1) Idles, “Crawler” / This upstart British band inches through muck and mire to find the cathartic heart of rock and roll. “Crawler” is rarely an easy listen, but it’s such a satisfying one as Idles celebrates the open spaces between storms of noise—and celebrates the storms themselves.
2) Kitner, “Shake the Spins” / This Boston band is an indie-rock lover’s dream, marrying the strum and soul of Elliott Smith with a punk ethos and sweeping, more romantic guitar gestures a la the most melodic sides of emo. “Shake the Spins” is a terrific listen that feels comfortable yet fresh and surprising as it goes.
3) Various artists, “Look at My Soul: The Latin Shade of Texas Soul” / I fell in love with Adrian Quesada’s work in bands such as The Echocentrics, before he became one-half of the dynamic neo-soul outfit Black Pumas. Here, Quesada mans a near-flawless record that highlights what its liner notes describe as “a sound that is rooted in both Black and Brown music — two cultures borrowing and exchanging ideas from one another, mixing them, and then laying them down on tape to create something special and original.” These songs are significant—and so damn smooth.
4) Collin Huber, “My Ten Favorite Reads of 2021” for Fathom Magazine / Listen, I will talk books with anyone and everyone. But some people’s thoughts on literature just hit my soul a little different. My friend and sometimes editor Collin Huber is one of my favorite readers, and his list of titles from 2021 highlights books I loved, books I’ve been waiting to love and books I didn’t know I needed to love.
Collin writes: “Reading is never a private act. You commune with the author, their creation, and a rich history of the written word that has brought people together for ages. And if you love something, you share it.”
5) Allison Renner, “Douglas Fir Give Me Heartburn: Exploring the Magic of Christmas Eve on Sesame Street” for The Daily Drunk / As someone who has watched the 1978 “Sesame Street” Christmas special with his kid at least 10 times this season (and probably loves and needs it more than said kid), Renner’s commentary is up my proverbial alley. I especially appreciated Renner’s treatment of belief within the show: “This theme of believing mirrors what we experience in the real world: a lack of answers.”