The Underrated Albums Edition

Some of the 2023 releases I don't want anyone to miss

Like every other person who writes about music with some regularity, I’ll be publishing a lot of content that focuses on releases I loved in 2023. The music industry practically shuts down in December, but don’t miss the late November & December releases!

Me @ Crosslegged’s release show, Purgatory BK (pc: Eric Bennett)

Every year, musicians release more music than I could possibly listen to, yet I try to listen to at least 400 new albums a year. I can’t even endorse that as a way to interact with music, but it beats what the streaming model really encourages: constantly replaying and replaying your most popular favorite album. My good friend and esteemed colleague Miranda Reinert astutely linked streaming with “stan culture,” something I’ve been trying to resist within myself by, frankly, overconsuming music. 

However, that “overconsumption” means I come across dozens and dozens of albums that never seem to enter the orbit of consciousness in which my friends navigate. Every fall, I spend extra time reaching through my inbox to enjoy albums I missed over the prior months, and I come across projects that deserve way more than I’d initially given them. So, after a long silence on this newsletter, I’m bringing 11 of those to the table, Patrick Lyons style, and I hope you get a kick out of them, too.

Raia Was - Captain Obvious (Switch Hit Records, October 5th)

FFO: Kate Bush, Wet, Bat For Lashes

I first encountered Raia Was in 2021 when Jessica MacLeish wrote a feature with her for Slumber Mag in advance of her first record, Angel I’m Frightened. I thought her voice was enchanted, but for one reason or another, the album itself didn’t stick with me long. The New York-based avant pop artist lets piano, electronics, and her silvery voice do all the work on her sophomore full-length, Captain Obvious, and it’s full of catchy, dramatic, memorable pop. “If You’re Asking (I’m Offering)” remains my favorite, but “Tough To Love,” “Playing God Again,” “Won’t Shy Away,” and more songs are completely unforgettable. I’ve been showing this one to anyone who will listen. It’s hit after hit of naked beauty that would sound perfect in a pivotal moment on a TV drama (her song “You Are” happens to have been featured in Euphoria).

Apollo Vermouth - Forever Back There (self-released, July 14th)

FFO: Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, Foxes In Fiction, Kara-Lis Coverdale

As Apollo Vermouth, Milwaukee’s Alisa Rodriguez has made haunting, grief-inflected ambient music living in the nebulous space between drone and pop, as if her songs are ‘80s ballads who’ve decayed over several half-lives. Her last Apollo Vermouth album, Crashing into Nowhere, found a logical home on legendary DIY/dream-pop oriented label Orchid Tapes. Now, six years later, Rodriguez has reinvigorated the Apollo Vermouth project with Forever Back There, another collection of spectral drones that sound like subdued neighbors to pop. Tracks like “Forever Back There” feel akin to Basinski while “Second Evening” feels like a melting OPN entry. If you like ambient/experimental music, you cannot miss this one.

Zoon - Bekka Ma’iingan (Paper Bag Records, April 28th)

FFO: Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, OMBIGIIZI, Divide & Dissolve

In the States, we tend to overlook a lot of the best of Canadian independent music. For any number of reasons, it just doesn’t break through the noise, save for Grimes, Arcade Fire, or Alvvays. Coincidentally, Canada is also home to some of the most vital creative scenes for indigenous creators, which I can’t help but wonder if linked to their more robust system of funding the arts. Enter Daniel Monkman, better known as Zoon, a Toronto-based Ojibway-speaking abstract shoegazer, whose solo work and contribution to moccasin-gaze duo Status/Non-Status has pushed boundaries not unlike Divide & Dissolve in the Southern hemisphere. Their sophomore album, Bekka Ma’iingan, is star-studded, featuring Owen Pallett, Lee Ranaldo, and more. It’s a glorious mess of guitar, strings, and human identity. Striking, beautiful, challenging.

Me:You - Field Tapes In Der Trash (American Dreams Records, April 21st)

FFO: L’Rain, keiyaA, Mourning [A] BLKstar

A handful of my subscribers on here are fellow Cleveland-born heads, so chances are strong you’ve seen the members of Me:You making waves one way or another. LaToya Kent and RA Washington are best known as co-founders of Mourning [A] BLKstar, the Afrofuturist collective of singers and instrumentalists dropping forward-thinking beats, soulful horns, and captivating vocals imagining a better, liberated future. As Me:You, their experimental mix of post-punk and R&B is equal parts ghostly and groovy. On Field Tapes In Der Trash, their recordings shimmy through thin air like a fine mist, confusing and captivating like avant-pop from centuries not yet seen. Kent says “we wanted it to sound dirty as fuck,” and in a way, it does: it sticks to your body like an unrecognized entity, implicating you in the futures the duo charts. 

Harvey Waters - Guilt, Avoidance (self-released, April 7th)

FFO: Bedbug, Blithe Field, Melaina Kol

I think the past few years have proven that there’s a meaningful resurgence of the gloomy “bedroom pop” that was once inescapably trendy, or perhaps it never really went away. Strong fanbases for projects like Sundots, waveform*, and Kitchen suggest that such interior music has a bright future. My favorite entry into this sonic space this year has come from Chicago’s Harvey Waters. The project’s frontperson, Daniel Keyes, emailed me this album directly, and I gave the new album a shot when I realized so many bands I admire follow the band’s Instagram. I wasn’t disappointed: the synthesis of slacker rock, shoegaze, even ambient rock on here is like catnip for someone like me, who was practically raised on Joy Void output. It’s beautifully arranged, bringing in keys of all kinds (synth, piano, organ) to give the bummer music the flourishes it can handle. Rewarding AND punishing.

