1) Wilco, “Hot Sun Cool Shroud” / Though only six songs in number, I still need a few more listens to properly wrap my mind around the new EP from one of my favorite bands. I can tell you this: “Hot Sun Cool Shroud” knows killer moments.
The undulating guitars of “Hot Sun” and Jeff Tweedy’s syllable stress on the words “hey hey.” His slip-slide vocals on “Ice Cream.” Guitars like bells on “Annihilation.” So much worth returning to.
2) Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats, “South of Here” / Rateliff and Co. offer one of the year’s great opening tracks; “David and Goliath” might be the singer’s greatest vocal turn to date, so intuitive and unguarded. From there, the band reaches into the depths of soul music to reach out to its listeners.
3) Previous Industries, “Service Merchandise” / Joining tour-de-forces to create one of the year’s great hip-hop records, Open Mike Eagle, Video Dave and Still Rift sound a smart, unbroken ode to ‘90s culture, the strange beauty of decaying malls and the can’t-put-them-back-in-the-bottle feelings of youth.
4) Beth Gordon, “The Crone Unfound” for Moist Poetry Journal / I can’t stop thinking about the following line from this Beth Gordon poem; it’s lodged in my head like some ancient song: “We learned that no one could protect us from God.” The poem in full is a remarkable work of fear and nostalgia, desire and fathomless depths.
5) Daniel Miller, “Fwd This Email to 10 Friends of Else!!!!!!!” for Had / My fellow Columbia, Missourian Daniel Miller is forever bending the seeming ordinary into its proper, absurdist shape—and in ways that somehow make us all feel a little more human. The last line of this one stole my breath for half a second at least, as Miller sits alongside anyone who’s ever stared down a chain email or DM and wondered how much it actually weighs.