ENJOY A HALLOWEEN PLAYLIST FROM LIVING TO LISTEN!
Speaking of monsters: a monster block class (three hours per class, five days a week) beginning. My other class’ two sets of essays marinating. The student success center I work in going into overdrive right as I took on an additional shift. Two trips out of town. Pet emergencies. Vehicular issues. Boo-fuckin’-hoo—welcome back to how the unretired live, buddy boy.
As I sat down to write this, it seemed I’d barely be able to recommend 10 albums, as I hardly had time to explore. Usually, if I had time to listen, I had to quickly punch up something older; elsewhere, it seemed the rushing tide of new records I’d seen during the summer had dried up.
But the blur had obscured the fact that, still, I managed to get a decent month’s worth of discoveries under my belt. Also, I happened to go to 13 concerts, the most astounding being Wadada Leo Smith in St. Louis at the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts and the union of Marquis Hill, Junius Paul, Makaya McCraven, and Joel Ross in Chicago at the 20th annual Hyde Park Jazz Fest, as well as a lucky screening of Jason Axel Summers’ and Kate Fix’s loving and masterful Dead Moon road documentary 20 Years in the Crypt. Why am I whining?
Highlights: the best Satoko Fujii album I’ve ever heard, and I’ve heard MANY; a Cameron Winter mini-breakthrough (“just concentrate on the songfulness”); a fun revisiting of Mastodon thanks to a cool student from DC; Joy Division’s live journey from scrappy but original punks to classic band; Baraka sans anti-Semitism and avec young David Murray; the return of Orchestra Baobab; and the mighty James Brandon Lewis in his prime: the man can nail any project that TOUCHES jazz, even Antonín Dvorak.
SPOTLIGHT ALBUM OF THE MONTH
Satoko Fujii: Kappa Ondo (Libra) *****
THIS MONTH’S LIST
***** = Fantastic
**** = Excellent
*** = Very Good
No stars = Good! (definitely NOT BAD!)
Italics = Excavation from the Past
Allo Darlin’: Bits and Pieces (self-released?) ***
Amiri Baraka: New Poetry – New Music (Sundazed) ****
Black Artists’ Group: Live from Studio Rivbea (NoBusiness) ***
Stephan Crump: Passerine (Out of Our Heads) ****
dälek: Brilliance of a Falling Moon (Ipecac) ***
Jon Hassell: The Pentimento Trilogy (Ndeya) ***
Clifford Jordan: Night of the Mark VII (Time Traveler) ****
Joy Division: Eternal (Rhino) *****
Kucwiny Theatre Industry: Luo Sound of the Alur (Nyege Nyege)
James Brandon Lewis / Red Lily: Calling Antonín (TAO Forms) ****
Mastodon: Marrow Deep (Loma Vista) ***
Joyce Moreno: Never Too Soon (Far Out)
Orchestra Baobab: Made in Senegal (Strut) ****
Luke Stewart Exposure Quintet: In the Air and On the Ground (Rogue Arts) ***
Cameron Winter: Live at Carnegie Hall (Partisan) ****
Lagniappe:
Sample Living to Listen’s “Best of 2026” Bandcamp Playlist
My mid-year best-of, drawn from my previous ’26 posts. (Add any of the 5- and 4-stars above!)
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 – it is very disorganized but, hey, so were the times).
If Today Were December 31st–My Favorite 50 Albums from 2026 (not including the above, which require return visits, and in alphabetical order–obviously):
It’s getting down to the wire and I believe I have listened to more new albums this year than in any previous one, so I impulsively decided to whittle it down to 10, then 20, then 25–finally 50 (only 40 are represented on Spotify (see below). These are not the only really good albums I’ve heard this year–just my FAVORITES among them. FWIW to you.
