The 40 Best Albums of 2026 So Far
...According to some guy in Chicago. Plus, 40 more recommended LPs, including every new full-length I wrote about in No Expectations this year.
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My favorite annual post at No Expectations has always been the Midyear Best Of roundup. It’s a chance for me to reflect and take a snapshot of 2026 so far. (It’s also less pressure than the exhaustive EOY list.) I’ll re-listen to everything I already wrote about and remember what made me love these albums in the first place. I’ll put on a new record and be transported to where I first checked it out: how it boosted my mood and got me out of a bad day. I’ll hear an LP and think of my best friend from home loving it too and texting me about every pre-release single. I’ll recall catching a show by a new-to-me band that blew me away. I’ll think back to drinking beers with a bud and showing them why I was so excited about a particular full-length. I can’t tell you how much fun it was to revisit everything.
I’ve been writing about music for a long time now: 14 years. While the majority have been for publications like VICE, RedEye Chicago, the A.V. Club, and more, the four most rewarding of those have been with this newsletter. This writing project has allowed me to search deeper, trust my tastes, and find off-the-beaten-path music. I don’t have to convince an editor that something’s worth covering. I don’t have to care about an artist’s streaming numbers, social media followers, or nebulous hype: I just have to like the songs. Below, I’ve included artists I’ve loved my entire career, others I recommended years ago on this website, and several more are recent discoveries. I think it’s a pretty eclectic mix: you’ll find folk from Western Canada, spiritual jazz from a Brazilian living in Italy, Manchester dance-punk, and of course, indie rock from my home in Chicago. That’s just a small smattering of what’s on offer here.
My only real rubric for these sorts of things is “Did I love it?” I’m a 34-year-old living in Chicago running this blog, which means that I can’t get around to everything. Sure, you won’t see many more acclaimed and notable LPs that are rounding out the bigger outlets’ lists, but you will hopefully find something to dig into and cherish for the rest of 2026 and beyond. I launched No Expectations to champion what I think other music websites should highlight, and in doing so, I’ve realized even more how edifying it is to look at music locally, to seek out what’s on the fringes. You can pay hundreds of dollars to see the biggest names pack stadiums, or you could spend $20 at your local, independent, and small venue and maybe discover the future of music from the talented acts playing there.
You’ll notice that there are 40 albums blurbed, but below all of that, there are another 40 LPs listed at the very bottom. So far in 2026, I wrote about 66 full-lengths. I still highly recommend all of them. Because I listened to and loved more than that, the most seasoned subscriber will likely find a few more releases to dig into. Also, it goes without saying, but if your favorite thing from 2026 isn’t featured here, there’s still a chance I write about it later in the year (or it’s just not all that good).
This newsletter is still a one-man operation. That means that it’s reader-funded and supported. I write this thing in my spare time after work. It’s unpaywalled and stays that way thanks to the generosity of my readers. If you discover a new favorite band here, please buy their record or a ticket to a show. If you have money left over, I’d encourage you to sign up for a paid subscription. It’s $5 a month, which in my neighborhood is the cost of an Old Style tallboy plus tip. If your budget is tight, please don’t pay for this. Instead, tell a bud. I still believe the best music writing feels like talking to a friend, and if you have one who likes these sorts of tunes, share this list with them. You can also post about it on social media: I’m not online there as much as I used to be, but compliments from internet strangers on Instagram, Reddit, Bluesky, Twitter, Facebook, Xanga, Livejournal, the Ultimate Guitar forums, and the Jack Anontoff fan Discord server are always welcome.
The Weekly Chicago Show Calendar is here this week. If you want a playlist featuring selections from each album blurbed, here are links to Apple Music, Spotify, and Tidal. (Please note that a few of these albums are Bandcamp-only.) Also, because there’s a lot to dig into here, there’s no newsletter next week, but No Expectations will return 6/18.
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 or 7,000 words on the Grateful Dead. 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 regular newsletter.
Abbey Blackwell
Dream a Day
Abbey Blackwell is a Seattle-based artist who, over the past few years, was a founding member of La Luz and worked as a touring bassist for Alvvays. (If you caught any of the Blue Rev tour, you’ve seen her play.) Her solo work is more understated, but it soars with overwhelming grace. Her latest LP, the Bandcamp-only Dream a Day, is the best album of 2026 that you can’t find on streaming services. Blackwell’s voice, rich, lush, and full of character, anchors these verdant folk songs. “Rise and Set” is sparse but intentional, quietly building with pops of lap steel, dreamlike guitars, and drums. As a bandleader, she knows when to swell and when to pull back. Take “The Voice,” which finds her singing, “Looking over my shoulder at the view / Feeling older as the days go tripping through.” It starts off like a Labi Siffre song, but as the band subtly comes into the mix, it becomes something grander. Few of her peers can get the small details right as well as she can, which makes for a jaw-dropping record of revelatory little moments.
RIYL: Norma Tanega, Vashti Bunyan, Andy Shauf
Brad Goodall
Hometown
I first met Huntington, West Virginia’s Brad Goodall almost a decade ago, when he was playing keys in the fantastic, underrated indie rock band Ona. In 2022, he showcased both his whip-smart humor and virtuosic instrumental talent on his first solo LP, Made in America. Where that record boasted outrageously funny, character-driven tales of male desperation and insecurity that would make Donald Fagen blush, his new one is an emotional 180-degree turn. On its follow-up, he trades acerbic jokes for heartfelt introspection, while never losing his step for timeless piano-driven songwriting. Goodall was born and raised in West Virginia, but left for stints in New York City and North Carolina before coming back to join a band with his childhood friends. True to its title, Hometown grapples with the complicated but fond feelings of returning to where you grew up. “We Made It” deals with the highs and lows of spending your twenties in a touring band, opener “Proximity” with finding love, and “River Water” the tiny revelations that come from spending time alone outside. These nine songs are such a graceful and winsome listen, in no small part due to Goodall’s knack for sophisticated pop melodies, his diligent study of the songwriting greats, and his inarguable charm.
