10 and 10, March in Review
A run through of 10 albums and 10 songs that I've been enjoying this past month. Comprised mainly of new music, this list also includes some older releases that I've just listened to.
10 Albums
Keeper of the Shepherd - Hannah Frances (Ruination)
Written after losing her father to a heart attack a few years ago, Hannah Frances’ Keeper of the Shepherd is an epic and unique folk album, comprised of complex instrumentation, swerving melodies, and dense lyrics, all of which come together to creative vivid images of a grieving mind and heart reflected in the natural world around her. It’s a mature and fiercely honest record that finds Hannah at the crossroads of trauma, pain and the desire to find and make meaning out of it all. Even on the most solemn and heartbreaking tracks, she clings to the dimly glowing hope for some inevitable breakthrough, no matter how close or far off it may seem to be.
Standout Songs: “Brownyn”, “Keeper of the Shepherd”, “Haunted Landscape, Echoing Cave”
March 1st, 2024; indie folk/country
Tigers Blood - Waxahatchee (Anti-)
It’s been exactly four years since Waxahatchee’s St. Cloud was released, the album that took the indie scene by storm and was hailed as one of the best records of 2020 by numerous publications, and in the time that’s passed, band founder, frontwoman, and lyricist Katie Crutchfield has continued to forge her own sense of community through friends, collaborators, and family - all bound together by a shared vision of where her life is to go. And so the product of this is the incredible follow up Tigers Blood, an extravagant and involved record, steeped in both connection and nostalgia, that seeks to celebrate this community and all who want or have already taken part in it. Filled with the same impressively sharp diction that’s always separated her from her peers and a continued dedication to piercing transparency in the face of more complicated emotions, the album acts a crowning moment for the artist as she continues her 12 year arc from DIY undergrounder to folk/rock legend in the making.
Standout Songs “Right Back to It (feat. MJ Lenderman)” , “Ice Cold”, “Crowbar”
March 22, 2024; indie folk/rock
Ten Total - 1010benja (Three Six Zero/Sony)
After releasing his debut single in 2017 and a full EP in 2018, 1010benja seemed to cool down a bit, only dropping a handful of songs over the next few years, with nothing officially released between late 2021 and earlier this year when his debut album announcement arrived. However, on the heels of this wait, Ten Total arrives as an experimental and captivating listen, coming in at just over 30 minutes. It’s a record that at times feels like an easy product of the alternative R&B movement of the 2010s; however, there is a signature individuality and progressiveness to it, where the songs and ideas are fleshed out and brought into this current decade in charming, warm, and original ways.
Standout Songs: “H2HAVEYOU”, “Twin”, “I Can”
March 22, 2024; experimental R&B/rap/pop
Nico Paulo - Nico Paulo (self released through Forward Music Group)
Released in April of 2023, the Portuguese-Canadian folk singer Nico Paulo creates a mesmerizing and gorgeous record, led by her light yet powerful arrangements and standout voice. Recorded in a small cabin in Nova Scotia, the album brims with a commitment to finding inspiration, whether upbeat or melancholy, in the human connection and following it to someplace magical. It’s a stunning and enchanting debut that could make an overnight fan out of anyone.
Standout Songs: “Learning My Ways”, “Time”, ”Hand Kisser”
April 7th, 2023; alternative folk/rock
Deeper Well - Kacey Musgraves (Interscope/MCA Nashville)
Released a few years after the death of longtime friend, collaborator, and mentor John Prine and the end of a long romantic relationship, Deeper Well finds the glittery superstar turning more inward than ever before, as she brings her longtime inclination towards the mystical and existential a bit more into the public eye. With Laurel Canyon-esq production and soft earthy tones running throughout, Deeper Well seems to finally shed the looming weight of her magnificent 2018 Golden Hour, reminding the audience, and maybe even herself, that she’s a growing and intimate songwriter, with more and more things to say and experience.
Standout Songs: “Too Good to be True”, “Giver/Taker”, “Jade Green”
March 15, 2024; country/soft rock/folk
The Collective - Kim Gordon (Matador)
Nearly 45 years into her career, it’s hard to image someone still being able to create such fresh and exciting music - and yet Kim Gordon does just that on her second solo album The Collective. The Sonic Youth member, Hole producer, visual artist, writer, etc. shows us her artistic outlook isn’t to be taken for granted as she pushes the boundaries of the listener experience way past the unexpected. It’s an experimental, industrial, punk, trap record that will surely inspire a new generation of fans to not only engage with her output - but think about the world and art a little differently because of it.
