Hi. It’s been almost exactly one year since I’ve sent anything from this newsletter. If this showed up in your inbox, you probably even forgot you were subscribed to this. Boo!

I don’t have any good excuses to give for why I rarely write anymore. I just don’t make time for it. Simple as that. Could that change? Maybe, but it’s difficult between school, work, and other interests. And to be entirely honest, I just don’t have anything that I really want to write about. Most any writing I do these days is just on Letterboxd. I spend a lot of my free time going to see movies, and I try to write something about anything I watch.

It’s been quite a year for music. We got oklou, a new Clipse album, the explosion of Geese and Cameron Winters’ elliptical warble, the formation and dissolution of NJZ, the tragic passing of D’Angelo, the inescapable pull of KPOP Demon Hunters (I work with children); I can’t even say I followed music that closely this year but it’s felt very eventful, for better and for worse (Don’t even get me started on the insane Charlie Kirk AI anthem). Despite being busy with work and school, and other things, I managed to find some time to check out some new music this year and here are my top 5:

5. Pictoria Vark - Nothing Sticks

“It’s an option / To keep / Clenching this / Fist,” ends the opening verse of Pictoria Vark’s San Diego, the first song I ever heard off this album. I think it goes without saying that the past year has been full of a lot of bullshit. Billionaires, institutions, and your relatives are all pushing dog water generative AI; our government is run by a cabal of (alleged) pedophiles; not to mention the continued genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza by Israel. I’ve spent a lot of this year feeling angry and helpless and small. When that maelstrom of emotions comes to mind, I think about Nothing Sticks, an album about coping with the overwhelming feelings of having to live in the world.

Nothing Sticks is an album that calls to mind what it felt like to listen to early Mitski. It evokes this singer-songwriter sensibility into indie rock, mixing up these big rock anthems (San Diego, Lucky Superstar) with more elegant arrangements (Sara, I Pushed It Down). But the comparisons hit emotionally too, in that these songs show musical sophistication in service of presenting this emotionally raw collection of songs.

But I think it’s easy to just be like “I like this album because it’s sad, and I’m sad.” Because, well, yeah. But I think what this album illustrates to me is that the anger and the sadness is real; that with these things comes the beauty of getting to be alive, and as long as you’re alive and moving forward, things will get better. It’s important to be grateful for the small things. Like she sings in the closing track, We’re Musicians: “Thank god for good days in bad luck.”

Favorite Track: Lucky Superstar

4. Earl Sweatshirt - Live Laugh Love

I don’t know if I have anything smart to say about Earl Sweatshirt’s music. It weirdly feels like I’ve watched him grow up, having followed him since the early days of Odd Future circa 2009/2010. He’s always felt a cut above his contemporaries, having developed a mercurial flow and almost opaque lyrics. It’s kind of funny to me that Tyler, the Creator used to get MF Doom comparisons all the time because of his voice, but it really feels to me like Earl Sweatshirt carries that particular torch.

The only way I could describe the way Earl raps is that it’s like he weaves in and out of time. Like sometimes it seems like he’s rapping off the beat, but just as soon as you clock it, he’ll be back on top again. I can’t tell if he’s rushing or dragging, but maybe my ears are just bad. Regardless, the way he raps has always felt very organic and natural, almost laid back, wrapped in this lo-fi aesthetic.

Despite this, Live Laugh Love isn’t an album about being chill. It’s an album about growing up and locking in. It’s music from someone learning what it means to really grow up (undoubtedly influenced by getting married and having his first child). It’s about the realization that, at some point, you can’t keep fucking around. Like he says in WELL DONE!, “I see you ain't moved in a while/Ain't gon' lie, you probably should get your sails up.” I turned 33 this year, and I’m feeling that pressure to get my proverbial sails up. For the past few years I’ve felt stalled out at dead end jobs, unfulfilling relationships, creative stagnation. It finally feels like I’m getting my shit together.

Favorite Track: TOURMALINE

3. Erika de Casier - Lifetime

I really missed out on the Erika de Casier train in 2019 when she released Essentials. I’m going to be completely honest, most of the reason I checked out Lifetime, apart from it getting good reviews, was that I was listening to that second NewJeans EP again. When NewJeans’ attempt to rebrand as NJZ failed and it was clear we wouldn’t be getting any new music from them this year, I listened to this album hoping to get that same dopamine hit from listening to Super Shy. De Casier did work on those songs, after all.

I think I was expecting that really frenetic drum and bass/UK garage-type vibe from Lifetime, but what I got was this really chilled out trip hop album. What I really admire about this album is how it exudes this confident sensuality. Apparently the original title of this album was going to be Midnight Caller, which makes sense because it feels like these songs were meant to be listened to in the dead of night on the way to or from a tryst with a secret lover. It evokes the cool romanticism of Sade, and any comparison to Sade is high praise.

Favorite Track: Delusional

2. EFFIE - pullup to busan 4 morE hypEr summEr it's gonna bE a fuckin movie

I think everything you need to know about this EP is in it’s absolutely off-the-wall title. pullup to busan 4 morE hypEr summEr it's gonna bE a fuckin movie is a 13-and-a-half minute onslaught of hyperpop madness. I was first put on to this by browsing YouTube and randomly clicking on the video for the song MAKGEOLLI BANGER, a bombastic, incredibly infectious song about being young and unapologetically messy (“I do the dash/I feel like Yung Lean/Not sorry for my sins”). It instantly became one of my favorite tracks of the year, and it got me feeling wistful for day-long benders, partying, and just the general feeling of invincibility that comes with being in your early 20s.