RIYL: Bruce Hornsby, Warren Zevon, Leon Russell
Charlotte Cornfield
Hurts Like Hell
Canadian folk artist Charlotte Cornfield’s songs have long had an “in the room” feel to them: not just from the organic, live-sounding recordings but from the way her lyrics are so perceptive and piercing that they feel like she’s letting you in on a secret. Hurts Like Hell, her sixth LP, is her most confident and lived-in release yet: likely because it’s Cornfield’s first full-length since becoming a mother in 2023. There are slice-of-life observations throughout, a sample line on the stunning “Long Game” goes thusly, “We were all listening to Neil Young / You said your favourite record was Zuma / I always took you and your sense of humour / To end with your hand in mine.” Her voice, which strains and dances over the melody in unexpected ways, is the album’s strongest asset. She harmonizes with Feist on single “Living With It,” snarls on the rocker “Lucky,” and imbues lines like “I never reach out and you never call / Another season in the city, another reason for it to pour” on “Number” with powerful emotion. Few records this year feel as inviting.
RIYL: Feist, Neil Young, artists whose government name could be a made-up stage moniker but isn’t
Cola
Cost of Living Adjustment
I have been writing Tim Darcy’s music since 2014, when he was making sublime and memorable post-punk with his old band, Ought. (I probably played “Beautiful Blue Sky” 200 times in 2015 alone). In 2020, Darcy and Ought bassist Ben Stidworthy formed Cola with Toronto drummer Evan Cartwright, putting out two consistently good LPs with Fire Talk Records. While I’ve enjoyed everything so far, their latest and third LP, Cost of Living Adjustment, hit me like a ton of bricks. For just a trio, this is a pummelling art-rock record. They can lock into a delectable groove easily and stretch it out without wasting a second. “Hedgesitting” is nearly five minutes of undulating rhythms, buzzsaw guitars, and Darcy’s icy, chameolonic melodies. Another track, “Haveluck Country,” is jaunty and wonky, but it’s held together by Stidworthy’s dexterous, trudging, and sturdy basslines. I’m expecting this or the magnificently nervy Stuck LP to claim the title for my favorite post-punk album of 2026.
RIYL: Stuck, Protomartyr, Parquet Courts
Dry Cleaning
Secret Love
South London post-punk outfit Dry Cleaning released 2026’s first universally acclaimed LP with their third effort, Secret Love. While it took me a while to fully wrap my head around the immersive and ingenious art rock that the band achieves on this record, it’s the one I 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 electrifying 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 worthwhile as you allow yourself to get on its wavelength.
RIYL: Cate Le Bon, Life Without Buildings, Porridge Radio
Friko
Something Worth Waiting For
Friko’s songs are feverishly energetic and totally alive. It’s music that’s boisterous and galvanizing, full of big artistic swings and bigger emotions. That’s true on their breakout 2024 debut LP, Where We’ve Been, Where We Go from Here. But their latest, Something Worth Waiting For, is their most forceful statement yet. Recorded with John Congleton, it’s an LP where they’re really going for it and pull it off: hearkening back to an era where rock music had drama, emotional stakes, and ample flair. It’s no shock that frontman Niko Kapetan grew up idolizing David Bowie. Songs like “Choo Choo” are frantic and explosive, with surging guitar chords and Kapetan yelping, “Pile up interstate and we’re in a rush/ Driving on state-to-state like we’re on the run.” Kapetan and his bandmates, drummer Bailey Minzenberger, bassist David Fuller, and guitarist Korgan Robb, excel at the slow build and the towering crescendo throughout these nine ripping songs. Take “Alice,” which is gleaming and plaintive up until its soaring final minute, where Kapetan solidifies himself as one of the genre’s most dynamic and thrilling vocalists.
RIYL: David Bowie, Geese, Modest Mouse
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 surprisingly low-key direction for him, combining his proclivity for memorable melodies with his capacity for gutpunch emotions. With goblynmarkytt, he follows up his 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
i26connector
i26connector
Even if you think we’re at “peak indie rock bands with a pedal steel player,” let alone “peak indie rock bands with a pedal steel player from Asheville, North Carolina,” I’m here to tell you that i26connector are more than worth your time. Their self-titled full-length is one of my favorite debuts of 2026, an all-around airtight and efficient collection of casual lyrics, booming riffs, and wailing twang. Composed of members of other Western NC bands like Tombstone Poetry, Idle County, Headringer, and Seven and a Half Giraffe, the seven songs on i26connector manage to be genuinely fresh and exciting entries in a crowded genre. Where the first couple minutes of opener “Spirit Manger” seem like effective and tempestuous indie-twang, it quickly dissolves into blazing punk for its final 40 seconds. On “i26connector,” Caelan Burris sings, “They tore down my buddy’s house / To build the I-26 Connector / And I don’t think they gave him much money / Or time to make arrangements,” which is a hell of a way to kick off a song. The tone on this record can oscillate between barroom chats and apocalyptic brooding, but no matter what, it’s always thrilling thanks to Burris’ clear-eyed lyrics and pedal steel player Will Elliott’s silky leads. Shoutout to the essential North Carolina blog New Commute for the initial rec.
