No Expectations 132: Penny in the Lake
Five new LPs worth hearing from Marta Del Grandi, Sunday Mourners, Hazel City, and more. Plus, as always, a 15-song playlist of my favorite recent tracks.
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Headline song: Ratboys, “Penny in the Lake”
Thanks for being here. Minutes after publishing last Thursday’s newsletter, where I complained about finding only three albums I loved enough to write about, each LP I heard that day felt like a future classic. New ones I’d missed became great discoveries, full-lengths I checked out weeks ago finally clicked, and some of the records I’m most excited about were finally released. I’ve highlighted a few of them below, but I’m saving the rest for next time and beyond. It’s already shaping up to be another great year for independent music.
Lately, I’ve been limiting myself to, at max, five new LPs a week for No Expectations. I plan to keep it that way. Last year, I’d blurb eight to 12 releases some Thursdays, and it was admittedly a bit unsustainable. If you’re like me, you probably subscribe to a ton of newsletters, and you don’t always have time to devote to a close reading of each one. Life gets in the way. If I’m hitting you with a dozen albums weekly more often than not, it gets overwhelming. It’s 1). Silly to expect that most readers are listening to everything 2). Literally no one was asking to hear that many new full-lengths a week, 3). The lesser-known bands I frequently cover might get buried in the mix if there’s too much also recommended, and 4). It keeps me from stressing myself out getting the blog posted. Since I instituted this super minor change, I think the writing’s sharper now, the suggested LPs feel more thoughtfully curated, and I’m having more fun than ever compiling it all.
I’m about to have a pretty crammed weekend: a dinner tonight, a show on Friday, and a friend’s party on Saturdfay. Sundays are usually when I set aside time to listen and plan what I’ll write later in the week. With this one, I’m fully booked to watch sports. There’s Liverpool and Manchester City in the morning, the winter Olympics and a few other European soccer matches in the afternoon, and then the Super Bowl, which hopefully results in a Seahawks win. The only music I’m expecting to hear that day is likely either in a commercial or the Bad Bunny halftime show, which, to be fair, is also an ad for Apple. This is why I’m saving some recommended albums for later. Even if the Patriots win and I somehow drink a million beers during the big game in despair, there will still be some stellar LPs featured next Thursday.
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.
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5 Albums Worth Your Time This Week
Dry Cleaning, Secret Love
South London post-punk outfit Dry Cleaning released 2026’s first universally acclaimed LP with their third effort, Secret Love. I should’ve written about it when it came out. I instantly loved the lead single and opener “Hit My All Day,” but the other pre-release tracks didn’t grab me until I heard them all in the context of the whole. While it took me a while to fully wrap my head around the immersive and masterful art rock that the band achieves on this record, it’s been the one I’ve revisited most to start the year. Recorded in spurts between Jeff Tweedy’s The Loft in Chicago, as well as studios in Dublin and the Loire Valley with producer Cate Le Bon, this is an LP that excels at brooding world-building, wry humor, and genuinely surprising instrumental flourishes. Bandleader Florence Shaw oscillates between a laconic spoken word delivery and stunning singing. On the funny and sarcastic “My Soul / Half Pint,” she takes on the gender disparity in domestic labor as she intones, “I feel resentment in my soul / Maybe it’s time for men to clean for like, five hundred years.” Elsewhere, the righteous and haunting “Blood” tackles witnessing horrors on the phone, drone warfare, and desensitization. When it truly shines is when the band indulges their poppiest sensibilities, like on the twangy and buoyant “The Cute Things.” This is a record that becomes more rewarding as you allow yourself to get on its wavelength.
RIYL: Cate Le Bon, Life Without Buildings, Porridge Radio
Hazel City, goblynmarkytt
Clay Frankel, the Chicago-based songwriter best known for his bands Twin Peaks and Grapetooth, has been exploring intimate and openhearted folk music since 2023 under the moniker Hazel City. It’s been a gorgeous and strikingly low-key direction for Frankel, combining his proclivity for memorable melodies with his capacity for gutpunch emotional resonance. With the just-released goblynmarkytt, Frankel follows up his gorgeous debut, Old Friend, with a much more lush and collaborative full-length. The first voice you hear on opener “Bat” isn’t Frankel’s, it’s Free Range’s Sofia Jensen. Throughout the LP, other guest singers like Squirrel Flower’s Ella Williams, Angeleyes’ Emily Neale, and Lileana Moore appear throughout the tracklist, harmonizing with Frankel or taking lead vocal duties entirely. The writing, especially on songs like “Fifteen,” is some of the rawest of Frankel’s oeuvre, and the dreamlike “Cotton” might be his most beautiful song yet. While it rarely rises above a whisper, it leaves a lasting impression.