But the rest of the EP is just as invigorating, with that really maximalist hyperpop production courtesy of kimj along with EFFIE’s charismatic, unpredictable rapping. One standout is CAN I SIP 담배, with a massive blown-out synth bass accompanying EFFIE rapping about the intimacy of taking a drag off another person’s cigarette. In unpredictable EFFIE fashion, it eventually devolves into EFFIE making monkey sounds that transition into actual sounds of a chimpanzee screeching.

pullup to busan 4 morE hypEr summEr it's gonna bE a fuckin movie does what all my favorite pop music does: it makes me feel alive and invincible. I want to dance and fight the world. It makes life feel like a fucking movie.

Favorite track: MAKGEOLLI BANGER

1. They Are Gutting a Body of Water - LOTTO

So, one of the biggest things I did this year was join a band. I didn’t really want to make a big deal of it because it’s still early and I don’t want to get ahead of my own skis. But it’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. I’ve been learning and playing guitar for something like 15 years now. It’s my favorite thing to do and I genuinely don’t know who I would be without it. That being said, there’s always been some trepidation and lack of confidence that’s kept me from trying to make music of my own or reach out to others and collaborate. I made great pains to do that this year and I’m glad to say it was a difficult process that eventually bore fruit. There will be more news on this in the future.

But this is relevant because the band I joined is a shoegaze band, and this lead me down the road of doing what I would jokingly call “shoegaze homework,” which was mostly just listening to a lot of artists in the genre (if you could really call it a coherent genre) to mine inspiration and techniques I could apply to writing. This mean visiting pioneers like My Bloody Valentine, Ride, Slowdive, A.R. Kane; more modern artists like Alvvays, Tanukichan, and Asobi Seksu; and discovering this more recent evolution of the style, with one band member introducing me to Fleshwater, and me discovering They Are Gutting a Body of Water.

I find LOTTO such a refreshing entry into the shoegaze oeuvre. It feels inventive and unique in a style that has felt, which enjoyable, kind of predictable in the past decade. In listening to it while doing “shoegaze homework” it kind of made me question my approach to the genre, because it feels like it really pushes the bounds of what shoegaze traditionally is, which is to say rooted in either alternative rock music of the 80s and 90s, or influenced by the resurgence of nu metal acts like Deftones. But despite being recognizably shoegaze, LOTTO takes influence from beyond that limited pallete, incorporating electronic music, hip-hop, and more. It makes me wonder if instead of remaining slavishly devoted to the altar of Loveless, it might be more interesting to look beyond shoegaze when writing shoegaze. Semantic satiation is currently hitting as I type the word shoegaze for the seventh or eighth time.

The aesthetic soundscape They Are Gutting a Body of Water creates in LOTTO is so compelling to me. It’s dense and saturated, but retains this pulse of poppy songwriting I find really compelling. The riffs are massive but the melodies cut clear through. It’s really impressive and inspiring to me when people can create something that feels very experimental while at the same time being immediately understandable. I’m trying, and probably failing, to describe why I liked this album so much, but at the end of the day, I find the experience of listening to it a genuine pleasure, and most days I found myself gravitating towards it over almost anything else. It really got me thinking about my own creative process and inspired and excited to make something of my own that makes other people feel the same way.

Favorite track: violence iii

That ends my favorite albums list for this year. I didn’t write about music at all for an entire calendar year, but I had a lot of fun putting this list together and trying to put my thoughts into words. I miss doing this. Maybe I’ll find more time to write next year. I would really like to redevelop my music writing again. I don’t necessarily feel satisfied with what I’ve written here, but you have to learn how to walk again, before you can get back to running. If you’ve read this far, thanks for giving this the time of day. I hope the holidays treat you well, and 2026 is better for you than 2025.

Some other albums I liked this year:

Addison Rae - Addison
Algernon Cadwallader - Trying Not to Have a Thought
Amaarae - BLACK STAR
Armand Hammer & The Alchemist - Mercy
aya - hexed!
Billy Woods - GOLLIWOG
Cameron Winter - Heavy Metal
caroline - caroline 2
claire rousay - a little death
Danny Brown - Stardust
Dijon - Baby
Drain - ...IS YOUR FRIEND
Ethel Cain - Perverts
Febuary - Run Like a Girl
Fleshwater - 2000: In Search of the Endless Sky
Ichiko Aoba - Luminescent Creatures
Jane Remover - Revengeseekerz
Jay Som - Belong
JIVEBOMB - ETHEREAL
Lucy Liyou - Every Video Without Your Face, Every Sound Without Your Name
Militarie Gun - God Save the Gun
More Eaze, claire rousay - no floor
Oklou - choke enough
OsamaSon - Jump Out
Pink Pantheress - Fancy That
Playboi Carti - I AM MUSIC
Saya Grey - SAYA
Scowl - Are We All Angels
Wednesday - Bleeds
YHWH Nailgun - 45 Pounds
ZAYALLCAPS - pop Art * art Pop