You hear that?!?

CD Monday! It's back! And we have Small Friend Records & Books to thank!

The kind people there did a grab bag drawing to celebrate their one year anniversary, and as a result, I got to take home an absolute treasure trove of CDs. Label samplers. Promo copies of upcoming albums. Lots of stuff from Get Hip Recordings. Almost none of it was on my radar, and I'm looking forward to making my way through the stack, one CD Monday at a time.

First up is Nick Zammuto's soundtrack for the 2018 film We the Animals. I haven't heard too much of it yet, but it's certain to be a welcome respite from all the Daniel Tiger we've been listening to in the car lately. (Kid 2's burgeoning DT obsession has reignited Kid 1's. Not good. "I'll be back when the day is new" isn't just an understatement, y'all; it's a threat.)

Speaking of being back... many thanks to Small Friend for getting CD Monday up and running again. Here's a link to the piece I wrote on the shop a little while back, in case you missed it.

Quick reminder to

buy Danny Gatton records —

“When you got a good thing, you never want to put it down.”

Some fun news for fans of post-rock and/or colored vinyl and/or flower arranging...

Shy, Low has repressed their 2015 gem Hiraeth, and they're offering two snazzy colored-vinyl options: "Cowslip," which is highlighter yellow with orange pinwheels, and "Forget-Me-Not" -- a yellow-in-electric blue with white splatter design. Like the massive, cinematic music contained in the grooves, and like the floral cover art, they're gorgeous. Take a look:

If I'm reading the Discogs descriptions correctly, my copy from the original run is the "Bell Heather" version -- milky clear with a baby pink swirl. Is each variant representative of a flower depicted in the arrangement on the cover? Maybe? My ikebana has a long way to go.

I do know that it's worth snagging copy over at Bandcamp before they're all gone.

Can't stop/won't stop listening to Better Oblivion Community Center, the collaborative LP from Phoebe Bridgers and Conor Oberst. I'm especially stuck on "Chesapeake," the sixth of the album's 10 tracks. It's an elegant examination of how music is passed from one generation to the next, and how the things that connect us can eventually foster alienation. There's definitely some bitter mixed in with the sweet here, but the first four lines may be the most beautiful love letter to music I've ever read, and they don't even mention music:

The world will not remember when we're old and tired We'll be blowing on the embers of a little fire We were the tallest person watching in Chesapeake You put me on your shoulders so I could see