1) Margo Price, “Strays” / On her fourth record, Price—a country-music force of nature—lets her sound stretch its wings. This somehow is Price at her most country; most Laurel Canyon; most psychedelic; most in the vein of Neil Young. And yet she never sacrifices a bit of her badassery in the name of invention.
2) The songs of Boygenius / Prefiguring their upcoming full-length (“the record”), Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus let us eavesdrop on three tracks, all of which contain the band’s remarkable collective emotional intelligence while navigating multiple musical moods.
3) Juni Habel, “Carvings” / I am smitten with the new record from Norwegian songwriter Juni Habel: it’s romantic, hushed, atmospheric, plainspoken all at once. These songs grab hold of you in quiet but compelling ways and you never want them to let go.
4) Aaron Burch, “Year of the Buffalo” / Audiences who appreciate the sort of storytelling projected on screen in films like Alexander Payne’s “Nebraska” or Richard Linklater’s quieter work will dig the feel of Aaron Burch’s debut novel. Though spare in its plot as two brothers—one a mid-level celebrity, the other licking significant wounds—embark on a some-business, some-pleasure road trip from Washington State to Detroit, the story more than carries its own weight and momentum. What Burch does best, and here he does it exceptionally, is display genuine affection for his characters and reveal the necessary (sometimes painfully so) maneuvers they make to maintain relationships that require some balance of evolution and stasis.
5) Chen Chen, “Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced An Emergency” / Chen Chen’s latest collection quickly won me with its poetic pop-culture references—“Your emergency contact has called / to quit. Your back-up plan has backed / away. Your boyfriend has joined a boy band / named All Your Former Boyfriends / & Sarah McLachlan”—he writes in one poem, then progressively became both more intimate and extensive in pieces about education and mis-education (both of the head and soul), fraught family relationships, queerness, place and more.
A nimble, versatile poet, Chen can write of trying “to contain the wide blue Texas sky” in the language currently available to us, then later make a pitch-perfect “My Neighbor Totoro” reference. This book is also a marvel of sequencing, leading the reader to the revelations they’re ready for right on time.