The Retrographer, Issue 107 (October, 2 0 2 3)

Alena Spanger, Tizrah, Lord of the Isles, Ellen Renton, Sam Gendel, Sam Wilkes, Craig Weinrib, Lync, Truth Club, Empty Country, Desolation Horse, Sufjan Stevens, and more!

The Retrographer, Issue 107 (October, 2 0 2 3)

Bulletins

• If you somehow missed it, I put out my second album Country Life in America last month!

• I just got my LP test pressings - they’re going to look and sound beautiful. Buy one here.

• Been thinking about this live performance by the Band a lot.

Ten Songs for October, 2 0 2 3 | Listen to these songs on Spotify and YouTube

“Agios”, Alena Spanger (Spotify / YouTube) – Spanger gives this song shape in the most elegant ways; From a soulful riff hummed to herself, to a dramatically truncated lyric (“the fickle girl –”) but when it all disappears below her (“it goes something like that”), now she’s walking barefoot on the clouds, buoyed in the sky only by her falsetto. 

“2 D I C U V”, Tizrah (Spotify / YouTube) – Obliterated digital fragments of guitar and drums skitter like a bad Napster rip, vocals close and downgraded, lisping static at each sibilance. A generation of listeners once downloaded at 96kbps to overcome bad wifi; today it’s aesthetic.

“For A Burning World”, Lord of the Isles and Ellen Renton (Spotify / YouTube) – Lyric is not poetry, nor vice versa; each is its own form. But Renton’s delivery here somehow fuses the two, music and verse, bound in story. The song takes its own shape in its long, wordless outro.

“UV”, Sam Gendel (Spotify / YouTube) – Pensive and patient, this track is the track on Gendel’s abecedarian LP that least belies his vocation as a sax player. Maybe the riffs are riffing here and there, but they read as much like primitive digital radio signaling as they do music.

“Folk Home”, Sam Wilkes and Craig Weinrib (Spotify / YouTube) – Weinrib duetted with Gendel Sam on last year’s blueblue; this year he joins Wilkes Sam for DRIVING, and especially on this scintillating, shimmering vista, glinting and winking.

“Pennies To Save”, Lync (Spotify / YouTube) – This pronunciation of “manipulative” sets the properly tilted perspective for this song, a bracing ascent with clear ancestry in Hüsker Dü and SST. It sounds twisted and incredible.

“Break the Stones”, Truth Club (Spotify / YouTube) – Travis Harrington’s voice is powerful, especially when it’s necessary to portend calamity or impending doom. He rises and rises, from wavering intimation to stentorian shout, his band thundering in behind him. What a guitar solo too.

“David”, Empty Country (Spotify / YouTube) – “Who the fuck is Geoff?”

“Good Boy 2”, Desolation Horse (Spotify / YouTube) – h/t Marty. I’ve heard Idaho’s Cooper Trail compared to Mac DeMarco and Pinegrove, but he’s really his own guy. There are some bright, feel-good vibes here, and a twinge of sadness too. It’s going to be okay, buddy.

“Everything That Rises”, Sufjan Stevens (Spotify / YouTube) – Bewitching on record for twenty years, Stevens is still as fresh and openhearted as ever, still pondering his unknowable, beloved Jesus. If anyone will find heaven, it’ll be him.

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MONTHLY

#107 October, 2023

#106 September, 2023

#105.5 “Country Life in America”

#105 August, 2023 | “Rockaway”

#104 July, 2023 | “Gas Station Bathroom”

#103 June, 2023 | “Talkin’ French” 

#102 May, 2023 | 

#101 April, 2023 | 

#100 March, 2023 | The Feelies, “The Good Earth”

#99 February, 2023 | Judee Sill, “Judee Sill”

#98 January, 2023 | Pink Floyd, “Meddle”

#96 November, 2022 | RIP TOM PETTY

#95 October, 2022 | Cannonball Adderley, “Cannonball Adderley's Fiddler on the Roof”

#94 September, 2022 | Sheryl Crow, “Tuesday Night Music Club”

#93 August, 2022 | D’Angelo, “Live at the Jazz Cafe, London”

#92 July, 2022 | Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, “Southern Accents”

#91 June, 2022 | George Harrison, “Living in the Material World”

#90 May, 2022 | The Wild Tchoupitoulas, “The Wild Tchoupitoulas”

#89 April, 2022 | Joni Mitchell, “Taming the Tiger”

#88 March, 2022 | Young Thug, “Barter 6”

#87 February, 2022 | Stephane Grappelli and Stuff Smith, “Violins No End”

#86 January, 2022 | Nas, “God’s Son”

#84 November, 2021 | Milt Jackson with the Thelonious Monk Quintet, “Wizard of the Vibes”

#83 October, 2021 | For Against, “Coalesced”

#82 September, 2021 | Pat Metheny, “Bright Size Life”

#81 August, 2021 | The Chicks, “Fly”

#80 July, 2021 | Allen Toussaint, “Southern Nights”

#79 June, 2021 | Novos Baianos, “Acabou Chorare”

#78 May, 2021 | One Direction, “Four”

#77 April, 2021 | Bob Dylan, “New Morning”

#76 March, 2021 | Ty Dolla $ign, “Free TC”

#75 February, 2021 | Ghostface Killah, “Fishscale”

#74 January, 2021 | Minnie Riperton, “Minnie”

