^ huzzah!

This is my song of the year from what could possibly be my album of the year once I'm able to penetrate (or not) it's dense, cosmic world-building of texture and sound. Just an absolute stunner of PNW shoegaze and dreampop without being beholden to any one signifier. Featuring a couple of guest collaborations from Jessika Kenney (Sunn O))), Wolves in the Throne Room) and Lori Goldstein (Earth, Nirvana) Natasha El-Sergany's somesuprises unique brand of shoegaze is bowling me over with her patient and delicate washes of unearthly sound that billows into grand celestial statements. RIYL: Grouper, Mercury Rev, MBV, pinkshinyultrablast, Stereolab, gorgeous melodies, gazey sounds.

Olivia Block- The Mountains Pass

Whores are back and they've still got riffs!

That Delicious Vice from Kid Congo's Pink Monkey Birds is great.

An album of sorts.

https://thisbighouse.xyz/products/nose-music

"A collaboration between dublab and The Institute for Art and Olfaction, Nose Music is a box-set of 10 custom-formulated fragrances created by the team at The Institute for Art and Olfaction with accompanying artworks by Chris Johanson & Joanna Jackson, Dave Muller, Eboy, Fernanda Cohen, Frohawk Two Feathers, Jamie Wolfe Kozyndan, Kris Chau, Plastic Crimewave & Sara Gossett, and Tokio Aoyama. Each fragrance and artwork reflects the spirit of a classic, groundbreaking album. This initiative is a fundraiser for dublab and IAO’s further explorations in the fields of audio and olfaction."

Just arrived in the mail. Pretty excited to get cracking and smell while listening to to tracks. No music included but I have most of these, and the internet.

I always found Good Morning to be quaint and pleasant, wonderfully discovered in a Spotify random mix. The new album is on a whole other level. Completely brilliant.

https://polyvinylrecords.com/product/good_morning_seven

Captain Obvious here, but: new Big Brave record A Chaos of Flowers.



It’s been a while since a guitar distortion sound on a record got me genuinely excited.

The new Conformists dropped in full earlier this month, it's fantastic (as usual). The first shows I saw them play had Chris singing, so it's nice to finally see him singing on a record.



A little-known Portland band just dropped the best "grunge" album in a long, long time. The opener is a slow start, but the album takes off from there.




This one dropped at the end of last year, but I just found out about it. Garage rock with a ton of left turns and a singer who sounds like Bob Dylan of all people. There's even ballads that don't suck!