No Expectations 149: On Your Side
Stellar new LPs from Styrofoam Winos, Haylie Davis, Shabason & Krgovich, and more. Plus, another World Cup recommendation, but this time it's a movie.
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Headline song: Dari Bay, “On Your Side”
Thanks for being here. Every week, I try to siphon off one day to do absolutely nothing. Usually, it’s Sundays, but not always. Whenever it is, I’ll have no plans, won’t leave the house, and I’ll devote my time to books, watching sports, listening to records, and thinking about what I’m going to publish in this newsletter.
It’s a necessary move. Writing is a very solitary job, but my personality is more geared towards “hanging out all the time” and “drinking beers on a patio with buds.” Left to my own devices, I’d probably never make a deadline. I have to force myself to sit still, to listen intently, to read uninterrupted and undistracted, and to write. As much as I’d prefer to be at a show or a bar, it’s good for me, and I’ve really grown to cherish this time alone. It’s a solid ritual to unplug and reset.
It’s good to slow down sometimes, and I’m grateful for when I can carve out time to relax. This past weekend, I did just that, and I felt like I listened to more music than ever. You’ll notice that the recommended records below are pretty chill. That’s definitely on purpose, but these albums are as exciting and excellent as they are gentle.
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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Four Albums Worth Your Time This Week
Diles que no me maten, Escrito en agua
Mexico City quintet Diles que no me maten (“Tell them not to kill me” in English) is a shapeshifting experimental collective that traverses post-rock, jazz, krautrock, neo-classical, and psych-rock throughout their beguiling catalog. Keen on patient, slow-burning arrangements, droning repetition, and liberal use of horns and woodwinds, their songs capture improvisation at its most revelatory. On their fourth LP, Escrito en agua (“Written in Water”), their quiet and immersive approach to songwriting results in an audacious full-length of left-field stunners. It opens with a funeral march, all wailing horns and a turgid rhythm, before the next track, “Hiriku,” unlocks into an austere alt-rock groove. Where that tune is the most straightforward of the bunch, the surprising, classification-eschewing rest of the tracklist is no less thrilling. The instrumental interludes feel like a score plucked from the Golden Age of Hollywood, while cutting-edge lyrical numbers like “Perquisidor” and “Jardín” are somehow never out of place. Few albums have seamlessly packed so many ideas into 36 minutes as this one.
RIYL: Black Country New Road, Racing Mount Pleasant, Still House Plants
Haylie Davis, Wandering Star
Sonoma County, California’s Haylie Davis proudly wears her musical heroes on her sleeve. You’ll hear the pristine ‘70s songwriting of Laurel Canyon and country heroes like Emmylou Harris, Linda Ronstadt, Carole King, and Karen Carpenter all throughout her lush folk-rock songs. “My influences are very clear, but I wouldn’t say I’m consciously trying to mimic or recreate anything,” Davis told Rolling Stone this year. “My songs are more out of my control than you’d think they are. I purely feel like a messenger.” One listen to her debut LP, Wandering Star, and it’s clear she transcends pastiche into something endlessly listenable and fully her own. The effervescent lead single “Golden Age” is breezy and propulsive, while the piano-led “Born to Be Blue” is smoky and melancholic. Davis is at her best when she ups the tempo and energy, like on the pastoral “Give Me a Rainbow” or the woozy twang of “Young Man.” But even on the ballads, it’s obvious that she’s a versatile, undeniable talent on this charming collection of timeless Americana.
RIYL: Mikaela Davis, Sylvie, Linda Ronstadt
Shabason & Krgovich, Four Days in June
The first time I heard the Toronto jazz artist Joseph Shabason was on Destroyer’s Kaputt. As a session musician, he gave the songs a smooth, endlessly lush sheen that references ‘80s sophisti-pop, yacht rock, and jazz at its most loungey. He’s since taken this sensibility, warping it and tweaking it, to an astoundingly prolific and collaborative solo career. All of it is worthwhile, especially his work with Vancouver vocalist and songwriter Nicholas Krgovich, whose warm, whispered croon is the perfect vessel for Shabason’s atmospheric compositions. Since their 2020 album Philadelphia (named after the Neil Young song they cover), the two have found ways to imbue subtle, soothing sounds with big emotions. Their latest musical partnership, the sundapped and resplendent Four Days in June, is their most meditative and galvanizing yet. Where their past team-ups have featured jazzier orchestration or pops of breathy synths and electronics, here they use an organic, folk-rock palate. There’s hushed electric guitar, brushed drums, understated pedal steel, pockets of wispy flute, and even banjo and fiddle (courtesy of Sam Amidon). While it’s the most accessible route this duo has taken with their songs, it’s also the most potent. Take the Dorothea Paas duet “Dry Corner” (a cover of a tune by Palberta’s Anina Ivry-Block) or the verdant and blossoming opener “Begin Again” that luxuriates in its seven-minute runtime, and you’ll just scratch the surface of what these impossibly gorgeous tracks have to offer.
