On somewhat of a tear with playlists, inspired by a roadtrip taken this past week up to Maine. Gotta have some new meat on the speakers for eight hours in the car. This time around I wanted to return to the palette of folky, country, charming, groovy tunes I had built playlists like I Dreamt Of Reeds Again, which I made for another roadtrip (that one in Arizona).
I’d like to think of this playlist as grounding, wistful, comfortably nostalgic, optimistic and attempting to dig out of a slouch of grief. Lots of heavy hitters like Carole King, Arthur Russell, Nico, Emmylou Harris, Neil Young, Weyes Blood, and more. “There Was A Moon” was my favorite discovery while making the playlist, since it’s been too long since we’ve heard Molly Sarlé’s voice on a track. Really beautiful. Hope you enjoy, especially as we get deeper into fall.
Scattered sd cards, fragmented memories. Artifacted ephemeral portraits of a lost self. The lens zooms upon the visage. Soft, voyeuristic yearning beamed in from the future.
It’s been a while since I’ve made a new playlist, and what better time to whip one up than the fertile creativity breeding ground that is the fall? Some would think that making summer playlists is the more attractive avenue, but there’s something so juicy, so wonderfully conceptual about making a fall-time playlist. I’ve made a few so far! “Camcorder Diary” is another entry into that series.
You can find my other fall-themed playlists below, in order of their creation:
– Mauve Malaise – shoegaze, slowcore, dream pop. Made for right before sunset.
– Ochre Overture – redux of Mauve Malaise, but less despondent, more wistful, daytime.
– Winter Jacket Love Letter – for your carpeted seat ’95 sedan, blasting down the highway.
– Ennui Potpourri – the vertigo of a young romance clashing with suburban decay.
I’m not sure if there was one specific song that inspired its creation, but I had been noticing a trend of recent dream pop that reached back to y2k-era electronica, otherwise employing a drum machine beat with swirling shoegaze-adjacent guitar and bass, with a little light trip hop thrown in for good measure.
My “vision” for this playlist is found footage of friends hanging out together on roadtrips or outside at dusk; miniature slices of life frozen and preserved on these sd cards, albeit with some digital distortion and audio errors. Gazing back at a place in time where the proliferation of media and ephemera ballooned thanks to the advent of digital cameras and camcorders. The songs placed together here are supposed to paint that picture. I hope you enjoy and lose yourself in the HD memories.
I’m still listening to new music! In fact, Recommended Albums of July 2024 is an unexpectedly packed grip of tunes. At first I was having a little trouble filling it out, but after listening to a few records that were either recommended widely or from friends, slowly this list eclipsed the prerequisite 10 records and moved to 13. Not too shabby! Summer is usually a super dead period, in my experience anyways. August is somewhat shaping up to be that way as well, but you never know. Sometimes you just have to keep digging and you’ll find something extraordinary.
What you’ll find below are some stellar new albums for this year, my favorites overwhelmingly being from Brijean and Cassandra Jenkins, two all-stars on this blog to begin with (and 2021 favorites, to boot!). Nice to have a few self-released projects on the list as well, along with stars from big to small. I’ve got it all this month – take a gander and stay a while.
Is this the latest post in Warm Visions history? Who cares – I’ve got it out. June 2024 was a solid month, with some of these records making it into my Favorite Music of 2024 So Far list: Mabe Fratti, Charli XCX, Skee Mask, Marina Allen and Angélica Garcia. Good little crop there!
Apologies for getting this out so late – I’m still listening to new music. I just need to post it.
We’re already halfway through 2024. Think of this post as a checkpoint. A place where you can refill all your potions, your mana, sharpen your weapons, or catch up on any of the sidequests you hadn’t finished. This is a place of respite amongst the unending deluge of physical and spiritual shit that rains down on us constantly. This safe haven is a list of 25 records, arranged by my preference, along with 40 unranked songs and a larger playlist beyond that. The music of 2024 has been great so far, so I really hope you’ll either find something new you like, or you’ll find comfort in knowing that another person you kinda know from the internet agrees with your niche opinion. Go forth, traveler.
