Folks, we’ve officially completed 10 years of Recommended Albums. 2026 marks technically the 11th full year of Recommended Albums, since I started it in 2016. I’ve talked about a good amount of albums here. But it feels like I haven’t talked about any. In celebration I’ve selected a bunch of albums… change of pace and all that. 2026 is off to a good start, what can I say. Let’s get it going!

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By Storm – My Ghosts Go Ghost [deadAir]
The last living artist puts on a frenetic, emotionally-frying show in a blindingly-lit amphitheater with no one in a 100-mile radius.

Dry Cleaning – Secret Love [4AD]
Sleek, impenetrable armor grown by years of various rejections on every level has steeled you against the world, but you still have pleasures like a decent sandwich or watching someone fall down the stairs.

Geologist – Can I Get A Pack of Camel Lights? [Drag City]
Post-singularity elder tech objects attempt to communicate with the new robot overlords, their antiquated syntax coming out clunky and angular, strangely organic even.

Julianna Barwick & Mary Lattimore – Tragic Magic [InFiné]
The portal located within the deepest recesses of the forest labyrinth ripples with anticipation.

Fabiano do Nascimento & E Ruscha V – Aqúaticos [Music From Memory]
Sipping on a refreshing, coconut-based mixed beverage on a seaside terrace, then watching a small figure emerge from your drink, walk along the rim and dry themselves off with a small towel they’d hanged earlier.

PVA – No More Like This [It’s All For Fun]
The blush response of the future will be the wires underneath our skin contracting tight upon their filaments, unnaturally pulling the skin taut to the sagging musculature our veins no longer fortify.

Shintaro Sakamoto – Yoo-hoo [zelone]
Grooving and dancing in a little circle on your covered deck when you’re home alone.

xavisphone – balança e paixão [Modern Love]
Getting a lapdance in a sealed shipping container dangling above an industrial metal crusher. One hanging lightbulb swings from right to left, its flickers illuminating your precarious, perverse prison.

Whodamammy – Onda Biloba [Periodica]
There’s actually nothing wrong with you. You’re just becoming one with the dancefloor, which blinks and shines back at you with such warmth.

Winged Wheel – Desert So Green [12XU]
Upon closer inspection of the ancient manuscript regarding the construction of the otherwise functionless monolith in the middle of a swamp, scorched fingerprints faintly dot each page, implying the intervention of a third party.

Yin Yin – Yatta! [Glitterbeat]
A ghostly party ferry unexpectedly docks in a port town, its jubilant passengers transforming the sleepy, foggy coast into an era-blurring fiesta until the sun comes back up.