#walt mcclements

Boldy James & Antt Beatz — Hommage (Empire)

Who nominated it? Ray Garraty

Did we review it? Yes, Ray wrote, “Hommage is one of the six albums Boldy James put out in 2025. It’s much better than the rest of them.”

Jennifer Kelly’s take:

Ray’s the expert on Michigan rap, but I was taken with the slow-moving menace of these cuts. James drawls sharp cultural references and lurid crime narratives over his producer’s slurring, back-slipping beats, many of them lush with florid piano runs but bounded, on the low-end, with resounding, pounding bass. James’ delivery is bleary, exhausted, but knotted up with quick bursts of machine gun sprayed imagery (for instance, in “Concrete Connie” “Now I spin a zip of flake for a pair of sneakers/Nigga still running base like I'm Derek Jeter/Pull up something Dilla play with the foreign features/Now a nigga charging $10.08 for a feature.” ). James brings in fellow Detroiters like Baby Money and BandGang Lonnie Bands for guest appearances, the latter turning up in “Met Me” with an unexpected hockey reference (“like a jetski/I sold so much ice they call me Wayne Gretsky”). Oh right, Canada’s right over the bridge, isn’t it?

Damon Locks — List of Demands (International Anthem)

Who nominated it? Bill Meyer

Did we review it? No (but Bill did here)

Jonathan Shaw’s take:

During “Distance,” the second song on List of Demands, Damon Locks intones, “Urban renewal, redlining and block busting / That’s distance / Disinvestment, destabilization, murder and disenfranchisement are the stories, nonfiction.” Locks effectively grounds his array of concerns in material terms, in concrete and embodied phenomena that change space and drive black and brown people out of neighborhoods, out of nations, out of their very lives. That provides a provocative contrast with Locks’ musicianship, which digitally layers and links jazz and soul music, field recordings, voices of ghosts from the archive of sound he has at his disposal. The complexity of the sampling and arrangements can verge on chaos (check out “Everything’s under Control,” an ironical gesture) or a sort of icy tension (“Click” is redolent of it, full of dread). Locks demonstrates a sharp understanding of how to evoke feeling from all the digitized information he assembles, incisively responding to the rage and despair that has flowed through anyone paying attention to how race operates as a discourse of oppression and of community in the US. Is race a material experience, something in the flesh? Is it socio-cultural construction, something in the language and many, many other symbol systems? A political wedge or an identity? List of Demands has no answers, just more imperatives.

Walt McClements — On A Painted Ocean (Western Vinyl)

Who recommended it? Ian Mathers

Did we review it? Yes, Ian wrote, “The album title’s evocation of a massive body of water, captured at one particular moment (taken from “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”) is played out over its whole length.”

Bill Meyer’s take:

Walt McClements gravitated to the accordion after experiencing a crisis of relevance while performing song-based music. His approach can be summed up with the equation, minimal gestures + maximal effects = tidal drama. McClements’ intention to treat his instrument like a synthesizer steers him towards undulating waves of sound that radiate the sort of shininess I associate with 1970s vintage string synthesizers. The moments when the music feels most understated and ecclesiastical work best for me; those where he induces guest saxophonist Aurora Nealand to wax melodramatic are a bit too corny.

Mess Esque — Jay Marie, Comfort Me (Drag City)

Who picked it? Bryon Hayes

Did we review it? Yes. Tim Clarke wrote, “being unafraid to let things fall apart is part of the band’s charm and allows their most satisfying moments to feel all the more transcendent.”

Patrick Masterson’s take:

For the first time, Helen Franzmann and Mick Turner were able to record as Mess Esque in one room. Following two remote collaborations in 2021’s Dream #12 and eponymous Mess Esque, Franzmann and Turner have given it another go four years later with Jay Marie, Comfort Me. In a way, the removal of that barrier makes this slightly less of an achievement than what was accomplished for the first two albums, but that’s a minor barb reserved for serious nitpickers; ultimately, this is more enjoyable on a whole than its predecessors. I seem to be on the same page as everyone else in agreeing “Take Me to Your Infinite Garden” is the natural single here given its killer riff and fantastical lyrical leaps, but I’m also with Tim’s review in two other ways: First, the real highlight is without a doubt “That Chair,” a lush, bluesy bummer of a song I could’ve kept listening to for double the length; second, “Let Me Know You” is a cabinet curiosity at best and its removal from the tracklist would’ve done no harm to the overall experience. That it’s the shortest track here is just mercy, the comfort of the remaining songs more than enough to mask its inadequacy. Another fulfilling album from an entity that feels like it could keep doing this forever.