Also if you’re unfamiliar with my blog, basically I forgo the structure of professional music criticism in favor of tapping into pure vibes. I put forth a “vision”, if you will, that the music conjures up in my brain. Look, this stuff is good, it’s on my list, OK? Open your mind and let it roam.
Hey all – check this out: a Recommended Albums post that actually arrived on time! The bad news is is that WordPress has decided to mess with me once again (as they do every few years) and decide the old way I embedded links is cringe and illegal. So I’ve had to take this legitimately great selection of Recommended Albums and mess with it a bit, messing up spacing, etc.
This is a really solid list of records. Furthermore, it’s 16 albums long. When was the last time I had 16 records in here? May 2024 really brought its A-game, with big hitters from reliable favorites, a few new faces, and some really invigorating new projects from artists that I didn’t expect. So please ignore the spacing and any wonkiness that you might find and just enjoy the music. I’m sure you’ll appreciate that.
Beth Gibbons – Lives Outgrown [Domino] Storms approach a lonely cliffside house where its reclusive resident grapples with dread and possible freedom from the potential impending changes.
Camera Obscura – Look to the East, Look to the West [Merge] A day spent out at the seaside with friends you haven’t seen in years, any awkwardness of catching up is abandoned in favor of relishing in each other’s company.
Dehd – Poetry [Fat Possum] Sun-baked and exhausted after spending a whole day outdoors, but feeling a pure love-fueled second wind once the sun has almost set past the horizon.
Iglooghost – Tidal Memory Exo [LUCKYME] Grinding across a rail made of pieces of old, decrepit A/V equipment in the underbelly of a crumbling future metropolis, its shantytown-like dwellings shadowed by empty towers and covered with soot from the skies above.
Jessica Pratt – Here In The Pitch [Mexican Summer] At the thought of a passed loved one, an open window facing a quiet, tree-lined street brings in a gentle, evening breeze that billows out an inherited lace curtain and diffuses your incense further across the room.
Keeley Forsyth – The Hollow [130701 / FatCat] A smoldering house is found in an arctic expanse. The family that lived inside finally achieved warmth.
Lightning Bug – No Paradise [Self-Released] A field of flowers that emit a thick fog from their petals suddenly sprout in the middle of a town green, plunging the townsfolk into an ambiguous but beautiful new environment.
Lip Critic – Hex Dealer [Partisan] Openly acknowledging and taunting the secret capitalism sensor drone that’s been tasked to you (like every person) to make sure we support the consumer empire efficiently. Your wanton defiance even causes the surveillance to glitch and its AI to consider self-termination.
Mary Lattimore & Walt McClements – Rain on the Road [Thrill Jockey] Checking a book out of the library and finding nearly everyone who had read it before you had pressed a flower inside it, its stories augmented by dried petals and blank fragrances.
Mdou Moctar – Funeral for Justice [Matador] Riding on horseback and launching an array of fireworks that cast dynamic lights and colors across a vast plain.
musclecars – Sugar Honey Iced Tea! [BBE Music] The Saturday of your dreams, the energy of the city and the people outside flowing through you.
Priori – This but More [NAFF] Gray skies like iridescent silver glint over an expanse of frozen taiga, steaming vents that poke up from the ground suggest the subterranean lives of the post-cataclysmic humans remaining on Earth.
Shannon & The Clams – The Moon Is In The Wrong Place [Easy Eye Sound] Sending a paper lantern into the sky with a message of love and updating the heavens above on all the bullshit that’s going on down here.
Tidiane Thiam – Africa Yontii [Sahel Sounds] Waking up with the birds at sunrise and feeling the Earth’s natural, renewed energy fill you up.
Winged Wheel – Big Hotel [12XU] Tales of aliens that crash landed in a small, middle-of-nowhere midwestern town, who experience harrowing, psychedelic hallucinations thanks to Earth’s thick, polluted air while they rebuild their craft with rusting junk, but are greatly unnoticed by the townsfolk, their eyes having glazed over years ago.
youbet – Way To Be [Hardly Art] On hour 13 of a 15-hour roadtrip across the United States. You have not slept, but have instead conducted an experiment where you talk to your friends on the phone the whole time. Your burnt psyche reveals a buried tenderness, and is contagious.
