A lot is going on right now (in the world, in my life, etc), and all of this music has been soundtracking my days recently. The biggest thing in my corner of the world is that I officially launched a new project called Stupid Dreams. It’s about listening as a way to build the world we need in the one that’s falling apart. The first thing that outlines some of it is a free zine (Issue #0), but it will soon be a lot more (in-person events, collaborative making, etc. Morning Sounds is also part of it, actually). If you are interested in the ‘zine, it’s up on Bandcamp (or if you live in Tulsa, there are copies available for free at JustArts Gallery and M.U.S.T.). The Bandcamp version comes with a new Charlatan album, The Mutual Blur, that is inspired by some of the ideas that went into Stupid Dreams. If you just want a PDF of the ‘zine, get in touch – I’m happy to send it over.
I feel like there were some other things I was going to mention, but I’ve completely spaced them. Oh well, I’m really focused on Stupid Dreams right now so…
Here’s a mountain of incredible music.
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Caroline Davis Fallows (Ropeadope)
God, I fucking love this record. Fallows is such an incredible, fully-realized expression of Caroline Davis’s creative vision, so dense and uncompromising, and laying it all out without apology. There is so much happening here between the looping ambient landscapes, stochastic rhythms, engaging field recordings, fluid melodies, and, of course, enveloping saxophone explorations. But it’s innately focused, unfolding like a long narrative in sonic form. Electronics frazzle and spew out cryptic messages through fuzzed-out frequencies, yet somehow Davis holds everything together with an assured hand. It’s in the quietest moments, like the gentle brush of “Bongos” or the floating introspection of “Cloudburst,” where Fallows becomes transformative, where we’re allowed to fully let go and live in Davis’s sonic galaxy for a few moments. Magic. This genuinely might be my favorite album of 2026 so far. (Also, Davis may have fully convinced me to try and get an Organelle. RIP my wallet.)
Devin Gray feat. Andrea Parkins & Frank Gratkowski Hz of Gold (Rataplan)
Devin Gray, Andrea Parkins, and Frank Gratkowski’s Hz of Gold pulls steely resonance and hollow rhythms from somewhere deep inside the Earth. High-frequency dissonance stretches out in elongated techniques, frenzied layers weaving at increasingly sharp angles. Distorted scrawls and horn wails intersect like lines on a complex geometric plot. Gray’s got a bit of a dream team here, and Hz of Gold makes that obvious from the jump. Quick, quiet percussive expressions imbued with organic textures sit alongside emotive woodwind intonations that float as much as they hold form. That duality of raucous cacophony and calm, with inward-focused moments keeping everything in a restless, searching mode, keeps me returning to Hz of Gold. Gray has really become one of my favorite drummers, and this record shows why. Everyone crushes it on this one.
We Falter With Certainty Serenity Is Hard To Come By (Self-Released)
There’s something about Serenity Is Hard To Come By that makes fantasy feel real. Ambient synth compositions use lightness and melody as emotive anchor points, while piano sequences feel cast in glass. The tones here are fragile but searching. Prismatic notions spread in minor chord meditations, and silver linings are obscured behind fading film grain. This music is familiar without steeping too long in nostalgia zones. It may seem simple in form, but Glaser’s melodic sequences and tonal patterns are complex, and it’s never too saccharine either. These songs hold deep emotional resonance. The music is calming, sure, but it’s more than that – this work is cosmic and ethereal, and that gives us space to dream. It conjures a future where we float, serenaded along lush, green promenades. One of my favorite albums I’ve heard come out of Tulsa in a while. Beautiful.
Whitney Johnson, Lia Kohl, Macie Stewart BODY SOUND (International Anthem)
I mean, honestly, does it get much better than these three? BODY SOUND is a slow unraveling of sonic threads, and as it moves, each string finds purchase across our skin. This is music where we feel stilled and held, gentle cadences nudging us forward with playfulness and ease, like we’re in a giant snow globe full of cotton balls and can only move in slow motion. Even in a soundworld full of softness, Johnson, Kohl, and Stewart always find serrated edges. Ghostly traces of classical forms cast like spells; they are sustained within held breaths, voices punctuating the flowing aural streams, organic and celestial at the same time. Midnight ephemera gets cast into a glowing bonfire serenade, elegant and grandiose. Even at scale, these works feel ageless. Highly recommended.
