1) Jimbo Mathus and Andrew Bird, “These 13” / Former mates in the idiosyncratic, ever-delightful Squirrel Nut Zippers, Mathus and Bird reunite to create roots-music magic. Though they’ve traveled in diverging directions, each artist digs through the weirder soil of Americana and folk; here, they pool that sweet strangeness to create songs that sound hundreds of years old yet express present-tense ways of thinking.
2) Charlie Peacock, “Trout Creek Ranch” and “Paisley Crusader” / Peacock has done as much as any musician to reshape my sense of the possible. In the ‘90s especially, he helped me see new pathways for spiritually-informed art, teaching me that belief and imagination needn’t be enemies. Over the past year-plus, Peacock has released a slew of jazz records, each expressing a different facet of his boundless curiosity.
“Trout Creek Ranch,” my favorite of the bunch, features gorgeous solo piano recordings; Peacock expresses his inner Brubeck here, in touch with melody and sensitivity. “Paisley Crusader” gets funkier and further afield—it’s sure to have something in store for fans of artists ranging from Herbie Hancock to Robert Glasper’s bands.
3) Mexican Institute of Sound, “Distrito Federal” / MIS mastermind Camilo Lara is one of the globe’s truly great sound architects. The newest MIS record is further proof of his particular genius; Lara lives in a world where tried and tested folkloric forms have much to tell the more modern language of hip-hop and electronica—and vice versa.
4) Charles Yu, “Interior Chinatown” / Both a formal marvel and deeply considered take on subtle, pervasive anti-Asian sentiment in the United States, Yu’s novel should be upheld as a text in which structure and narrative are inseparable. Every choice is deliberate, every scene soulful. “Interior Chinatown” is ostensibly the tale of a Hollywood extra who wants to be a Kung Fu star. But it’s so much more, and by the time you realize what Yu is up to, you’re hooked—both captivated and culpable in the world he’s built.
5) Hannah Grieco, “Tunneling” for No Contact / I’m no expert in the craft of flash fiction and nonfiction. But as someone who has written everything from longform pieces to blurbs and crisp capsules, I know writing short and (bitter)sweet is among the hardest tasks for a writer.
Hannah Grieco makes it feel natural, logical even, telling us great stories in short order. “Tunneling” is a feat of narrative design, leaping off the screen in its format and fashion. But, of course, the words matter most; Grieco crafts a domestic scene with tentacles, then creates a moment (even if we might understand it’s only a moment) of sweet release and resolve. As with Yu, this is a brilliant formal work but its emotional impact lingers longer than its form would suggest.