Standout Songs: “BYE BYE”, “Psychedelic Orgasm”, “Dream Dollar”
March 8, 2024; experimental/industrial
Letter To Yu - Bolis Pupul
After losing his mother to a car accident in his early 20s, Bolis Pupul, born Boris Kor Tom Zeebroek in Ghent to a Belgian father and Chinese mother, waited nearly 10 years to travel to the street on which she died in Hong Kong. Once there, he wrote her a letter that would ultimately become the backbone of the entire album, one in which he immerses himself in both grief and maternal love. A wondrous, fluid record that eases between electronic, house and dance genres, Letter To Yu is a cathartic debut, rooted in deep connection and revolving around discovery, identity, and familial bonds.
Standout Songs: “Letter To Yu”, “Ma Tau Wai Road (with Salah Pupul)”, “Kowloon”
March 8, 2024; experimental/dance/electronic
Live Laugh Love - Chastity Belt (Suicide Squeeze)
It’s been nearly 5 years since the last Chastity Belt record, with a pandemic and various lives lived in between. And so the rock group from Walla Walla, Washington, returns on a gorgeous, classic sounding record, tackling more introspective themes and embracing the fluidity and rapport the four artists have built with each other over the last decade. After already undergoing one hiatus in the mid 2010s and a few of the members venturing on their own solo projects the last couple years, this record seems to celebrate and cement their friendship and legacy even more as they continue well into their second decade of collaboration.
Standout Songs: “Hollow”, “I-90”, “Laugh”
March 29,2024; indie rock
Sweep the Desert - Swell Maps (Alive)
A compilation of their songs from the mid to late 70s, Sweep the Desert is an engaging output from the band Swell Maps, a staple in the DIY/underground scene who went on to influence bands like Sonic Youth, R.E.M., Nirvana, etc. Particularly intended to showcase the band’s more experimental work, this album ranges from ambience to noise to rock, blending all the genres together in guitar led post-punk and continuously pushing sonic boundaries in the process.
Standout Songs: “Big Empty Field”, “Collision With A Frogman Vs. The Mangrove Delta Plan”, “Blam!!”
October 23, 2001; diy/underground/post-punk
Cowboy Carter - Beyoncé (Parkwood/Columbia)
Nearly eight years after country music fully rejected her because of her race and gender, Beyoncé has returned, galloping in on a literal horse and waiving the American flag in a statement of self assertion in the genre she grew up with, in the spaces she and other Black people have been historically excluded from, and in America and its whitewashed history at large. Cowboy Carter is a shining full length rodeo with Beyoncé taking command on the center stage, giving impeccable vocal performances, fluid and comical transitions (many of which are cosigned by country legends as a not-so-disguised middle finger to those who excluded her years prior), and blending every genre she can think of to fit her image of what country music can be. This culminates in an eclectic, bold, and celebratory project, demanding and receiving the attention and praise of every listener out there, all while she showcases her ability to continuously sculpt the music and cultural landscapes that surround us all.
Standout Songs: “TEXAS HOLD ‘EM”, “BODYGUARD”, “SWEET ★ HONEY ★ BUCKIIN’”
March 29, 2024; country/every genre every
10 Songs
Thinking About You - Faye Webster, Underdressed at the Symphony (Secretly Canadian)
Tegami - Mei Semones, Kabutomushi (Bayonet Records)
oração do mar - sonhos tomam conta, single (Longinus Recordings)
let’s live on a transmission tower - The Acid Flashback at Nightmare Beach, single (Nightmare Beach)
Loud Bark - Mannequin Pussy, I Got Heaven (Epitaph)
GUILTY (feat. Lonnie Holley, Raia Was)- Moor Mother, The Great Bailout (Anti-)
Gay Panic - Glitter Porn, single (Storm Sewer Records)
Rotting Fruit- Kaleah Lee, Birdwatcher (Kaleah Lee)
Gates of Heaven- Horse Jumper of Love, single (Run for Cover Records)
M M M - Still House Plants, single (Bison Records)