Month: July 2026

BOUNTY! The Most Striking New Records I Discovered in July (Only Some Were That New, Though)

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YOU WANT PUNK AND ROLL? We got it!!!

YOU WANT 5-STAR, A-GRADE, 9- or 10-OUTTA-10 REKKIDS? We got SIX of ‘em?

YOU WANT THAT GOOD ‘OL (NEW) HIP-HOP AND R&B? We got it!

YOU WANT SOME WICKED, DIRECT, TRUE, SPECIFIC LYRICS THAT AREN’T WHISPERED? We got ‘em!

YOU NEED SOME MORE GARY STEWART & MA RAINEY? We got it!

YOU GOTTA HAVE YOU SOME MORE OF THAT GOOD OL’ INTERNATIONAL FREE JAZZ LIKE WE ALWAYS BRING? We got it?

YOU DEMAND SOME MUSIC THAT MAY CONTAIN HOPE? We got…some!

YOU COULD USE A MUSICAL HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT? Track down a copy of #42 down there (helllloooooo Brooklyn!!), enjoy the heck out of the various artists, then hunt down and sample the albums and EPs of your favorites! You will be rewarded. Not by me.

YOU HAVE TO HAVE MORE INSIGHT THAN THIS? Visit Semipop Life, No Fences, Burning Ambulance, The Other Dave Moore, Steve Pick’s Writing Place, Chris Monsen’s Listening Booth and RIOTRIOT—like I do!—and learn that there’s more great music out there than there’s ever been. Don’t trust me; I don’t (I didn’t initially like the incredibly great new Gogol Bordello album that you can play every day and not tire of, see?).

SPOTLIGHT ALBUM OF THE MONTH

CS Cleaners: What’s This? 

(Wharf Cat) *****

JULY’s JOYS

***** = STELLAR!

****   = STRONG

***     = VERY GOOD

No * at all   = GOOD! NOT BAD!

Italics = Excavation from the Past

  1. Akhavelli: Moorthodox Psyence (Below System) ****
  2. Laurie Anderson & Sexmob: Let X = X (Live) (Nonesuch) *****
  3. Lekan Animashaun: Low Profile (Strut) ***
  4. Badger Hunt: Full Moon in My Pocket (self-released) ***
  5. Barcelona Art Orchestra & Miguel Zenon: Expressions (Miel Music)
  6. Courtney Barnett: Creature of Habit (Mom + Pop) ****
  7. Josh Berman: Everybody Else’s Life, Too (Corbett vs. Dempsey) ***
  8. Bob Bert: Beach Bingo Bloodbath (Bar/None) ***
  9. Carsie Blanton: The Red Album, Volume II (self-released) 
  10. Patricia Brennan & Sylvie Courvoisier: talamanti (Antlia) ****
  11. Marion Brown: Live in Europe 1968 and 1972 (No Business)****
  12. Mara Calder: Patient Zero (Black Metal Archives EP) ****
  13. Mara Calder: We Stay Ugly Til the Pretty Decays (Black Metal Archives) *****
  14. doseone & Height Keech: Wood Teeth II (Handsmade EP) ***
  15. Emmeluth’s Amoeba: With Love (Moserobie Music Production) 
  16. Emperor X: Unified Field (Bar/None) *****
  17. Satoko Fujii: Satoko Fujii’s Bunker Ulmenwall Orchestra (Libra) ****
  18. Gogol Bordello: We Mean It, Man (Casa Gogol) *****
  19. Henriette Eilertsen Trio: Moder (Motvind) ***
  20. Imarhan: Essam (Wedge / City Slang) ***
  21. Darryl Jennifer: The Weather Report (Org) 
  22. Kelela: new avatar (Warp) ****
  23. Mark Lomax II & The Urban Art Ensemble: Black Odes—A Reclamation Suite (CFG Multimedia) ****
  24. David Maranha / Rodrigo Amado: Desolation Row (self-released) *****
  25. Mon Rovia: Bloodline (Nettwerk Music) ***
  26. Odd Okoddo & Ogoya Nengo: Palagoma (From Cool Waters)
  27. Adam O’Farrill: Elephant (Out of Your Head) ****
  28. OM: Südpol (Intakt) ***
  29. Los Orientales de Paramonga: 1972-1976 (Analog Africa)
  30. Lido Pimienta: Caribenya (Anti-)
  31. Ma Rainey: Mother of the Blues—The Complete Paramount Recordings 1923-1928 (Black Swan / Jazzology) ****
  32. RAYE: THIS MUSIC MAY CONTAIN HOPE (Human Re Sources) 
  33. RJD2 & Supastition: According To… (Eavesdrop Music) ****
  34. Jill Scott: To Whom This May Concern (Blues Babe) ***
  35. Jimmy Scott: Doesn’t Love Mean More? (Modern Harmonic / Sundazed)
  36. Speaker Music: Synoptic Audio (Planet Mu)
  37. Vince Staples: Cry Baby (Loma Vista) *****
  38. Gary Stewart: One Track Mind (Delmore) ***
  39. Henry Threadgill and Zooid: Cut You Where You Was (Pi)
  40. Frank Trompeter & Richard Gilman-Opalsky: Anti-Fascist Freedom Music (Mahakala Music)
  41. Twisted Teens: Florida Water Blues (cpnpc) ****
  42. Various Artists: CONCRETE ROCK—New York DIY (Desert Island Recordings) ****
  43. Tierra Whack: WHACK’S MUSEUM (Interscope)
  44. Willow: The Thread (360)
  45. Miguel Zenon & Luis Perdomo: El art del Bolero, Volume 3 (Miel Music) ***

