Fresh Tracks

**HIGHLIGHTS****Best lyrical voyage with the Godfather of Punk: Iggy Pop: Free**Best record to bring a musical pioneer posthumously into modernity: Miles Davis: Rubberband**Best preaching to the choir on the gospel of love: Common: Let Love**Best musical salve for the aftermath of love: Boy Scouts: Free CompanyBAND / ALBUM / LABEL...

**HIGHLIGHTS****Best musician to quit their day job: Shannon Lay: August**Best marriage of psych soul and dream pop: Bridal Party: Too Much**Best bedtime story for adults narrated by a British punk rock icon: The Flaming Lips: Kings Mouth**Best reminder of the thriving music scene in Denton, TX: Señor Fin: Hardly Alone**Best...

**HIGHLIGHTS****Best ambassador of a vibrant London jazz scene: Nerija: Blume**Best new voice from an old soul on Dot Dash Records: Gena Rose Bruce: Can’t Make You Love Me**Best way to enjoy the gospel without going to church: Robert Randolph & The Family Band:Brighter DaysBAND / ALBUM / LABEL / GENRECej/Adobe...

**HIGHLIGHTS****Best result of a musician walking into a recording studio for the first time: Jeremie Albino:Hard Time**Best archive of a man you may have never heard of who you can’t even find on Spotify: Peter Laughner:Box Set**Best haunting prairie noir/ Canadian desert rock: Abigail Lapell:GetawayBAND / ALBUM / LABEL /...

**HIGHLIGHTS****Best musical dear diary from a powerful poetess: Angie McMahon: Salt**Best power pop product polished with at least 3000 grit: Mauno: Really Well**Best effortlessly inventive and musically reverent neo-soul: Pieces of a Man: Made in Pieces**Best combo of ‘an indie DIY aesthetic with a questing hippie spirit and a relentless...

**HIGHLIGHTS****Best reason to still have hope for a San Francisco counter-culture: Rocks In Your Head Presents: Volume 1 Hot Sick Vile And Fun - New Sounds From San Francisco**Best example of both the 10,000 hour rule and the live-and-let-live-especially with your moody bandmates rule: Violent Femmes: Hotel Last Resort**Best band...

**HIGHLIGHTS****Best new addition to D.C.’s postpunk scene: Gauche: A People’s History of Gauche**Most attention-grabbing Congolese cultural aesthetic statement since Mobutu’s leopard skin hat: KOKOKO!: Fongola**Best use of silence as a canvas and sound as color: Ada Lea: what we say in privateBAND / ALBUM / LABEL / GENREAda Lea/what we...

**HIGHLIGHTS****Best attempt at a ‘raucous collision of Leon Russell and Patti Smith’ with many other clear rock god and goddess influences: Kyle Craft: Showboat Honey**An album as dark, primal, and beautiful as its subject, motherhood: Jesca Hoop: Stonechild**Best soundtrack to the midnight drive to the beach bonfire: Honey Radar: Ruby...

**HIGHLIGHTS****Best album cover pun Mattiel: Satis Factory**Best sonic postcard from the land of Os Mutantes: Sessa: Grandeza**Best soundtrack to leaving LA in your rearview on the Pacific Coast Highway: Sadgirl: Water**Best music/message one two punch: Girl Friday: Fashion Conman**Best soundtrack to summer full-length album debut: Crumb: Jinx**Best reason to love...

June 14, 2019**HIGHLIGHTS****Best all-star storytelling of immigrant injustice : Making Movies: ameri’kana**Best funkadelic side project worthy of the mainstage : Naytronix: Air**Best amalgam of Joni Mitchell, Nick Drake, and Leonard Cohen: Bedouine: Bird Songs of Killjoys**Best fuzz guitar and liberated vocals worthy of a deep listen : Stef Chura: Midnight**Best...

**HIGHLIGHTS****Most promising debut I’ve been listening to on repeat: Skinny Pelembe: Dreaming Is Dead Now**Most delicate meditation on human empathy: Kishi Bashi: Omoiyari**Best siren’s siren, in Maddison “Muddy” Binkley’s amazing vocal chops: The Shakin’ Shivers: The Shakin’ Shivers**Best musical pilgrimage to the raw, sun-baked, wind-swept landscape of the Sonora: Cy...

**HIGHLIGHTS****Best soundtrack for a montage in French New Wave (by a Uruguayan): Juan Wauters: Introducing Juan Pablo**Best get-you-out-in-the-streets soul: Mavis Staples: We Get By**Best acoustic soul: Rising Appalachia: Leylines**Best case of the infectious polyrhthms: Sacred Paws: Run Around the Sun**Best lush and original nod to Joni in California: Red Steppes:...