No Expectations 148: Blowin’ Up
Five stellar albums from Tara Clerkin Trio, Slippers, BASIC and more. Plus, a big book to read throughout the World Cup.
No Expectations hits inboxes on Thursdays at 9am cst. Reader mailbag email: Noexpectationsnewsletter@gmail.com. Daily Chicagoan, the local news newsletter I produce at my day job with WTTW News (PBS Chicago), can be found here.
Headline song: Kiwi jr., “Blowin’ Up”
Thanks for being here. I’m floored by the response to “The 40 Best Albums of 2026 (So Far)” midyear roundup. It’s awesome to hear from readers, new and old, about their favorite discoveries and the LPs that resonated with them. Music rules, man. I’m so grateful to those who shared it and those who decided to sign up. These lists are how No Expectations grows, so thanks again to every new subscriber and to everyone generous enough to choose the paid tier.
While the reaction was pretty much unanimously positive, some folks on social media were skeptical of the list because they hadn’t heard of any of the artists featured. That’s understandable, but highlighting under-the-radar, independent artists that should be covered elsewhere is why this newsletter exists in the first place. This is literally the whole point! I tend to view “Best of Lists” more as an opportunity for discovery than as a way to have my own taste validated. If I published a roundup and you already knew every record mentioned, that’s not very fun.
This year will be my fourteenth covering music. I’ve spent most of that time at outlets like VICE, the A.V. Club, and RedEye Chicago championing artists who are making what I find to be vital, excellent records. And I’ve gotten pretty good at finding acts doing that who are operating on the fringes and nurturing their local music communities. The key is to keep an open ear, stay curious, and allow yourself to be surprised and disarmed by new music. By uncoupling your listening habits from the streaming service algorithm and the hype cycle, you can make so many amazing discoveries.
Another reason I like making lists is that it gives me a break. I wasn’t going to recommend 80 albums one week and return the next with several more, so I spent the time going to a wedding of dear friends in Milwaukee (God’s country for real) and hanging out with other buds in Chicago. With no deadline, I also decided to listen to as much as possible without feeling like I needed to write about it or come up with a novel angle. Of course, I ended up finding more LPs than I can get to this week, but I’m confident 2026 will bring so much more excellent music than any one newsletter can cover.
Also, there’s a really good playlist this week that flows quite well. Before I write any of these newsletters, I make sure the 15-song mix is a seamless listen front-to-back. (It’s why I tense up when people tell me they put it on shuffle.) This go around, I kept wanting to revisit it: the thing passed the “car test,” the “neighborhood walk test,” and the “procrastinating making the newsletter deadline test.” A good sign!
Here’s the spiel for new subscribers: Each week, you get a wildcard main essay (often new album recommendations), a 15-song playlist, as well as updates on what I’m listening to, watching, and reading. Sometimes you’ll get an interview with an artist I love, and other times it’ll be a deep dive into one band’s discography. Since I’m a Chicago-based writer, this newsletter is very Midwest-focused. So, if you live in this city too, you’ll also receive a curated roundup of upcoming local shows to check out at the bottom of every post.
Here’s where I politely ask for money: This newsletter is something I write in my spare time after work. It does not have a paywall and won’t for the foreseeable future due to the generosity of my readers. I am not in the business of gatekeeping. If you have the means and like what you read, I’d encourage you to sign up for a paid subscription. If your budget is tight, telling a friend about a band you found out about here is just as good. You can also post about No Expectations and say nice things. That works too. It’s still $5 a month—the cost of one Old Style plus tip at Rainbo Club. Every bit helps, keeps this project going, and allows it to stay paywall-free. It’s rough out there, so it means the world you’re reading and supporting this writing project.
Five Albums Worth Your Time This Week
BASIC, BASIC
BASIC, the instrumental supergroup between guitarist Chris Forsyth, Tortoise bassist Douglas McCombs, and percussionist Mikel Patrick Avery, is an outlet for three seasoned, improvisational musicians to stretch out jams and find revelation in repetition. In September 2025, the three decamped to Electrical Audio in Chicago to flesh out their sophomore album BASIC. Forsyth mentions in the press materials that they “invented 60% of this record on the spot at Electrical,” and that lived-in chemistry exudes throughout the seven sprawling and taut tracks here. “Brutalist With Filligree” could be twice its length thanks to its sticky and spellbinding rhythm, while swirling electronics and pastoral guitars make “Index of Memories” dreamlike. BASIC closes with arguably its most audacious statement: “Union Pool Melody,” a live-recorded improv jam, elongates past the nine-minute mark, but it’s enthralling even as it patiently builds into uncharted territory.