Names Divine Take My Hand (Self-Released)
Prepare to be entranced. Guitars become exorcistic, smoke and haze spreading across these songs like a spectral shadow with heavy baggage. Distorted swells cut through stone. It’s a sonic drill straight into the thickest part of my skull, and somewhere in the psych crunch, I keep hearing the music I wished existed when I was a teenager in the 90s. Kendraplex hovers over everything, though. She pulls all the strings, howls at the blacked-out moon, and absolutely shreds, ready to rip any song to pieces without notice. The master. Take My Hand is ritualistic, charred melodic spellcasting that invites us into the inner circle. It doesn’t let go. All the recs.
Ben Seretan & John Thayer Sunbeam of No Illusion (AKP Recordings)
Ben Seretan and John Thayer’s Sunbeam of No Illusion is music steeped in platonic romance, full of sweet vignettes that carry the weight of oceans. There’s a soft tremolo that teases out intuitive echoes and slowing heartbeats, while fooling us into a restful state. Bubbling synth sequences efervesce across the surface, and a guitar rises from week-old fog, saturated but still barely there, like a whisper cast as silver shadows. Outside, landscapes flow by, buoyed by gentle arpeggios and a wash of sonic tenderness, finding the creek beneath it all. Everything sits and moves with purpose here, singing Rhodes and delicate textures and synth progressions cascading in many shapes, each piece feeling like its own microseason, its own particular quality of light. I don’t want to leave. I love this record so, so much.
Nadia Struiwigh IKIGAI (Distorted Waves)
What a dream of an album, all drenched in neon and built from surrealistic whimsy. Synth arpeggiations of hollowed-out tones and future lives mix into a dynamic sonic whirlpool, with blurred voices sitting atop cryptic scratches, and somehow it all still feels like a magical, inviting place. IKIGAI is an electronic record filled with so much emotion, like the sounds of a biologic machine realizing its own existence. Chord swells are encased in a winding maze, all woozy and vulnerable. I love all the varied movements throughout, the way it sways in the wind one moment and drives hard with motorik intensity the next. The rhythms are intricate and restless. IKIGAI is an album full of dualities, and Struiwigh navigates every one of them with grace. Absolutely wonderful.
Derek Hunter Wilson Sculptures (Beacon Sound)
In the quiet, there is nowhere to hide. Sculptures, Derek Hunter Wilson’s third solo album, leans into that feeling without flinching. Wilson’s piano compositions wear their hearts on their imaginary sleeves, their elegant drama spelled out in emotive chord progressions. Underneath, ambient guitar drones press against something distorted and unresolved, a sonic friction that keeps the beauty from settling too comfortably. These are dreams in sound, full of grief but with an arrow pointing toward something calling on the horizon. Structures offers salient, luminous expressions with so many spaces to get lost within. Even when everything crumbles, when what we know is washed away, the wonder of it all remains in memory. Really beautiful.
Brass Clouds, Fog Net, & Volcanic Pinnacles Dive 2: Sonoluminescence (Bathysphere)
All my synapses are singing. Dive 2: Sonoluminescence, the second entry in Bathysphere Records’ collaborative series, gathers brassy timbres at the horizon and drifts into something harder to name. Layered synths, saxophone, tonal percussion, and dreams build a gossamer world of moving ether, both in the dynamic and emotive sense. Drifting sequences split into memory dust particles, and what gathers in their wake is a sonic delirium pooling into muted ecstasy. Jazz-inflections blur across an electronic cosmic field, pointillist bounce threading through hints of drama in the cascading melodies and emotive chord progressions. Delightful.
Scorched Bogon “Back at the Deep Hole” (Burgan Triangle)
Black guitar smoke mixes with languid rhythms, forming into a solid, broken mass. Back at the Deep Hole plods and churns, undercutting shimmering sonics with a razor with muted skronk casting shadows against glowing drone detritus. Surprise moments of introspective spillage interrupt the restless movements. There’s a clash of memories here, leading to sandcastles turning into a mountain of nothing. Even in the most celebratory stretches, Scorched Bogon wants to set fire to the foundations. Dusty, charred, and inventing their own musical language, giving us a primer, whether we’re ready or not. Everything on Burgan Triangle feels like it arrives via bog, sent by some primeval witch who sends sonic missives up through the mud every so often, and I love that about it. Fuck yes.
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