GR8 TRACKS OF MAY 2024::
Amen Dunes – “Boys”
Amen Dunes – “Purple Land”
Anastasia Coope – “Darning Woman”
Anastasia Coope – “What Doesn’t Work What Does”
Arooj Aftab – “Raat Ki Rani”
Beth Gibbons – “For Sale”
Beth Gibbons – “Lost Changes”
Beth Gibbons – “Oceans”
Beth Gibbons – “Reaching Out”
Camera Obscura – “Denon”
Camera Obscura – “Liberty Print”
Camera Obscura – “Pop Goes Pop”
Camera Obscura – “We’re Going to Make It In A Man’s World”
Crumb – “Crushxd”
Crumb – “Side by Side”
Dehd – “Dog Days”
Dehd – “Necklace”
Dehd – “Mood Ring”
DIIV – “Soul-net”
Drew McDowall – “A Dream of Cartographic Membrane Dissolves”
Fcukers – “Bon Bon”
Group Listening – “Hills End”
Habibi – “On The Road”
Halima – “Ways”
Ibibio Sound Machine – “Got To Be Who U Are”
Iglooghost – “flux•Cocoon”
Iglooghost – “Pulse Angel”
Jessica Pratt – “Better Hate”
Jessica Pratt – “By Hook or by Crook”
Jessica Pratt – “Empires Never Know”
Jessica Pratt – “The Last Year”
Jessica Pratt – “Life Is”
Jessica Pratt – “World on a String”
Jon McKiel – “Everlee”
Jon McKiel – “Under Burden”
Jordan Rakei – “Flowers”
Jordan Rakei – “Freedom”
Keeley Forsyth – “Come and See”
Keeley Forsyth – “The Hollow”
Keeley Forsyth – “Turning (feat. Colin Stetson)”
Lightning Bug – “December Song”
Lightning Bug – “The Quickening”
Lip Critic – “The Heart”
Lip Critic – “Milky Max”
Lip Critic – “Spirit Bomber”
Lip Critic – “Toxin Dodger”
Machinedrum – “ZOOM (feat. Tinashe)”
Mary Lattimore & Walt McClements – “Nest of Earrings”
Mary Lattimore & Walt McClements – “The Poppies, The Wild Mustard, The Blue-Eyed Grass”
Mary Lattimore & Walt McClements – “The Top of Thomas Street”
A desire for slowness and a widening of scope. Sinking back into the earth, deep breaths.
I made this playlist back in 2022 before my partner and I headed to Arizona for a vacation and the wedding of her childhood best friend. I had been to the southwest before, but this was her first time. I knew we’d be driving a lot and seeing a ton of amazing natural landscapes, so I wanted to make something that featured a lot of her favorite music, but also carried an easygoing vibe of peace that would match the serene nature that we’d be quickly surrounded by.
Sure enough, listening back to any of the songs on this playlist makes me think of that magical trip to the desert in June 2022. This post has been sitting in my drafts since then, thought I’d make it official at last. I think it’s a fantastic playlist, featuring artists like Emmylou Harris, Cassandra Jenkins, Marisa Anderson, The Roches and more. Put it on on a roadtrip, or on the subway, or on a bike ride. Especially now that the weather is getting better. I also wanted to post something a bit more seasonably appropriate than my last playlist I put up here. THIS is the early summer soundtrack you’re looking for.
Sitting on a plowed snow pile in the middle of a dead mall’s parking lot, the sounds of rushing cars bleed over from the highway across the litter-choked, barren tree-lined median. You think you know all there is to know about love, and you and your partner know the universe buckles under the weight of your mutual infatuation. Your car is parked but still running. The grey clouds hang heavy, bloated. Something bigger has to be in store for the both of you someday, right?
Just in time for the summer, I’ve come to share with you a… dead-of-winter playlist. Ennui Potpourri is a playlist that was borne out of a few extras from my last playlist, Winter Jacket Love Letter, that didn’t make the cut. However, this is not a collection of b-sides. This is a different vibe compared to the last collection, although they definitely exist in the same universe (you could say that Ennui Potpourri could be a sequel, or a prequel, to Winter Jacket Love Letter – which you can listen to HERE).