RIYL: Chicago, Midwestern vulnerability, Andy Shauf
Marta Del Grandi, Dream Life
Dream Life, the latest LP from the rising Italian auteur Marta Del Grandi, is as playful as it is inventive. It’s 10 tracks of off-kilter and unfussy indie pop that, while deceptively simple on first listen, reveals new joyful sonic wrinkles the more you dig into it. Her voice is bright and welcoming as she sings of climate anxiety on the rollicking funk of “Antarctica,” but delicate and wistful on the title track. “Gold Mine” broadcasts her deftness at left-field arrangements while the folksy “Alpha Centauri” culminates in cathartic harmonies. Woodwinds, horns, and squiggly synths pockmark the compositions, imbuing life-affirming color to the entire LP. You can hear shades of Kate Bush, the ambitious vocal harmonies of Finom, and the avant-garde experimentalism of Laurie Anderson here. It’s an absolute delight, front-to-back.
RIYL: Núria Graham, Dirty Projectors, Talking Heads
Sunday Mourners, A-Rhythm Absolute
Curation Records is the California label behind some stellar LPs by Pacific Range, Silver Synthentic, and Sean Thompson’s Weird Ears. Where much of their roster can be described as “excellent, jam-minded rock that’s indebted to the Grateful Dead,” Los Angeles quartet Sunday Mourners take more cues from C86, Flying Nun Records, and Pavement. It’s a tried-and-true formula that’s given a dose of needed energy and verve on the band’s latest LP, A-Rhythm Absolute. 10 tracks of blistering jangle and frantic yet breezy post-punk, the band also adds in some Meet Me in the Bathroom swagger into these herky-jerky anthems. It’s recorded with such a piercing intensity that it’s obvious this is a locked-in live band. Tracks like “Biograph” are searing and wonky, while “Darling,” despite stretching out for over 12 minutes, is compelling and explosive throughout. Despite the onslaught of klanging riffs and frenetic arrangements, frontman Quinn A. Robinson has a Sharp Pins-level knack for an infectious hook (“Love Observations”) but a scathing wit to boot. On opener “Careers in Acting,” he snarls over buzzsaw guitars, “Don’t make it big on the internet / It won’t help you / Gonna take up careers in acting / It won’t help you.” The whole thing rules.
RIYL: Kiwi Jr., Gang of Four, Television
Tyler Ballgame, For The First Time, Again
For The First Time, Again is such a relentlessly charming debut record that it forced me to confront some of my own ill-considered knee-jerk reactions. Like books by their cover, I know you shouldn’t judge a musical act by its artist name, but I still do. (In his defense, he was born Tyler Perry, which probably explains why he’s going by a nom de plume.) I also tend to get suspicious when I see artists, who’ve yet to release their first album, mentioned everywhere: either in the press, on festival bookings, on social media, or on streaming apps. (To be fair, I probably just noticed it because his name is Tyler Ballgame.) A Rhode Island native who dropped out of Berklee, he found initial success thanks to his powerful, rangy, and sometimes operatic voice at Los Angeles open mics. Now, armed with an immaculate falsetto, a commanding charisma with a flair for vocal theatrics, and tasteful arrangements that translate a warm ‘70s-indebted palette, his first album is a joy. Where he’s garnered comparisons to Roy Orbison, Elvis Presley, and at least two Beatles, his dynamism as a frontman and singer carries the material from never falling into pastiche. Sure, it’s purposefully retro and mines a familiar well of American musical traditions, but songs like the breezy “Matter of Taste” are incredibly galvanizing. Elsewhere, “Got a New Car” floats like a dream while “I Know” highlights his versatility in nailing downtempo balladry. Produced by Jonathan Rado, a master of guiding artists into making classic sounds uniquely their own, this is a full-length that will disarm you.
