The Last One, August 3, 2026
Another year of beautiful music during a turbulent time. While Spotify gets cluttered with AI music and it continues to be hard for “bands” to travel given rising costs and changing tastes, have no fear, we will persevere with a little help from our friends. Music matters, dig deep, go see live music.
1. Parcels – Loved (Partisan)
I didn’t need Spotify to remind me that “Loved” was the album that I clearly “loved” the most this year. This love is not a new love, in fact from the moment I first heard the jangly Daft Punk-ish electro-pop mixed with a CSN&Y harmonizing on their first album a few years back, I knew they were going to be a band that would nestle their way under my skin for years to come. The dozen songs on this charming masterwork are about as optimistic a collection as anything that I’ve heard in years. What’s more, I can’t recall a hipster indie band that plays at the live scale better than this young Aussie five piece band does, trading vocals, instruments, and injecting pure joy into the night sky. In a tough year filled with chaos and tragedy, this was my antidote.
2. Arc Du Soleil – Lumin Rain (Maison Arts)
A decade ago when I saw Khruangbin for the first time, I had no idea that a) they would become as big as they have and b) that they’d spawn their own genre. Arc Du Soleil is one of the best to have emerged from this stoney, vibey new horizon. Unlike many of the others in this cannon, “Lumin Rain” incorporates vocals more deeply throughout the fabric of this album. On tracks like “Sunchaser” the band approaches territory that is reminiscent of Tame Impala’s earlier work: clean sonic expanses of spacey melody with beautiful slow building vocals that tend to float into space like an astronaut moving effortlessly through a zero-gravity world: “Lost in the light .. chasing the sun .. still what I’m looking for.”
3. Midlake – A Bridge Too Far (Midlake Records)
From the very beginning fifteen years ago, this classically trained Denton, Texas Americana band has been mining the soul of Laurel Canyon and the next generation textural landscapes of bands like Fleet Foxes. Clocking in at 38 minutes the ten tracks on their latest, hugely underappreciated sixth full-length album will transport you to an ambiguous place and time – “is this a new record, or was it recorded 50 years ago?” On “Eyes Full of Animal” they sing “All he wanted was a lifeline / thrown to the ways of life / how can they be defined …” This is a vulnerable emotionally resonant journey, artfully balanced, both serious and seriously chill.
4. Leifer James – Magic Seeds Magic Seeds II (Night Time Stories)
I knew nothing about the British artist Leifer James before this year’s favorite song emerged from the algo while I was making my annual summer psyche rock playlist. “Smoke In The Air” is a slow boiling banger that starts innocently with a jazzy drumline before the most infectious keyboard riff starts oozing into clarity … “Smoke in the air / Light up the fire / Find Ourselves Here.” The balance of the record is an exercise in moody, patient jazz rock, dark and rich and transcendent indie rock, filled with beautiful swirling electronica somewhere between Portishead and DJ Shadow.
5. Leisure – Welcome to the Mood (Nettwerk Music)
The silky-smooth vibes oozing from the deftly titled “Welcome To The Mood” feels like modern-day yacht rock, mixed with a kind of jazzy 70’s R&B but executed with the deftest touch. On “Sundown” they sing “I wanna be / Holding you / ‘Til sundown” brimming with love and hope, but like Parcels, they transcend being merely an easy listening guilty pleasure by launching you into something so innocent and bright it’s easy to just lose yourself. On “Diamonds” they just keep you swimming in the clouds: “I find my diamonds in you / It took a while to cut through.” Relationships are hard, but the good ones are worth searching for.
6. Franc Moody – Chewing The Fat (Night Time Stories)
These London based vibemasters channel all the best bits of the dancy electro-funk originated by Groove Armada, Jamiroqui and others. Four albums in, the beats are even more infectious, the vocals are even more mature, creating an album meant to be played from top to bottom at the coolest cocktail lounge you have ever been to. On “Space Between Us” they open with “I want to swim in the same constellations / I want to float in the same conversations with you.” Indeed, this music is made for these times.
7. Sharon van Etten – Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory (Jagjaguwar)
Every year Sharon releases a new record and since her debut album it always makes my list and shakes my soul. This time out, surrounded by a new band, she moves away from moody, folkie brooding into something more akin to new wave. Where she might have decided to move in the direction of pop after the success of her breakout track “Seventeen” she proved that she is still interested in being a more serious artist. On the almost Radiohead-esque opener “Who Wants to Live Forever” she takes the listener way out into the galaxy far far away while questioning immortality with a wall of shimmering sound behind her. She has taken an audience risk here, but for those of us willing to follow her anywhere she has led us to a magic land.
8. Snocaps – Snocaps (Anti)
Reuniting the Crutchfield sisters (Alison, and Waxahatchee’s Katie) and the ubiquitous MJ Lenderman, SNOCAPS one off album is a lovely old school melodic 90’s sounding indie rock minor masterpiece. Led by the appealingly and imperfectly beautiful vocals of the Crutchfield sisters, these 13 compact perfect alt-country tracks mostly dwell cleverly on the nuance of relationships “When you go down / you take me with you.” There is a warm and comfortably worn sweater vibe to the music, taking its whimsical time as if you’re out for a stroll with an old friend or ex-boyfriend. In hard times, sometimes you need music that is easy and perfectly uncomplicated.
