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Music Of The Month: June 2024

Wilco Hot Sun Cool Shroud

Tough to pick a favorite June release. Oliver Wood’s Fat Cat Silhouette could just as easily have gotten the nod. All the elements we want to hear in an Oliver Wood project are here in full force. Bluesy riffs, infectious rhythms. If you’ve enjoyed his previous record, Always Smilin’, or if you’re a fan of The Wood Brothers, then you’re also going to like this record.

But I’m picking the new Wilco EP for kind of the opposite reason: whereas I didn’t particularly care for their previous (full-length) album, Cousin, I’m really loving Hot Sun Cool Shroud. For me, these six songs — two of which are instrumentals — pack more punch and make more of a musical statement than Cousin was able to muster in ten tracks. Catchy guitar hooks, good melodies, interesting lyrics, and the jaggedness of the aforementioned instrumentals add up to a tasty little hit of pop pleasure.

Get some music in your ears, everybody!

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Music Of The Month: May 2021

Lord Huron Long Lost

There was a LOT of good music released this month, once again making it very hard to pick just one record to recommend. The Black Keys dropped a pretty much straight forward blues album called Delta Kream which, front to back, might be my favorite record from their catalog. I’m also really digging Rising Appalachia’s latest, The Lost Mystique Of Being In The Know. Oliver Wood (of The Wood Brothers) delivered an excellent solo record, Always Smilin‘. And another new solo album, Start It Over, from The Deslondes singer/songwriter Riley Downing, is also great.

As much as I like all those, my runner-up for May’s pick of the month is another blues record: Little Black Flies by Eddie 9V. Every single track on this record will make your toes tap and your head bob. So. Much. Fun. Neither Suzy nor I had ever heard of this guy before, but we will definitely be keeping an ear out for him from now on.

But in the end, my #1 May recommendation is Lord Huron’s new release, Long Lost. I hear a little of everything on this record. It’s folky, of course. (Who would imagine me recommending anything that wasn’t?) But in addition to that, there are huge helpings of Spaghetti Western, some psychedelia, a smattering of ’40s -’50s era American Songbook-like stylistic flourishes, not to mention any number of passages straight out of the Angelo Badalamenti / David Lynch toy box. And I don’t mean that I hear all this from one track to another; these influences are all stirred together in different combinations on every song. Hopeful. Mournful. Melancholy. Optimistic. It’s really good.

Get some music in your ears, everybody!