1) Sleigh Bells, “Texis” / For whatever reason, this Brooklyn duo has never quite done it for me—at least I’ve never found their huge wall of sound as captivating as others do. But, for whatever reason (part 2), “Texis” has reached me like no other Sleigh Bells record to date. The back half of the album especially delivers, bringing just enough space and detail to leaven the density and allow the songs to crackle and shimmer.
2) Big Thief, “Certainty” / Few bands have been as consistent over the past half-decade; every Big Thief single or album brushes up against the deeper places of the soul. The band’s latest track is a wonderful sonic mix of rock, folk and psychedelia. And it speaks to something I’m feeling at the moment, something about the relationship between certainty and condition-less love:
“My certainty is wild, weaving
For you, I am a child, believing
You lay beside me sleeping on a plain
In the future”
3) Manic Street Preachers, “The Ultra Vivid Lament” / I have a significant soft spot for the once and current glories of Brit-rock bands that emerged in the ‘80s and ‘90s. This Welsh band keeps the music coming, delivering wonderfully stormy choruses and thoughtful, textured arrangements that are both of their heyday and have something to offer this moment.
4) Adrian Matejka, “Somebody Else Sold the World” / A modern master, Matejka’s poetry fulfills the hopes and hurts of soul music, even when it isn’t explicitly oriented toward groove, rhythm and reference the way it is here. One of the truly great texts of 2021, “Somebody Else …” lends the reader quiet revelations, imagery to borrow and absorb when the world is too much to bear, in all the best and worst ways. So many lines here will work on me into the future—how can you not be moved by moments like this:
“… That week glittered like a Christmas / card while we poked around for / the best place to stand a snowman. / A pinecone-nosed one.” (“Gymnopédies No. 1”)
“I had a trumpet shaped / like a downward heart / & I played it recklessly. / All of its dented iterations / of brass & bell. Three- / valve marginality.” (“Hearing Damage”)
“I once got so high, I couldn’t / remember if I loved me as much / as I loved you. My mezzanined / thin dream. My slipstreamed / wish list.” (“It’s All I Have / Daydreaming”)
“The next: you’re slow- / dancing inside another / country’s consonants / as its mountains stand / back in an unpronounceable / stack. Somewhere between, / the record begins its wet / yesterdays again.” (“It’s Just a Guess”)
And on and on …
5) Gabrielle Bates, “The Bridge” for Interim / So much to love about this one, but I won’t soon forget this line—which says everything I want to say about writing, about the miracle of words:
“If I describe something, anything, long enough, / language will lead me back to wanting it.”