#2 on the 2024 Bacon Top 31 — Waxahatchee

January 30, 2025 by Royal Stuart in Top 31, 2024

Tigers Blood by Waxahatchee

It is surprisingly difficult to reread my review of Waxahatchee’s last album, Saint Cloud, my #1 album of 2020. That album came out March 27 that year, just as the world was locking down. This was the first year of Covid, with (only) 400,000 deaths. Saint Cloud was the blanket that kept us warm, the unexpectedly bright star in that darkness. 2024 wasn’t nearly as dark, as Covid is mostly controlled, having left the world scarred and scared. And here as I write this at the end of January 2025, we’re in a different kind of dark times, unsure where the world is headed. “Unsettled,” as a vibe.

We’re so lucky to have Katie Crutchfield and her band to help prop us up and give us the energy we need to carry on. Like Katie to her sister Alison, Tigers Blood is very much a twin to Saint Cloud. Crutchfield brought back Brad Cook to produce the album (he also plays bass on every song aside from one). His ability to bring the coziness of the recording space into these songs is impeccable as always. You could easily play both albums back to back and have no real indication where one album ends and the other begins, aside from one notable exception: the backing vocals of one MJ Lenderman.

You may recall Lenderman, whose recent solo album was featured at #9 this year. His dry drawl is a perfect lower-register match to Crutchfield’s strong twang. Lenderman’s guitar appears across every song on the album, and he provides exquisite harmonies on four of them, often singing an unexpected harmonic tone underneath but not hidden from the forefront. The first single from the album, “Right Back To It” has Lenderman’s voice so prominent that he received a “ft. MJ Lenderman” credit in the song title. Released just over two months before the album came out, it was a strong indication of where Waxahatchee was headed.

Another highlight of Lenderman’s backing vocals is the “title song,” a slow, depressing-in-a-good-way dirge that ends with the entire band lending their voices to the chorus. I challenge you to zone in on Lenderman’s voice when you can pick it up underneath Crutchfield. The choices he makes for the harmony line are entirely unique and surprising. It makes me want to go back and give his band Wednesday’s 2023 album Rat Saw God another proper listen.

The highlight for me on the album is also the most sparse, “365.” I first truly fell for Waxahatchee on her song “Chapel of Pines” from the 2018 EP Great Thunder. It’s a simple song, just an acoustic guitar and Crutchfield’s strong, dripping-with-emotion voice planted firmly in your ear. This is where Waxahatchee shines brightest, when she is at her most intimate. “365” is similar in tone – simple acoustic baritone guitar from Brad Cook, organ from his brother Phil, Lenderman on a second acoustic guitar, and drummer (and Jeff Tweedy’s son) Spencer Tweedy playing a lone cymbal, everything drawn back to let Crutchfield’s voice proceed unhindered. The song is a gut punch, describing a person whose whole being is wrapped up in their broken-beyond-repair partner:

“I catch your poison arrow. I catch your same disease. Bow like a weeping willow, buc-kle-in’ at the knees, beg-gin’ you ‘please.’ If you fly up beyond the cosmos, it’s a long way to fall back down. Ya always go ’bout this the wrong way, and I’m too weak to just let you drown. So when you kill, I kill, When you ache, I ache. We both haunt this ol’ lifeless town When you fail, I fail When you fly, I fly, And it’s a long way to come back down.”

Crutchfield’s own voice doubles up her lead vocals, going up even higher on the verse above. It is such an unbelievably wrenching baring of emotion, you can feel throughout your entire being this person’s anguish at being stuck in this situation.

There is not a bad song on Tigers Blood. You can watch videos for the much more amped up and rocking “Bored,” evoking sounds of Rilo Kiley¹, and the more traditional slow country “Much Ado About Nothing.” Better yet, you should watch Waxahatchee’s latest “NPR Tiny Desk Concert” from December, 2024. This is their third appearance in the series, having appeared back in 2013, young, solo on guitar, and rough around the edges, and again with a special “Tiny Desk (Home) Concert” in April 2020, with her boyfriend Kevin Morby (another Top 31 alum – #3 in 2022²).

Waxahatchee has been on a massive wave since I started following them shortly after the release of their 2018 EP. The audience keeps getting bigger, and Crutchfield’s reach keeps getting wider. This year she’s been nominated for a Grammy, for best Americana album. The category is full of names I don’t recognize, aside from the heavy hitter T. Bone Burnett, who I imagine would be a lock with the Grammy voters. But maybe we’ll be able to see Katie sharing that stage with Beyoncé or Taylor Swift or Kendrick Lamar on February 2. If not, I’m fairly certain this won’t be her only opportunity. Here’s to looking forward to the next one!