1. Dave Adewumi: The Flame Beneath the Silence (Giant Step Arts)
2. [ahmed]: Play Monk (Otoroku)
3. Amyl & The Sniffers: Truth or Consequence Live Album (Rough Trade UK)
4. Laurie Anderson & Sexmob: Let X = X (Live) (Nonesuch)
5. Bitchin’ Bahas: Isle Peaks (Drag City)
6. Carsie Blanton & The Burning Hell: Everything is Great
7. Christer Bothén / Oren Ambarchi / Johan Berthling / Andreas Werliin: Serpentine (Black Truffle)
8. Bobby Bradford /Mark Dresser/ Hafez Modirzadeh: Sonic House Reunion (No Business)
9. Buck 65: Do Not Bend (self-released)
10. Mara Calder: We Stay Ugly Til the Pretty Decays (Black Metal Archives)
11. The Cramps: Gravest Gravy (Vengeance)
12. CS Cleaners: What’s This? (Wharf Cat)
13. Curly Castro: yaphet (Backwoodz Studios)
14. Sylvia Courvoisier: Amalthea (Pyroclastic)
15. Def Cee and steel-tipped dove: We Will be Brief (Fused Arrow)
16. The Delines: The Set-Up (decor)
17. doseone & Height Keech: Wood Teeth I & II (Handsmade EPs)
18. Art Edmaiston and Chad Fowler : Memphis Mandala (Mahakala Music)
19. EDU & JUDGITZU: Nuku (Nyege Nyege Tapes)
20. Emperor X: Unified Field (Bar/None)
21. Margaret Glaspy: I Am Both (ATO)
22. The Go-Betweens: Fountains of Youth (Live at the Town and Country Club)
23. Gogol Bordello: We Mean It, Man (Casa Gogol)
24. Itak Tek: Mind Abandon (Planet Mu)
25. Anthony Joseph: The Ark (Heavenly Sweetness)
26. Kin’Gongolo Kiniata: Kiniata (Helico Music)
27. Kneecap: FENIAN (Heavenly)
28. kwn: all pride aside (RCA)
29. Matt Lavelle’s The 12th House: Hymn to the Universe (Mahakala Music)
30. Mark Lomax II: The Unity Suite (CFG Multimedia)
31. David Maranha / Rodrigo Amado: Desolation Row (self-released)
32. Jason Moran: Jason Moran Plays Duke Ellington (Yes Records)
33. Kasey Musgraves: Middle of Nowhere (Lost Highway)
34. Adam O’Farrill: Elephant (Out of Your Head)
35. Bill Orcutt: Music in Continuous Motion (Palilalia)
36. Rapsody: God Gotta Afro & Gold Hoops (We Each Other)
37. RAYE: THIS MUSIC MAY CONTAIN HOPE (Human Re Sources)
38. Talibah Safiya: Eternal (self-released)
39. Sha Ra and DJ Haram: Critical Thot (Backwoodz Studioz)
40. Tyshawn Sorey: Members…Don’t! (Pi Recordings)
41. Vince Staples: Cry Baby (Loma Vista)
42. Louis Stewart: Joyce Notes (Livia Records)
43. Tanya Tagaq: Saputjii (Six Shooter)
44. Tinashe: Pop Star (A Nice Life / Atlantic)
45. Twisted Teens: Florida Water Blues (cpnpc)
46. Various Artists: CONCRETE ROCK—New York DIY (Desert Island Recordings)
47. Lex Walton: Ultimate Love Forever (Sub Pop)
48. Wild Up: Julius Eastman, Vol. 5—Gay Guerilla (New Amsterdam)
49. Work Money Death: A Portal to Here (ATA)
50. XG: The Core (XGALX)
Hey! I Read, Too, and So Should You!
Two things, fellow readers:
Colson Whitehead is indeed a genius. I now have his first two Harlem crime novels under my belt, and–even more successfully than Walter Mosely, whom I love–they are both genre classics and killer lit, if the distinction even exists or matters to you. Human observation, structure, time-shifts via narrator reflection, precise description, historical and social command…oh man. Can’t wait to get to the third one.
Annie Jacobsen’s Nuclear War: A Scenario and Biological War: A Scenario. In times like these I cannot blame fellow readers for needing escape reading. I tend to dive further into the darkness in these situations, and, while horror is not a genre I’ve ever even taken a dip in, these very research-based speculations, technically non-fiction, have to rank with the most chilling books ever. Essential reading if you are curious about how thin the membrane is between humanity and self-immolation.
