1) Father John Misty, “Screamland” / The promise of a new Misty record already feels fulfilled with this early single, a swelling, churning, burden-shedding epic that features several of the year’s best lyrics. Among them:
This year's wine tasted suspicious but just enough like love
God must be with the outcasts 'cause when I call, you come
2) The music of Trampled by Turtles / I was already on a TBT jag when the band released its unique take on a split EP. The Duluth boys unspool five songs on “Always Here,” then frontman Dave Simonett recasts the same songs with his Dead Man Winter project on “Always Now.” Simonett and Co. continue to make some of the most rooted and sad-eyed Americana around.
3) Honeyglaze, “Real Deal” / This rising London band is up to something special, mingling the skittering rhythms of art rock a la Radiohead, Anouska Sokolow’s peerless and compelling vocal presence, and the dramatic dips and dives of dream-pop to create a sound you can’t and don’t want to shake.
4) Percival Everett, “Sonnets for a Missing Key” / This poetry collection from one of our foremost novelists just dazzles. Per the book’s title, Everett unfolds these short poems in concert with music and mode, then expands his observations to the size of true and abundant life.
5) Jessica Anthony, “The Most” / Anthony’s new novel does something simple and subversive with its plot: a midcentury housewife spends an entire day in the pool, to the increasing protest of her husband, reflecting on what led her to this moment. But there is nothing simple about what Anthony is doing on these pages; the author handles domestic ideals and sexual liberation in refreshing ways, creating a three-dimensional husband and wife, both of whom call out for our sympathy and rebuke.
A late-pages reverie, where one character considers giving a two-word answer to a pivotal question, is one of the most remarkable passages I’ve read this year.