RIYL: Minor Moon, Arthur Russell, The Blue Nile
Styrofoam Winos, Any River
Nashville trio Styrofoam Winos make lived-in and unpredictable folk rock that’s slightly psychedelic but always inviting. These conversational and welcoming qualities are in small part due to the camaraderie between members Lou Turner, Joe Kenkel, and Trevor Nikrant, who met while working at a now-demolished Midtown cafe. Their obvious friendship is infectious: you can hear it in their songs, and you can see why bands like MJ Lenderman and the Wind, Will Oldham, Friendship, and Ryan Davis & the Roadhouse band all sing their praises and take them on tour. (They’ve all played in the Roadhouse Band, too.) Any River, the band’s third album, highlights all three members (they not only share lead vocals throughout, but they also trade instruments) and their simpatico songwriting skills. Nikrant shines on both the falsetto harmonies of “BBQ” and the easygoing “New Friend,” which boasts the line, “There I go again / Making grocery lists with a fountain pen.” Elsewhere, Turner takes over the swirling and raucous “Pearls,” while the ebullient closer “Gettin’ Down” is a communal celebration of making art. On that track, when they all sing, “Be your own Elvis,” you’ll want to follow their lead.
RIYL: Ryan Davis & The Roadhouse Band, Neu Blume, Color Green
What I listened to:
The No Expectations 149 Playlist: Apple Music // Spotify // Tidal
Swapmeet, “Halfway”
Dari Bay, “On Your Side”
Wild Pink, “Box Store”
Styrofoam Winos, “BBQ”
Kiwi jr., “Pure Michigan”
The Laughing Chimes, “Behind Your Blue Fields”
Diles que no me maten, “Hiriku”
Shannon Lay, “Past The Veil”
Cole Berggren, “On My Side”
Haylie Davis, “Golden Age”
This Is Lorelei, “Billy Came Back”
Shabason & Krgovich, “Midday Sun”
Starcleaner Reunion, “Weather Instrument”
Green-House, “Farewell, Little Island”
Tierra Whack, “EARWAX”
What I watched:
Saipan (directed by Glenn Leyburn and Lisa Barros D’Sa)
The 2002 World Cup was initially a rocky one for the Republic of Ireland’s national soccer team. Before the tournament kicked off in Japan and South Korea, the Football Association of Ireland booked the team to train at Saipan. It’s a minuscule island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean that’s arguably best known for being where the Enola Gay lifted off before becoming the first aircraft to drop an atomic bomb and killing over 100,000 people in Hiroshima. When the squad arrived, they found that there wasn’t a usable football pitch to train on, the hotels were dilapidated, and they didn’t even have soccer balls. Saipan, an artful 2025 dramedy, documents this “Fyre Festival but soccer” debacle with electric performances from Steve Coogan, who plays the manager Mick McCarthy, and Éanna Hardwicke, who soars as the cantankerous captain Roy Keane. I loved this film a lot more than I thought I would. It boasts maybe the most evocative cinematography in a sports movie I’ve ever seen.
What I read:
The Taste of Sugar (by Marisel Vera)
At the beginning of the year, I set out to read more history, historical fiction, and books by Chicago authors. Marisel Vera’s novel The Taste of Sugar checks the latter two boxes. Here, the Humboldt Park-born author charts the tragic and harrowing story of a Puerto Rican couple navigating the turbulent times plaguing their home in the late 19th century. She tracks the Island from its 1898 U.S. invasion and annexation during the Spanish-American War, the 1899 San Ciríaco hurricane, and the migration of thousands of Borinqueño laborers to Hawaii’s sugar plantations following the disaster. It’s sweeping and stark history, and Vera enlivens the narrative with experimental flourishes of letters, secondary texts, and Spanish sentences. Simultaneously heart-wrenching, transportive, and lucid, it’s a sobering and gorgeous read. While I had some issues with the pacing and the way the two main protagonists are fleshed out, it’s worth it for the necessary, underdiscussed history alone.
The Weekly Chicago Show Calendar:
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