Odd-servations:

1. R. A. P. Ferreira (formerly known as Milo) is having one helluva year. If as a rap aficionado you’re insistent on the freshest, most ticklish, and slammingest beats, move along. But if you dig word-slinging and surprising associations, you best get hip.
2. Bible and Tire Company’s Sacred Soul of South Carolina is the perfect gospel pairing with Musicmakers Foundation’s contemporary rural blues comp Hanging Tree Guitars (from 2020). Strictly speaking, if you have one and love it, you must do right and get the other. And the “soul” in the title is no exaggeration.
3. You may be tired of historical theory stirred into your toons. I am not. Keep pouring, luvs. If you’re like me and enjoy critical beatdowns, Mexstep, The Brkn Record, and the irrepressible Irreversible Entanglements each have the musical cocktail for you. And yes, the music is piquant to listen to if you’re not about the science. It does help, though.
4. South Memphis’ Lukah is one of the most stentorian MCs I’ve heard in a good long while, plus he has two strong records out this year. The new one (bolded, below) is the pick; its politics, flow, and sense of place are astounding, and his sexual philosophy seems to have advanced.
5. Best news is likely in the archaeological section. This may be a strange list upon which to find Marian Anderson, but, truly, as Duke opined, there’s only two kinds of music, good and bad, and the woman brilliantly blazed a trail. That’s a 15-disc box with both historic and important unreleased recordings, plus brilliant photos and notes, but, um…less than $80*? Also, Bobo Jenkins was a rocking, charming, and eccentric DIY blues guitarist whose career stretched from the ’50s into the late ’70s; if that sounds like your meat and taters, it’s on Third Man and it might have been RSD only, but…c’mon–if you want it, you can track it down. And as far as historical monuments in the rowdier aspects of the modern musical life of Brother Europe go, you can’t beat Corbett vs. Dempsey’s look at the formative days of the masterful and mischievous Instant Composers Pool and Guerilla Records’ top-notch and long-overdue reissue of The Plastic People of the Universe’s truly revolutionary original bootleg.

Next month, I’m gonna get tough with this list, shave it down, get serious about their listenability and durability, and and arrange it into categories of A, A-, B+, and B–since we all have loved grades so much our whole lives. I know you cannot wait. And, yes, I’m very serious about that Wild Up record.

BOLDED ITEMS are new to the list.

