1) Bartees Strange, “Farm to Table” / The Washington D.C.-based artist first breached my radar with a remarkable set of covers toasting The National, a band we hold in common regard. Since then, I’ve been impressed with Strange’s ability to weave together anxious indie-rock, colorful pop and delightful feints toward experimental music. His latest shows off that same sense of integrity, a complete creative statement that entices and enlightens.
2) Kitimoto, “Vintage Smell” / An abundance of guitars—some ragged, some refined—plus crater-deep grooves and subtly artful flourishes. There’s just so much to like from this Arizona band’s (featuring my friend, the musical raconteur Jason Woodbury) new album. This is everything you want from rock and roll, that in-the-bones feeling, with so many other sweet touches.
3) Barry Lopez, “Embrace Fearlessly the Burning World” / Every writer should aim to take their reader along on a journey; the late Barry Lopez did so better than most, literally squiring his audience away to remote parts of the globe, plumbing their particularities while forever standing on common ground. This posthumous collection of essays is global and deeply personal, and never fails to leave the reader with soulful observations. One more triumph from a master.
4) Margaret Renkl, “Graceland, at Last” / This compilation of New York Times columns is a wonderful portrait of an American South waking, stretching, growing each day even as its history threatens to stunt such growth. Here, Renkl always keeps the stakes in view, while offering important signs of life and change.
5) Andrew Bryant, “Summer Rain” / Speaking of the South, Bryant has long been one of my favorite musical storytellers from the region. Half the core of the remarkable band Water Liars and a thoughtful solo artist, Bryant is now branching into Magnolia Radio, a storytelling project in written and broadcasted media. In this gorgeous little dispatch, he digs into the elemental to talk of belonging and disconnect, a hard day’s work and even harder rest. I especially love this passage, augmenting his description of working at 21:
The only reprieve that came was the rain. A summer storm would come up out of nowhere, and me and the other fellas I worked with would drop our work for a moment and walk out into it, letting the rain soak us. We had these massive fans inside the shop, and we would stand in front of them with our wet shirts and it was glorious. We just might make it another day, we thought. We just might.
But if you know anything about the deep south of North America, and the landmass they call Mississippi in general, it might not always turn out so well when a storm comes. We’re prone to getting wrecked by some pretty dangerous ones.