No Expectations 138: Pieces
New LPs from Dialup Ghost, Resavoir, and Spencer Hoffman. Plus, a Finnish action movie and a 15-song playlist.
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Headline song: Robber Robber, “Pieces”
Thanks for being here. This week felt like it flew by. I was so busy that whenever I’d check the clock, I’d be amazed that it was already so late in the day. Much of my time was spent highlighting my coworkers’ stellar reporting covering Tuesday’s Illinois primaries for the WTTW News Daily Chicagoan newsletter, and the rest found me dreading a potential jury duty summons on Wednesday. Fortunately, I was only on standby; my name wasn’t called, and I didn’t have to head downtown at 9 a.m. to perform a civic duty. I’m also not sure that “I have to finish writing an email newsletter about indie rock by tomorrow morning” would’ve flown as an excuse in court.
Even though my schedule’s been hectic, I still managed to find more great new albums than I had time to write about. While there are a handful of others I plan to highlight next Thursday, these four LPs were especially welcome escapes whenever I had a free moment. If you’re also having a too-packed week, I’d recommend taking a breather with any of them.
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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4 Albums Worth Your Time This Week
Dialup Ghost, Donkey Howdy
Nashville indie rock band Dialup Ghost’s May You Live Forever in Cowboy Heaven was my favorite 2024 album that I discovered in 2025. I wrote then that it sounded like, “Built to Spill meets Elephant 6 meets Florry.” Donkey Howdy, the band’s latest album, is looser and less frantic than its predecessors. Still, it’s more fully formed. It’s an LP that actively rebels against its hometown music scene’s cosplay cowboys (“Music City Mockingbird”), and how the city prices out musicians from living there comfortably (“Bigger Household”). The pedal steels and fiddles that populated the band’s earlier oeuvre are gone in favor of fuzzed-out riffs and synths. Here, the band sounds relaxed while writing the best songs of their career. “Yer The Only One on My Mind” features verses set on Valentine’s Day 2020: “We canvassed for Bernie on the south side of town / It was apparent we weren’t wanted around.” It’s personality-filled, off-kilter indie rock that’s as galvanizing as it is relatable. Released in full exclusively on Bandcamp (four singles are streaming), this is a rock band at the peak of their powers doing things their own way.
RIYL: Living in Nashville and hating it, songs that are funny but not jokey, working class anthems in 2026
Resavoir, Themes For Dreams
Will Miller has been a good Friend of the Newsletter for over a decade. The Chicago-based trumpeter, producer, and composer was a touring member of Whitney for a while and started Resavoir, which, in a live setting, morphs between a solo outlet, rotating band, and full-blown orchestra. Themes For Dreams is Miller’s first self-released LP and first project with an ultra-specific goal in mind: making music to set in motion a perfect night’s sleep. The 13 tracks here are more interesting than sleepy, but they’re calming and collaborative doses of enveloping ambient jazz. He enlists guests like Marta Sofia Honer and Jeremiah Chiu, as well as Macie Stewart, Molly Rife, and Matt Gold. It’s my favorite project he’s done yet, something that I’ve been revisiting nearly constantly since he first sent it over in late 2025. There are warm tones of a Hohner pianet, immersive sounds of Miller’s EVI (an electronic valve instrument that feels tailor-made for his melodic sensibility), and, of course, his soaring trumpet leads. Sure, this is me being a homer for my bud, but I’ve been a fan for longer than I’ve been a friend. I’m really proud of him. There are some truly mesmerizing songs here.
RIYL: A good night’s sleep, calming jazz, springtime in Chicago
Spencer Hoffman, Cherry Picker
Spencer Hoffman is a Los Angeles via Sacramento songwriter who released a debut LP in 2024 called Apple Core and now follows it up with one called Cherry Picker. While it’s unclear if he’s doing a Sufjan-style “50 States Project” for fruit, it is obvious that these buoyant, bittersweet folk-rock tracks are winners. The lush opening title track is a patiently building stunner. Hoffman’s voice slowly glides over acoustic guitars and subtle pianos before the arrangement eventually explodes into orchestral catharsis. The harmonies as he sings, “Light will blind / Relieve you of your mind,” are genuinely goosebump-inducing. The rest of the LP manages to live up to its thunderously beautiful start, with the breezy “Dandelions” and the mournful, eight-minute “Lotus Eater.” Hoffman’s voice is bright and conversational, and his ear for a timeless melody is truly impressive. It’s a record that somehow captures the bliss of starting a relationship and the gutpunch of its end.