1. Wild Up: Julius Eastman, Volume 1–Femenine
2. James Brandon Lewis: Jesup Wagon 
3. East Axis: Cool With That 
4. Ka: Martyr’s Victory
5. Ingebrigt Håker Flaten: (Exit) Knarr
6. Miguel Zenon: Law Years—The Music of Ornette Coleman 
7. Bob Dylan: Soundtrack to the film Shadow Kingdom (currently unavailable)
8. Gimenez Lopez: Reunion en la granja
9. No-No Boy: 1975 
10. The Halluci Nation: One More Saturday Night
11. Little Simz: Sometimes I Might Be Introverted
12. The Ebony Hillbillies: Barefoot and Flying
13. Peter Stampfel and Jeffrey Lewis: Both Ways
14. Robert Finley: Sharecropper’s Son 
15. Mauricio Tagliari: Maô_Danças Típicas de Cidades Imaginárias
16. Mickey Guyton: Remember Her Name
17. Mdou Moctar: Afrique Victim 
18. William Parker: Painter’s Winter 
19. Bktherula: Love Black
20. Dave: We’re All Alone in This Together 
21. Penelope Scott: Public Void  
22. R. A. P. Ferreira: The Light Emitting Diamond Cutter Scriptures
23. Paris: Safe Space Invader 
24. Dawn Richard: Second Line  
25. For Those I Love: For Those I Love
26. Lady Gaga and Friends: Dawn of Chromatica
27. R.A.P. Ferreira: Bob’s Son  
28. Sons of Kemet: Black to the Future 
29. Fire in Little Africa: Fire in Little Africa 
30. Kalie Shorr: I Got Here by Accident
31. Various Artists: Sacred Soul of North Carolina
32. Florian Arbenz: Conversations 2 & 3
33. Ensemble 0: Julius Eastman’s Femenine 
34. Moor Mother: Black Encyclopedia of the Air
35. Jupiter and Okwess: Na Kozonga 
36. The Brkn Record: The Architecture of Oppression, Part 1
37. Jah Wobble: METAL BOX – REMIXED IN DUB
38. Ches Smith and We All Break: Path of Seven Colors 
39. Mexstep: Vivir
40. Amythyst Kiah: Wary + Strange 
41. Halsey: If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power
42. William Parker: Mayan Space Station
43. Irreversible Entanglements: Open the Gates
44. Pink Siifu: Gumbo’!
45. Marta Gabriel: Metal Queen
46. Snotty Nose Rez Kids: Life After
47. Dua Saleh: Crossover
48. James McMurtry: The Horses and The Hounds
49. Park Hye Jin: Before I Die
50. Graham Haynes vs. Submerged: Echolocation 
51. Tim Berne: Broken Shadows 
52. Ashnikko: Demidevil  
53. Dwayne Dopsie and The Zydeco Hellraisers: Set Me Free
54. Monster Magnet: A Better Dystopia
55. Dry Cleaning: New Long Leg 
56. Illuminati Hotties: Let Me Do One More
57. Lukah: Why Look Up, God’s in the Mirror
58. JPEG MAFIA: “LP!”
59. Darius Jones: Raw Demoon Alchemy—A Lone Operation
60. Dos Santos: City of Mirrors
61. Marthe Lea Band: Asura
62. Taylor Swift: Red (Taylor’s Version)
63. The Goon Sax: Mirror II 
64. Marianne Faithfull (with Warren Ellis): She Walks in Beauty 
65. Low-Cut Connie: Tough Cookies 
66. girl in red: if I could make it go quiet 
67. Jaubi: Nafs at Peace (featuring Latamik and Tenderlonious) 
68. Czarface & MF DOOM: Super What? 
69. Orquestra Brasileira: 80 Anos
70. Asleep at the Wheel: Half a Hundred Years
71. SAULT: Nine 
72. McKinley Dixon: For My Mama and Anyone Who Look Like Her 
73. Slaughterhouse: Fun Factory
74. Thurst: I’m Gen X
75. Vincent Herring: Preaching to the Choir 
76. Lukah: When the Black Hand Touches You 
77. Joecephus and the George Jonestown Massacre: Heirs of the Dog
78. Dax Pierson: Nerve Bumps (A Queer Divine Satisfaction) 
79. L’Rain: Fatigue 
80. Native Soul: Teenage Dreams
81. Willow: lately i feel EVERYTHING
82. Maria Muldaur & Tuba Skinny: Let’s Get Happy Together 
83. Ran Cap Duoi: Ngù Ngay Ngày Tân Thê
84. Blue Reality Quartet: Blue Reality Quartet
85. Angelique Kidjo: Mother Nature 
86. ICP Orchestra & Nieuw Amsterdams Peil: 062 / De Hondemepper 
87. Body Metta: The Work is Slow 
88. Damon Locks / Black Monument Ensemble: NOW 
89. BaianaSystem: OXEAXEEXU 
90. Loretta Lynn: Still Woman Enough 
91. Carly Pearce: 29—Written in Stone
92. Anthony Joseph: The Rich are Only Defeated When Running for Their Lives 
93. Isaiah Collier & The Chosen Few: Cosmic Transitions
94. Andreas Roysum Ensemble: Fredsfanatisme
95. Jason Moran & Milford Graves: Live at Big Ears 
96. Barry Altschul’s 3Dom Factor: Long Tall Sunshine 
97. JD Allen: Queen City 
98. Florian Arbenz: Conversation # 1 Condensed
99. Bleachers: Take the Sadness Out of Saturday Night
100. Angel Olsen: Aisles (EP)
101. Emily Duff: Razor Blade Smile
102. Kasey Musgraves: starcrossed
103. The Boys with The Perpetual Nervousness: Songs from Another Life
104. Vince Staples: Vince Staples
105. Various Artists: Indaba Is 
106. Wau Wau Collectif: Yaral Sa Doom 
107. Chris Conde: Engulfed in the Marvelous Decay
108. Tropical Fuck Storm: Deep States
109. Yvette Janine Jackson: Freedom 
110. Peter Stampfel: Peter Stampfel’s 20th Century in 100 Songs 
111. Backxwash: I Lie Here with My Rings and Dresses 
112. Billie Eilish: Happier Than Ever
113. Various Artists: Doomed & Stoned in Scotland 
114. Los Lobos: Native Sons
115. Chrissie Hynde: Standing in the Doorway—Chrissie Hynde Sings Bob Dylan 
116. Jazmine Sullivan: Heaux Tales 
117. Various Artists: Allen Ginsberg’s The Fall of America 
118. Genesis Owusu: Smiling with No Teeth 
119. Les Filles de Illighadad: At Pioneer Works 
120. Billy Nomates: Emergency Telephone (EP) 
121. Gyedu-Blay Ambolley: 11th Street, Sekondi 
122. AZ: Do or Die
123. Madlib: Sound Ancestors 
124. Julien Baker: Little Oblivions 
125. Various Artists: He’s Bad!—11 Bands Decimate the Beat of Bo Diddley  
126. Cedric Burnside: I Be Trying 
127. Archie Shepp and Jason Moran: Let My People Go 
128. Roisin Murphy: Crooked Machine  
129. Lana Del Rey: Chemtrails Over the Country Club 
130. Brockhampton: Roadrunner—New Light, New Machine 
131. Vijay Iyer, Linda Han Oh, and Tyshawn Sorey: Uneasy 
132. Olivia Rodrigo: SOUR 
133. RP Boo: Established 
134. The Bug: Fire
135. Steve Earle: JT 
136. Tee Grizzley: Built for Whatever 
137. Benny The Butcher: Pyrex Picasso
138. Jinx Lennon: Liferafts for Latchicos
139. The Hold Steady: Open Door Policy  
140. Elizabeth King & The Gospel Souls: Living in the Last Days 
141. Alder Ego: III 
142. Sierra Ferrell: Long Time Coming
143. Alton Gün: Yol 
144. Meet Me @ The Altar: Model Citizen (EP) 
145. Penelope Scott: Hazards (EP)
146. Ichiko Aoba: Windswept Adan
147. Floating Points & Pharoah Sanders: Promises 
148. Sana Nagano: Smashing Humans 
149. serpentwithfeet: DEACON 
150. Aluna: Higher Ground—Testaments

