we're all drawn towards the void, but each day we continue to exist & try to do good for our friends & culture is worth celebrating. so let's raise a toast to US as well as those who are gone, vowing to continue our fight to bend the arc of society in the direction of ecstasy rather than despair.

Keeping up a yearly tradition of putting together a Cosmic American mixtape to wrap up the singles that stung me over the last 12 months. It’s been a banner year for the genre, coating the speakers with country, folk, and Americana, with just a touch of haze on the horizon. bit.ly/3N8HhmY

The debut single from Detroit’s Mod Lang positions the band well among the new crop of crunch ’n crooners, feeling like a kindred spirit to Uni Boys, Billy Tibbals, and, on the flip side, the garage bite of The Gnomes. The A-side is a wide-eyed strummer with the ‘70s in its hair. bit.ly/4pENTbd

JB's last record left the listener plastered to the walls with volume & a perfect plasticity; a power pop snap that found the band at their most maximalist. Here, they scuff up the veneer, taking a measured step back from the brink to create something that feels cut from classic cloth bit.ly/3KUkURI

Feat the bulk of Pacific Range, Farmer Dave Scher, and Gerard Love (Teenage Fanclub,) Benji Knight's latest is bit more lilting than the country ramble of “Arizona Snowstorm.” A touch of folk, walking through the edges of light before the band heat seals the sendoff with a fried solo. bit.ly/48XQFBo

Feeling a bit of an outlier on Optimo Music, the first single from Portland's Natural Magic leans largely towards the psychedelic burble of ‘70s German Progressives. The track tumbles towards the cosmos, a beautifully bucolic burble that’s tapped into things far from terrestrial. bit.ly/4s16ZK6

The Cowboys let loose a soul-stung garage burner that finds the band as potent as ever. Spread over a wealth of 19 tracks, the band slips through their best guises; dirt-spattered ’n dented, blue-eyed soul swagger, and power pop crunch. bit.ly/3Yu5CWU

Ok for anyone having issues on phones earlier, the list should work now on all platforms.

All right it's that time again. I'm a bit later than most, but I've finally whittled it down. My 100 favorite albums and 15 favorite reissues of 2025. It was a hell of a year for music! Thanks, as always, for reading. bit.ly/44U65VY

Kivel’s draped the album in a kind of faded grandeur. His unbuttoned troubadour sways under the stage lights, circles the smoke rings of 3 AM studio sessions. Among the strings, steel, organs, and fuzz rumbles, Matt wrestles with the ghosts of Los Angeles & the specter of his own past bit.ly/3MBGfQe

Tune in tonight from 8-10 pm for the latest edition of Crawl Out From The Fallout, RSTB’s monthly radio show on WGXC. 90.7 locally or stream on the site. wavefarm.org/wf/archive/q...

"Warmer Than Gold" slips along on the current of it’s beat, warm and inviting. The vocals mist over the top of the burble, filling the song with a heady humidity that pulls this from the radio-ready end of the genre and into territory occupied by Chapterhouse’s psychedelic sway. bit.ly/4rLTez1

Julian Never’s built a new world of pop that weaves through the jangles, jilts, and velour aura of New Wave and synth-pop. “Push” streaks the speakers in steady streams, a bittersweet gem that bodes well for the upcoming new album Everyday Is Purgation. bit.ly/48GNPRb

Sunday Mourners hook into the kind of crushed metal art-scuffed riffs that have reared and retreated in waves since Verlaine and Hell were getting into spats on stage. Their latest pairs insistent, twitching guitars with the sweet sneer and aloof veneer of the early aughts. bit.ly/4iTGy55

Tangled in a web like Wireheads covering Jabobites or New Bums doing their best back room Bunnymen just for kicks, the album started out with a simple goal of being an acoustic record, but evolves into something stranger and more fragrant. bit.ly/48oO2JM

Matthew Dunn proves there’s no time for rest. Today brings his second album of 2025, a more compact, but no less potent collection of cowboy ballads and sweetly-stung Americana. Closer “Foolish Fool” is a tender ode with a heavy heart and a dose of buttered steel from Kevin Neal. bit.ly/3MiCcIB

Sunburned offshoot Franklin's Mint sneaks out a surprise LP this week. featuring a full force of Western Mass' greatest, plus a second side that features Franklin's Aussie enclave. Both crews turn Phillip's gnarled missives into dented classics. Don't miss! bit.ly/4iIFkK3

Jeffrey Alexander + The Heavy Lidders let loose a 3CD collection of live tapes from their recent UK tour. A heady journey into the depths of their catalog and what's to come. bit.ly/3KzrOM2

The record reclines in the prog fog footlights, winking knowingly at prime-era Floyd on mid-album palette cleanser “Post Drugs,” but the shade of ‘70s stalactite psych is draped all over the record, dripping down the cavern walls with nods at Soft Machine, Caravan, Gong, & Göttsching. bit.ly/4iPk2dB

Tulpa's songs break free of jangles with an acid washed itchiness, mixing the bi-coastal barrage of US ‘90s classics from Veruca Salt, Letters To Cleo, and Throwing Muses with an imaginary history where Talulah Gosh picked up and moved to the Pacific Northwest. bit.ly/4oxJbuw