9. Wednesday – Bleeds (Dead Oceans)
The warblingly beautiful, countrified indie rock album by Wednesday seemed like the perfect whimsical distraction during a year, where everything seemed so heavy and simultaneously manufactured. The news headlines were a relentless series of WTFs, and while mainstream music seemed to have lost all of its soul, this Asheville band also featuring MJ Lenderman and a vocalist seems clipped from the mid-90’s slackerism, both competent but intentionally unserious. Album standout track “Elderberry Wine” is a meandering “But everybody get along just fine / ‘cause the champagne tastes like elderberry wine / And the pink boiled eggs stay afloat in the brine” …” which just seems to get under your skin in the simplest most infectious way. Thank god it’s Wednesday!
10. Geese – Getting Killed (Partisan) / Cameron Winter – Solo (Partisan)
It’s hard to imagine what has happened to Geese in the 18 months since I dragged a bunch of friends to see them in a tiny SF club off the 3D Country tour. You could tell they were doing something different, but it sure wasn’t obvious that they’d go on to make what many are calling the rock record of the year. Vocalist Cameron Winter, whose unmistakably warbling voice, is really the centerpiece of the chaotic Zappa meets Nick Cave circus that has spiked a main vein in the world of indie rock. These discordantly freaky tracks are exactly what we need in a time of inexplicable randomness. It’s also worth losing yourself in Winter’s solo excursion which lives somewhere between Leonard Cohen, Cave, and perhaps Tom Waits.
11. Modern Nature – The Heat Warps (Bella Union)
The UK based slo-core band Modern Nature channels a 90’s sound that has all but disappeared over the past few decades (Codeine, American Analog Set, early Low) but the nine vibey tracks lull you into an inescapable cool. The patient guitar and drumlines move just fast enough to build a considerable groove, but it is always a subtle, intentional journey that they are taking you on. On the album standout “Pharaoh” Jack Cooper croons “Fraying nerves. A patient?s curse. It’s getting worse; There’s me standing in the riot.” The relentless uncertainty of living in a messed up world fortunately creates an infinite canvas for being introspective and creative. I’m so grateful that music like this exists.
12. Saya Gray – Saya (Dirty Hit)
Saya Gray, whose third album sounds like the beautiful stepchild of FKA Twigs and Grimes, takes an ethereal, other worldly pulpit but grounds it throughout these ten gorgeous tracks in a simpler and accessible bedroom rock. Alternating between trips to the electronic frontier and sweet ballads like “PUDDLE. (OF ME)” where she sings “You know there’s a puddle of me / You know how obsessed I can get / with you needle and thread ..” She is a most beautiful shade of gray!
13. Blondshell – If You Asked for a Picture (Partisan)
Ripping a page from the simple, but groundbreaking honesty of early Liz Phair, Blondshell’s earnestly confessional second album is simplicity executed with a melodic perfection. It’s like she is singing her diary on songs like “What’s Fair” she sings “I Think that you’d be proud / I flew alone today / I think you’d be shocked that I don’t look the same / I grew up fast without you.” There is nothing new here, but like Phair before here, she writes perfect soaring pop songs about the life that is happening in real time, in the moment, and on your sleeves.
14. Emma-Jean Thackray – Weirdo (Warner Music UK)
The british neo-souljazz multi-instrumentalist, has dropped one of the richest albums of the year, ripping a page from Sault, Thundercat and others. There are 19 heavy beautiful soundscapes here that largely focus on her ruggedly beautiful voice, surrounded by spacey modern jazz (think Bitches Brew, not Kinda Blue). It all comes together on Stay:” “Hey you where’d you go / I’d like to know / No lights no one’s home / Don’t know where you go / let’s lie on the floor.” When it’s time to slow down, think and reflect this is your soundtrack.
15. Turnstile – NEVER ENOUGH (Roadrunner)
The return of Turnstile after five years, comes complete with a sprawling album of emo balladry and raucous punk rock. What has always made the band different is the melody that they manage to infuse in their music amidst the discordant chaos. While not consistently a flowing vibe, the album takes you on a journey through joyous pop explosions like the gorgeous “Seeing Stars” and “I Care’ and the raging thrashers like “Slowdive” and “Never Enough.”
16. Night Moves – Double Life (Domino)
Minnesota based Night Moves is a retro arena rock indie band. I know there are all sorts of contradictions here, but this time out they deliver fresh but hard to place 70’s sounding anthems. A decade after their Domino debut, the band is back with the elegant track “Double Life,” which is an ode to a seemingly bygone era where denim and cigarettes still seemed cool. On the gorgeous opener “Trying to Steal a Smile” lead vocalist John Pelant croons “Certain stages I do find / A time to run and a time to provide / Smoke and mirrors they still appear / And consequences aren’t quite clear.” Nostalgia rules.