^{1. I’ve learned today that Rilo Kiley, led by Top 31 alum Jenny Lewis (#24 in 2014) is reuniting and touring this summer – I’m going to assume Waxahatchee leading the currently indie rock scene into alt.country heaven is what has made that happen.↩}
^{2. Crutchfield showed up in 2022 as well, as half of the duo Plains with Jess Williamson on their fantastic I Walked With You a Ways at #13.↩}

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#9 on the 2024 Bacon Top 31 — MJ Lenderman

January 23, 2025 by Royal Stuart in Top 31, 2024

Manning Fireworks by MJ Lenderman

I first heard MJ Lenderman on the lovely Waxahatchee song “Right Back To It,” which came out on January 9, 2024. I’d been anxiously awaiting something new from Waxahatchee, so the new single was a much welcome surprise, despite the new sensation of having male backing vocals crowd in on Katie Crutchfield’s lead. When the new full Waxahatchee album came out in March, we learned that MJ Lenderman was all over that album, singing with Crutchfield on four songs, and playing electric guitar across the entire album. Just who was this guy suddenly thrust into my Waxahatchee-loving world?

Thankfully, later in the year, I learned exactly who MJ Lenderman was. His great record, Manning Fireworks, lands way up here at #9 on the Top 31. And once again, I’m late to the party. Fireworks is the fourth album Lenderman has released since 2019. His last album, Boat Songs, is apparently something special as well and I aim to check it out. On top of that, he is actively in the band Wednesday, with whom he has also released three albums in that same time period. Their 2023 album, Rat Saw God, barely missed the Top 31 last year, remaining in contention for one of the upper 20s spots until just before I started up the Top 31 (they can’t all win, and I often make the wrong choice in retrospect).

Lenderman’s voice is somewhere in the same area of the musical chart next to Eef Barzelay from Clem Snide, slightly scratchy, a touch of strain, and all emotion. There’s also hints of Stephen Malkmus, whose off-key delivery always put me off but I somehow find endearing with Lenderman. And there’s a straightforwardness, an earnestness to the delivery that feels very much like Neil Young. Lenderman’s fuzzy guitar often evokes some Neil as well.

The lead singer of Wednesday, Karly Hartzman, who is also Lenderman’s ex romantic partner, features prominently throughout Fireworks. It’s her backing vocals we hear on all but three of the nine songs. As opposed to Hartzman and Lenderman’s Wednesday albums, Lenderman and his solo-album band have slowed things down mostly into an alt.country lane, complete with pedal steel guitar. “She’s Leaving You,” featured above, is one of the more straightforward rock songs on the album, and Lenderman’s unpolished voice really drives it home. “Joker Lips” is slower, squarely country, as is “You Don’t Know the Shape I’m In” – the two other songs he’s produced videos for from the album.

The album ends with a ten-minute epic of a song called “Bark at the Moon.” The song starts out as nearly every other Lenderman song does, with a bit of lyrical humor. “I‘ve lost my sense of humor. I’ve lost my driving range. I could really use your two cents, babe. I could really use the change.” He then carries further into a depressing tale, where it’s clear he’s experiencing a breakup and his soon-to-be-ex is moving away from him. “Don’t move to New York City, babe. It’s gonna change the way you dress.” The lyrics then wrap up the story bringing us home to the reasoning for the song title, which also happens to be an early 80s Ozzy Osbourne track and album title. “I’ve never seen the the Mona Lisa. I’ve never really left my room. I’ve been up too late with Guitar Hero playing ‘Bark at the Moon.’ Awooooo.” The song then devolves into six minutes of glorious guitar drone that is quite pleasant in its loudness.

I’m excited to get to see Lenderman in February, at the Neptune here in Seattle. I’ve always had a soft spot for alt.country,¹ and with MJ Lenderman showing up in two of my favorite albums from 2024, I‘m going to be watching him closely for the foreseeable future.

^{1. I just looked up the wikipedia page for “alternative country,” to see if anyone still referred to it as “alt.country” as I still do, and saw that another name for it is “y’allternative.” I won’t start using that, preferring to stick to my late 90s verbiage, but I do love that turn of phrase.↩}

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#22 on the 2023 Bacon Top 31 — Ratboys

January 10, 2024 by Royal Stuart in Top 31

The Window by Ratboys

There seem to have been a slew of artists on the 2023 Top 31 who have been writing, performing, and producing music for over a decade before finally hitting my radar and/or making something great enough to beat out the competition. Please add Chicago’s Ratboys to that list. The band formed back in 2010 when their lead singer, Julia Steiner, and guitarist David Sagan were going to Notre Dame. They released their debut album, AOID, in 2015. Four albums later, here we are with their fantastic fifth full-length, The Window.

