Monday, April 20, 2026

Q1 2026 in review

Despite the continued erosion of the ethics, self-reliance, and grassroots community that drew me to independent music in the first place, there still managed to be a ton of great records released in the first few months of 2026. Here are some thoughts about fifteen of my favorites!

Alice Costelloe - Move On With This Year
A delightful, urbane indie rock record that feels like a spiritual successor to Julia Holter’s incredible 2015 LP Have You In My Wilderness.



Avalon Emerson & the Charm - Written into Changes
What if HAIM wasn’t annoying?



Barry Walker Jr. - Paleo Sol
An indie rock lifer and geologist leads his band through a bunch of thoughtful pedal steel instrumentals.



cootie catcher - Something We All Got
There are few bands that have been featured on this web site more than cootie catcher, and for good reason! Their new LP is twee excellence infused with a charming DIY imperfection, indie pop firing on all cylinders, this one deserves way more attention.


Spare and spiky, this collection of elusive song sketches owes a lot to decaying masterpieces like Grouper’s Ruins and Basinski’s Disintegration Loops.



Del Paxton - Dogeared
Three cleverly arranged, lyrically opaque bangers that push the boundaries of whatever wave of emo we’re in.



Fabiano Do Nascimento & Vittor Santos Orchestra - Vila
They made an album to score to your next tropical vacation; lush, cosmopolitan stuff from start to finish.


Grace Ives - Girlfriend
Every year there’s a handful of pop records weird enough to sink their claws in me and this year this is one of those. Unselfconscious, exuberant, confidently messy.



Jana Horn - Jana Horn
An unbelievable set of gorgeous, spare indie folk dirges.



KMRU - Kin
Massive, noisy, blissed out ambience from one of the best experimental music guys going.



One Wheel Fireworks Show - Jason, eternal
While we are rapidly approaching critical mass as far as Americana-influenced indie rock that prominently features the pedal steel, the One Wheel Fireworks Show has hit a buzzer beater with Jason, eternal.



Pullman - III
A long dormant experimental supergroup/studio project returns to show latecomers to the whole “cosmic Americana” thing how it’s done. Organic textures and acoustic instrumentation subtly manipulated in mind-expanding ways.



Sluice - Companion
Brainy, referential indie folk featuring some of my favorite songwriting of the year.



Star Moles - Highway to Hell
I can’t stop listening to this record, it’s intimate, warm, and full of personality. There’s a whole universe hinted at by prolific Bandcamp savant Emily Moales’ self-aware lyrics. 



True Green - Hail Disaster
Some real slam dunk stuff happening over on the new True Green record: lovingly rendered character sketches, extended thematic riffs, and gutpunch one-liners delivered with a deadpan sincerity. In a world full of dollar store David Bermans, Dan Hornsby’s the real deal!