RIYL: Classic crooning, really belting it out, music you can send to your parents
What I listened to:
The No Expectations 132 Playlist: Apple Music // Spotify // Tidal
1. Ratboys, “Penny in the Lake”
2. Pileup, “Going Away”
3. Sunday Mourners, “Biograph”
4. Dry Cleaning, “My Soul / Half Pint”
5. Marta Del Grandi, “Antarctica”
6. Dialup Ghost, “Soot Sprite”
7. Wendy Eisenberg, “Meaning Business”
8. Star Moles, “Overdog”
9. Accessory, “Calcium”
10. Hiding Places, “Waiting”
11. Virga, “The Ditch”
12. Hazel City, “Cotton”
13. Tyler Ballgame, “Got a New Car”
14. Friko, “Seven Degrees”
15. Gregory Uhlmann, “Lucia”
Gig recap: Friendship, Natalie Jane Hill, Krill 2 at Empty Bottle (1/29)
Caveman Wakes Up, the fifth studio LP from the conversational and perceptive Philly folk rock band Friendship, was one of my favorite 2025 albums. Another personal highlight of that year came from my Taste Profile interview with frontman Dan Wriggins. I had to miss their Chicago stop at Schubas last fall due to illness, but nothing was going to stop me from missing their headlining show at my neighborhood venue. I try to go into attending gigs without expecting or hoping bands will play particular tunes, but I have to admit I was thrilled when they launched into “Betty Ford” so quickly into their set. Alongside solo opening acts like Natalie Jane Hill (whose forthcoming LP Hopeful Woman will be a 2026 highlight) and Chicago’s Krill 2, it was another perfect night at the Empty Bottle.
What I watched:
It Was Just an Accident (directed by Jafar Panahi)
After several arrests and internments due to his opposition to the repressive theocracy of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Iranian director Jafar Panahi films his movies in secret in his home country. He refuses to submit his scripts to government censors, keeps his cast, who are mostly nonprofessional actors, in the dark on plots for their protection, but still manages to be one of the most acclaimed working auteurs alive. His latest film, It Was Just an Accident, which won the Cannes Palme d’Or in 2025 and is nominated for two Oscars, is a miracle. While it’s the kind of movie that’s worth going in with as little knowledge of the premise as possible, it clearly takes inspiration from Panahi’s years in captivity and his resilience out of it. At times, the film is uproariously funny, unbearably tense, and deeply sad, but it’s consistently humane and irrepressibly essential throughout—an undeniable top-five release from last year.
What I read:
The Anatomy of Fascism (by Robert O. Paxton)
While not a particularly fun or light read, Robert O. Paxton’s lean 2004 book The Anatomy of Fascism is one of the most-well regarded and authoritative introductory texts on the subject. Published while the now-retired 94-year-old Columbia professor was 72, it’s a still illuminating and lucid look at what fascism is, how it became prominent in Europe during the early 20th century, how it looked in action in Nazi Germany, Mussolini’s Italy, and elsewhere, how it failed, and how it could manifest in the future. What was striking about Paxton’s approach was his focus on fascism in action and in power over political promises and clear-cut ideology, as well as the way he elucidated how fascism manifested itself in drastically different ways depending on the country and context in which it took root. Both an efficient history and a carefully considered book-length argument, it’s essential reading for those trying to learn about the past and those looking to be precise in applying such a historically and culturally loaded term to the present day. It’s been on my list for at least a decade, and I’m embarrassed to admit it took me so long to get around to it. Maybe I thought it’d be too dense, emotionally daunting, or academic. Whatever it was, I was wrong. Despite my years-long hesitation, I’m glad I made the leap.
The Weekly Chicago Show Calendar:
The gig calendar lives on the WTTW News website now. You can also subscribe to the newsletter I produce there called Daily Chicagoan to get it in your inbox a day early.
Glad you reviewed the Tyler Ballgame album as I’d dismissed it (sadly, probably simply because of the artist name). I’m about halfway through and really enjoying it. A couple of January albums you might dig:
• Valentine by Courtney Marie Andrews
• Death in the Business of Whaling by Searows
Here’s my January New Music Sampler of you’re interested: https://joyinthejourney.substack.com/p/new-music-sampler-january-2026
Really solid curation here. The Hazel City project is intresting because Frankel's shift from Twin Peaks energy to that whisper-level intimacy creates this weird tension where the melodies still pop but everything feels contained. I found myselfgoing back to 'Cotton' like three times yesterday, something about that collaboration with guest vocalists adds layers without overwhelming the songwriting itself.