Mogwai — The Bad Fire (Rock Action / Temporary Residence)

Who nominated it? Patrick Masterson

Did we review it? Yes, Christian Carey said, “Mogwai continues to expand its palette while still bringing the noise.”

Tim Clarke’s take:

Over the last 20-odd years, Mogwai’s music has meant a great deal to me at various points. When the band first emerged in the late 1990s, while I was at university, I was really taken by their early compilation, Ten Rapid. Then, in 2003, soon after a close friend of mine died in a car accident, Happy Songs for Happy People offered deep solace. Beyond that, The Hawk Is Howling (2008) also hit the spot, and when I saw them live around the time of 2011’s Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will, they were excellent. Since then, I can’t say much of Mogwai’s output has registered beyond the surface level. On The Bad Fire, the band seems to focus on their methodology of layering instruments and building a mood, patiently shifting upwards through the gears until your hair’s blown back and the density of sound is chewy and widescreen. This approach works pretty well during the first half of the album, when the band hits cruising altitude and keeps on roaring. I’m especially drawn to two of the songs during the album’s central stretch, “Pale Vegan Hip Pain” and “If You Find This World Bad, You Should See Some of the Others,” where the emotional heft of the music feels a bit more weighty. The Bad Fire is cause enough for me to reevaluate Mogwai’s last few releases to see if there’s more there to appreciate.

Moreish Idols — All in the Game (Speedy Wunderground/PIAS)

Who nominated it? Tim Clarke

Did we review it? Yes, Tim wrote, “On the back of two buzz-building EPs, English quintet Moreish Idols bring sharp songwriting and dynamic band-in-a-room energy to bear on their excellent debut album, All in the Game.”

Christian Carey’s take:

Cornish band Moreish Idols bring a number of different musical styles into play on All in the Game, their debut full length recording. These include psychedelia, post-rock, Brit-pop, and even a splash of laconic speech-song on “Railway.” The title track combines double-tracked lead vocals, falsetto harmonies, undulating rhythm guitar, and post-bop saxophone riffs, including some sheets of sound á la early John Coltrane. On “ACID,” a heady dance and yawping vocals are balanced by heavy rock guitar strums and harmonic minor scales that flirt with being non-Western insertions. One might not be sure on which continent the ardent narrator has dropped a tab, but we know that the result is fervidly unbridled.

The major to minor ying-yang of the chords on “Slouch” are steadily reiterated to dizzying effect. The album closer, “Time’s Wasting,” is a bit shy of two minutes, but its multi-part vocal hook, thrumming bass line, forceful guitar solo, and hazy ambience recall a plethora of past artists. They are blended into a singular concoction, or, as the case may be, tablet.

David Ivan Neil — I Hope Yer OK (Perpetual Doom)

Who picked it? Joshua Moss

Did we review it? Yes. Joshua wrote, “Rising to the occasion, it is the best produced work in his lengthy catalog, boasting the barest studio sheen and a tight, stripped-back honky-stoner band, the A-OK Players, who lend urgency and back-beat movement to DIN’s emotionally zoomed-in half-slurred confessionals.”

Patrick Masterson’s take:

I went into I Hope Yer OK about as blind as one can go. I knew nothing of David Ivan Neil before this; I didn’t recall a shred of Joshua’s (albeit convincingly argued) mid-March review; hell, I didn’t even look at the tracklist before I pressed play. I just figured I’d wheel it and find my own footing before I dug into the details. It took exactly 40 seconds of opener “Drums” to get me wondering how much Silver Jews this David’s listened to, but over the course of the ensuing three-and-a-half minutes (and nine songs including, sure enough, a cover of “K-Hole”), I Hope Yer OK reveals itself to be more than a mere homage to that David. The approachable, nakedly vulnerable lyrics, as sincere as they are sarcastic, offer an arm around the shoulder the way the album title suggests. This is a friend telling you in a darker moment of perpetual doom that yeah, actually, it’s exactly as bad out there as you think — but you wanna hear something funny? And so you laugh through a wicked hangover and the only instance of mandolin you’ve been able to tolerate in 2025 and you joke about jumping in front of city buses for the payout and you swoon to paeans of broken bird dreams and somehow, when it’s all over, you go to bed sober and acutely aware of the noble futility of the human endeavor, willing (if not eager) to wake up and take another crack at it come morning. Aware, alert, alive: This is what music can make us feel at its most potent, no matter the year or condition. Maybe you’ll feel as much, too, after a quick spin of the DIN.

