Sorry-I missed last week as I was traveling. Here are some thoughts on new releases that stood out to me more than others so far, then a list of other things I liked, and a list of things that were not my thing-but are out in the world and may be your thing. I don’t edit this at all-just me rambling. This is the list from Friday October 6th. Here is a playlist that I am updating every week-so give it a like/follow. Playlist is here

I am a big Martin Zellar fan. Have been since his days in the Gear Daddies and through his solo career. He hasn’t put out an album in quite some time, doing the whole raising a family thing. His new album Head West features his son Wilson doing the engineering, mixing and guitars. Not going to lie, I was a little concerned as when someone doesn’t do something for a while and then comes back with a family affair it can go bad. Thankfully that is not the case here. Zellar is in fine voice and sounds like he always has a little twang and the ability to really emote in his songs in such a genuine way. He son does a great job with guitars and behind the board.  It’s a great collection of songs that should make long time fans very happy-it does me. Zellar will be at Reverb Lounge on November 3rd. 

Jason Hawk Harris-Thin Line-I don’t know much about Jason Hawk Harris, but I did really get into his 2019 album Love & The Dark for a minute. I think I went back and listened to it last year and it didn’t quite hit me as hard-I went kind of gaga on it for a bit back in 2019. I just scanned through it just now and I like it enough. What I liked about him is that he had this raw country sound that I was looking forward to evolving. So here is part of that evolution, and it is a big one. Reading about this album I come to find he is a classically trained musician and he is relying heavily on this. Gone are the gritty honky tonk songs-and instead we have a light, airy album with lots of instrumentation beyond the country world, but with plenty of classic twang and pedal steel and what not. The songs are solid,and the structures much more complex, the production is well beyond what was happening on the last album and this just feels like an entirely different artist Certainly not where I thought he would be heading, but it sure is a more interesting turn than I had predicted. 

Mary Lattimore – Goodbye, Hotel Arkada-I first came across Mary Lattimore in 2019 when she did a collaborative album with Mac McCaughan of Superchunk. Lattimore had work out previous to that, including her most acclaimed work 2018’s Hundreds Of Days. Lattimore is a harpist whose music is very ambient in nature. It is pretty, but also twisted and moody and not your church front lawn harp music. I have always been into ambient and experimental music all of my adult life, but just a little bit and I owed most of that to my love of electronic music in the early to mid-90’s. In recent years I have really gotten into deep ambient, new age and some experimental music. Lattimore’s 2020 album Silver Ladders was one of the first in this new exploration for me that I really connected with. This is the follow up. Silver Ladders was all her, and here there are some collaborations including with Meg Baird, Walt McClements, Roy Montgomery and Lol Tolhurst (formerly of The Cure). I would love to tell you that I can find a lot of differences between this and Silver Ladders and be able to explain what they are, I can just tell you that I am enjoying this, just as much. It’s relaxing, interesting and really puts me in a space that I enjoy. 

Lufthaus – Visions Volume-this is the electronic project of former boy band member and proper mega-pop star Robbie Williams and some of his mates. It’s his love of Berlin electronica and features his vocals,  A vocal sample floats around “Sway”, where as dreamy vocals are more prominent on the nexf track “Sunlight” and then fellow pop-star Sophie-Ellis Bextor joins on the following track. My favorite track is “Alcohol ” which has a a repeated vocal sample and chill but fun groove that reminds me of my club days. Overall this is a surprisingly enjoyable album that comes off more of a passion project than vanity project. 

Butcher Brown – Solar Music-Butcher Brown is a funk and jazz group out of Virginia that has been putting out very enjoyable albums for about ten years. This one is about an hour long and 20 songs-and incorporates hip-hop, Stevie Wonder type soul, pure funk, space jazz and more. It’s a great listen. Charlie Hunter, Pink Siiffu, Jay Prince and more guest. 