RIYL: Winged Wheel, Bitchin’ Bajas, Sonic Youth
Casual Technicians, Well Once There Was A King
Nathan Baumgartner, Boone Howard, and Tyler Keene all met playing shows in various projects throughout the 2010s in Portland. While Keene moved to New Jersey and Baumgartner decamped to the Oregon coast, the three still collaborate as Casual Technicians. Every year, they meet in person to record an album together, bringing their own songs and hanging out in the same space. Their sophomore effort reflects this well-worn camaraderie. Well Once There Was A King is lowkey but eclectic and exploratory folk-rock. It crams 24 off-kilter tracks into less than an hour, mining Beach Boys harmonies, Stephin Merritt’s stripped-back adventurousness, and a gleeful approach to genre experimentation. While that sounds like a lot to take in on paper (oh, it’s also a concept record), the record has a relaxed and inviting feel thanks to the charming and inventive songwriting of this trio. “Heathen Ways” is old-timey country, “The Golden Rule” is zipping indie rock, while “I’ve Lost Control of the Ending” is mournful pop. Sure, sometimes the densely packed tracklist can feel sketch-like, but there are so many transcendent moments of outsider pop throughout that make the journey wholly rewarding.
RIYL: Loving, Monde UFO, Magnetic Fields
Slippers, Slippers 08
Madeline Babuka Black, the Atlanta-raised and Los Angeles-based animator and songwriter, first came up with the idea to start Slippers when she was a full-time nanny. She was surrounded by kids and remembered when she was at that age, she had discovered indie rock by watching The Powerpuff Girls. So why not write simple songs that were so infectious that even a child could love them? Though there is a bubblegum sweetness and an undeniable catchiness to these jangly pop songs, Babuka Black is such a gifted writer that it never seems cloying or overly silly. Slippers 08, Slippers’ latest record, is as playful as it is excellent. It’s a relentlessly-paced and efficient dose of power pop. Lead single “Wants For Everyone” has a Strokes-like propulsion, but is kept grounded by Babuka Black's cascading, technicolor melodies. There’s ebullient Beatles worship on the standout “Castaways” and yearning on “Sunday Morning,” when she sings, “I’ll take up another mindless hobby / Like aromatherapy or booze / It’s not you / I get down by the weight of things.” While many artists mine similar wells of timeless rock’n’roll, few make it seem as effortless as Babuka Black.
RIYL: Sharp Pins, The Apples in Stereo, my girlfriend calling this band “Better Coast”
Tara Clerkin Trio, Somewhere Good
Tara Clerkin Trio hail from Bristol, U.K., the home of trip-hop and downtempo pioneers Massive Attack and Portishead. While you hear shades of that lineage on their masterful new album Somewhere Good, especially on the soulful and sublime single “Lazy Daisy,” these eight wonky and stunning songs eschew classification. They draw from rock as much as jazz and classical, peppering pops of squishy synths, wailing horns, and skittering drums into the arrangements. Texturally rich and melodically beguiling, the tracklist bubbles and breathes, seamlessly morphing from instrumental to more traditional pop structures. (Though the balance leans more toward the esoteric, mesmerizing, and confounding). On the slow-burning, steady groove of the evocative title track, Clerkin sings, “You're leaping fields / I'm falling leaves / You're busy streets / I'm moving feet.” The song is only one of three on the LP with lyrics, but Somewhere Good is so verdant, surprising, and hypnotic that you’ll barely notice.
