Note from These Subtle Sounds: if you like something and you have the means, please pay for it beyond your chosen streaming services. Streaming services do not provide musicians with reasonable payment for their work. While we include Spotify due to streaming’s ubiquity, we have also linked Patreon, Bandcamp, and artist stores (where applicable) below.
We most recommend purchasing direct from the artist, but appreciate that Bandcamp’s practices have undoubtedly been the best of the large-scale digital music services. If you purchase from such a service, we strongly recommend waiting for a Bandcamp Friday, which Bandcamp has announced will extend through the remainder of 2020.
New Albums
Old Flowers by Courtney Marie Andrews
CMA has released several incredible albums in a row (The Rookie and May Your Kindness Remain especially), and Old Flowers continues this trend. I’ve avoided reading the prepared narrative around it (as all records have), but I couldn’t choose to ignore Andrews’ posts on Insta. At its core, Old Flowers continues to embrace age-old and familiar themes of heartbreak and what it means to be a social creature, the existential dread of aging, loving, and the loss of love. CMA’s voice is utterly massive, a physical thing that can launch into the stratosphere or quietly drift overhead. Instrumentation is sporadically spare – and for some, this might represent something detrimental – but I find the space in the songs allows them to soar, acting as cornerstone moments.
The Balladeer by Lori McKenna
Lori McKenna is and has been a kind of lynchpin in the modern americana scene, her lyrics always evocative and her voice a consistent reminder to stop and listen. This record has a chance of being considered one of her best, a continued exploration of what it means to be human in America; as always, she approaches politics obliquely, always emphasizing empathy and understanding. It’s a shame that such a concept is often considered political, but since time immemorial, calls to treat others kindly have become associated with weakness and meekness, but such a thing is an enduring strength and how our species survives. I’ll leave you with a lyric from McKenna that slipped into my veins with immediacy: “When you’re my age / I hope the world is kinder / than it seems to be right now/And I hope the front page isn’t just a reminder / of how we keep letting each other down.”
Dry Demos by PJ Harvey
PJ Harvey is an international treasure and everyone should endeavor to listen to her music, if at least passingly. She first released Dry back in 1992, though I didn’t discover it until my nascent adulthood (late 2000s); it’s a heavy record full of extremities, each song sharply poetic. I found a notebook from the time when I first discovered Dry, and I wrote, “these songs feel like mountain ranges slicing the sky,” and while it’s not particularly good writing, the idea maintains relevance. These songs can disorient, deprive you of oxygen, and they are mammoth, beautiful things. These demos are worth every second you devote to them.
Bad Vacation by Liza Anne
This album has surprised me so far, its sunny melodies and beachy moods punctuated by themes of depression, of living darkly in the light, and ultimately of a tenuous and ongoing recovery. It’s the follow-up to Fine But Dying (a record that laid bare mental health challenges). Th song structures and narrative direction of the songs result in anthemic, cathartic moments of explosive self-love (y’all, “Devotion” is a song). Bad Vacation feels like a very current record, capturing some of the zeitgeist that defines so much of what it means to be in and of a few of the most-recently-adulted generations: some of us can live in the sunshine, but it’s impossible to escape the ennui of modern living, and we will always try to grimace-laugh our way through the pain.
Recover by The Naked and Famous
New Zealand rock and pop band The Naked and Famous – boiled down to a duo now – have released their poppiest album yet, their first since 2016. They follow the modern electropop structures, but steer clear of the saccharine. It’s warm, appropriate for summer, and could easily soundtrack firefly-laden nights.
Vast Ovoid EP by Devendra Banhart
A 4-track EP born out of the Ma sessions, these songs really fit in with the themes of quarantine and our modern age. I find it hard to articulate, but Banhart’s predisposition towards well-settled grooves centers me easily, and the songs on Vast Ovoid have evoked those calmer moments of a lived life. The effect of these songs is to engender a sense of relaxation in its listener, and with the way American society crumbles, there is value in slower breathing.
folklore by Taylor Swift
Taylor Swift is a cultural phenomenon, a person apart from the musical norms. Within the current zeitgeist, it’s important to acknowledge that she has had an extraordinary amount of privilege in her life, and that continues with folklore. I also have some discomfort at how this album feels like a rehash of so many of my favorite indie musicians, and I’m concerned it will pull attention away from them. But it’s also important to emphasize that much of what she’s done and continues to do with her privilege is beneficial to society at large. And she’s shown an interest in unlearning, learning, and then leaning into what she can do with the power she wields.
For folklore, it’s easy to identify this as a good album, and it may go down as her best. The songs are infused with moodiness, an ethereal quality that evokes Mazzy Star at times. She creates a host of powerful moments: evocative lyrics, sonic transitions, and some vocal moments where she lets go. Plus, that duet with Justin Vernon (Bon Iver) is pretty damned cool. My personal early favorites are “invisible string”, “mad woman”, and “exile”, but I suspect everyone will have differing views.
Artist Store (additional sidenote: she’s released 8 CD and vinyl versions of her album, but I’m not sure there are discernible differences beyond the “collectible” covers)
Singles
“Starlight Fountain” by Caleb Stine (as part of Hidden Tracks)
For the Friends of Patterson Park (and in collaboration with Old Line Spirits), Caleb played a few songs around the park, focusing on nature themes. He unveiled this new song, and it’s been a quick and easy friend. Definitely seek out the set, but find this song.
“Picture of You” by Madeline Kenney
The third single from her forthcoming album Sucker’s Lunch, “Picture of You” may be the most affecting yet. A sense of nostalgia permeates, clarified by contemplation, and it becomes the kind of song that can be a lament as readily as a kind of rejoicing. At its core, the song explores how you can never really know what a person has experienced, and that’s a heartbreaking thing; at the same time, however, there is reward in accepting the right-now love, understanding the right-now inasmuch as that’s possible. I want to emphasize that there is no revelation here, but maybe some acceptance, a little pain, and as much honest love as a song can hold.
“Ferris Wheel” by Sylvan Esso
This is quintessential Sylvan Esso: vibrant, dancy, and beautiful. The video itself mirrors the same beauty, and I imagine the record itself will be just the right thing for right now. I will listen to anything related to Amelia Meath, but to say I’ve developed a wild kind of love for these Sylvan Esso albums is an understatement.
“Neighborhood Protection Spell (Lana Del Biden Nem)” by Open Mike Eagle
A spell to fight subtle attacks against blackness, written before the world was on fire, it feels prescient in all of the worst and best ways.
“Closer to Heaven” by Eric Slick ft. Natalie Prass
Eric Slick, a multi-instrumentalist extraordinaire for Dr. Dog, is releasing his own album next month. He released a new song with collaborator and guest Natalie Prass (also happens to be his wife, which is pretty cool). It has a natural give-and-take between the two singers and it feels very much like a jointly-lived song, playing with the dynamics between them and mirroring what it’s like to be in a relationship.
Upcoming
Sucker‘s Lunch by Madeline Kenney
No Horizon by Wye Oak
Welcome to Hard Times by Charley Crockett
Total Freedom by Kathleen Edwards
Have You Lost Your Mind Yet? by Fantastic Negrito
Twelfth by Old 97s
Down in the Weeds Where the World Once Was by Bright Eyes
Right Now by Twisted Pine
Wiseacre by Eric Slick
A Little Heat by June Star
