1) Jenny Lewis, “Joy’All” / Jenny Lewis just gets it—whatever the “it” is in any given situation. Heartbreak. Lust. Bemusement. Self-deprecation. Surprising joy. Lewis manages to convey it all on her newest record, reframing universal sensations in the language of revelation. (And the melodies here are catchy as hell too.)
2) Jess Williamson, “Time Ain’t Accidental” / “I read you Raymond Carver by the pool bar like a lady / Known you for a while, but you'd been somеone else's baby,” the L.A.-by-way-of-Texas artist croons on the opening title track of her latest, a litany of reasons why something barely worked until it didn’t. That spirit and well-honed sense of lyricism defines Williamson’s work, steeped as it is in classic country and folk—but with just enough electronic touches to subtly surprise. “Time Ain’t Accidental” is a portrait of an artist who knows who she is, and it’s a delight to bear witness.
3) Feeble Little Horse, “Girl with Fish” / The sound of a live, loose cord and guitar fuzz open the latest from this Pittsburgh, PA band. Feeble Little Horse chases that noise into a gliding groove and the vocals of Lydia Slocum, which live in the overtones created by a collision of irony and sincerity. That tenuous unity, between taking their songs serious and letting it all hang out, drives an indie-rock record that feels gleeful and gritty.
4) TC Boyle, “Blue Skies” / If there was a heaven, it would have pines in it, pines like these that made sense of the ground and propped up the sky without the slightest effort.
In his latest novel, Boyle manages both to wring out a truly original satire of influencer culture while also penning a quietly harrowing study of man’s attempt to restore a flickering connection with nature, especially insects, snakes, butterflies. As more novelists work the enveloping effects of climate change and un-sustainability into their prose as ambient but crescendoing noise, we need writers like Boyle who tango with both the absurdity and heartache in our living.
5) Shelbi Church, “i have met death, and she is a gardener” for Barren Magazine / This Shelbi Church poem floors me anew with every reading: the language is devastating yet somehow blanket-soft. And its concern—of how we are bound to one another, of the damages we visit with carelessness and stasis—is forever relevant yet necessarily reframed by the particularities of one poet.
this year, i swear, will be the year i learn
how to prick my finger and put the needle
back. how to tell the storm thank you
as if it knows to stop lighting just short
of gratitude.