I'd love to fully cut myself off from music streaming services entirely, relying exclusively on Bandcamp and physical media, but for now it feels like a positive step to switch to a service that more fairly compensates musicians for their labor, paying on average $.012 per stream compared to Spotify's insultingly marginal $.0003 per stream.
lynyn - “4m Hiero”
The first single from Chicago-based IDM torchbearer lynyn’s new album Ixona is one of my favorite tracks I’ve heard so far from this project. Composer Conor Mackey’s a deeply gifted musician that wrangles insane sounds from analog hardware and obtuse sampling techniques into exciting, propulsive arrangements.
John Cale - “Fear (Is A Man’s Best Friend)”
I’ve listened to those first few John Cale albums so much at this point that I’ll often end up throwing on his career-spanning live album Fragments of a Rainy Season in between my millionth relisten to Paris 1919 or whatever. I'm thinking about the performance of “Fear (Is A Man’s Best Friend)” on Fragments all the time. Obviously the version that opens Fear is one of the best songs ever recorded but the live version with Cale going absolutely fucking crazy on the piano before screaming his brains out at the end is also unbelievably good.
If you're still on Spotify and not fully convinced to give them the boot, Ryan Dombal's piece "Why We Quit Spotify" over at Hearing Things makes a really compelling case for doing so, crystalizing a lot of stuff I've been thinking about lately way more eloquently than I ever could.
But enough about that, you don't come here to be lectured, you come here for the blurbs! Here are some thoughts about the first nine songs on the official Horse Combinations July 2025 playlist, now streaming exclusively on Tidal.
lynyn - “4m Hiero”
The first single from Chicago-based IDM torchbearer lynyn’s new album Ixona is one of my favorite tracks I’ve heard so far from this project. Composer Conor Mackey’s a deeply gifted musician that wrangles insane sounds from analog hardware and obtuse sampling techniques into exciting, propulsive arrangements.
John Cale - “Fear (Is A Man’s Best Friend)”
I’ve listened to those first few John Cale albums so much at this point that I’ll often end up throwing on his career-spanning live album Fragments of a Rainy Season in between my millionth relisten to Paris 1919 or whatever. I'm thinking about the performance of “Fear (Is A Man’s Best Friend)” on Fragments all the time. Obviously the version that opens Fear is one of the best songs ever recorded but the live version with Cale going absolutely fucking crazy on the piano before screaming his brains out at the end is also unbelievably good.
herbal tea - “Seventeen”
I’ve written on here before about my undying trust in Orindal Records to release 3-4 albums I’ll totally love each year and it appears they’ve got another winner on their hands with herbal tea's Hear as the Mirror Echoes. The opaque, smoldering dream pop gem “Seventeen” is the only track available so far from her forthcoming debut album and it has me so excited to hear what's to come.
Lightheaded - “Crash Landing of the Clod”
It’s awesome that a band from New Jersey in 2025 can make an album that sounds like it was made by a bunch of Scottish graduate students in 1997. Thank you to our friends at Slumberland Records for keeping real indie pop alive.
Tom Henry - “Bella”
I checked out Tom Henry's debut LP after reading Leor Galil’s piece about him in the Chicago Reader and was charmed by the swooning lead single "Bella," a timeless guitar pop nugget with a heroically ripping outro solo. There’s plenty more to dig into across the rest of Songs to Sing and Dance To once you’re able to stop replaying “Bella” over and over.
I’ve written on here before about my undying trust in Orindal Records to release 3-4 albums I’ll totally love each year and it appears they’ve got another winner on their hands with herbal tea's Hear as the Mirror Echoes. The opaque, smoldering dream pop gem “Seventeen” is the only track available so far from her forthcoming debut album and it has me so excited to hear what's to come.
Sometimes, when I need to lock in at work for approximately 30 minutes, I'll put on The Raincoats’ self-titled debut album. It's weird and propulsive and noisy, perfect for shutting out the rest of the world for a bit. Listen to the drums on "Life on the Line," a perfect balance between naive and intuitive. Who’s better than The Raincoats?
Cass McCombs - “I Went to the Hospital”
So Cass McCombs has a deep, impressive discography full of perfect songs and interesting detours, but I think I’m always going to love his debut album A most of all. Back in 2003 McCombs was working alongside indie auteurs like Bill Callahan, Jeff Tweedy, and Jim O’Rourke to push the boundaries of what a singer-songwriter album could be, incorporating the occasional off-putting lyric and inexplicable production choice in moves that seem to designed to keep listeners at a distance.
MJ Lenderman - “Just Be Simple”
Sure a Songs: Ohia cover from the Lender Man may seem obvious but he historically doesn’t shy away from paying tribute to his primordial influences, regularly covering guys like Neil Young and Smog live. The Molina comparison has been thrown around since MJ’s self titled debut album, so it’s nice hearing him deliver on an all time gutpuncher like “Just Be Simple.”
Good Flying Birds - “Eric’s Eyes”
There’s just this one Good Flying Birds song out and it’s awesome. I always like it when a band sounds like The Radio Dept.
Cass McCombs - “I Went to the Hospital”
So Cass McCombs has a deep, impressive discography full of perfect songs and interesting detours, but I think I’m always going to love his debut album A most of all. Back in 2003 McCombs was working alongside indie auteurs like Bill Callahan, Jeff Tweedy, and Jim O’Rourke to push the boundaries of what a singer-songwriter album could be, incorporating the occasional off-putting lyric and inexplicable production choice in moves that seem to designed to keep listeners at a distance.
MJ Lenderman - “Just Be Simple”
Sure a Songs: Ohia cover from the Lender Man may seem obvious but he historically doesn’t shy away from paying tribute to his primordial influences, regularly covering guys like Neil Young and Smog live. The Molina comparison has been thrown around since MJ’s self titled debut album, so it’s nice hearing him deliver on an all time gutpuncher like “Just Be Simple.”
Good Flying Birds - “Eric’s Eyes”
There’s just this one Good Flying Birds song out and it’s awesome. I always like it when a band sounds like The Radio Dept.
Lightheaded - “Crash Landing of the Clod”
It’s awesome that a band from New Jersey in 2025 can make an album that sounds like it was made by a bunch of Scottish graduate students in 1997. Thank you to our friends at Slumberland Records for keeping real indie pop alive.
Tom Henry - “Bella”
I checked out Tom Henry's debut LP after reading Leor Galil’s piece about him in the Chicago Reader and was charmed by the swooning lead single "Bella," a timeless guitar pop nugget with a heroically ripping outro solo. There’s plenty more to dig into across the rest of Songs to Sing and Dance To once you’re able to stop replaying “Bella” over and over.
If I have a gripe about Tidal it's that the embedded playlist functionality is weird and sort of broken, hopefully I'll be able to find a workaround soon and I can go back to ending very blog post with a nice widget full of streamable songs all in one place. But that's a problem for another day!
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