RIYL: Actually good pedal steel playing, Greg Freeman, Magnolia Electric Co., songs titled after the band name
Jana Horn
Jana Horn
Jana Horn is a talented and itinerate folk singer who’s quietly built a sturdy catalog of understated and excavating songs. An Austin native, she’s had stints in Virginia as an MFA candidate in fiction before ending up in Brooklyn, where she released her third LP, Jana Horn. Her most minimalist effort to date, it’s also her most stirring and lucid. Sharing the easygoing grace of her Texas to NYC compatriot Katy Kirby, Horn demonstrates a scalpel-like attention to detail in her sparse, evocative lyrics and a thoughtfulness that lends gravitas to her dreamy, unhurried arrangements. The gradual momentum in a standout like “Unused,” where Horn’s voice glides over plaintive keys and shuffling drums, is gorgeous. The same goes for “All in bet,” where she sings, “Without all, what is left? / I’m honestly asking.” This is music for introspection, for long walks home after a weird night, and accepting life’s changes you can’t control.
RIYL: Saying a lot in as few words as possible, getting out of Texas, subtle pianos, and ample acoustic guitars
Joe Glass
Snakewards
Joe Glass plays bass in Lifeguard frontman Kai Slater’s power-pop project Sharp Pins. While his relentlessly fun sophomore LP Snakewards channels a similar well of Nuggets, mod, and ‘90s indie rock exuberance, the Rockford, Illinois, and Chicago-based tunesmith has been churning out earworm rippers long before he joined his endlessly prolific bandmate. His debut, 2022’s Slither, showcases his penchant for an airtight hook across a dozen slightly twangy ramschackle rockers. (A record that would have been a No Expectations favorite had I heard it upon release). On his follow-up, however, that winning formula gets a tweak with more ramped-up energy that evokes the ebullience of Elephant 6 and deliriously fuzzed-out guitars.” Opener “Dust on Your Halo” opens with a blast of noise that sounds like the intro to “You Only Get What You Give,” only to dissolve into squalling riffs. “New Pose” is all fervid punk swagger while a bluesy thump bolsters “Oscar’s Midnight Ride,” but the record really shines when Glass leans into his unassailable pop sensibilities. Though every song is catchy, on tracks like the standout “Man Lost His Diamond,” he reaches jangly transcendence. The whole thing rules. It’s such a thrill to hear younger generations of local rock talent channel this music.
RIYL: Hallogallo, The Empty Bottle, a Chicago Handshake
John Andrews & the Yawns
STREETSWEEPER
Despite their name, the New York-based John Andrews & the Yawns don’t make sleepy music. Sure, you could call it mellow, cozy, or even dreamy, but there’s enough unassailable craft in these finely-written songs to keep you enthralled throughout the nine tracks on their fifth LP, STREETSWEEPER. The album gets its title from Andrews’ part-time job with the New York City Parks Department, and with its hockey imagery on the cover and in its accompanying music videos, it’s easy to imagine skating to these easygoing songs. His voice is amiable and inviting. Even if he’s singing sad songs, you can picture a sly smile on his face just from his delivery. “The Last Word,” the jauntiest rocker on the record, picks up the pace with Andrews singing, “don’t always have to get the last word in / over and over and over / again and again and again / oh no.” Songs like “What’s Good?” take on the quality of a lullaby with lines like “Make it up as I go” over wobbly arpeggios. While Andrews gets assists here from members of Cut Worms, Luke Temple, and Star Moles, it’s his colloquial affability that carries this quietly staggering album.
RIYL: Loving, Major Murphy, Liam Kazar, that “Old Time Hawkey” social media account that pops up on my feed because I follow the Detroit Red Wings
Kevin Morby
Little Wide Open
Kevin Morby’s longevity as one of indie rock’s foremost bards can be explained by his wide-eyed curiosity, his fascination with America and its songwriting traditions, his ceaseless kindness, and his diligent work in finding the mystical in the Midwest. The Kansas City musician might be the artist I’ve interviewed most, and whether it’s just chatting about baseball or introducing him to Jeff Buckley’s music, I’ve admired both his generosity and his openness, which translates perfectly to his astounding folk-rock oeuvre. He’s rightfully earned his army of marquee supporters, from Nathaniel Rateliff to Mavis Staples and the National’s Aaron Dessner, who produces Morby’s eighth and best studio album, Little Wide Open. What makes him a special writer is how he’s able to tap into the profound, like on past songs “Beautiful Strangers” or “A Coat of Butterflies,” but here, these near-spiritual stakes wrap around each of its 13 tracks. With a runtime around the hour mark, this is Morby’s biggest swing yet. The opener is bravely titled “Badlands” but earns its moniker. Joy permeates throughout the bouncy single “Javelin” while an encircling guitar riff gives “100,000” some road-ready psychedelia. Lucinda Williams shows up to duet on the highlight “Natural Disaster,” lending gravitas and wisdom to a tune already swimming in it. If these pristine, bucolic songs don’t comfort and challenge you, then nothing in his catalog will.
RIYL: Bob Dylan’s New Morning and Desire, Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove, the Midwest
kitship
am i a rock?
In 2023, Minneapolis songwriter Amaya Peña moved to Chicago and quickly found a home in the city’s music community. Where their solo material veers on understated guitar-based folk, they’ve played with the indie rock group Starcharm (fka Soft & Dumb) on drums and have collaborated with acts like Memory Card, Sharp Pins, and TV Buddha. They also appear on the new RED XEROX compilation that documents the best of the Chicago youth DIY movement from 2020-2025. Earlier this spring, Peña dropped am i a rock?, an eight-song LP of effortlessly satisfying acoustic singer-songwriter and lowkey indie rock fare. Peña’s voice is soothing and commanding, but it’s the way they can write a melody so immediately memorable that carries the release. From the shocking tempo changes and primitive flute in opener “song for avi,” to the childhood nostalgia that imbues the earworm twee of “i wish to be like you,” this is a record full of subtle, exemplary moments. Recorded with Sharp Pins and Lifeguard’s Kai Slater (who appears in a duet on “i’ve got a secret”), it’s lo-fi but not decidedly retro, choosing to instead center a truly imaginative and welcome voice in the burgeoning and vibrant scene.