I haven’t yet compared Ratboys’ The Window against their previous work, but I feel safe in saying there’s a reason their new album has risen above the fray to land here on the Top 31, and that reason goes by the name Chris Walla. You may know Walla as a huge part of the formation and longevity of Death Cab for Cutie. He left DCFC in 2014 after 17 years, but has continued producing other band’s work to great success, including The Long Winters, The Decemberists, and Tegan and Sara.

Ratboys has a little more fuzz in their twang, but they remind me of a number of past Top 31 alt-country artists. Steiner’s vocals most closely resemble Jenny Lewis (#24 in 2014). There’s a little Big Thief (2017, 2019, and last year), and some definite Katie Crutchfield in there (aka Waxahatchee, whose Saint Cloud was #1 in 2020). If you’ve liked any of those bands, then The Window is for you.

Still having doubts? Then check out the band’s unbelievably good live set they performed at KEXP back in October. I only just watched it for the first time today, a couple days after I wrote the rest of this review, and just one day before this review is published (thanks Pete for pointing it out to me!), and now I’m wondering if I’ve ranked this album too low on the Top 31. That extended guitar solo in the middle of “Black Earth, WI” is Doug Martsch-esque. It‘s too late now to change it, but mark my words: when Ratboys’ next album is in the Top 10 for the year it comes out, I’ll come back here and read this review and remember exactly why it’s at #22.

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#3 on the 2022 Bacon Top 31 — Kevin Morby

January 29, 2023 by Royal Stuart

This Is a Photograph by Kevin Morby

I’ve had an unconscious aversion to Kevin Morby throughout his career. Despite him having released, over the past 23 years, seven studio albums under his own name, and an additional five as a member of two other bands (The Babies and Woods, the latter of which appeared on the Top 31 after Morby’s departure, at #31 in 2014), this is the first time Kevin Morby has appeared on the Top 31, ever. And what an appearance he’s made.

The album taking Morby from zero to hero¹ is the astoundingly good This is a Photograph. Starting off with the best song on the album, the title song is one that’s sure to get any listener up out of there seat. What starts off slow, just Morby and his guitar, singing about a photograph he found of his dad with his shirt off, holding Morby as a newborn and Morby’s sister at their side, standing in their front yard beneath the West Texas sun. In the photo, Morby’s dad is the age that the younger Morby is today, and he vocalizes what he imagines his dad is thinking the moment the photo is taken, “This is what I’ll miss after I’ll die, and this is what I’ll miss about being alive: my body, my girls, my boy, the sun.”

It‘s an existential, midlife crisis-like reflection. Morby sounds like he’s questioning his own place in the world. The song builds on that same refrain, talking about the concept of time giving up, then about his mother in Kentucky, then even about himself in Tennessee, ready to take the world on, but still thinking of the things we’ll all miss after we die, the things we’ll miss about being alive. It moves you deeply and gets you to move, deeply.

Once it hits that plateau, the rest of the album just coasts there across the top. Through The War on Drugs-esque songs like “A Random Act of Kindness,” slowing down for “Bittersweet, TN,” a gorgeous country duet with folk pop singer Erin Rae, over to somewhat silly rockers like “Rockbottom” (with a video starring the great Tim Heidecker no less). It’s got a little something for everyone.

Morby didn’t really hit my radar until the pandemic started in 2020. I wrote about he and his partner Katie Crutchfield (the one and only Waxahatchee) in my review of her #1 album, Saint Cloud:

A week before the release of the album (on March 27, 2020), just as the lockdown was beginning, she and her boyfriend Kevin Morby … began hosting weekly Thursday-night Instagram livestreams, where they performed both Waxahatchee and Kevin Morby originals and numerous covers, and had guest stars dial in, such as Robin Pecknold of Fleet Foxes and Crutchfield’s musical twin sister, Allison. They produced a Tiny Desk Concert From Home for NPR, and Waxahatchee was the headliner for the virtual KEXPY Awards from KEXP this past December. These were poor substitutes for an in-person live performance, but having her hold our virtual hands through the darkness that was 2020 was so much better than having nothing at all.

