And so we approach the end of the year, and it’s time once again to take a look at some of my favorite albums and singles! As always, the playlist is all over the place: old favorites, new discoveries, dreamlike grooves and dense walls of sound. KEXP was once again the impetus for my finding and downloading a lot of these albums.

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SPRINTS, Letter to Self, released 5 January. “Up and Comer” got a lot of airplay on KEXP at the beginning of the year, enough that I just had to see what the rest of the album was about, and I was not let down. It’s post-punk in the classic sense, full of restrained twitchiness without going off the rails with messy abandon, which can sometimes be the downside to classic punk rock.

Nailah Hunter, Lovegaze, released 12 January. Hunter defies multiple genres in her music; it’s not quite indie rock, not quite new age, not quite David Lynch-style creepy jazz, but an otherworldly mix of it all. You’re never quite sure where the songs are going to go, yet they still transport you into an alternate reality of calm contemplation and unsettling displacement.

The Fauns, How Lost, released 19 January. This is one of the first albums of the year that struck a chord with me and stayed in my playlist throughout most of it. Partly due to the unexpected yet lovely cover of Freur’s synthpop classic “Doot Doot” but mostly because I’ve been leaning very heavily on the shoegaze these last couple of years. And yet they’re also steeped in that snythpop groove as well, a mix that works perfectly and lands right my wheelhouse. Album closer “Spacewreck” is one of those dreamy epic ballads that hits me right in the feels. This one got a lot of play while I worked on Theadia.

Sleater-Kinney, Little Rope, released 19 January. This band’s evolution has been a fascinating one, veering from riot-grrl punk to noise pop to jangle and swerving to moody contemplation. This record appealed to me because of its lighter touch yet still refusing to let up on the tension.

Green Day, Saviors, released 19 January. The sad thing about commercial alternative stations like Live 105 here in San Francisco is that they’ll premier the new song by this band, and yet a month later it’ll disappear only to have Dookie-era singles remaining on their playlist. And this is a local band!! While this may not have hit everyone’s buttons, it’s a good example of a band that refuses to go quietly and does so by remaining strong and doing what it does best.

The Umbrellas, Fairweather Friend, released 26 January. One of my favorite uber-local bands (they’re here in the Richmond District, as I recall), this jangle-pop quartet takes inspiration directly from classic indie bands like Beat Happening (complete with a lead singer with a deep and sonorous voice) and writes super fun and catchy tunes that are loved both by fans and critics alike.

Ty Segall, Three Bells, released 26 January. Segall has always been a bit of a weirdo (and a prolific one at that) with a sound that’s not quite Flaming Lips and not quite Pere Ubu yet somewhere in between. And yet he’s quite reserved and contemplative on this album, revealing yet another level of his style that you can’t ignore.

The Smile, Wall of Eyes, released 26 January. Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood (and Tom Skinner) have been keeping busy with this side project of theirs, releasing not one but two full albums this past year. The unsettling “Bending Hectic” had been released as a teaser single at the end of 2023, and the ensuing album was just as strange and compelling.

TORRES, What an enormous room, released 26 January. She’s been around for over a decade now, but it’s only recently that I finally got into her music, first with 2021’s Thirstier (which got a lot of play on KEXP). This newest follow-up feels more cohesive and demanding than that previous album, especially with its hooky and in-your-face single “Collect”. This album also got quite a lot of play in Spare Oom during my writing sessions, and it’s one of my favorites of the year.

Mixtape/Playlist, Re:Defined 2401, created 30 January. I actually started making this one in the latter half of 2023 as a Walk in Silence mix, yet I couldn’t quite figure out why it wasn’t entirely gelling for me. After the new year I realized the issue was that I was constricting myself, trying to force a mix that wasn’t appealing. A few tracks got dropped, a handful thrown in, and a renaming made it work! I’d used the Re:Defined moniker in the early 00s as a way to give these mixes more breathing room with several kinds of styles and sounds. I’m glad I did, because these ended up getting a lot of play!

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Coming up: February tunage!