RIYL: Norma Tanega, Horsegirl, Frankie Cosmos
Liz Cooper
New Day
Great albums aren’t just collections of really good songs. They should also boast eclectic tunes that are commendable in drastically different ways, but cohesive enough to live comfortably as a singular body of work. Liz Cooper’s latest LP, New Day, passes this rubric with flying colors. It’s the first full-length in five years for the now-Vermont-based artist, and it feels like a reinvention. Across 10 incontestable tracks, it’s a masterclass in endearing hooks and vibrant, slyly psychedelic arrangements that she co-produced with Dan Molad. As a frontperson and bandleader, Cooper is fierce and charismatic, with personality-filled yet affecting writing. Two of its singles, “IDFK” and “Sorry (That I Love You),” transform melancholy into wistful pop bliss, with the latter featuring lines like, “Do you think about me? / I think I’m better now, I hope you’re better now,” On the haunting string-laden “Changes, she channels Radiohead, but on the punchy “Boy Toy” and closer “Baby Steps,” you’ll hear shades of Feist. Few records this year are as charming and impressive as Cooper’s breakthrough.
RIYL: Broken Social Scene, Crumb, doing your best work a decade into your career
Mandy, Indiana
URGH
Mandy, Indiana’s songs somewhere between club music at its most caustic and noise rock at its most danceable. The Manchester-thrives on percussion first chaos: each song contains rhythms so dense and disorienting that it’s hypnotic. On URGH, their second LP and first with Sacred Bones Records, they add even more scorching intensity, harsh electronics, and off-kilter drumming to an already winning formula. On the single and live staple “Magazine,” skittering, jackhammer beats dissolve into a squall as Valentine Caulfield shouts in French. “Cursive” features frenzied, boiling synths while “Sicko!” gets an assist from rapper Billy Woods. Beyond that guest appearance, the only time you’ll hear English lyrics comes in the snarling, righteous closer “I’ll Ask Her,” which is a torrid and lucid take on sexual violence that turns rage into catharsis. Inventive, raw, and unrelenting, I bet I’ll revisit this throughout the year.
RIYL: Percussion as lead instrument, music that makes you want to run through a wall
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 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 purifying 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
Mildred
Fenceline
Oakland’s Mildred started with four friends listening to Silver Jews records, drinking beers, and slowly writing breezy and affecting folk rock songs whenever the quartet was all in the same city. Yes, this definitely is an origin story that I can get behind, but the band’s debut, Fenceline, is one of the most clearly in my wheelhouse records I’ve heard in a very long time. Though each member is involved in the songwriting process, guitarists Henry Easton Koehler and Jack Schrott, along with bassist Matt Palmquist, share vocal duties and harmonies throughout. Throughout the record, their voices oscillate between a laconic, Bill Callahan-style and a full-throated delivery that evokes Pacific Northwest folkies like Damien Jurado or Robin Pecknold. Simultaneously conversational and perceptive, the lyrics can careen from hyper-specific to evocative and absurdist (a sample line on the opener goes, “And the leaves on the ground were UPS brown”). On the marvelous title track, Easton Koehler triangulates the difference between J.J. Cale’s “Magnolia” and Bobby Charles’ “I Must Be in a Good Place Now” with loping, melancholic chords and lines like, “And I’m adopting a highway, yea / Just to try things my way / Going to paint the median blue / Plant all your favorite flowers too.” Peppier numbers like “Fish Sticks” and “Fleet Week” add needed energy to the laid-back tilt of the record. While sure, there’s a song here called “Mumblecore Melody,” but this really feels like a hangout album: lived-in, pleasant, and wholly edifying.
RIYL: J.J. Cale, Bobby Charles, Bonny Doon
Momoko Gill
Momoko
Momoko Gill has been a fixture of London’s sprawling jazz community, mostly as one of its most in-demand drummers and collaborators. She’s guested with Alabaster DePlume and Tirzah, but in 2025, she put out Clay, a co-release with the acclaimed DJ Matthew Herbert. She teams up again with Herbert for Momoko, her proper solo debut. It’s 11 tracks of breezy soul, sinuous jazz, and occasionally, staticky electronics and brooding strings that evoke the cutting-edge Copenhagen left-field pop scene. Gill is an unmissable singer, with a warm and welcoming croon that dances over these lush arrangements. A descending piano chord progression enlivens the melancholic “2close2farr” while a looping cascade of violins gives the haunting “Anyway, I’m Drowning” its propulsive core. On the slow-burning banger “No Others,” a plucky bass line and a ricocheting percussion section lend it ample complexity. She manages to tread an exceptional tightrope here: making songs that are so appealing you could confidently show anyone, but unpredictable enough to impress the most seasoned listener.
RIYL: Astrid Sonne, Tirzah, NTS Radio
My New Band Believe
My New Band Believe
Whenever I come across an acclaimed band that I don’t love, I usually write it off as “not for me” and forget about it. With Black Midi, the disbanded English experimental rock group, their music was so interesting and audacious that I kept thinking I was an idiot for not fully connecting with it. I may try again (along with the singer Geordie Greep’s solo LP), because of the astounding inventiveness of bassist and co-vocalist Cameron Picton’s My New Band Believe. While it’s just as chock-full of ideas as his prior group, My New Band Believe contains drama, an arc, and a profound emotional resonance that make it an instant favorite of 2026. Songs flow from one to the next, and with only one album cut as a pre-release single, this LP is best experienced in a front-to-back listen. Picton, who enlists the U.K. rock collective Caroline as his studio band, uses almost entirely acoustic instruments on the record, but they’re all performed with maximalist flair and feverish energy. The arrangements, both nostalgic and alien, evoke musical theater, British folk, jazz, and prog. From the sweet domesticity of a track “Love Story” to the opener “Target Practice” with its menacing “Don’t cry / you deserve this,” this album somehow both sits out of time and at the cutting edge.