Sample Living to Listen’s “Best of 2026” Bandcamp Playlist

My mid-year best-of, drawn from my previous ’26 posts.

The ballot I submitted for The Francis Davis Memorial Mid-Year Jazz Critics Poll

If it be your will, follow me on Instagram (“Good to My Earhole”: daily album cover quadrant), Substack (“The Overeem Failed Farewell Tour”: reflections on my ongoing teaching career with frequent lacing-throughs of music experience), and elsewhere on WordPress (“The Overeem Farewell Tour—Dispatches from The Public School Trenches”: a much deeper dive into pub-ed, featuring a “final” year day-by-day verbal highlight reel and a Covid diary, 3/3/2020 to 3/3/2021).

Vintage Albums I Deeply Enjoyed This Month

David Bowie: Station to Station

Dennis Brown: Visions of Dennis Brown

The Cosmosamatics: Magnitudes

Dead Moon: Echoes of the Past

George Jones: Sings the Songs of Bob Wills

Marisa Monte: Mais

Bettye LaVette: I’ve Got My Own Hell to Raise

Soft Cell: Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret

James Talley: Woody Guthrie and Songs of My Oklahoma Home

Various Artists: L’Afrique Danse, Vols. 1-10

Various Artists: All the King’s Men

Various Artists: Put the Whole Armour On

O. V. Wright: The Soul of O. V. Wright

Hey! I Read, Too, and So Should You!

Chinua Achebe: Things Fall Apart

Kaveh Akbar: Martyr!

Alison Bechdel: Fun Home

Zayd Ayers Dohrn: Dangerous, Dirty, Violent, and Young—A Fugitive Family in the Revolutionary Underground

Lucy Ellmann: Sweet Deserts

Melvin Gibbs: How Black Music Took Over the World

Jean Stein: Edie—American Girl

Barry Walters: Mighty Real—A History of LGBT Music 1969-2000

James Welch: Winter in the Blood

June, Moon, Spoon—Goons: Living to Listen’s Midyear Sanity-Inducing, Joy-Eliciting Sweepstakes

We made it through a half-year of this* (well…some of us were fortunate to have). Music sure helped. I’m doin’ things a mite different this month: below are my 50 favorite releases and 10 favorite excavations of 2026, rather than my usual cumulative list of all the really good ones I’ve hunted down. See my other 2026 posts for those, those I’ve somewhat shorted the month of June. I am recognizing a spotlight record of last month, though—it’s not on the sweepstakes list, but it’s my favorite debut recording, by a terrific improvising Argentine trio that evokes traditional New Orleans thanks to a very empathetic relationship between drummer and clarinetist over bassist glue. Also, if you show up her regularly, new items to be recognized here are italicized.

