1) The music of PJ Harvey / Polly Jean Harvey’s catalog feels especially close at the moment, these dynamic rock songs comforting me by the very same manner in which they unsettle.
2) Hermanos Gutiérrez, “Sonido Cosmico” / The new record from Swiss duo Alejandro and Estevan Gutiérrez is a soulful and textured affair, in which instruments convey compelling emotional and narrative detail without ever uttering a word.
3) The music of New Mexican Stargazers / Rarely has a band name felt quite as much like an arrow pointed right at my moods and aesthetic. And the music of New Mexican Stargazers matches—the project leans into an astral, instrumental sort of pop that conjures strange constellations and solar flares, and seems to draw the cosmos a few degrees closer.
4) Joy Sullivan, “Instructions for Traveling West” / All hail the new queen of great opening lines. Sullivan’s poems feel authentic and lived-in, with early statements that draw you right up into all of that life.
Consider the middle she drops us into right after the title of her title poem: “First, you most realize you’re homesick for all the lives / you’re not living.”
Or this gorgeous slice of nature: “It was rainy season and everything in the grove was electric green.”
And perhaps my favorite, “There are no mountains in Ohio so, on Sundays, I take my heart / out for a drive.” You both know everything of the poem you need to in these lines, and want to know more.
5) Paul Luikart, “The Realm of the Dog” / Luikart’s new story collection is a genuine marvel. I’m not sure I’ve ever read along as someone packed as much despair and dread, character and hope against all hope into such compact stories. Pound-for-pound, this is some of the best fiction you can spend time with this year.