#72 November, 2020 | Sufjan Stevens, “Seven Swans”

#71 October, 2020 | Common, “Resurrection”

#70 September, 2020 | Herbie Hancock, “Thrust”

#69 August, 2020 | Special Issue

#68 July, 2020 | Cam’ron, “Purple Haze”

#67 June, 2020 | Jorge Ben, “A Tabua de Esmeralda”

#66 May, 2020 | The Meters, “Rejuvenation”

#65 April, 2020 | Eddie Kendricks, “People… Hold On”

#64 March, 2020 | Thelonious Monk, “Solo Monk”

#63 February, 2020 | Cat Power, “Moon Pix”

#62 January, 2020 | Yusef Lateef, “Eastern Sounds”

#59 November, 2019 | Frank Sinatra, “In The Wee Small Hours”

#58 October, 2019 | Steely Dan, “Gaucho”

#57 September, 2019 | Bonnie Raitt, “Streetlights”

#56 August, 2019 | Daft Punk, “Alive 2007”

#55 July, 2019 | John Coltrane, “Interstellar Space”

#54 June, 2019 | Big Pun, “Capital Punishment”

#53 May, 2019 | Paul Simon, “Rhythm of the Saints”

#52 April, 2019 | Dirty Projectors, “Rise Above”

#51 March, 2019 | Kate Bush, “The Sensual World”

#50 February, 2019 | Sonny Rollins, “Next Album”

#49 January, 2019 | Sade, “Diamond Life”

#47 November, 2018 | Curtis Mayfield, “There’s No Place Like America Today”

#46 October, 2018 | The Blue Nile, “Hats”

#45 September, 2018 | Lucinda Williams, “Car Wheels on a Gravel Road”

#44 August, 2018 | Aretha Franklin, “Amazing Grace”

#43 July, 2018 | Teddy Pendergrass, “TP”

#42 June, 2018 | Dennis Wilson, “Pacific Ocean Blue”

#41 May, 2018 | Bobby Brown, “Don’t Be Cruel”

#40 April, 2018 | Amy Winehouse, “Back to Black”

#39 March, 2018 | Q-Tip, “Kamaal the Abstract”

#38 February, 2018 | Miles Davis, “In a Silent Way”

#37 January, 2018 | Beck, “Sea Change”

#35 November, 2017 | Slum Village, “Fan-tas-tic Vol. 1”

#34 October, 2017 | Steely Dan, “Two Against Nature”

#33 September, 2017 | Baaba Maal and Mansour Seck, “Djam Leeli”

#32 August, 2017 | Billy Joel, “The Stranger”

#31 July, 2017 | Big Daddy Kane, “Long Live the Kane”

#30 June, 2017 | Janet Jackson, “Control”

#29 May, 2017 | Steely Dan, “Aja”

#28 April, 2017 | The O’Jays, “Back Stabbers”

#27 March, 2017 | Wire, “154”

#26 February, 2017 | Professor Longhair, “New Orleans Piano”

#25 January, 2017 | Elvis Costello, “Live at the El Mocambo”

#23 November, 2016 | Erykah Badu, “Mama’s Gun”

#22 October, 2016 | Donald Fagan, “The Nightfly”

#21 September, 2016 | Aretha Franklin, “Young, Gifted, and Black”

#20 August, 2016 | The Dave Matthews Band, “Under the Table and Dreaming”

#19 July, 2016 | Clams Casino, “Instrumental Mixtape II”

#18 June, 2016 | James Brown, “Love, Power, Peace”

#17 May, 2016 | Ali Farka Toure & Ry Cooder, “Talking Timbuktu”

#16 April, 2016 | RIP PRINCE

#15 March, 2016 | Prince, “Prince”

#14 February, 2016 | Big L, “Lifestyles Ov Da Poor & Dangerous”

#13 January, 2016 | Bill Evans, “Live at the Village Vanguard”

#11 November, 2015 | Donny Hathaway, “Live”

#10 October, 2015 | Paul McCartney, “McCartney”

#9 September, 2015 | Talk Talk, “Laughing Stock”

#8 August, 2015 | B.B. King, “Live at Cook County Jail”

#7 July, 2015 | Miles Davis, “Filles de Kilimanjaro”

#6 June, 2015 | Joni Mitchell, “Hejira”

#5 May, 2015 | Kanye West, “The College Dropout”

#4 April, 2015 | MF DOOM, “Operation: Doomsday”

#3 March, 2015 | Bruce Springsteen, “The Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle”

#2 February, 2015 | Eric B. and Rakim, “Paid in Full”

#1 January, 2015 | Johnny Thunders & the Heartbreakers, “L.A.M.F.”

ANNUAL

#97 | 1 0 0 2 0 2 2

#85 | 1 0 0 2 0 2 1

#73 | 1 0 0 2 0 2 0

#61 | 1 0 0 2 0 1 9

#48 | 1 0 0 2 0 1 8

#36 | 1 0 0 2 0 1 7

#24 | 1 0 0 2 0 1 6

#12 | 1 0 0 2 0 1 5

1 0 0 2 0 1 4 (+ Honorable Mentions)

1 0 0 2 0 1 3 (+ Honorable Mentions)

1 0 0 2 0 1 2

1 0 0 2 0 1 1

DECENNIAL

#60 | 1 0 0 2 0 1 X

THEMED

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