RIYL: Van Dyke Parks, Destroyer, Bert & John (1966)
Nashpaints
Everyone Good Is Called Molly
When the Irish musician Finn Carraher McDonald isn’t collaborating with his countrymen Princ€ss and Maria Somerville, he’s making music as Nashpaints. It’s a ghostly pop solo project that first released an LP in 2020, and now has followed it up with the glittering and beguiling Everyone Good Is Called Molly. It’s a deliberate and expansive album that comes to life via an undistracted headphones listen: you’ll be enveloped by the aqueous, hazy textures in the production and enthralled by the wealth of references from ‘60s girl groups, to ‘80s dream pop, ‘90s shoegaze, and the contemporary Copenhagen experimental-pop scene. Standouts like “Stretching” feature delicate arpeggios and cavernous reverb, “Boyfriend First” balloons near the seven-minute mark with gnarly, fuzzed-out guitars, and “Desire” features a crystalline, chiming chord progression that feels like the Velvet Underground fed through a music box. Like Cindy Lee’s Diamond Jubilee, this is a deeply nostalgic record that pines for something that doesn’t exist. Alien and alive, it’s a captivating and confounding full-length.
RIYL: Escho, Cindy Lee, buying records on Boomkat
Natalie Jane Hill
Hopeful Woman
This is an instant album of the year contender. Natalie Jane Hill is a Texas-raised, Western North Carolina-based songwriter who made an impossibly lush, confident, and stunning album in Hopeful Woman. Earlier this year, I was floored when I saw her perform most of the songs totally solo, opening up for Friendship. But on record, the arrangements get a verdant and earthy full-band treatment, and it’s even more awe-inspiring. The cosmic, simmering single “Never Left Me” is hazy with wailing pedal steel and galloping acoustic strums, while the introspective “Colors” gets twinkling pianos and resplendent strings. Hill’s voice is full, expressive, and piercing when it needs to be, especially when she sings lines as devastating as this from “Blue Is the Color of My Sun:” “And the hardest part of the day / Isn’t when you look away / It’s when you’re right there.” Throughout, every note, arrangement flourish, and lyric is intentional and near-flawless. It’s a record that is overwhelmingly gorgeous on first impression and masterful on each subsequent listen.
RIYL: Sandy Denny, Karen Dalton, timeless songwriting
National Photo Committee
Red Hot Photo Committee
At the very beginning of the year, I was sent a link to an unlisted YouTube video that contained the Chicago band Red Hot Photo Committee’s debut album, Red Hot Photo Committee. Even though it was an unmastered upload, I was instantly hooked. It was raucous country-tinged bar rock fronted by a gravelly and acerbic frontman, aided by spidery pedal steel. Sure, that’s more than a well-trodden genre at this point, but these eight winding tunes are refreshingly caustic, combustible, and carefree. That early link was pulled offline within a week, but now the LP has been mastered and officially released at the beginning of the month. It’s even better than I remember. Frontman Maxwell Bottner has a resounding baritone and a chatty delivery as he sings about daily anxieties on “It’s Hard.” Following an intro of thundering chords and crashes of drums, he sings, “It’s hard to be living / it’s hard to be alive / It’s hard times coming / and they’re coming all the time.” Bottner and his bandmates allow the songs to stretch out—only one track clocks in under four minutes. The 11 and a half minute “Gizzard” is an epic suite of moody verses and muscular guitar jams, while the white-hot “Adelaide” kicks into an even higher gear in its final third with a blistering sax solo from local shredder Curt Oren. One listen to any tune here, and you’ll know that this Chicago group puts on a wild and life-affirming live set.
RIYL: Ryan Davis & the Roadhouse Band, if Slanted and Enchanted-era Pavement had a pedal steel, Dusk
Nilza Costa
Cantigas
Few artists can traverse musical borders as seamlessly as Nilza Costa. Born in Salvador, the capital city of the Brazilian state of Bahia, she comes from a Yoruba family and has lived in Bologna, Italy, since 2006. In her hypnotic and commanding music that draws from jazz, samba, jùjú, and funk, she combines the musical traditions of all her homes into something singular and breathtaking. Her latest album, Cantigas, finds her singing in Yoruba, Kimbundu, and Brazilian Portuguese. Each song is imbued with a unifying spiritual gravitas and an almost prayer-like devotion to repetition and groove. Backed by a crew of Italian backing players, Costa’s voice soars on tracks like the shapeshifting, heavenly “Ogum suite,” and the smoldering “Logunede.” But on the lovely “Oxumare,” she glides over a smooth, near-loungey composition. This is a jaw-dropping record that had me transfixed from the first listen.
RIYL: Afro-Brazilian folk traditions, percussion-forward arrangements, jazz
Ora Cogan
Hard Hearted Woman
British Columbia’s Ora Cogan has made spectral folk music that’s melded drone, experimental, and psychedelia over the past two decades. Where her earlier oeuvre leaned cavernous and haunting, her latest material is a more refined approach to songwriting that never loses a bit of her all-consuming risk-taking. Hard Hearted Woman, Cogan’s latest LP and first for Sacred Bones, mines dusky country and smoky soul for her most triumphant full-length yet. There’s an elegance to her melodic sensibility, which levitates over this jam-minded, exploratory, and ‘70s-inflected compositions. Where opener “Honey” incorporates bluesy riffage and airy choruses, “Division” is twilit drama with foreboding bass and spooky backing harmonies. For all the majestic and atmosphere-minded flourishes and multifaceted grooves, this is an LP that keeps its heart closer to timeless songwriting. As a bandleader, Cogan’s right at home commanding the woozy and rustic “Love You Better,” especially as she croons, “Oh, the words that you say / Pierce like stars in my mind / Warm, and cruel, cold, and kind.” It’s a tune that could’ve come out 50 years ago, but feels just as relevant and essential now.
