July 2026 (part 1)

The flow of cool new songs doesn't stop and neither do the blog posts. Here are eight songs, mostly new ones but also one very old one, that I listened to in July and thought were good.

Trinity Ace - “Martyr”
I really like this track from Trinity Ace’s incredibly titled LP Learning to Be a Cowboy on the Horse That Broke My Arm, it reminds of 20 years ago when everything was “chamber pop” with “lush instrumentation.”

 


Windy & Carl with Optigan Conservatory - “Alvin Loving”
The first look at Windy & Carl’s new collaboration with electroacoustic duo Optigan Conservatory is nine minutes of smoky, slow moving ambience that has me intrigued to hear more.

June 2026 (part 2)

It's time to again share some thoughts about some cool songs I listened to recently. Below is the followup to the first part of our overview of our June 2026 playlist, featuring nine blurbs about nine cool songs, new and old. 

Jonny Nash & Tomo Katsurada - “Sunshower Rite”
I’ve really been enjoying At The Emerald Pool, a collaborative album between frequent Horse Combinations appearer Jonny Nash and former Kikagaku Moyo frontperson Tomo Katsurada. Warm, dusky instrumentals share space with more vocal forward tracks, like the meditative single “Sunshower Rite.”

John Galm - “bonfire”
This new John Galm record, peace in the valley, is a fascinating, beautiful piece of work that foregrounds the ambient textures that occasionally punctuated his excellent last record, River of Blood. I’m told that most, if not all of these sounds were created by an acoustic guitar, which is an incredible thing to behold.

June 2026 (part 1)

I'm back and never more behind schedule, but the grind continues and the cool songs don't stop. Here are some thoughts on ten cool songs I heard in June.

Hell Trash - “I Know You’re Wrong”
Friends of the blog Hell Trash return, channelling the spirit of We Have the Facts and We're Voting Yes-era Death Cab For Cutie to meditate on personal and global despair and then play an awesome guitar solo.

Anysia Kym & Tony Seltzer - “To Death (Remix) (ft. 454)”
I’m absolutely loving the collection of reworks of Anysia Kym’s 2025 LP Purity. One of my favorite tracks on there is a remix of album opener “To Death,” which adds a killer guest verse from weirdo rapper 454.

May 2026 (part 2)

We have once again returned from the blurb mines, face dirtied and hair tousled, to offer up some thoughts on a few recent and not so recent tracks that I listened to and loved back in May. Check out volume one of May writeups if you haven't done that already, otherwise we can get straight to it:

wishbone - “Spout”
An incredible heartwarmer, “Spout” opens with a total gut punch of a first line and doesn’t ease up from there. It’s a sincere, charming debut that has me expecting big things from these Chicagoans.



ear - “Ne Plus Ultra”
Call me Vincent van Gogh because I’m excited for more ear!

May 2026 (part 1)

We're back with more blurbs about some cool songs, new and old, that I listened to and enjoyed during the month of May!

Sega Bodega - “I Created The Universe So That Life Could Create a Language So Complex, Just To Say How Much I Love You”
Can’t really remember what convinced me to finally check out this Sega Bodega record from November, but the cinematic ambience that awaits is pretty excellent stuff once you get over their band name as well as the goofily romantic name of the record/title track. The sort of sweeping, just on the edge of saccharine atmospherics that made us all fall in love with Sigur Ros 25 years ago or whatever.

 

Krypton Tunes - “Limited Vision”
I was clicking around through some more recent releases from the crate digging gurus at Soul Jazz Records and came across Secret Superstar Sounds, which compiles fifteen tracks released in the late 1970s from a bunch of forgotten British bands that operated at the intersection of power pop and first wave punk. One of my favorite discoveries was this nervy polemic from Krypton Tunes, which reminds me of everyone from Wipers to Vampire Weekend to Talking Heads. It's so cool how there is literally infinite awesome music out there.