I’d love to have a definitive Top 10, but it’s too early for me. Yes, the list is jazz-heavy (in fact, the Bobby Bradford offering is the most sublime thing I’ve heard this year, and it’s from a nonagenarian+ other than Willie Nelson or Marshall Allen—I hear it’s the new 70!). However, I’ll note that within there’s a fantastic modern classical record (the latest Julius Eastman exaltation by Wild Up), an Americana EP by a 77-year-old garage punk widow whom I’ve personally pledged fealty to (she actually got her start playing Americana with her legendary husband in the ‘80s), my continued unpaid celebration of Nyege Nyege Tapes’ mission, a happy surrender to the Forces of Rodrigo (she does have multiple “forces”), a little OMINOUS footwork, a 45 that won’t let me up, some K- (I mean, X-) Pop, and a jubilant, breezy, very funny and very successful jazz ’n’ spoken word run at Joyce’s Ulysses. So gimme a break, jazz-haters.

*Sentence should be spat out à la Gary Stewart.”

SPOTLIGHT ALBUM OF THE MONTH

Las Instancias: Las Instancias (625 Discos)

Here’s a public Bandcamp playlist with 50 selected tracks from many of these releases.

2026 Mid-Year Sweepstakes Roll Call

Items new to the list are in italics.

  1. The 5678s: Run Run Run (Bomb)
  2. Dave Adewumi: The Flame Beneath the Silence (Giant Step Arts) 
  3. [ahmed]: Play Monk (Otoroku) 
  4. Zoh Amba: Eyes Full (Matador)
  5. MC Paul Barman & Kenny Segal: Antinomian Pandemonium (Fused Arrow) 
  6. Steven Bernstein: ResoNation Trio/Ultraresonance (Royal Potato Family)
  7. Carsie Blanton & The Burning Hell: Everything is Great (self-released)
  8. Bobby Bradford/Mark Dresser/Hafez Modirzadeh: Sonic House Reunion (No Business)
  9. Buck 65: Do Not Bend (self-released)
  10. The Delines: The Set-Up (decor) 
  11. Jesse DeSilva: Glitter Up The Dark (Nine Athens) 
  12. Art Edmaiston and Chad Fowler : Memphis Mandala (Mahakala Music)
  13. EDU & JUDGITZU: Nuku (Nyege Nyege Tapes) 
  14. Joel Futterman & William Parker: Transcendent Universe (Burning Ambulance)
  15. Golomb: The Beat Goes On and On and On (No Quarter EP)
  16. Itak Tek: Mind Abandon (Planet Mu) 
  17. Anthony Joseph: The Ark (Heavenly Sweetness)
  18. Kehlani: Kehlani (Atlantic) 
  19. Kneecap: FENIAN(Heavenly) 
  20. KINACT: Kinshasa in Action (Nyege Nyege Tapes)
  21. Kin’Gongolo Kiniata : Kiniata (Helico Music)
  22. Mark Lomax II: The Unity Suite (CFG Multimedia)
  23. Mod Lang: Borrowed Time (Jaw)
  24. Ava Mendoza: Alive Alone, Alive Together (Burning Ambulance)
  25. Jason Moran: Jason Moran Plays Duke Ellington (Yes Records)
  26. Kasey Musgraves: Middle of Nowhere (Lost Highway)
  27. Angelika Niescier: Chicago Tapes (Intakt) 
  28. Bill Orcutt: Music in Continuous Motion (Palilalia) 
  29. Orcutt/Shelley/Miller: “Hothead” / “A Man Needs a Maid” (Silver Current 45)
  30. Genesis Owusu: Redstar Wu & The Worldwide Scourge (Ourness PTY)
  31. Jeff Parker ETA IVtet: Happy Today (International Anthem) 
  32. Grant Peeples: Code to Live By (self-released) 
  33. Ivo Perelman and Damon Smith: Duologue 6—Core of Existence (Squidnote)
  34. Pinky Tex: The Singing Angel from Devil Rock Canyon (Mississippi Records EP)
  35. Tomeka Reid: dance! skip! hop! (Out of Your Head Records)
  36. Olivia Rodrigo: you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love (Geffen)
  37. Talibah Safiya: Eternal (self-released)
  38. Serengeti: KENNYV (self-released)
  39. Serokolo 7: Maramfa Musick Pro (Nyege Nyege Tapes)
  40. Sha Ra and DJ Haram: Critical Thot (BackwoodzStudioz)
  41. SML: Spontaneous Music Live (International Anthem) 
  42. Tyshawn Sorey: Members … Don’t (Pi Recordings)
  43. Swamp Dogg: …Contemplates the Afterlife (S-Curve)
  44. Tanya Tagaq: Saputjii (Six Shooter) 
  45. This is Lorelei: Box for Buddy, Box for Star (Super Deluxe) (Double Double Whammy) 
  46. LOS THUTHANAKA: Wak’a (self-released EP) 
  47. Harriet Tubman & Georgia Muldrow: Electrical Field of Love (Pi Recordings)
  48. Twisted Teens: Blame the Clown (Jazz Life)
  49. Wild Up: Julius Eastman, Vol. 5—Gay Guerilla (New Amsterdam)
  50. XG: The Core (XGALX) 