RETIREMENT – ATTENTION ECONOMY (Iron Lung Records)

Who nominated it? Jonathan Shaw

Did we review it? Yes, Jonathan wrote, “It’s unrelenting — the band’s sonic abuse, and the punishment visited on us all by capital’s latest, ever more vicious version of the mode of production.”

Josh Moss’ take

Portland, Oregon hardcore band RETIREMENT (stylization theirs) doesn’t pull even one tiny punch on ATTENTION ECONOMY, their latest tape for Iron Lung Records. This is music explicitly about living in the “zone of interest” to quote the title of a recent film — the queasy surreal discomfort of knowing, being constantly reminded in jarring, discordant ways, that your comfort and joy is paid for in the brutally extracted blood of other innocent people. RETIREMENT’s crusted over musical assault does a good job of keeping your ~attention~, but this blackened, filthy, metal inflected punk is not 100% blitzkrieg. RETIREMENT makes space in these short songs for eerie atmospheric passages, ambience that oozes out from between the cracks of thrashed out riffs and plodding, pit-moving beats. This is music to put a nitrous boost in your indignation at the state and capital. It demands you open your eyes, like Alex at the end of A Clockwork Orange, and look at the prices everyone is paying for western hegemony.

Sharp Pins — Radio DDR (K/Perennial)

Who picked it? Tim Clarke

Did we review it? Yes, Jennifer Kelly described it as “conjuring the bittersweet baroque pop magic of icons like the Hollies, the Byrds and Tom Petty.”

Ian Mathers’ take:

The opening “Every Time I Hear” immediately makes me think ‘Guided by Voices if they were [even?] more interested in sounding like they were actually from the 1960s,' and while that’s a bit reductive for Radio DDR overall, it’s not a bad start. The Dusted review is correct, I think, in calling this “garage pop” as opposed to rock; any distortion or muddiness feels cozy rather than confronting, and not in a bad way (honestly the more balladic material like “Sycophant” makes for some of the best songs here). More upbeat, jangling material like “If I Was Ever Lonely” manages to walk the line of sounding period appropriate without feeling like mere mimicry; there’s some je ne sais quoi that keeps my “wait, is this just from one of the Nuggets compilations that I never listened to?” alarm from going off. It takes a certain self-confidence as a young band to plant yourself so firmly in such an established lineage (and even less specifically throwback-y songs like the raucous “When You Know” still exist in conversation with that lineage, just more with acts between then and now that also pay homage), but Sharp Pins pay it off. For those with divisive feelings about that legacy of 1960s garage pop (in either direction), you can probably apply those directly here.

Sadie Siskin — Sadie Siskin (Friends of the Road)

Who picked it? Joshua Moss

Did we review it? No

Ray Garraty’s take:

A lot of people get into music-making because you don’t need much to get started, maybe a banjo. But you need to learn how to play banjo first, which is not something many of us will be ready to master. The banjo is not the only element of Sadie Siskin’s self-titled tape’s appeal, which sounds as if it were recorded in pre-recording era, like somebody just sneaked in and recorded it anyway to later release it for a wide public (or not so wide). Its free flowing sound streams bring you back into a forgotten past. When Sadie sings (as on “Rolly Trudum” and “Yea! Wheels Turning At High Heaven”), the music moves towards more traditional ground and gets a bit poppish. Nonetheless, it’s a beautifully made tape.