17. Suede – Antidepressants (Suede Limited)
Like, Pulp, there must have been something in the water amongst a certain generation of Britpop icons this year. The 90’s icons, Suede have finally touched that infectious melodrama of yesteryear with “Antidepressants.” While this British new wavey brattiness moved across the pond in the 2000’s to bands like The Strokes and Interpol, the attitude and brash poppiness is refreshingly back with a vengeance. On tracks like “Sweet Kid” Richard Butler injects a kind “Oh sweet kid / well the night belongs to you / all the changes that you are going through” there is a kind new-found optimism that makes you feel young again.
18. Pulp – More (Rough Trade)
Who would have thought 20 years after their last proper full length album, Jarvis Cocker and the most of the original members of Pulp, would release an album filled with the kind of infectious, cerebral magic that vaulted them into the stratosphere with “Common People.” Well, they have done it on this magical comeback. On the opener “Spike Island,” one of the band’s best tracks Cocker sings “I was born / To perform / I exist / To do this / Shouting and calling / It’s time I’ll get it right.” Yes, he/they were and it’s wonderful to have them back.
A few more must listens:
19. Nick Mulvey – Dark Harvest, Pt. 1 & 2 (Supernatural Records) Mulvey has been making vibey, spiritual acoustic albums for a decade now. He’s a master strummer with a style and voice so distinctly his own that you can’t help entering what feels almost like your in the kind of church even an atheist would enjoy.
20. Nation of Language – Dance Called Memory (SubPop) In the almost 50 years since the world first heard the British new wave (New Order, Depeche Mode, Cure) synth driven futuristic world it seems to have been replaced by EDM and other such derivations. But Brooklyn based Nation Of Language has made a record whose music could have been plucked out of any John Hughes film, and transports us back to the 80’s in the most nostalgic way possible.
21. Tennis – Face Down In the Garden (Tennis) Like a modern day Carpenters, the husband and wife duo have made this pint-sized masterpiece, apparently their last, sailing through nine breezy tracks which sound both old and new, continuing to inspire artists like Clairo and others into a wonderful summer breeze.
22. Neal Francis – Return To Zero (ATO Records) Perhaps influenced by the fact that I saw Neal Francis play live three times last year, channeling the icons of the funk and R&B genres (Curtis Mayfield, Issac Hayes) gives the critical context to this groovy masterpiece; further establishing him as a true revivalist of most neglected genre.
23. Dope Lemon – Golden Wolf (Angus Stone) Although I’m the ultimate Angus Stone fanboy, my preference is usually for his work with his sister, and solo work, but “Golden Wolf” is a groove trove of an album, filled with stoney vibes and magical rock anthems. An artist still continuing to get better with age.
24. Horsegirl – Phonetics On and On (Matador) Chicago’s Horsegirl’s second album is a bonafide retro lo-fi classic, filled with jangly, angular guitars, and simple vocal harmonies. The overall riot-girl ethos is alive and well.
25. Cymande – Renascence (Cymande Ltd) Starting with their 1972 debut masterpiece this Afro-British funk royalty has been laying down some of the grooviest politically pointed tracks this side of Curtis Mayfield. On one of the best tracks of the year, “Coltrane,” the band worships at the altar of Sir John, a fitting tribute to days gone by.
26. Obongjayar – Paradise Now (September Recordings) The Nigerian chameleon whose music sounds at times grounded in an electronic ethos, fluctuates at times from TV on The Radio to Yves Tumor, to the funky afro-beats of Fela Kuti. There is so much packed into the fifteen songs, that you’ll have a hard time listening to this sitting down.
27. Durand Jones & the Indications – Flowers (Dead Oceans) Like Neal Francis, Durand Jones reaches deep in the crates of 1970’s soul, and spins pure buttery gold, on this rock solid modern soul masterpiece. “Flower Moon” may just be the best neo-soul track in decades, run don’t walk.
28. Midnight Generation – Tender Love (Midnight Generation) Mexico’s newest, and in my mind, first contribution to the resurgent electropop cannon currently lead by bands like Parcels and Franc Moody, is a funky, synthy infectiously upbeat debut that makes even more sense when you see this track-suited collection of melodic hipsters.
29. Cut Copy – Moments (Cutters Records) It’s been nearly a decade since we’ve heard from seminal new wavers Cut Copy. Being a generation before Nation of Language, the band has picked up right where they left off, on a dreamy canvas of synthesizers, drum kits and gorgeous spacey canvases. So happy to have them back.
30. Maribou State – Hallucinating Love (Ninja Tune) The spiritual siblings to Zero 7, Morcheeba and London Grammar, the third full length from the UK duo features melodic mélange of guest vocalists (most notably from Holly Walker) and juicy beats that focus on smiles and positivity.
Listen to The Bestest 2025 here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3cW68PLQ0D3MDeEQqtZlgu?si=f3d6dd0621544e34
