I’ll keep this one short since, let’s be honest, you’re getting way too many emails this week from thirsty retailers. There’s a batch of new songs up on Amplifier. You should check them out:

Amplifier (vol. 4)

Sample collections of songs recommended by Casey Kolderup and friends.

Enjoy!

Hey there! How's it going? It's just before 5pm as I write this here in Portland and it's nearly entirely dark outside, so that's just great.

But! There's a new selection of songs available on Amplifier! Inspired by last weekend's release of Aminé's mixtape TWOPOINTFIVE, which I've been listening to a bunch, I decided to take a quick look and find my favorite (Andy Samberg voice) rap songs from the past few months. So that's what I've got for you now!

I've got lots more notes available on the page as well now that I can (checks notes) include linebreaks in the notes for a given set of songs. That's right, I'm one step closer to being responsible for maintaining a custom CMS, the dream of every software developer in 2021.

Anyway, check it out:

Hi,

I've done a few themed collections of songs during the newsletter's history as a normal email but hadn't done one since the move to the web site. But it occurred to me that I should really find a way to highlight the music of Jason Molina, an artist who's really important to me and who we sadly lost 8 years ago. What I've ended up with isn't meant to be a coherent "playlist" per se, and I won't be adding any of it to the running playlists I keep on Spotify, Apple Music, and Youtube.

What I'd recommend you do instead is listen to the previews in the story at the top of the page and see if the sound of any of the songs appeals to you; Jason made use of a variety of solo/band arrangements and audio recording fidelities over the course of his career and his vocal delivery matured significantly from the earliest days of Songs: Ohia to his later work under his own name. If you find something that sounds good, follow the link in the list below the story (you can use the logos in the footer of the page to make all the links go to a particular streaming service-- and it will remember those choices when you visit in the future) and check out the album/EP it came from. It's a rich, rewarding catalog to get into. I hope you enjoy!

Tuesday again?
No problem…

Here’s a fresh mix with some songs that have come out in the past couple months. There’s a new Charli XCX single that apparently precedes another album from her– despite getting a full album last May. There’s a documentary coming out about the making of the album during the early era of the COVID pandemic that’s supposed to come out early next year; I hope to see it then!

Hey there, I’ve got another batch of songs for you to check out by artists like The War on Drugs, Snail Mail, and the wonderfully-named The World is a Beautiful Place and I Am No Longer Afraid to Die, which I consider a test of my memory of how title casing works in English (I’m sure I screwed it up; don’t bother telling me).

Hey. Hey, wake up. It’s still Tuesday here. You’re reading this on Tuesday, right?

There’s a new story featuring some good songs, right this way. Buttondown’s gonna hit you with the logo again, but this time it’s clickable:

Hey there! I've got some fresh picks for you this week; a pair of recent songs from bands I'm really liking as well as another 3 picks from early this year / late last year that I thought went well with them. If there's anything you listen to this week, though, please listen to Bad Bad Hats' new album "Walkman", which is an all-too-brief half-hour long. I included "Always On Time" because of its weird glitchy breakdown, but title track and opener "Walkman" is also sufficient to hook you onto this Minneapolis band.

Anyway, into the hyperlink with you:

Amplifier for September 21, 2021

Amplifier Stories for September 14, 2021

Hello from the past! I'm writing this email the weekend before you're hopefully reading this, and there's also hopefully a new issue of Amplifier stories ready for you (if I did everything correctly). I'm AFK for the week, my first time leaving the immediate vicinity of my home since March 2020. In the meantime, I leave you with released this year, some very recently and others just because I thought they helped complete the vibe (like Tinashe's excellent "Bouncin'", which came out back in July.

Hi!

I've got some exciting news, if you haven't looked below this text yet and realized there's no list of recommendations in this email. It's because the recommendations are now living on the web, on a site I built myself over some time I've kept for myself recently. It requires a few taps / clicks / from you, but I promise it's worth it. There's some good stuff in this week's selection, including a leading single from Proc Fiskal, whom I have had on repeat in my house for the last week.

Even though this is on the web now I will still send updates through this email/RSS medium, so stay tuned to find out when stuff goes live on the site and whatever other announcements I need to make. (I guess I should build some kind of announcement type thing on the site, huh?) I love making the little video clips so much that I've actually got 3 more mixes queued up for the coming weeks, provided I can remember all the arcane incantations I've set up for myself to run this thing.

Anyway... go! Check it out! Send me feedback! It's optimized for phones but should work okay-ish (I'm not a designer, y'know?) on computers and such as well.

Vol 3, #5 - 2021-07-06

Albums

The Go! Team - Get Up Sequences Part One (listen): If you're at all familiar with The Go! Team from the five other albums they've released over nearly 2 decades, you already know the equation here, but just in case you're not familiar: using a heavy mix of retro samples and eclectic live instrumentation along with rapping vocals that half the time sounds more like a double-dutch schoolyard chant, The Go! Team makes playful, timeless music that's always enjoyable and spirit-lifting. It's always nice when one of their albums makes its way into my rotation, so I'm sure I'll be listening to this plenty over the coming year.

Vol 3, #4 - 2021-06-15

Albums

: The debut solo album by Toronto singer-songwriter Mustafa Ahmed probably has its closest comparison point in Sampha, the English singer known for collaborating with SBTRKT, Drake, and Solange, so it’s no surprise when Sampha himself shows up on the track “Capo” along with his trademark piano sound. Ahmed’s album also includes production credits by James Blake, Jamie xx, and hit producer Frank Dukes. Given all of that gravitas you might think this is an epic, overloaded work, but the whole thing clocks in at 25 minutes and is one of the more carefully-assembled albums I’ve heard from Toronto’s OVO-adjacent scene in recent memory; most songs are hushed combinations of simple synth textures/drums along with a single guitar or piano as well as subtle samples from North African music and recordings of people in his life. Throughout much of the album Ahmed attempts to reckon with the friends he’s lost, closing out the record with “Come Back”, a duet with James Blake that fades out on the repeated plea “Please come back / at least in my dreams”.

Vol 3, #3 - 2021-06-08

Albums

Vol 3, #2 - 25 May 2021

Albums

Vol 3, #1 - 18 May 2021

Hello and welcome back! I’ll spare you the usual ‘sorry for not writing’ blog update, but I did want to let you know that I’ve migrated to a new email platform that I’m hoping will discourage me from doing things that make it harder for me to actually write a dang email. If you got ported over inappropriately, I’m sorry about that– the unsubscribe link is at the bottom of this letter. This platform also wonderfully supports RSS– so if you want to check that out, just add this url to your feed reader.

Anyway, let’s check out some music! It’s been a while.