Last updated on January 5, 2022
1. “Happy Heart (Can Go for Miles)” – The Deltahorse. This impressive tune is sort of to the left of all its referents: there’s some skronking sax, some straight-ahead ’90s techno beats, and some Brit-pop vocal melodies all jostling for precedence. It comes together into a genre-less sort of work that will stick with you.
2. “Trip” – The Venus De Melos. Math-rock is often a technical outworking of hardcore, the patterning of brutal spasms. This is the opposite: this is a major-key, burbling technical blitz that has a chorus that sounds like the soft side of Motion City Soundtrack or Copeland. Check it.
3. “Palms” – Native Other. Like a deconstructed Vampire Weekend, Native Other splits herky-jerky afropunk into parts and reconfigures it with elements of R&B, dream-pop, and math-rock. Whoa.
4. “All My Fake Friends” – Ira Lawrence. Lawrence’s overdriven, hypermanipulated mandolin is back! This tune creates a towering sound that’s hollowed out by an almost complete lack of bass. The resulting folk/indie-pop-esque sound is yearning, physically missing something that is reflected in the disappointment of Lawrence’s voice.
5. “Shut Out the Light (Ft. Peter Silberman)” – Tiny Dinosaurs. This low-slung, low-key electro-indie-pop tune didn’t have enough enigmatically romantic iciness to it, so Julie Jay brought in a member of the Antlers. That fixed it right up.
6. “Ellen” – Steph Sweet. An insistent, burbling, rubbery electric guitar line gives way to a syncopated, ratatat melodic line that I would expect to hear in tunes far more electronic than this one. Organ, glockenspiel, harpsichord(?), and ghostly waves of delay weave in and out of the guitarwork to create a truly unique tune that wouldn’t be out of place in ’70s Fleetwood-style rock or at the end of a modern prog-rock album.
7. “Demitasse” – JJASMINE. Cello, delicate piano melodies, synths that genuinely sound like breaths, and stuttering oscillations transform a dusky electro-pop track into a mystic, foggy, evocative landscape.
8. “Illuminate” – Carly Comando. Glockenspiel accents the bass-heavy, river-run-fast piano keys that create this beautiful track.
9. “La voz del sur (Himmelsrichtungen, nr. 4)” – Juan MarĂa Solare. Look around that city corner carefully; you never know what will be there, even in broad daylight. It’s a veritable cornucopia of possibilities, but there’s always a threat hanging above your head–you never know what it could be. And then suddenly, it is.
10. “Ded Mel 25” – Moyamoya. The machine lifted from the ocean floor. it had been trapped there for days, after the ship wrecked. It housed two poor souls, rationing everything they could to perhaps survive. And help had come, lifting their craft slowly yet surely toward the water. Breaking the surface was euphoric and crushing; still floating were remnants of their life’s work. The boat was gone, but they remained. Clenching a fist, one looked at the other and nodded. The hatch popped.
11. “Valley” – Sonic Soundscapes. A determined sojourner trudges across a windswept, wintry landscape. The still air is almost pristinely cold, as if every step he takes endangers the perfect landscape around him. But the landscape keeps going on, and so does the sojourner, neither of their determination fading. The light continues to creep over the mountains. He will get there or die trying.