Jolie Holland – Haunted Mountain-I was reading a review of this new album on a website and the reviewer is either very very old, or very young and has no idea who he is writing about. He called her a young singer-songwriter and she is my age. Don’t get me wrong, if you pull up pictures she certainly looks like a young singer-songwriter. Age is creeping into her voice though, and it’s wonderful. Her early albums 20 years ago like Escondidawere a bit more jazzy and sultry, where as now it’s kind of Lucinda William folk music and has some weirdness to it. She writes songs with Buck Meek form Big Thief on here-in fact the new Buck Meek album is also called Haunted Mountain and and they both share the title track. This is a really good album, and I am going to dig around her last few albums to see if I have missed anything as I haven’t been keeping track of her since…well about 2004. This is worth a listen. 

Claire Rosinkranz – Just Because-19 year old pop artist debut album. She has been putting out singles for awhile now, and they usually have the word “boy” in them. This is very much not geared toward 50 year old men, and there are articles about why an artist like Olvia Rodrigo appeals to older persons, and this is not that. It is a very enjoyable pop album though, it’s not as fleshed out at that recent Chapple Roan album or mature (nor should it be), but the songs are very hooky and not obnoxious and it’s a pleasant listen. There are some elements of the band Tennis in places, and some dreamy vibes in places-and also some basic beats that. Unfortunately the song “Wes Anderson” did not play out like I thought it would. Not great, but a pretty good pop listen. 

Ilsey – From the Valley-new artist that has a classic rock fixation. Sounds like Stevie Nicks and covers Neil Young (with the indie folk Dave Grohl-the one and only Bon Iver). She modernizes her classic rock fixation into pop music though and it’s quite good. Gonna check this out a bit more. 

The following I enjoyed also

Lily & Madeline – Nite Swim

Meernaa – So Far So Good

Sam Gendel and Marcella Cytrynowicz – AUDIOBOOK

Born Days – My Little Dark

A. Savage – Several Songs About Fire

Bewilder – From the Eyrie

Sufjan Stevens – Javelin

Adeline Hotel – Hot Fruit

BCMC (Bill McKaye and Cooper Crain) – Foreign Smokes

bodies – all the songs i know about fire

Mutabaruka – Black Attack

Tele Novella – Poet’s Tooth

Corey Gulkin – Half Moon

Aho Ssan – Rhizomes

Earl Sweatshirt and The Alchemist – Voir Dire

ElCamino – They Spit on Jesus

Elijah Johnston – Hometown Vampire

Espanola – Espanola, Again

Ethan P. Flynn – Abandon All Hope

ĠENN – unum

Glasser – crux

Hank May – Tails

Hania Rani – Ghosts

Hannah Diamond – Perfect Picture

Hello June – Artifacts

The Seshen – Nowhere

Timbre  Timbre 

Unschooling – New World Artifact

The following are new albums that were not my thing, but may be yours. 

Dorian Electra – Fanfare

Citizen – Calling the Dogs

Axis: Sova – Blinded By Oblivion

Babyfxce E – The X Tape

BoyWithUke – Lucid Dreams

Carnifex – Necromanteum

Darius Rucker – Carolyn’s Boy

Del Paxton – Auto Locator

Dogstar (feat. Keanu Reeves) – Somewhere Between the Power Lines and Palm Trees

Drake – For All the Dogs

Prong – State of Emergency

Breeze – Sour Grapes

Dopelord – Songs for Satan

DUSK – Wheels of Twilight

Games We Play – Life’s Going Great

Hunny – Hunny’s New Planet Heaven

John R. Miller – Heat Comes Down

Daniel Villarreal featuring Jeff Parker and Anna Butterss – Lados B

Kadabra – Umbra

The Keening – Little Bird

Colbie Caillat – Along the Way

La Chinga – Primal Forces

 The Lowlies – The Lowlies

Michael Abdow – Séance In Black

Miki Ratsula – i’ll be fine if i want to

Mitch Rowland – Come June

Mndsgn

Old Dominion – Memory Lane

Omar Apollo

 NYTT LAND – Torem

Open City – Hands in the Honey Jar

Peter Broderick & Ensemble 0 – Give It to the Sky: Arthur Russell’s Tower of Meaning Expanded

Powfu – Gathered by the Lantern

Restless Spirit – Afterimage

 The Steel Woods – On Your Time

The Rural Alberta Advantage – The Rise & The Fall

Shuta Hasunuma – unpeople

 Svalbard – The Weight of the Mask

 Slauson Malone 1 – EXCELSIOR

 Steve Cole – Without a Doubt

Tre Burt lo[