In the scenario for this playlist, I envisioned a pair of lovers (most likely early college, or at least “young-in-brain”), and their budding romance feels larger than life. The setting is a crumbling, post-consumerist world, specifically in the parking lot of an abandoned mall. It’s inspired by news of personal childhood malls shuttering, giant, empty parking lots that are taken up by large plowed snow piles that collect litter and take way too long to melt. It’s about a crush that feels astronomical, every sigh a seismic shift in not only your own body chemistry, but undoubtedly the universe. Will you ever escape this town you were born into? Will months of bleak skies and muted sunsets ever end? How will the world ever comprehend the time and space-bending qualities of our attraction and understanding? Brains hardwired to contemplate love and love only.
Pulling from a pool of classic dream pop tracks by artists like Trailer Trash Tracys, You’ll Never Get To Heaven, Strawberry Switchblade and Insides, along with a little hazy, jangly material by Black Tambourine and others, makes for a selection I feel like works well if you’re feeling very tender and emotional about a syrupy infatuation. Going a bit deeper into the setting, it also works if you’re feeling disillusioned about the current state of capitalism (and nostalgic for the versions of capitalism of your youth, aka going to malls with friends), the death of malls and in-person interactions, the loss of tactile examination of material goods before you buy them and potentially the environmental impacts we’re being faced with right now because of this overwhelming, planet-killing reliance on online shopping. The death of small towns. The fact that most towns and cities are purely covered by gargantuan parking lots, and what that means for the environment. A shitty cyberpunk future of asphalt. But really it’s about love. If that all sounds up your alley (as of posting, May 2024), then go right ahead and press play.
Howdy folks – gonna keep it brief since I’m currently hitting submit on this on a plane. April was a bonkers month for new records, as well as in my personal life. And guess what, May hasn’t been any different. Take a listen to some of these records here and let me know what you think.
Apologies for the delay once again – there was A LOT of great music out in March! I even broke through the 10-album goal and listed 12. From surprise AOTY contenders, to newcomers, to reliable favorites, March 2024 had it all, plus a ton of great tunes that come off albums I don’t feature below, but list in the GR8 SONGS segment! Don’t miss it!
A stream of consciousness music blog, active since 2010. Established in Ann Arbor, MI, currently in NYC.
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January 9: Dry Cleaning – Secret Love SAULT – Chapter 1 Winged Wheel – Desert So Green
January 16: A$AP Rocky – Don’t Be Dumb Jana Horn – Jana Horn Julianna Barwick & Mary Lattimore – Tragic Magic SASSY 009 – Dreamer+
February 6: Beverly Glenn-Copeland – Laughter in Summer Daphni – Butterfly Fabiano do Nascimento – Aquáticos Joshua Chuquimia-Crampton – Anata Mandy, Indiana – URGH Puma Blue – Croak Dream Ratboys – Singin’ To An Empty Chair
February 13: Charli XCX – Wuthering Heights Colin Stetson – Nethering Danny L Harle – Cerulean KMRU – Kin The Olympians – In Search of A Revival
February 20: Altin Gün – Garip Apparat – A Hum of Maybe
February 27: Buck Meek – The Mirror Fabiano do Nascimento – Vila GENA – The Pleasure Is Yours Gorillaz – The Mountain Gus Englehorn – The Broken Balladeer Heavenly – Highway to Heavenly LB aka LABAT – Feel So Good Around U Maria BC – Marathon Mitski – Nothings About to Happen to Me Nothing – a short history of decay Shane Parish – Autechre Guitar
March 6: Hater – Mosquito Natalie Jane Hill – Hopeful Woman Scout Gillett – Tough Touch Shabaka – Of The Earth waterbaby – Memory Be a Blade
March 13: Alexis Taylor – Paris In The Spring Colleen – Libres antes del final Crack Cloud – Peace and Purpose Cut Worms – Transmitter Kim Gordon – PLAY ME The Notwist – News From Planet Zombie Ora Cogan – Hard Hearted Woman
March 27: Fcukers – Ö Holy Fuck – Event Beat José González – Against the Dying of the Light Robyn – Sexistential
April 3: Arlo Parks – Ambiguous Desire Makthaverskan – Glass and Bones Sunn O))) – sunn O)))
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