1) The Drums, “Jonny” / These 16 tracks from Jonny Pierce and Co. ring like the transmission of a true soul friend. Bombastic in the way of pop music, intimate in an almost peerless way, The Drums sweeps you up into a world that is richer the further you explore.
2) Sampha, “Lahai” / Magic somehow seems too small a word for the dominant strain of this latest record from British artist Sampha. These songs swirl around the listener, ambient and immediate like the weather, both romantic and Romantic in their visions of R&B, hip-hop and jazz.
3) Sun June, “Bad Dream Jaguar” / Lush, hypnotic melodies wind through airtight indie-rock arrangements on the new one from this Austin, Texas outfit, creating something immediately accessible yet almost unfathomable. Laura Colwell’s vocals cast a spell; the rest of Sun June frame and coax and tease those sounds into a feeling that’s no less Colwell’s for now belonging to all of us.
4) Radar Peak, self-titled / Members of projects such as PUP and Modern Superstitions—and childhood friends—touch rings to make this really satisfying record. Radar Peak threads together Beach Boys-esque pop, emo and the jangliest indie rock while achieving a sublime bittersweetness, the feeling of a memory passing just as the memory’s made.
5) Michael Lauchlan, “Fact” for The Shore / From “a dark bar’s dark corner / listening to music or not,” the speaker in this Michael Lauchlan poem feels his inadequacy and every ounce of spent potential collide in a staggering supernova. The bend in these late lines creates an entire world of sentiment:
My body has become a fact
in the world, a scarred tabletop,
a mop head leaning in the john,
a fragment of an unspoken phrase.