RIYL: Damien Jurado, Labi Siffre, Sylvie
vega, beacon, how blue
In 2024, Burlington, Vermont’s Molly Meehan released an excellent LP of gentle indie rock songs as vega called trust me, i’m trying. (She’s also in the newsletter recommended group Sheepskin). Her new record, beacon, how blue, wields a softer touch. The nine gorgeous, openhearted tracks here are melancholic but unfold with a palpable lightness and grace. Standouts like “cow country” are marked by woozy twang, while the delicate but commanding “one more swim” is dreamy and waltz-like. Meehan’s voice is expressive and inviting, and as a bandleader, she has a knack for arrangements that are ornate but never fussy. Take “guardian angel,” which boasts subtle clarinet and finds Meehan singing, “Try to be grateful for what comes / Even if it’s not what you wanted.” On her Bandcamp page, Meehan’s artist description reads “music for sofites.” While that’s certainly true here, few albums this year are as quietly compelling.
RIYL: Hannah Frances, Andy Shauf, Sadurn
What I listened to:
The No Expectations 138 Playlist: Apple Music // Spotify* // Tidal
Horse Lords, “Brain of the Firm”
Robber Robber, “Pieces”
Lily Seabird, “Demon in Me”
Brown Horse, “Wreck”
Kevin Morby, “Die Young”
vega, “cow country”
Dialup Ghost, “Bigger Household”
Spencer Hoffman, “Dandelions”
Andrew Sa, “Lavender Cowboy” (feat. HC McEntire)
Arima Ederra, “Took The Long Way Home”
Mei Semones, “Tooth Fairy” (feat. John Roseboro)
Wendy Eisenberg, “Vanity Paradox”
Sam Blasucci, “EVENING STORM”
My New Band Believe, “Love Story”
Resavoir, “Memories of Dreams”
* = vega’s “cow country” is not on Spotify
What I watched:
Sisu (directed by Jalmari Helander)
With Sisu, an action-packed 2022 movie about an ex-Finnish soldier turned gold miner who gets his treasure stolen by Nazis in 1944 Northern Lapland and fights to get it back, you know exactly what you’re signing up for. It’s John Wick meets Mad Max: Fury Road meets Inglorious Basterds. You are not watching this to learn about the human condition: you want to see some fascists get torn apart by a burly Nordic man. However light it is on pathos and character-building, it makes up for it with a bunch of stylized fight sequences, increasingly gruesome deaths, and a cute dog (who, spoiler, stays alive throughout the movie). It’s a blast, and future comfort watch, but my major complaint is that most of the dialogue is in English. I get that Lionsgate wanted this film to reach a wider audience, but they could’ve easily allowed most of their actors to speak in their mother tongues, especially because the dialogue was so sparse. While I doubt the recently-released sequel will be my next watch, it’s definitely on the list.
What I read:
The Sense of an Ending (by Julian Barnes)
When someone recommends a book, movie, or album to me, I’ll sometimes get around to it right away, and other times it’ll take me nearly 15 years. The other week, I was clearing up space on my laptop, and I found an old notes file from college titled “Recommended books 2012.” Julian Barnes’ Man Booker prize-winning The Sense of an Ending was on it, and while I don’t remember who told me to check it out, I finally did this month. It’s a slim novel at 163 pages, but it’s not a particularly light read. (It’s about the fallibility of memory, self-delusion, lost friendships, and death). It follows Tony Webster, a retired British man who struggles to look back on his childhood and college years. There’s even a twist ending that’s legitimately shocking, something that’s hard to do in such a short book. While it was adapted into a 2017 movie starring Jim Broadbent and Charlotte Rampling, I have no interest in seeing how the narrator’s unreliable memories translate to the screen (even though I enjoyed the book).
The Weekly Chicago Show Calendar:
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