RIYL: Mikaela Davis, Julie Byrne, Marissa Nadler
Otto Benson
Peanut
Otto Benson is a New York-based artist who, until New Year’s Eve, had only released glitchy and bubbly electronic music under a variety of monikers. But Peanut, his latest full-length, is a pretty but austere collection of guitar-based folk. Across 10 mesmerizing tracks, it centers Benson’s subtle, bassy croon, which evokes Arthur Russell, Ted Lucas, and Porches. While the mix rarely rises above a whisper, the LP is a reliably engaging listen with Benson’s knack for undeniable melodies. Songs like “Red and Neon” and “Raisin” are so immediately hummable, it’s striking. Shimmering pedal steel from Henry Munson and lead guitars from Sean Quinn add color to songs like the mournful “Drive Away,” as Benson adds humor to the melancholy with lines like, “Buried in the snow in my underwear / Someone made voodoo dolls with my hair.” While it’s refreshing to hear an adventurous electronic artist try a more analog palette, it’s even more rewarding to hear someone so gifted at this new lane.
RIYL: Selling your turntables and buying guitars, Arthur Russell, reinventions
Pearla
Song Room
The Brooklyn via New Jersey songwriter Nicole Rodriguez makes introspective, cloudlike, and spellbinding folk-pop as Pearla. Her arrangements are spare but luxuriant, with enveloping omnichord, delicate acoustic guitar strums, and subtle drums. Her latest and sophomore effort, Song Room, is her most dynamic and searching full-length. Songs like “Be Around,” with its steady bass line and hair-raising harmonies, inject volume and texture to what could’ve been an understated affair. “You Didn’t Do Anything Wrong, You Just Broke My Heart” is mournful, neon-lit Americana, while a warm blanket of fuzz dissolves into the sensational acoustic number “Sky Is White.” These are songs that you can burrow into, elegantly rendered and chock-full of earned emotional resonance.
RIYL: Margaux, Katy Kirby, Advance Base
Ratboys
Singin’ to an Empty Chair
Ratboys might be Chicago’s easiest band to root for. I’ve been writing about them for over a decade, and witnessing them refine and expand their anthemic and sturdy brand of indie rock has been such a joy. Where the shift from their 2015 debut, AOID, to this year’s masterful Singin’ to an Empty Chair is striking, each record in between has been a measured but tangible evolution. They’ve done everything right and should be a model for similarly-minded groups looking for longevity and intra-band chemistry over blowing up quickly. After over a decade, this record feels like a true breakthrough moment for the quartet, thanks to the riveting earworms that make up its 11 tracks. With production from Chris Walla (Death Cab for Cutie), these songs sound massive from the lilting twang on “The World, So Madly” and the hectic shredding of the six-minute “Light Night Mountains All That.” As a frontperson, Friend of the Newsletter Julia Steiner is electric. She’s a warm singer and an earnest lyricist, who coos, “Will you look me in the eye / And promise that you’ll stay with me / ‘Til the sand meets the sky?” on the song-of-the-year contender “What’s Right.” This is how indie rock should be.
RIYL: Open-hearted indie rock, friendship, Wild Pink
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 cooperative 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
Robber Robber
Two Wheels Move the Soul
Robber Robber, alongside their Vermont compatriots Greg Freeman and Lily Seabird, might be the band I’ve written about most in this newsletter. Its drummer, Zack James (Dari Bay), even made No Expectations’ logo and designed the weekly cover images. They are all now dear buds, but even if they weren’t, I would be fully in the tank for this quartet’s cyclonic and innovative brand of post-punk. Opener “The Sound It Made” instantly bursts with a shrieking riff, skittering breakbeats, sinister bass bombs, and bandleader Nina Cates intoning, “Nice ice block, runs hot, give a little, take a lot / Lean a little closer for a moment, moment, stop.” It’s a record that excels on the collision between the volatile unpredictability of its rhythm section and Cates’ sticky, earworm hooks. Single “Talkback” takes Meet Me in the Bathroom-era alt-rock swagger to 2026, while the chiming percussion of “Avalanche Sound Effect” is genuinely hypnotizing. For a band with such a unique and distinctive sound in a crowded genre, Two Wheels Move the Soul is a remarkably diverse record. “Imprint” is wistful slowcore, “Watch For Infection” is icy and nervy punk, and “New Year’s Eve” is bouncy, funky, and more than a little poppy. Yes, I might be biased, but this is the best indie rock record of 2026 so far.
RIYL: The magical music community of Burlington, Vermont, the future of indie rock, Fire Talk Records
Spoils
Mile Wide Inch Deep
Spoils, a quartet from Cincinnati, Ohio, make indie rock that’s so anthemic and immediate it’s a shock that Mile Wide Inch Deep is only their debut album. Many of the tracks here date back five or six years ago, and the band has honed their lived-in chemistry and songwriting chops across a few EPs and countless gigs. These seven airtight songs hearken back to an era of aughts alt-rock when artists made their sound as arena-filling and massive as possible. With big riffs and bigger hooks, you’ll hear shades of the Pixies (“1000”), find melodies with a swirling intensity (closer “Dark Miller”), and get impossibly infectious choruses stuck in your head (“Brain Damage”). This is no-frills rock music: professional, but not too polished, catchy, but not sugary. I kept checking to make sure they weren’t secretly signed to some big label, but this is just a talented Midwestern band doing the damn thing better than most.
