Cam Recommends

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You want the kind of bass-heavy electronic track that hits hard right at the top, slides into a groove and then just stays hard-hitting for the entire run time, that–holy hell–is over 8 minutes long and you didn’t even notice it? Well, stop reading this and hit play on Nathan Fake’s incredible “Slow Yamaha.” You’re welcome.

Sounding a bit adjacent to those stalwarts of rock/funk instrumental jam sessions, The Budos Band, The Olympians offer generally sunnier tunes but with no less focus on the craft and the overall mission of providing a rollicking good time. Example today is the pretty stunning “California” which sounds somehow both modern and retro, with its clean production and high energy carrying multiple earworm melodies blasted out by muscular horns and a locked-in rhythm section keeping things chugging along nicely. But stay for the incredible guitar solo which isn’t bombastic (indeed there might not be anything more than simple amplification) or anything but still kinda rocks my socks off (like, from a sock-hop). Great stuff.

So, whatever you think you’re going to hear when I write the phrase, “Animal Collective member side project revolving around the hurdy-gurdy,” I can kind of promise it’s not going to be what you think. Eschewing some of the wild experimentation of his other project, Brian Weitz’s Geologist project instead locks into a loopy, psych-rock tinged kind of krautrock that seems beamed in from an adjacent universe where the hurdy-gurdy gained as much prominence as the electric guitar. Listen to the driving album closer “Sonora,” and you’ll either come away with a sense of bafflement or will be completely hooked. You can guess which one describes me. 

Thirteen tracks of unbelievably good chill beats with some ambient/field recording filagree that elevates each one above the standard “lo-fi” video compilation tune. The album, despite being something of a label sampler and featuring as many artists as it does tracks, is still remarkably cohesive as a listening experience. It’s a calming balm of a listen that I’ve found myself coming back to over and over this year so far. For a bit of log-rolling, an observant listener will see that I haven’t posted in quite a while, despite a track record of at least a post a week for the last year or so. I don’t want to agonize too much over it, but my mental and physical health have been all over the place and I’ve found it so, so, so difficult to focus. So, big thanks to Aureolin Winter for sitting at the top of my “to write about” list for the last little while, hopefully, its patience will be rewarding to you as you listen. 

Dutch psychedelic groovesters Yiin Yin are back at it again with a new set of unbelievably earwormy jams. I really loved their 2024 Mount Matsu with its spaghetti western/kurasawa vibes and fantastic sense of pace. This year’s Yatta is a bit less cohesive than its predecessor but the band aren’t resting on their laurels, instead they give themselves more freedom to incorporate disparate sources into their pool of sounds, leading to some of their most experimental and rewarding work yet. They can’t, however, resist starting the record with an extended quote from Alan Watts, and so it’s not like there isn’t some explicit themes going on here, specifically with that whole “inside/outside” thing where it seems like each track here has a kind of inverse somewhere else. But it’s not a puzzlebox, so maybe just dive in with the extremely danceable “Golden Lion” which kind of picks up where Mount Matsu left off and then dials it up even more, adding glam and heaps of twinkling haze. But I’d be remiss if I also didn’t plug “Slow Burner” which, at the halfway point, could have legit come right off a TOBACCO project. 

Ace of Spit’s new record, II, blazes by in a cacophonous twenty seven minutes. Nearly all of its ten tracks have their feet fully pressed down on the garage rock/rockabilly accelerator and while not all tracks have vocals, when they emerge, they’re sung with the appropriate wild abandon of a grease-haired hesher. That said, exactly halfway through the record, they slide in with “Parts List” which stands out for sounding so dissimilar to the rest of the project that it’s kind of breathtaking. Substituting distorted electronic drumbeats for the kit and really hammering those pedal effects until the guitar is unrecognizable, the song clatters around until it really breaks down into its component–ahem-parts for the back stretch. It’s a great little interlude that shows that Ace of Spit might have ambitions beyond their (admittedly great) other divebar-ready tunes would suggest. 

