Every month, Uproxx cultural critic Steven Hyden makes an unranked list of his favorite music-related items released during this period — songs, albums, books, films, you name it.
1. Various Artists, Cardinals At The Window
John Coltrane. Nina Simone. Thelonious Monk. Ben E. King. George Clinton. Doc Watson. James Taylor. Loudon Wainwright III. Emmylou Harris. J. Cole. Jodeci. Randy Travis. Eric Church. Flat Duo Jets. Archers Of Loaf. Superchunk. The Avett Brothers. Sylvan Esso. Wednesday. MJ Lenderman.
All of these artists and bands are among the musical natives of North Carolina. Clearly, this is a state that has given so much. Now, it’s time to give back. Cardinals At The Window — a massive 135-track compilation featuring unreleased songs by everyone from R.E.M. to The War On Drugs to Sharon Van Etten to dozens more — benefits flood relief in Western North Carolina. The people there are still trying to pick up the pieces. Help them along, and enjoy some incredible music in the process.
2. The Hard Quartet, The Hard Quartet
There are few terms in the modern musical lexicon more loaded than “supergroup.” It denotes an assemblage of well-known musicians, but what it actually communicates is “likely underwhelming short-term marriage.” I have no idea if The Hard Quartet — the new group featuring Stephen Malkmus, Matt Sweeney, Jim White, and Emmett Kelly — will last beyond their self-titled debut. But the wonder of this album is how un-supergroup-like it is. It feels homey and lived-in, more like it’s the fourth or fifth LP in the catalog than an introduction. And there’s a certain modesty in how the various singers and songwriters complement each other — Malkmus’ slack surrealism, Kelly’s laconic cool, and Sweeney’s campfire croon already sound like they have coexisted for the better part of a decade.
3. Styrofoam Winos, Real Time
This Nashville trio reminds me a lot of The Hard Quartet, only the members aren’t indie-famous. However, they do occupy a similar space of loose-limbed guitar music that can meander without losing the lyrical and melodic plot. Perhaps what I’m trying to say is that both bands remind me of American Water — Malkmus playing on American Water helps, obviously, but Styrofoam Winos residing on the same “approachably eccentric and impressively erudite” side of the Nashville divide also matters. The larger point remains: “Music that remind me of American Water” is one of my favorite subgenres.
4. Bon Iver, SABLE
Justin Vernon has long treated his most famous music project with a certain weariness. As Bon Iver releases have become less frequent, it seemed reasonable to assume that he might eventually mothball the brand name for good. So, the arrival of this EP registers as a surprise on multiple layers. One, because it exists. But more important, this has to be the most straightforward and accessible music he has ever put out as Bon Iver. Singing in his natural, lower register and mostly eschewing the terror-techno digital distortions of his late-2010s work, Vernon more or less sounds like the man who shaped our curent generation of sad-guy superstar singer-songwriters. (I refer to you, Zach Bryan and Noah Kahan, among many others.)
5. Wild Pink, Dulling The Horns
This Brooklyn band has been saddled with the dubious “critic’s favorite” tag for so long that it must feel like a hindrance at this point. Not that it has affected the music in any discernible way — this is their fifth very good-to-excellent album released in the past seven years. (Congratulations on passing The Five Albums Test, fellas.) It might also be their most purely enjoyable record to date. After the emotionally taxing ILYSM, which was informed by frontman John Ross’ cancer battle, Dulling The Horns feels palpably lighter, even as it rocks much harder. At heart, Wild Pink remains an expert heartland rock band at the top of the post-Lost In The Dream class, though their embrace of noisier sounds on Dulling The Horns gives their music extra grit and power.
6. Good Looks, “Chase Your Demons Out”
Speaking of post-Lost In The Dream heartland rock: Good Looks’ Lived Here For A While has stayed in my regular rotation for months now, and in October they kindly issued two more songs, presumably from the same sessions. Both are great, but “Chase Your Demons Out” immediately belongs with their top-tier material, spotlighting the alchemy of Tyler Jordan’s heart-tugging songwriting and the inspired improvisations of guitarist Jake Ames.
7. Kelly Lee Owens, Dreamstate
The previous work by this Welsh producer could be classified as “thinking person’s” dance music, no matter how dumb that sounds. (I’m trying not to use the even cornier “IDM” tag.) I’ve enjoyed her past albums, but Dreamstate hits the hardest for me, mostly because it actually sounds like a record you could dance to. Not that I would dance to it, because nobody wants to see that. But I can theoretically dance to this album for sure. My Indiecast co-host Ian Cohen describes this as her “basic” album, and he means it as a compliment. And so do I.
8. Peel Dream Magazine, ‘Rose Main Reading Room’
I became a fan of this L.A. band after hearing their second record, Agitprop Alterna, in 2020. Based on that album, I had them clocked as proponents of drone-pop in the mold of Stereolab. Turns out Peel Dream Magazine couldn’t be so easily categorized. Their next album, 2022’s Pad, shifted to a more orchestral, Pet Sounds-inspired sound, while their latest release refines that aesthetic a bit, alluding to Sufjan Stevens’ Illinois and Air’s Moon Safari. This is catchy, sophisticated and well-composed pop music made to luxuriate in.
9. Tim Heidecker, Slipping Away
The tricky balance between “media-skewering comic genius” and “low-key and earnest singer-songwriter” seem to get a little easier in 2022 with High School, a warm and witty song cycle supported by a well-received tour backed by the aptly named Very Good Band. Heidecker’s latest brings the spirit of the tour to wax — Slipping Away is an old-school, “live in the studio” effort in which Heidecker sets his suburban dad musings to rollicking country-rock that evoke Gram Parson and the twangiest numbers by the early ’70s Rolling Stones.
10. 2nd Grade, Scheduled Explosions
Power pop is such a hard genre to master because there’s nowhere to hide — you either have the tunes or you don’t. Most bands of this ilk tend to keep on making records well past the point of losing their melodic touch. Thankfully, that’s not yet true of this Philadelphia outfit, whose previous effort, Easy Listening, was one of my favorite LPs of 2022. Scheduled Explosions doesn’t have the same hit rate as that record, but it doesn’t seem like it was supposed to. This is a deliberately messy record, like if mid-’90s GBV had tried to sound more like The Monkees. Which, of course, is a pretty awesome thing to be.
11. The Voidz, Like All Before You
I’m mentioning this record, in part, because I feel like practically nobody has acknowledged its existence. And those that have generally think it’s trash. But I have a soft spot for Julian Casablancas’ bonkers side project, where he gets to indulge in his most stoned and least coherent ideas. Hence Like All Before You, a sorta-political and quasi-philosophical treatise on Buddhist texts and religious cults and other such miscellanea conveyed via a confusing mishmash of discount synths and shredding Megadeth-style riffs. Is it good? As always with The Voidz, I honestly don’t know. But I can’t stop listening.