RIYL: Momma, Indigo De Souza, Slow Pulp
Star Moles
Highway To Hell
Star Moles, the folk-pop project of New Hampshire native and Philadelphia resident Emily Moales, finds a true spark in casual approaches. Her last LP, one of 2025’s best, was called Snack Monster and was tracked largely via a Tascam recorder. A minute into her phenomenal follow-up, Highway to Hell, Moales catches herself singing a wrong lyric, pauses briefly, and mutters something on the mic, and corrects course. It doesn’t detract from the song, a soaring ‘70s-inspired opener that’s cheekily called “The End.” Rather, it adds intimacy and charm: the two winning qualities make this one of the year’s clear standout albums. She’s perceptive and funny on songs like “Time,” which kicks off with a line like “Sometimes I think I’m making a friend when I see a smiling face / but then it comes to an end / They get whisked away.” On “Overdog,” she’s singing as if she’s simultaneously letting you in on an inside joke and allowing you to read her diary,” when she says, “I need you like I need a hole in my head / I need a hole in my head / How else could I sing?” For the low-key facade these songs are wrapped in, Moales makes songs that sound timeless and effortless. A sneaky stunner of an LP with a whimsy and theatricality that’s enchanting.
RIYL: Harry Nilsson, playful piano, Fiona Apple, loose and breezy writing
Stuck
Optimizer
With releases titled Change Is Bad, Content To Make You Feel Good, and Freak Frequency, Chicago band Stuck have long transformed anxieties surrounding the tech-aided degradation of daily life into caustic and abrasive punk music. Their latest, Optimizer, manages to be their most lucid and rousing take on this subject, as well as their most undeniable, adventurous, and melodic collection of songs. Frontman Greg Obis targets “one quick trick” manosphere influencers on the scorching “Instakill,” where he yelps in a spitfire verse, “Cutting sugar, exercising / reading, writing, organizing / mindful habits, minimizing / judgy thoughts and criticizing” and intones, “you can change your life / for a limited time.” His writing tends to focus on people trying to do good, but are trapped under the weight of impossible goals or under the thrall of nefarious actors. On the clanging “Deadlift,” he sings, “I never feel so alone / when the weight hits the floor.” It’s consistently stirring and anthemic, with ample post-punk iciness and the occasional nervy detour into DEVO-esque freneticism. Obis is a Friend of the Newsletter who I’ve known since he’s been in bands like Clearance and Yeesh, and he also runs Chicago Mastering Service and has mastered countless releases by No Expectations favorites like MJ Lenderman, Deeper, Ducks Ltd., and Moontype. His contributions to independent music in this city alone are incalculable, but this, alongside his bandmates David Algrim and Tim Green, is his best work yet.
RIYL: Meat Wave, Protomartyr, Deeper, Squid
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 jumpy 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 tumultuous throughout. Despite the onslaught of clanging 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
Thomas Dollbaum
Birds of Paradise
In November 2023, the New Orleans songwriter Thomas Dollbaum enlisted his friends, bassist Nick Corson (The Convenience, Lawn), guitarist Josh Halper, and drummer Jake Lenderman to record an album just outside of Oxford, Mississippi. Where all three of his bandmates are newsletter favorites and have their own first-rate musical endeavors, Dollbaum stands apart on the resulting LP, Birds of Paradise, with his keen, poignant writing and songs that teeter from roaring Americana to tender folk. Dollbaum’s biggest asset is his voice, a rangy and raspy baritone that conjures comparisons to David Bazan. (He also has a piercing falsetto that’s not dissimilar to Damien Jurado.) There’s both homey, golden-hour twang and a sense of urgency on songs like “Dozen Roses,” which also features a Lenderman-provided guitar solo. Elsewhere, “Pulverize” features jaw-dropping harmonies while “Coyote” contains some of my favorite lyrics of the year as Dollbaum sings, “Sitting with you on your rooftop you’re high and drunk / You’re ready to jump but you just fly away / And as you rose, you glimmered with gold before you burned out / Bet you’d set this house on fire just to watch it burn down.” Dollbaum’s been sitting on this record for years, but it sounds just as vital now as it did nearly three years ago when four buds decamped for a week to producer Clay Jones’ studio to hash it out.
RIYL: MJ Lenderman, Josh Halper, The Convenience
Trinity Ace
Learning to Be a Cowboy on the Horse That Broke My Arm
Trinity Ace’s Learning to Be a Cowboy on the Horse That Broke My Arm is billed as an EP. While it is just six songs, it’s a far meatier and more interesting listen than most full-lengths released this year. (It’s also 41 minutes: much longer than the majority of albums I cover here). Whatever you call it, it’s obvious that this Bay Area songwriter is a one-of-one talent the minute you hear her sing. She boasts a layered and expressive voice that coos, wails, and glides over these six patient and often explosive tracks. There are shades of Elephant 6-exuberance (On Avery Island-era Neutral Milk Hotel) and 2000s baroque indie here (Beirut), but Ace is too singular an artist to conjure up a crude comparison. Take “Talisman,” which unfolds over seven minutes. While it initially feels like a dirge, it unfolds spectacularly into a cavalcade of strings, piano, and harmonies. Elsewhere, “Algae Bloom” is orchestral and brooding: a masterclass in tension and dynamics. Whatever she puts out next will be my most anticipated release of that year. Holy moly.
RIYL: Greg Freeman, Fiona Apple, Black Country New Road
Tyler Ballgame
For The First Time, Again
For The First Time, Again is such a relentlessly likable 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 with 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 boisterious “Matter of Taste” are incredibly galvanizing. “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
Ulrika Spacek
EXPO
Formed in Reading and based in London, Ulrika Spacek makes art-rock that gleefully and tastefully blurs the lines between psychedelic, post-punk, and electronic music. Their last effort, Compact Trauma, was one of 2023’s clear-cut standouts, and their latest, EXPO, is sure to continue the streak in 2026. Darting and dizzying percussion, along with a brooding, angular riff, buoy the sparkling single “Picto” while breathy pops of synth illuminate the hazy “Weights & Measures.” Whether there are glitchy digital textures or live organic instrumentation, it all sounds pristine and intentional throughout these 11 songs. For all the freewheeling experimentation, there’s a graspable pop core here throughout, especially on the smoky and hooky “Build a Box and Break It.” Few bands since Stereolab and Sonic Youth are making songs as heady and intricately woven as Ulrika Spacek.