Archival Releases

  1. Antoine Dougbé et L’Orchestre Poly-Rythmo De Cotonou: 1977 – 1982 (Analog Africa)
  2. Fugazi: Albini Sessions (Dischord)
  3. Joe Henderson: Consonance–Live at the Jazz Showcase (Resonance) 
  4. Intercommunal Free Dance Music Orchestra: Concert a Prades Le Lez, Volumes 1&2 (Souffle Continu)
  5. Ahmad Jamal: At the Jazz Showcase–Live in Chicago (Resonance) 
  6. Louis Stewart: Joyce Notes (Livia Records)
  7. Les Rallizes Dénudés: Disque 4—’76 Studio et Live (Temporal Drift)
  8. Ranil y su Conjunto: Galaxia Tropical (Analog Africa) 
  9. Alan Silva Celestrial Communication Ensemble: 2000-06-24 Amherst (Eremite)
  10. Cecil Taylor New Unit: Words and Music—The Last Bandstand (Fundacja Słuchaj Records)
  11. Cecil Taylor Orchestra Humane: At Iridium 2004 (Burning Ambulance)

Special Note: If you have never heard of electro-country, please check out Owen Lake and The Tragic Loves’ new album Bury Deep My Heart, on Carrier Records. It’s a little more country (Americana-honky-tonk-rockabilly stylee) than electro, but its quirky wit while messing with tradition is worth snatchin’ a flyer on.

If you enjoy these lists, please follow my IG feed (“Good to My Earhole”), where regardless of whether I’m sick, traveling, stranded, partying, mourning, working, going insane, panicking, or just lovin’ ’n’ livin’ I post a quadrant of four records I listened to the previous day, or my Substack education blog, The Overeem (Failed) Farewell Tour.

Vintage Albums I Deeply Enjoyed This Month

Everything I own of the late James Blood Ulmer’s discography (which is most of it). His Caravan of Dreams live album is better than most have reported.

Pretty much Tom Waits’ entire discography, but especially the swordfishtrombones/Rain Dogs/Frank’s Wild Years/Big Time run, which my wife and I courted to, doncha know?

Phil Freeman of Burning Ambulance recommended some vintage recordings to listen to to staunch the magnetic power of the Miles Centennial, and I’ve found he’s extremely reliable. In this case: Teramasu Hino’s Hi-Nology and Donald Byrd’s Electric Byrd.

Thanks to Barry Walters’ terrific book Mighty Real (a revelatory—maybe just for cishets?–LGBTQ+ Stonewall-to-Y2k music survey), Off the Wall and Diana.

Hey! I Read, Too, and So Should You!

Chinua Achebe: Things Fall Apart

Lucy Ellmann: Sweet Desserts and Ducks, Newburyport (the latter’s gonna take all year but what a ride!)

Barry Walters: Mighty Real