I fell in love with Crutchfield’s music despite of, or maybe because of, the pandemic lockdown, but I wasn’t yet convinced that Kevin Morby was for me. His sixth album, Sundowner, came out later that same year. I listened to it maybe twice. And earlier this year, the world seemed to be conspiring against me getting into Photograph, too. The album came out on May 13, 2022, the same day as Kendrick Lamar (#16)and The Smile (#15), and just a week after Sharon Van Etten (#6). That’s a crazy week for music, a lot of big name, repeat Top 31 performers. And it didn’t take me long to declare Photograph the best of all of those. A day after the full album was released, I put out a photo on social media showing all of those albums ganged up, declaring “Don’t miss out on [Kevin Morby]. It is the best one of all.” Such was the power of this album.

I got to see Morby perform at the Showbox in November, and of course he started the set with “This is a Photograph” — the song is one of the best opening tracks ever. In addition to playing all of the songs I wanted to hear from the album (including “Stop Before I Cry,” his paean to Crutchfield), he played a few songs from his vast back catalog, songs I didn’t know by heart. And I loved them, too. “City Music,” from his 2017 fourth album of the same name, was my favorite of the bunch. Hearing it again just now, I can confidently say that Morby’s music hasn’t really changed in a way that finally landed in a spot for me to like it, but rather it is I who have changed, finally ready to hear everything Morby has to offer. Over this year, I’ll be diving into his past albums (and the lovely soundtrack to the film “Montana Story” that he just put out last week). Join me on this venture, won’t you?

^{1. That’s not quite fair of me to say. I’ve only barely listened to Morby’s past work.↩}

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4. Lucifer On the Sofa by Spoon
5. Palomino by First Aid Kit
6. We've Been Going About This All Wrong by Sharon Van Etten
7. SOS by SZA
8. Wet Leg by Wet Leg
9. Chloë and the Next 20th Century by Father John Misty
10. Big Time by Angel Olsen
11. Ants From Up There by Black Country, New Road
12. Waterslide, Diving Board, Ladder To the Sky by Porridge Radio
13. I Walked with You a Ways by Plains
14. The Last Goodbye by Odesza
15. A Light for Attracting Attention by The Smile
16. Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers by Kendrick Lamar
17. Inside Problems by Andrew Bird
18. Laurel Hell by Mitski
19. Full Moon Project by Phosphorescent
20. Skinty Fia by Fontaines D.C.
21. I Love You Jennifer B by Jockstrap
22. Too Much to Ask by Cheekface
23. Dripfield by Goose
24. Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You by Big Thief
25. And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow by Weyes Blood
26. NOT TiGHT by DOMi & JD BECK
27. Preacher’s Daughter by Ethel Cain
28. Live at KEXP, vol. 10 by Various Artists
29. All You Need Is Time by Daisy the Great
30. Cool It Down by Yeah Yeah Yeahs
31. CAPRISONGS by FKA twigs

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#13 on the 2022 Bacon Top 31 — Plains

January 19, 2023 by Royal Stuart in Top 31

I Walked with You a Ways by Plains

When you want a new Waxahatchee (#1 in 2020) album but can’t have a new Waxahatchee album, having an album that Waxahatchee, aka Katie Crutchfield, sings beautiful duets with another lovely voice, that of Jess Williamson, is more than enough to tide you over. Together, Crutchfield and Williamson become Plains, a couple of southern belles with hearts of gold, setting aside their indie-rock roots to dive deeper into their countryfied pasts.

Plains harkens back to those halcyon days of popular country music. Long before mainstream country found their post-9/11 conservative and nationalist voice, the mass, approachable appeal of 90s country reigned high. My own countryfied past is eating it up. I grew up in Oklahoma, and while my family listened to classic rock in my younger days, when I started finding my own musical tastes, I was heavily influenced by the juke box at my local Pizza Hut. The Cure next to Garth Brooks. Guns N Roses alongside Mary Chapin Carpenter. Boys II Men paired with Dwight Yoakam. It was a magical, cross-genre landscape (with a distinct lack of hip hop) that introduced me to much more music than I would have heard in my little KMOD 97.5 FM bubble. There are lots of things I’d rather not remember from my Oklahoma past. Singing Garth Brooks, Trisha Yearwood, and Reba McEntire songs loudly while driving the backroads of suburban Tulsa in my beater Chevy is not something I’ll ever forget.

The video for “Hurricane,” shown above, brings back the Glamour-shot visuals of those days as well. It is truly a joy to listen to as well as watch. Two other videos have been put out by the duo, one for the unbelievably catchy “Abilene,” and another for the equally great “Problem With It.”