RIYL: The bleep-bloop Radiohead songs, Squid, Sonic Youth
Victoryland
My Heart Is A Room With No Cameras In It
My Heart Is A Room With No Cameras In It is a tough record to pin down. Throughout its 10 vibrant and volatile art-rock songs, there’s so much going on, it’s staggering. The references stack up, and familiar sounds turned alien are relentless throughout the tracklist. There aren’t many clues in the Brooklyn-based artist Julian McCamman’s earlier oeuvre. He released his first LP as Victoryland in 2024, but that was a fairly straightforward collection of energetic, lo-fi indie rock songs. His old band, Blood, which disbanded two years ago, found him as a sideman guitarist. But his label debut feels like both a reinvention and an undeniable introduction to one of the most idiosyncratic and inventive voices in indie rock. “Keep Me Around” is bursting with energy, even as it unfolds into a warped funhouse version of Coldplay balladry. “I got god” is dance-punk turned space rock, while zipping, sampled strings turn closer “I’ll Show You Mine” into frantic folk-rock bliss. This is an LP that’ll keep you guessing, but will have you enthralled throughout.
RIYL: 2000s indie, late 90s radio rock, finding your voice after starting your own thing
Villagerrr
Carousel
Columbus, Ohio’s Villagerrr has been a No Expectations favorite since March 2023, when main songwriter Mark Allen Scott was quietly releasing soft and devastating self-recorded folk songs. Since then, he’s been able to translate that searching, bedroom-made vulnerability into a full-band setting. Now that the live quintet has been solidified after tours with Friends of the Newsletter like Lily Seabird and Ratboys, their latest LP, Carousel, is their most extravagantly rendered, sweepingly emotional, and excellent yet. Singles like “Locket” are pockmarked with whirling fuzz and overwhelmingly winsome harmonies, while “Crystal Ball” enters territory that could even be called shoegaze. However, the expansive near-eight-minute “Virginia” has all the hallmarks of what makes this band spectacular: dazed twang, a bashful, lackadaisical groove, and hushed but potent melodies from Scott as he sings, “When you’re alone and you’re drifting off like you’re out to sea / How in the world do you tell yourself what’s real and what’s fake?” No band is better at crafting Midwestern lullabies that will make you feel less alone.
RIYL: Teethe, Lily Seabird, Greg Mendez
youbet
youbet
While both members of Brooklyn’s youbet have worked as music instructors (frontperson Nick Llobet was the School of Rock teacher whose student was Dominic DiGesu of Geese), the duo’s latest self-titled LP is such an innovative and surprising take on indie and alternative rock that it’ll inspire a younger generation of artists who weren’t their literal pupils. Listening to youbet, you’ll hear the pummeling swagger of grunge and the wonky riffage of recent bands like Ovlov, but it’s performed in such a distinctive way that it feels totally one-of-one. Side A barrels out of the gate with combustible and unpredictable rockers: “See Thru” and “Receive” are frantic and searing, while “Fertile Eyes” is bouncy and propulsive. As it gets to its final tracks, it’s apparent this band isn’t content to solely shred. “Nadia” is marked by circular, fingerpicked acoustic guitars, woozy organ elevates “Embryonic,” while closer “Bad Choice” exudes simmering, slowcore moodiness. Whenever someone claims that rock music is stale and derivative, show them this LP.
RIYL: The Smashing Pumpkins, Sword II, Warehouse
40 More Stellar LPs From 2026 Worth Your Time
Accessory, Dust // Age of Peace, Ode to Life // beaming, horseshoe // Beck Zegans, Engraving of Armor // Brown Horse, Total Dive // Carla dal Forno, Confession // Courtney Marie Andrews, Valentine // Daffodil-11, Daffodil-11 // Dagmar Zuniga, in filth your mystery is kingdom / far smile peasant in yellow music // Dialup Ghost, Donkey Howdy // Doll Spirit Vessel, Bow // Double Extra Large, Other People // Ellie O’Neill, Time of Fallow // Feeble Little Horse, bitknot // Feller, Sound Colored Penny // Gawshock, Leaves to the Sun // Gia Margaret, Singing // Gladie, No Need To Be Lonely // Greaseface, Brick & Mortar // Hiding Places, The Secret To Good Living // Jackie West, Silent Century // Jeff Parker & ETA IVtet, Happy Today // Jo Passed, Away // Lala Lala, Heaven 2 // Mod Lang, Borrowed Time // Neurosis, An Undying Love for a Burning World // Pileup, Leave the Light On // Red PK, Horse Like Me // Remember Sports, The Refrigerator // Sean Thompson’s Weird Ears, Inner Principle // Shaking Hand, Shaking Hand // Shep Treasure, Blanket // Sluice, Companion // Sofia Kourtesis, DJ-Kicks: Sofia Kourtesis // Spencer Cullum, Spencer Cullum’s Coin Collection 3 // Spencer Hoffman, Cherry Picker // Symbol Soup, Stepping on the Same Rakes // Tomeka Reid, dance! skip! hop! // Touch Girl Apple Blossom, Graceful // vega, beacon, how blue // Wendy Eisenberg, Wendy Eisenberg // Winged Wheel, Desert So Green
Best list of the year
Imma print this out to give it the respect it deserves.