I guess I can’t really resist a song with a good accordion part but there's even more to like here from genre-smashers Lucha Luna as they blast huge reggaeton beats over delicate guitar lines and hard hitting vocals. If you can, it’s best to roll all your windows down and turn the volume waaaay up for this one. 

Marcel Sletten’s new album is an incredible work of sound manipulation and digital collage, with giant swaths of noise descending upon the listener like pieces of carved black marble. Playing like some kind of halfway point between the slowcore down-tuned guitar blasts of Sunn O))) and the neon-glow sky-high synths of Fuck Buttons, the whole record is meditatively invigorating and challenging without being punishing (indeed, Sletten provides several tracks containing more sedate vibes). The title track, “Psycho Narcissus,” is a good place to start, but, really, the whole thing is really worth your time.

Just listen to that bass riff! The snap of the strings is mixed right up close to the listener and if you like a great bassline like I do then you don’t need anything else to recommend here, just push play. But if you do need a bit more, just keep listening! The song ramps up and with very little actual amplification this band are able to kick up quite a bit of dust, coming off something like a stoner rock band playing MTV’s Unplugged (or a Tiny Desk for those not old enough to remember the former semi-institution). The singer really sells the whole bit too with just enough rasp and edge, making this not only a great bit of music to headbang to but as a fantastic opening track to a record packed with great jams.

Time to add another song to that little indie rock subgenre of “self-deprecating breakup song where I sing about how much I suck and you’re right to go on without me…but maaaaybe it’s also kinda your fault?” (See also, “The District Sleeps Alone Tonight” by The Postal Service or  “Madder Red,” by Yeasayer). Set against gentle banjo plucking and warm production with plaintive vocal stylings, it’s easy to think it’ll be a simple love song until we get to this couplet around which the entire song revolves: “I hate myself so much, you might as well hate me too. I’m a big fucking loser the best thing about me is that I still care about you.” He sings of gentle memories, compares his lover to a storm: all very romantic indeed, until he drops that little “buuuuut maybe…” line: “are you really gonna die on that hill that you couldn’t even climb?” The song, of course, comes back to its central theme (after a very Sparklehorse-worthy guitar solo) as all songs like this do, but that little kernel of doubt oozes into the rest of the song especially as it plays out without a final resolution, just letting that seeming penultimate note hang in the air. 

I don’t mean to just throw a bunch of genre tags at you but, like, hear me out with this one as I try to describe the sound of Zu: progressive jazzy-fusion instrumental stoner math rock. If that sounds like an eye rolling chore I promise it’s not! Start with “Kether” which starts out in face-melting mode with ferocious guitar riff and pummeling drums and then only goes harder from there as synths blast their way into the stratosphere and at the two minute mark of this seven minute piece they introduce a thundering saxophone/horn section before descending into what sounds like a hardccore breakdown except they just ride it out for another 60 seconds, never once coming up for air. At the halfway point it all drops out and they rebuild it again, this time letting the drummer go wild as the synths and guitar duke it out for the remainder. It’s an exhilarating listen and if you dig it, then you’re in luck as the incredible album it’s taken from is over an hour long! 

Julianna Barwick’s Nepenthe is one of my favorite records and it got me through a particularly rough time in my life. Readers of the blog will know how much I adore Mary Lattimore (if I’m not on record yet stating that I think “Wawa By the Ocean” is maybe the best song ever written then consider this that record). So the prospect of a full length record from them instantly made their recent album, Tragic Magic, my most anticipated of 2026. And, ironically, even though both artist’s works themselves ask for patience, I didn’t have to wait at all for this, a most miraculous of projects. I want to highlight “The Four Sleeping Princesses,” though of the course the entire album is worth your time. Starting with an insistent chord progression, provided by Lattimore and her harp, the song builds on itself, layering in washes of Barwick’s ghostly vocals until it becomes a near unstoppable force by the midpoint. But then something interesting happens as that intensity very gradually fades away as the voices take center stage, briefly submerging the fraying harp in a sonic bath before all finally coalescing around one final note and fading into the aether.