Earlier in 2022, Katie Crutchfield gave us a hint of where she was heading with Plains before we even knew that Plains existed: she performed a duet with one of her idols, Wynonna Judd, one-half of one of the most successful country acts of all time, The Judds. Judd and Crutchfield wrote and performed a new song together, “Other Side,” and its probably a little too country for my current tastes. But Crutchfield’s voice… sigh.

This isn’t the last country-ish album that will be featured on the 2022 Bacon Top 31, but it’s the most country of them all. Crutchfield and Williamson gave us something we didn’t know we needed, and it is perfect.

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14. The Last Goodbye by Odesza
15. A Light for Attracting Attention by The Smile
16. Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers by Kendrick Lamar
17. Inside Problems by Andrew Bird
18. Laurel Hell by Mitski
19. Full Moon Project by Phosphorescent
20. Skinty Fia by Fontaines D.C.
21. I Love You Jennifer B by Jockstrap
22. Too Much to Ask by Cheekface
23. Dripfield by Goose
24. Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You by Big Thief
25. And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow by Weyes Blood
26. NOT TiGHT by DOMi & JD BECK
27. Preacher’s Daughter by Ethel Cain
28. Live at KEXP, vol. 10 by Various Artists
29. All You Need Is Time by Daisy the Great
30. Cool It Down by Yeah Yeah Yeahs
31. CAPRISONGS by FKA twigs

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A single song selection pulled from each album.

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#1 on the 2020 Bacon Top 31 — Waxahatchee

January 31, 2021 by Royal Stuart

Saint Cloud by Waxahatchee

I’ve never met Katie Crutchfield, but in the last year, I grew to feel as though I’ve known her for decades. Her intimate, earth shattering album, Saint Cloud, is the best album of 2020. The album, her fifth Waxahatchee release, came out on March 27, just as the world was closing in on us. In the latter half of March 2020, restaurants, bars, and music venues were shuttered, essential stores were constricted to an extremely limited capacity, and we were told to stay away from everyone outside of our immediate households for what we hoped would be just a couple of rough weeks, or a month, tops. Spring tours (including Waxahatchee’s, for which I had two tickets to excitedly see her perform here in Seattle on May 15), were postponed and rebooked for later in the year, and we all settled into our sweatpants behind our glowing screens to ride out the naively-expected-to-be-relatively-short isolation.

Unfortunately, weeks of lock-down turned into months, and then months turned into seasons. Public indoor spaces were opened prematurely and then closed again. And now here, at the end of January 2021, we’re coming up on a full year of life-saving isolation. To date, Covid-19 has taken over 400,000 people in the US alone, and that number is sadly expected to continue to grow by vast numbers by the time enough of us have been vaccinated. Many of those who have contracted the illness but survived will have long-term maladies caused by the original virus. And the healthy majority in the country, those who manage to get inoculated before ever coming into contact with Covid-19, will be left mostly physically fit but emotionally and socially (and educationally, for the younger set) stunted. Thus is the mental toll of this past year.

And while our mental health has suffered greatly, I can confidently say: having the warm embrace that is Saint Cloud available at the touch of a screen has made all of the insanity a bit more bearable. Beyond the album, Crutchfield, along with her beautiful voice, deft finger-picking, and infectious smile, has made many screen-based appearances in my family’s home this past year. A week before the release of the album, just as the lockdown was beginning, she and her boyfriend Kevin Morby (a fantastic indie-rocker as well) began hosting weekly Thursday-night Instagram livestreams, where they performed both Waxahatchee and Kevin Morby originals and numerous covers, and had guest stars dial in, such as Robin Pecknold of Fleet Foxes and Crutchfield’s musical twin sister, Allison. They produced a Tiny Desk Concert From Home for NPR, and Waxahatchee was the headliner for the virtual KEXPY Awards from KEXP this past December. These were poor substitutes for an in-person live performance, but having her hold our virtual hands through the darkness that was 2020 was so much better than having nothing at all.

I’m a relative newcomer to the magic of Waxahatchee, having only started listening around the release of her Great Thunder EP in 2018. Her fantastic 2017 record, Out in the Storm, only hit my radar once the year had ended, missing inclusion on that year’s Top 31. At the time of discovery, the well orchestrated and produced Storm was greatly outshined by the sparse, raw, guitar-and-voice only songs on the Thunder EP. The lead single, “Chapel of Pines,” is the kind of song I could listen to on repeat for days. It’s simple – only one verse and a repeated, single-line chorus — and direct, with Crutchfield pushing her voice to its limit, cracking, as if she’s struggling to stay afloat in the murkiness of the still waters around her.

