poet recites works their ancestors had written decades and decades earlier in a house that’s ready to topple over, its stability only maintained by squadrons of local townsfolk holding ropes tied to each corner of the foundation.

Mitski – The Land is Inhospitable And So Are We [Dead Oceans]
A castaway floating on the open ocean on a lifeboat with only the luxurious stage curtain they took with them from the sinking cruise ship reenacts scenes of past relationships and plays every character.

Pachyman – Switched-On [ATO]
Hazy, humid heat casts multiple mirages across nearly every horizon in your sightline, only in reality you actually are coming across tropical oases that have newly sprung up from the ground, providing instant comfort and leisure at every turn.

The Replacements – Tim (Let It Bleed Edition) [Rhino / Warner]
You run into your friend that you used to party with all the time but hadn’t seen in a while, and they’re actually doing really well with their lives and improving their lifestyle. 
–> this is more for the “re-mix” sense of the record. I don’t think I’ve ever included a remixed reissue on here, but Tim is my favorite Replacements record and this thing sounds GREAT. I can’t not feature it.

Romy – Mid Air [XL]
A looping roller coaster screams through an indoor laser tag compound, then wraps around a large ferris wheel on an ocean pier at night.

Tinashe – BB/ANG3L [Nice Life]
Watching your partner or crush from across the room through a full champagne flute; the bubbling liquid dancing around their figure and casting them in a golden aura.

Tirzah – trip9love… ??? [Domino]
Windows open and curtains billowing inside a silent apartment, two imprints shaped like sleeping humans on a mattress face each other and echo with the death knells of their relationship.

yeule – softscars [Ninja Tune]
A protagonist from a late-era Playstation 1 game fights for autonomy and a place in the real world. They write and sing songs from atop a spire in a futuristic city reborn years after atomic destruction.

GR8 TRACKS OF SEPTEMBER 2023::

Woah… that’s a lot of songs. Most of these songs off the records listed above, but there are some other cuts listed below as well. Do I have a favorite of the bunch? Not yet. We’ll see! Listen to these and more on my Spotify playlist HERE. But keep scrolling past this list here, there’s more to go.

• Alan Palomo – “Meutrière (feat. Flore Benguigui)”
• Alan Palomo – “Stay-At-Home DJ”
• Alan Palomo – “The Island Years”
• alexalone – “FULL BODY LEARNING”
• Al Menne – “Grandma’s Garden”
• Animal Collective – “Broke Zodiac”
• Armand Hammer – “I Keep A Mirror In My Pocket (feat. Cavalier)”
• Armand Hammer – “Switchboard”
• Armand Hammer – “Trauma Mic (feat. Pink Siifu)”
• Blonde Redhead – “Before”
• Blonde Redhead – “Not For Me”
• Blonde Redhead – “Sit Down For Dinner (Part 2)”
• Blonde Redhead – “Snowman”
• Bombino – “Aitma”
• Bombino – “Darfuq”
• Bombino – “Si Chilan”
• CHAI – “PARA PARA”
• Cleo Sol – “Go Baby”
• Cleo Sol – “Gold”
• Cleo Sol – “Please Don’t End It All”
• Cleo Sol – “Reason”
• Cleo Sol – “Things Will Get Better”
• Colleen – “Les parenthèses enchantées – Movement I”
• Colleen – “Les parenthèses enchantées – Movement IV”
• Courtesy – “You’re Not Alone (feat. Erika de Casier & August Rosenbaum)”
• Devendra Banhart – “Flying Wig”
• Devendra Banhart – “May”
• Devendra Banhart – “Twin”
• Eartheater – “Pure Smile Snake Venom”
• Jalen Ngonda – “Come Around And Love Me”
• Laurel Halo – “Atlas”
• Laurel Halo – “Reading The Air”
• Loraine James – “Glitch The System (Glitch Bitch 2)”
• Loraine James – “Try For Me (feat. Eden Samara)”
• Lusine – “Dreaming (feat. Asy Saavedra)”
• Lusine – “Long Light (feat. Benoît Pioulard)”
• Matana Roberts – “how prophetic”
• Matana Roberts – “shake my bones”
• Mitski – “Heaven”
• Mitski – “I Don’t Like My Mind”
• Mitski – “My Love Mine All Mine”
• Mitski – “Star”
• Nation of Language – “Sole Obsession”
• Nation of Language – “Stumbling Still”
• Pachyman – “Nua!”
• Pachyman – “Sale el Sol”
• Pachyman – “Switched-On”
• Pachyman – “You Looked At Me”
• Róisín Murphy – “What Not To Do”
• Róisín Murphy – “You Knew”
• Romy – “Enjoy Your Life”
• Romy – “The Sea”
• Slowdive – “kisses”
• Tinashe – “Needs”
• Tinashe – “Talk To Me Nice”
• Tinashe – “Tightrope”
• Tinashe – “Uh Huh”
• Tirzah – “F22”
• Tirzah – “no limit”
• Tirzah – “their love”
• Tony Price – “No Control”
• Will Butler + Sister Squares – “Stop Talking”
• Woods – “Weep”
• yeule – “cyber meat”
• yeule – “dazies”
• yeule – “ghosts”
• yeule – “sulky baby”
• Yussef Dayes – “Chasing The Drum”
• Yussef Dayes – “The Light (feat. Bahia Dayes)”

MORE SEPTEMBER 2023 LISTENING::

I’m reviving a segment that I had included in the first few installments of Recommended Albums for 2023, which is featured a few other non-2023 projects that I repeatedly enjoyed throughout the month. I’m not ONLY listening to new music, although this month it really did feel like I was, just based on the sheer load of records and tracks above. But I did listen to some older music, from the biggest band in the history of the world, 60s folk, 90s psych rock, star-crossed ambient, and revisiting a recent-old song from a perennial favorite.