Archaeological Digs

1. Marian Anderson: Beyond the Music
2. Julius Hemphill: The Boyé Multinational Crusade for Harmony  
3. JuJu: Live at 131 Prince Street 
4. The Plastic People of the Universe: Egon Bondy’s Happy Hearts Club Banned
5. Bobo Jenkins: My All-New Life Story
6. Khaira Arby: Khaira Arby in New York 
7. Various Artists: A Stranger I May Be—Savoy Gospel 1954-1966 
8. ICP Orchestra: Incipient ICP (1966-1971)
9. Plastic People of The Universe: Apokalyptickej pták  
10. Roy Brooks: Understanding
11. Bruce Springsteen and The E-Street Band: The Legendary No Nukes Concerts
12. Jimmy Lyons: Push Pull
13. Neil Young and Crazy Horse: Down in the Rust Bucket 
14. Leo Nocentelli: Another Side
15. Agustin Pereyra Lucena Quartet: La Rana
16. John Coltrane: A Love Supreme—Live in Seattle
17. Cecil Taylor, Sunny Murray, et al: Corona
18. Screamers: Demo Hollywood 1977
19. Can: Live in Stuttgart 1975 
20. Hamiet Blueitt: Bearer of the Holy Flame 
21. Byard Lancaster: My Pure Joy 
22. Bush Tetras: Rhythm and Paranoia—The Best of Bush Tetras
23. Various Artists: Wallahi Le Zein! 
24. Various Artists: The Smithsonian Anthology of Rap and Hip Hop 
25. Charles Mingus: Mingus at Carnegie Hall # 
26. Various Artists: Chicago / The Blues / Today, Volumes 1-3
27. The J Ann C Trio: At Tan-Tar-A
28. Kiko Kids Jazz: Tanganyika Na Uhuru
29. Hasaan Ibn Ali: Metaphysics—The Lost Atlantic Album 
30. Alice Coltrane: Kirtan–Turiya Sings 
31. Mistreater: Hell’s Fire 
32. Blue Gene Tyranny: Degrees of Freedom Found
33. Various Artists: Alan Lomax’s American Patchwork 
34. Pure Hell: Noise Addiction
35. Burnt Sugar The Arkestra Chamber: 20th Anniversary Mixtapes / Groiddest Schizznits
36. Nermin Niazi: Disco Se Aagay 
37. Robert Miranda’s Home Music Ensemble: Live at The Bing 
38. Various Artists: Edo Funk Explosion, Volume 1 
39. Joseph Spence: Encore
40. Various Artists: Rare.wavs, Volume 1
41. Bob Dylan: Springtime in New York 1980-1985 (2CD version)