She brings that same close-to-the-heart rawness to Saint Cloud. It only occurred to me earlier this week that, while the song structure is quite different, the powerful, guttural strain from her voice reminds me of Jeff Mangum on Neutral Milk Hotel’s In the Aeroplane Over the Sea (hands down my favorite album of all time), and that’s likely why I am so drawn to Saint Cloud. It’s real, it’s passionate, and it pulls me in like an inescapable magnetic field of emotion.

Listen to “Fire,” shown in the video above. It takes real chutzpah to belt a song like that right from the start, and I love it. Crutchfield’s lyrics, and the cadence of her rhymes, have always been great, but the crispness of the clip, the beauty in the beat of the words she chooses here feels otherworldly. To whit:

I take it for granted
If I could love you unconditionally I
could iron out the edges of the darkest sky
For some of us it ain’t enough
It ain’t enough

Breaking the second and third lines in the chorus in an unconventional way to have “I” and “sky” rhyme on the same 12th syllable is the kind of couplet that brings with it a pang of longing, a sadness that I can’t live in that chorus forever.

In 2018, Crutchfield recognized how her excessive drinking was not good for her or anyone around her, so she stopped. Essentially, she has been sober for the same length of time that I’ve loved her music, and I’m not so sure that’s a coincidence. Perhaps the clearness of thought is what allows her vocal and songwriting talents to really shine. In interviews, she’s said writing songs while sober has been more difficult for her. If we could only see the result that such a monumental life-shift might have on our creative output, that type of decision would be so much easier for each of us to make.

We are all better off because of the music and happiness Katie Crutchfield has shared with us throughout the last year. 2020 was the hardest year I’ve ever lived in so many ways, and it boggles the mind to consider how much of our future will be shaped by those 366 days. The final song on Saint Cloud, the title song, is a slow burner, very similar to the much-beloved “Chapel of Pines” I mentioned earlier. The song’s true meaning is obtuse, but that final stanza, “And when when I go, when I go, look back at me, embers aglow” might be how I look back at 2020. Crutchfield has a slight yodel she throws in her songs when she really wants to lay on the feelings. Those final “when I go”s get that extra oomph, and it adds a little flair of perspective to my vision of 2020, one that‘s not so bad.

I have truly loved the time I’ve been gifted this past year to spend with those closest to me — my wife and our two lovely children. But with that extra time has come a greater mental social cost that we have yet to recognize or quantify. We’ve been in a collective cocoon, and 2021 is when the world slowly breaks free and starts to spread its new wings. When we were deep in it last year, every day seemed to bring some new tragic headline, another horrifying fact or secret realization brought to light. Now, a month into 2021, I have a newly-lit hope that the perspective wrought by the year will ultimately drive positive, lasting, unbreakable change. I once was blind, but now I see. Let’s work together to do great things with our new eyes.

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1. Saint Cloud by Waxahatchee
2. Fetch The Bolt Cutters by Fiona Apple
3. Punisher by Phoebe Bridgers
4. folklore + evermore by Taylor Swift
5. Untitled (Black Is) + Untitled (Rise) by Sault
6. RTJ4 by Run The Jewels
7. Shore by Fleet Foxes
8. Serpentine Prison by Matt Berninger
9. The Ascension by Sufjan Stevens
10. Making a Door Less Open by Car Seat Headrest
11. Dreamland by Glass Animals
12. A Hero’s Death by Fontaines D.C.
13. Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez by Gorillaz
14. Mordechai + Texas Sun EP by Khruangbin
15. Introduction, Presence by Nation of Language
16. Free Love by Sylvan Esso
17. Miss Anthropocene by Grimes
18. 3.15.20 by Childish Gambino
19. Women In Music Pt. III by HAIM
20. The Third Mind by The Third Mind
21. Superstar by Caroline Rose
22. Impossible Weight by Deep Sea Diver
23. We Will Always Love You by The Avalanches
24. Ultra Mono by IDLES
25. Visions of Bodies Being Burned by clipping.
26. Thin Mind by Wolf Parade
27. The Loves of Your Life by Hamilton Leithauser
28. Palo Alto (Live) by Thelonious Monk
29. color theory by Soccer Mommy
30. Fall to Pieces by Tricky
31. Quarantine Casanova by Chromeo

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