Landowner - Escape the Compound (Born Yesterday Records, July 21st)

FFO: Stuck, Dumb, Lithics

I’ve never been one to turn down upbeat post-punk, so this Landowner album scratches a serious itch for me. “Damning Evidence” is a song that, honestly, makes me laugh. As lead singer Dan Shaw sings seemingly through his nose “Damning evidence, this is damning evidence,” I can’t help but imagine a sneering prosecutor bluffing with their whole chest. “Your fate is with the courts,” he announces. “Floodwatch” is bait for me, too; there’s something awfully funny about imagining a lifted Ford F-150 stuck in the floodwaters because of an arrogant motorist thinking the truck can handle it. Escape the Compound is full of memorable vignettes like this, delivered in a danceable allegro and guitars that bob and weave with expertise. It’s too much fun. 

PAL - PALS (self-released, August 11th)

FFO: Snõõper, Spread Joy, Dry Cleaning’s first EPs

Even funnier than Escape the Compound is the debut tape from Cleveland’s newest art punk sensation, PAL. The silly young trio makes egg punk with just the right amount of chintzy. Whether they’re imagining a fast food superhero on “Burger Boy,” something that sounds like an improved Ariel Pink post-punk foray, or pleading with sanitation workers to help them dispose of memory on “Garbage Man,” they’re comical without sacrificing an ounce of instrumental tightness. Easily, my favorite is “Safety Corridor,” a dry, midtempo song about the thrills of giving road head in the Ohio Highway Safety Corridor, an allegedly more policed part of the interstate (I’ve never seen a cop car in the Safety Corridor). Right now, I’d kill to see them play at Happy Dog while snacking on tater tots and washing them down with a $2 Genesee Cream.

JOBS - Soft Sounds (Ramp Local, September 29th)

FFO: Guerilla Toss, Palm, Floatie

Ramp Local is, easily, one of my favorite record labels (hey Jake!). Whenever I get an email with a new Ramp Local release, I never know how it’s gonna sound. If it’s a JOBS release (which Ramp Local has helped birth four), I definitely don’t know how it’s gonna sound. A terrifying amalgamation of synthesizer, samplers, effects, drums, JOBS twists pop into forms not yet seen on this planet. Soft Sounds is, in part, an album examining the voyeuristic quality of description and its failures to capture what’s actually being described. With that in mind, I’ll describe it as such: challenging, disorienting, alarming, satisfying. There’s something about being taken into the JOBS sonic universe that feels like a massage. Massages are often understood as tranquil experiences, and they are, but part of what makes a massage so satisfying is the unexpected movements and pressure points that deliver untold dopamine releases. JOBS flicks those pressure points in your mind, the ones that most music has no way to access. 

Ava Mirzadegan - Dark Dark Blue (Team Love Records, November 3rd)

FFO: Yours Are The Only Ears, ther, skirts

Every year, I find singer-songwriters contributing to the solo folk tradition with a freshness that makes me believe in solo work again. This year, fellow Philadelphian Ava Mirzadegan helped make that happen for me. You may know Ava for her work organizing the Bandcamp United union, her music as Pen Palindrome, or her curation of oof records (Highnoon, Carmen Canedo, h. pruz). Now, she releases music under her own name, and when I saw her play alongside ther (a dear friend whose music is a must-hear) at Little Red Library, I was completely blown away. Many of the songs she played at that summer show appear on Dark Dark Blue, including the deeply beautiful closer, “Sleeping Through the Afternoon.” Even the sub-2 minute cuts, “Katharine Knows” and “She’s Still,” pack a serious punch. Keep an eye out for more Ava, and also hire her!

Crosslegged - Another Blue (self-released, January 27th)

FFO: Björk, Ava Luna, Christelle Bofale

Keba Robinson’s first album in seven years as Crosslegged, Another Blue, takes her already boundary-transcending alternative pop to grander heights. Whether it’s on the groovy opener “Heaven Is Real,” psychedelic “Automatic,” or meditative “Only In The,” there really isn’t a moment on this album that comes close to boring. Robinson’s voice sits in the range of Björk and feels guided by the same convictions, towards a divine and feminine creative energy that is guided by message more than the strictures of song. It’s soulful and cosmic, not unlike early Tune-Yards, but with an unprecedented cool factor. Eric and I were lucky enough to go to New York and hear her perform Another Blue selections live, and Robinson’s voice is just as dazzling, if not more, in person as it is on tape. 

Vines - Birthday Party (self-released, August 18th)

FFO: Imogen Heap, Karima Walker, Julianna Barwick

Vines is Cassie Wieland, a Brooklyn-based composer whose affinity for the vocoder helped form this gorgeous ambient avant-pop album. Wieland’s distorted voice is layered like a choir of angels, often completely unsupported before she lets the piano, violin, drums, and/or saxophone quartet have their turns. The music is lush and vulnerable, ambient without being lost to total abstraction. She repeats simple phrases: “I’ll fall apart if I need to, I don’t mind.” It’s that repetition that gets the real weight of emotion lodged in your chest, as a listener, bearing witness to Wieland’s sparse, wintry landscape. The songs feel like fragments of whole thought exercises, brief shots into the emotional tapestries she weaves, but they feel whole enough that, as a listener, you gain a sense of understanding. It’s just enough to get on her wavelength, and not a drop more. It’s that kind of brevity that keeps me coming back for more, more, more.