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, SPECIFIC LYRICS? We got it!
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, and 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?).
NOTE: I accidentally published this before it was finished—my usual brief commentary will be added very soon. Apologies, though I doubt anyone is waiting with bated breath!
SPOTLIGHT ALBUM OF THE MONTH
CS Cleaners: What’s That?
(Wharf Cat) *****
JULY’s JOYS
***** = STELLAR!
**** = STRONG
*** = VERY GOOD
No * at all = GOOD! NOT BAD!
Italics = Excavation from the Past
- Akhavelli: Moorthodox Psyence (Below System) ****
- Laurie Anderson & Sexmob: Let X = X (Live) (Nonesuch) *****
- Lekan Animashaun: Low Profile (Strut) ***
- Badger Hunt: Full Moon in My Pocket (self-released) ***
- Barcelona Art Orchestra & Miguel Zenon: Expressions (Miel Music)
- Courtney Barnett: Creature of Habit (Mom + Pop) ****
- Josh Berman: Everybody Else’s Life, Too (Corbett vs. Dempsey) ***
- Bob Bert: Beach Bingo Bloodbath (Bar/None) ***
- Carsie Blanton: The Red Album, Volume II (self-released)
- Patricia Brennan & Sylvie Courvoisier: talamanti (Antlia) ****
- Marion Brown: Live in Europe 1968 and 1972 (No Business)****
- Maria Calder: Patient Zero (Black Metal Archives EP) ****
- Maria Calder: We Stay Ugly Til the Pretty Decays (Black Metal Archives) *****
- doseone & Height Keech: Wood Teeth II (Handsmade EP) ***
- Emmeluth’s Amoeba: With Love (Moserobie Music Production)
- Emperor X: Unified Field (Bar/None) *****
- Satoko Fujii: Satoko Fujii’s Bunker Ulmenwall Orchestra (Libra) ****
- Gogol Bordello: We Mean It, Man (Casa Gogol) *****
- Henriette Eilertsen Trio: Moder (Motvind) ***
- Imarhan: Essam (Wedge / City Slang) ***
- Darryl Jennifer: The Weather Report (Org)
- Kelela: new avatar (Warp) ****
- Mark Lomax II & The Urban Art Ensemble: Black Odes—A Reclamation Suite (CFG Multimedia) ****
- David Maranha / Rodrigo Amado: Desolation Row (self-released) *****
- Mon Rovia: Bloodline (Nettwerk Music) ***
- Odd Okoddo & Ogoya Nengo: Palagoma (From Cool Waters)
- Adam O’Farrill: Elephant (Out of Your Head) ****
- OM: Südpol (Intakt) ***
- Los Orientales de Paramonga: 1972-1976 (Analog Africa)
- Lido Pimienta: Caribenya (Anti-)
- Ma Rainey: Mother of the Blues—The Complete Paramount Recordings 1923-1928 (Black Swan / Jazzology) ****
- RAYE: THIS MUSIC MAY CONTAIN HOPE (Human Re Sources)
- RJD2 & Supastition: According To… (Eavesdrop Music) ****
- Jill Scott: To Whom This May Concern (Blues Babe) ***
- Jimmy Scott: Doesn’t Love Mean More? (Modern Harmonic / Sundazed)
- Speaker Music: Synoptic Audio (Planet Mu)
- Vince Staples: Cry Baby (Loma Vista) *****
- Gary Stewart: One Track Mind (Delmore) ***
- Henry Threadgill and Zooid: Cut You Where You Was (Pi)
- Frank Trompeter & Richard Gilman-Opalsky: Anti-Fascist Freedom Music (Mahakala Music)
- Twisted Teens: Florida Water Blues (cpnpc) ****
- Various Artists: CONCRETE ROCK—New York DIY (Desert Island Recordings) ****
- Tierra Whack: WHACK’S MUSEUM (Interscope)
- Willow: The Thread (360)
- Miguel Zenon & Luis Perdomo: El art del Bolero, Volume 3 (Miel Music) ***
Sample Living to Listen’s “Best of 2026” Bandcamp Playlist
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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
Living To Listen 