RIYL: Carla dal Forno, Smerz, Still House Plants
Widowspeak, Roses
Since 2011, New York duo Widowspeak has thrived on hazy and gorgeous indie pop that constantly elicits comparisons to Mazzy Star thanks to the melancholic, crystalline croon of frontwoman Molly Hamilton. Throughout their seven LPs, they’ve bounced around from jangle pop to mellow psych, and haunting post-punk, all while keeping a firm anchor in lush atmospherics and shimmering pop. Roses, their latest and best album yet, is far less concerned with transportive mood-setting (there’s a reason their own press materials refer to the duo as a “Lynchian Roadhouse band”) than airtight and soaring pop writing. Each of these 10 songs is imbued with brightness and woozy Americana instrumental flourishes. Though the duo explored country influences on their 2015 full-length All Yours, here the twangy genre signifiers are crisper and more centered in the mix. Lead single “If You Change” boasts such a pristine hook that it wouldn’t feel out of place on 2000s adult contemporary radio. Still, it’s so intentional and tasteful that it never feels sugary. On opener “The Hook,” there’s Tom Petty-evoking openness thanks to Robert Earl Thomas’ warm and sturdy riffs, while there’s a surf rock pep to “Soft Cover.” This is a band that’s excelled at guazy, wistful indie pop and is only getting better.
RIYL: Mikaela Davis, Tom Petty, Jess Williamson
What I listened to:
The No Expectations 148 Playlist: Apple Music // Spotify // Tidal
Kiwi jr., “Blowin’ Up”
Mallory Hawk, “Caretaker”
Slow Pulp, “Better Man”
L’Rain, “soulless cycle”
Lily Seabird, “Election Day”
Swapmeet, “2 C U”
Sofia Wolfson, “Obviously”
Julia Jacklin, “Get Away From Me (I Think I’ll Love You Soon)”
Squirrel Flower, “Reelin”
Widowspeak, “The Hook”
BASIC, “Brutalist With Filigree”
Tara Clerkin Trio, “Lazy Daisy”
Pool Holograph - Melody Cage
Slippers, “Castaways”
Casual Technicians, “Higher Power”
What I watched:
Carlos (directed by Olivier Assayas)
I’m nowhere near being a completist on Olivier Assayas’ films. What I’ve seen so far has been smart, sometimes satirical, and personal dramas about making art and working in cinema (Irma Vep, Clouds of Sils Maria, etc). My first exposure to his political thrillers (like Wasp Network, The Wizard of the Kremlin, and Demonlover) came with watching his three-part TV miniseries Carlos, which tracks decades of the real-life ‘70s terrorist, Ilich Ramírez Sánchez. Better known as “Carlos the Jackal,” Ramírez Sánchez was a Venezuelan national who in 1975 held an entire OPEC delegation hostage as part of the Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). Played by an electric Édgar Ramírez, Carlos is womanizing, reckless, violent, and narcissistic, and Assayas’ direction is seeping with tension and harrowing depictions of brutality. It’s an immersive look at the turbulent state of ‘70s geopolitics and armed conflict, complete with era-appropriate costuming and set design. Despite its near six-hour runtime, this was a thrilling series that never lagged.
What I read:
The Age of Football: The Global Game in the Twenty-first Century (by David Goldblatt)
I kicked off 2026 by devouring David Goldblatt’s absurdly detailed, ambitious, and comprehensive 1000+ page The Ball Is Round: A Global History of Soccer. Even though I was on a break from writing this newsletter in January, it still took me almost a month to finish. With the World Cup fast approaching, I wanted to tackle his 2019 follow-up, The Age of Football: The Global Game in the Twenty-first Century, before the tournament began. With this one coming in around 600 pages, I managed to breeze through it by comparison. (Kidding: it still took me a couple of weeks). I truly believe that if you watch this sport closely enough, you’ll learn a lot about history, politics, immigration, and power just through osmosis. (The circumstances and execution surrounding this World Cup are a particularly good primer in present-day global affairs.) In fact, this is the thesis of Goldblatt’s book: that class war, inequality, corruption, hope, and beauty all play out simultaneously in the sport. His continent-by-continent approach was staggering, and the trajectory of the beautiful game since 2000 has directly mirrored the world’s. While not as hopeful as his first sweeping history, you’ll still come away informed and with a greater appreciation for soccer’s ubiquity through history and struggle.
The Weekly Chicago Show Calendar:
The gig calendar lives on the WTTW News website. You can also subscribe to the newsletter I produce there called Daily Chicagoan to get it in your inbox a day early.
Love Slippers, was unaware of that backstory... Got another book rec for ya, Joy Williams' Breaking and Entering, 80s novel about a young couple breaking into Florida vacation homes. Fucked up beach read, laugh out loud funny, hypnotic, strange. Also one of the all time book covers imo.
Great playlist!