The Beatles – 1 [2000]
Yes, this is real. I spent most of September reading Tom Breihan’s great book The Number Ones, a snapshot + deepening of his iconic Stereogum column of the same name where he would profile each song that’s gone to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. This book featured 20 songs in chronological order, one of the earliest of which are The Beatles’ “I Want To Hold Your Hand”. I hadn’t read anything about The Beatle’s history nor legacy, so this chapter, learning about their yet-unbroken record of #1 hits, was super interesting.

Admittedly, The Beatles weren’t a big part of my development. Sure the songs are/were everywhere and I know every song on this collection, but I hadn’t seriously listened to The Beatles since high school. My partner, on the other hand, grew up with The Beatles on in the household, in the car, on her own, you know the drill. I play a lot of music in the apartment, and we were about to go on vacation that would include a lot of driving, so I put 1 on the ole phone and listened to that on a nice, peaceful night after hiking all day. What else can I say? The Beatles are great. My partner’s favorite #1 is “Penny Lane”, and mine’s probably… I don’t know, “Paperback Writer”? The Beatles good.

Bridget St. John – Ask Me No Questions [1969]
Checked this out on a whim on a rainy day (the first of what felt like two weeks of rain) and it was the perfect choice. Making oatmeal on a gloomy, rainy morning listening to “To B Without A Hitch”? Sublime.

The Dead Texan – The Dead Texan [2004]
A spillover from my Stars of the Lid listening, somehow had missed it for all this time. Very peaceful record, one I’ll surely return to when I need a respite.

Emeralds – Does It Look Like I’m Here? [2010 / 2023]
The remaster of Emeralds fantastic 2010 album Does It Look Like I’m Here? came at the end of August as well, but my listening of the record flooded into September too. Whenever you need a brain stimulant, to lock in completely, to feel nothing but the pulses of your neurons surging thoughts and commands through your body without even thinking. I needed that this month.

Stars of the Lid – And Their Refinement of the Decline [2007]
Brian McBride of Stars of the Lid passed at the end of August, so all the end of that month into September (and still now) I’ve been just fully immersed in the two most well-known and regarded SotL albums, and Their Refinement of the Decline and The Tired Sounds of Stars of the Lid. Beautiful music, and I suggest anyone looking for some of the best ambient music ever made check both of these records out. RIP Brian McBride.

Tirzah – “Hive Mind (feat. Coby Sey)” [2021]
When you’re in a relationship with someone for long enough, it’s only natural to start saying or thinking what the other person is about to say or think, or pick up on the the most micro of behaviors the other person is exhibiting that the average acquaintance wouldn’t notice. Two minds fused into one through an invisible tether; strengthened by time, tragedy, proximity, and contact. This doesn’t even have to be a romantic relationship. It could be a deep friendship. A parent-child relationship. A working relationship. Spend enough meaningful time together, and a bond as strong as steel forms. Going further, a hive mind suggests that when one person in the pair is feeling a certain strong emotion about something, the other will mirror their partner’s status, regardless of their involvement. “Tethering, like hive mind’s do.”

The new Tirzah record inspired me to look back on her 2021 album Colourgrade, an album I have a tumultuous relationship with. I think the record has some of Tirzah’s best songs on it, but the project as a whole is held back by absolute stinker tracks that feel misguided and muck up the flow of the record completely. “Hive Mind (feat. Coby Sey)” is one of the best songs Tirzah has ever made. It’s incredibly spare; with a simple drum loop, creeping keyboards, distorted vocal snippets echoing in the background and vibrating speed bumps of bass threaded through it. Tirzah and Coby Sey trade off vocals, singing repeating lyrics, with Tirzah’s vocals moved to the right channel while Sey’s is in the left. The effect is disorienting and wholly hypnotic. But more than that, the repeated lyrics attempt to link the listener into Tirzah and Sey’s hive mind, and most of the time it works on repeated listens. At that point the listener has memorized the lyrics (they’re very simple) and you’ve been roped in, feeling as though your heartbeat has locked to the beat. The thudding, rudimentary beat suddenly acting as the exoskeleton dictating your movement.

It’s also easy to dip into thinking about your own relationship while listening. How can you not? You don’t know Tirzah and Sey personally. It’s easy to fall into the lull of their song on your own; it’s easier to start thinking about the people you’re closest to and those moments that have spawned out of this proximity with lyrics. You finish each others sentences. When you hear the person sniffle or sigh from another room and you rush over, immediately knowing something more than just allergies is at play. Or when you just know and match the energy level without saying a word to the other. Listening to this song I picture my partner and I facing each other, eyes closed, close but just outside of an embrace, foreheads resting upon the others, hands splayed out in front of the other with our fingers touching, swaying in unison. “Sharing every piece”. Two different tunes, ticking in time with one metronome.

The Verve – A Storm In Heaven [1993]
I’d like to shout out the Beach Fossils’ Amoeba What’s In My Bag segment, where they pushed me to check out The Verve’s debut A Storm In Heaven, a record I find still carries influence, or perhaps shows off the durability of certain influences. I’d say it falls in line with other bands of the time like Oasis and Spiritualized, but they throw enough interesting psychedelic, post punk, and even blues(?) elements into the mix, almost sounding like Geese or Fontaines D.C. It feels like a record ahead of its time, but also well-rooted in the 90s, and undoubtedly a subconscious influence to many. Or in the case of Beach Fossils, a clear inspiration. A damn good one, too.