Steven R. Smith — Triecade (Worstward)

Who nominated it? Bryon Hayes

Did we review it? No

Ian Mathers’ take:

Steven R. Smith (under various monikers) is practically an institution at this point, and one that Dusted has shown plenty of love to over the years. So why is this the first time I’m actually sitting down with one of his records? Sadly, pretty predictable, mundane reasons: too much music in the world to listen to, time is finite and ever passing, his discography is more than a little daunting. I’d just never hit that magic combination of opportunity and motivation on any particular release. Until now! And I’m glad it did, because while I can’t speak to how Triecade compares to the rest of his work, I can say coming to it with very little in the way of expectations I think it’s great. One of the joys of the midyear exchange, then; being “forced” to pay attention in a particular direction and finding the result so richly rewarding. If the credits on Bandcamp didn’t indicate that it’s just Smith himself playing the guitar, bass, drums, and keyboards here I might have thought this was a quartet honed by years of playing live together (and I guess in a sense that’s not inaccurate), so satisfying and seamless is ‘their’ interplay. The whole thing ebbs and flows so smoothly I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to pick out track titles without looking at the player, but who needs to when the whole 36 minutes comes together this well?

The War and Treaty — Plus One (Mercury Nashville)

Who nominated it? Justin Cober-Lake

Did we review it? Yes, Justin said, “With Plus One, they maximize both their personal traits and their broader opportunities for exciting new sounds that still (and happily) sound like where they came from.”

Tim Clarke’s take:

Whereas his debut under is own name was almost entirely just accordion, it rarely felt like a “solo instrument” LP, so engulfing and captivating was its sound. Here, McClements opens things up, adding organ, synthesizer and trumpet, and bringing in past collaborator Aurora Nealand to add stirring saxophone to three of the seven tracks. But while these instruments remain distinct and can be identified in the mix, in practice McClements arranges them all so that they feel like one massive, emotional swell. The album title’s evocation of a massive body of water, captured at one particular moment (taken from “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”) is played out over its whole length. Whether it’s the gentler ebbs of “Washed Up,” the foreboding, mounting density of “A Painted Ship,” or the fierce swirl of “Sirens,” you feel as if you’re in the middle of something monumental, elemental.

Last year McClements collaborated with harpist Mary Lattimore on the excellent Rain on the Road (per the Dusted review, it can leave you “adrift in an overwhelming amount of sonic sensation whose layers bend and blur and interconnect,” a fitting description of his solo work as well). That record featured charming asides of captured human speech, and one of the most striking tracks here brings that in as well. The ten-minute “Parade” (featuring Nealand), builds into gorgeously squalling sheets of sound before, after six and a half minutes, receding away into a glassy glimmer. You hear McClements himself briefly before Casey Leigh gives him and us instructions on how to use the lifesaving overdose intervention Narcan. It’s not that the rest of On a Painted Ocean feels inhuman, or inhumane, but it’s a beautiful moment of interpersonal connection, both calling to mind and hopefully creating some of the bonds of community that went into making this expanded version of McClements’ vision a reality.

The two musicians play very different instruments. Lattimore’s harp executes, high, sharply defined motifs, precise, trebly and meshed in the celestial connotations her instrument has always carried. McClements’ accordion, by contrast, pushes out swelling, surging, enveloping waves of tone; it doesn’t sound much, if at all, like you’d expect an accordion to sound.

Various percussive instruments are likewise layered and processed. Though “Stolen Bells,” begins with a solitary, individual distinguishable chime (you can even hear the squeak of the hinge it hangs on), it soon multiplies tintinnabulation. By mid-cut you are surrounded on all sides by icy vibrations, adrift in an overwhelming amount of sonic sensation whose layers bend and blur and interconnect.

These compositions start in delicacy, even, sometimes whispers, then build in weight and density and grandeur. “A Nest of Earrings” begins in a private moment, a woman’s whispered, “Well I got married,” then the plink of harp notes and the sound of rain. The harp playing is concentrated at the icy top, the shortest of strings, the crispest of vibrations, notes that die out quickly without much audible decay, pristine and pure and idealized. Yet as you listen, the melody swells, borne on by an accordion that blares like a pipe organ, taking up far more room than the instrument usually does. Next comes the jangle of bells, the side-sliding zing of string instruments. Some rough wooden knocks and rolling harp chords mark out a rhythm, giving the piece a fundamental clockwork order, though it bulges and swoops and swells in organic ways over the cadence.

The mix of ambient sounds and gorgeous, glowingly processed harp and accordion give these cuts a spiritual aura, an idealized beauty floating over recognizable sonic fragments. You find the divine in them like you’d find it in a tree or a sunset or a sudden thunderstorm, the natural beauty hinting at something beyond the natural.