Atrium harnesses its hymns under the canopy of trees, a beacon in the blur of disconnection and disorientation. The record seeps through the groundwater, quivers on the breeze, and hums softly through the wires until it ignites a necessary thrum for those who seek it. bit.ly/49Si9KS

With a rumpled softness and easy sway, “Sure and Steady” draws the listener in on its relaxed strums, crystalline leads, and the gentle coo of background vox. David Tattersall paints pictures of the past on the song, faded memories that curl up like Kodak prints in the August sun. bit.ly/43Z9Hpi

“Out To Pasture” is toasted by the afternoon sun; rolled in twang and tied to a driving rhythm that’s an excellent continuation of what ALU had been harnessing on Yonder. Baked in boogie and broken on the road, the new EP tacks their turbulence into the Crazy Horse winds. bit.ly/3KsBIyR

Wet Tuna open the new album with the wobble wave vision of “Epic View,” a potent distillation of what the band’s been siphoning over the past few years. A liquefied groove gives way to clouds of atmospheric dub, farmhouse funk, and deep forest fusion. @childofmicrotones.bsky.social bit.ly/4aolmBX

Papir's post-rock dips into psych feeling equally at home locking horns with Explosions In The Sky and Mogwai as they would with Garcia Peoples. The record finds them embracing their prime era and promising more to come. bit.ly/48vm8vD

“Feelin’ Fine” finds Jacuzzi Boys as tempered as ever, turning down the crackle of power pop for something a bit more slouched. Recorded in Memphis, there’s still a nice veneer of pop, but this is a more rumpled version of the Jacuzzi and the comfort feels good on ‘em. bit.ly/4otM2ox

The last few years I’ve rounded up some of the best indie pop into bouquets of jangles, in the tradition of Sarah Records comps, and this year proved more packed than most. Here’s just over 90 minutes of the best bittersweet moments from the last year or so. bit.ly/3MeP5Di

“Beautiful Holy Jewel Home,” serves up a nice dose of tension. The track stretches, seethes, simmers against the wall of noise, but doesn’t quite cross the threshold. Winged Wheel's restraint is just as impressive as their ability to deluge the listener in damage. bit.ly/4o5dfNT

The first single from Fazed On A Pony is stripped back, tangled up in easy strums and the soft glow of slide and steel. There’s an ache to “Heart Goes Blank,” the kind of beaten, but buoyant songs that bring to mind Jason Molina or the Palace revisited phase of Will Oldham. bit.ly/4psix7m

The LP is encased in a tougher shell than the previous one. On Forever, the band seems less inclined to let up, & maybe that’s a reflection of the times we’re tackling. 2025 calls for hackles, begs for the bristled exterior of "Stone Shadow" or the glazed psych scorch of “Hard Ride.” bit.ly/3XJHKOw

New outfit Dust & Memory starts out strong an Essex Green reissue. An E6 classic wrapped in a dizzying blend of brass, flutes, strums & sonorous, soaring harmonies. The band's debut echoes Van Dykes Park, The Mamas and The Papas, Left Banke, Sagittarius, & just a touch of Ye Ye pop. bit.ly/4phpojE

The LP envelops the listener like a Radiophonic dream. Skipping frequencies from Broadcast to Caravan, from Fifty Foot Hose to a bevy of Joe Byrd creations, the record wraps the world in prismatic hues. Every note is ensconced in velvet, every chord hanging on the edges of a dream. bit.ly/3X5Ygs3

A solo single from Benji Knight brings together almost a full Pacific Range lineup alongside Farmer Dave and Clay Finch (Mapache). The A-side slips toward a comfortable choogle, sand in its hair & sun in its strums, balancing twang with heat quiver psych like Beachwood at their best. bit.ly/3Ka5NmL

“Country Boy” is draped i a ‘70s-styled comfort that begs comparisons with her California contemporaries in Drugdealer, Pearl Charles, & Sylvie. Soaring vocals lead the listener down sun-dappled lanes, only to be met with a swell of slides, warming the track with deep amber hues. bit.ly/3XFkvFj

Soundtrack psych filled with quiet desperation & introspective angst. The pieces evoke stretches of parched desert, unforgiving suns, & worse fates once it sets. Pedrosa has a way of painting far beyond the boundaries of the speakers, threading unspoken mythologies into mere minutes. bit.ly/3XvnujI

“Cristobal” knuckles down Motorists' power pop snap into a more muscular indie sound. The song’s packed with tension, a roiling wall of guitars. Itchy, anxious, but ultimately defiant, the song simmers with the dynamic friction that have been one of the band’s enduring hallmarks. bit.ly/48g8zQA

In the shadow of their own dystopian lounge LP, @thesaxophones.bsky.social Alexi Erenkov has offered up a pick for the Hidden Gems series. Check out Alexi’s take on a ‘70s lounge treasure. bit.ly/4i1Ce3o

The record trades in figments of the past, a patchwork feeling of familiarity that dances gently on the tip of the tongue. Molina has perfected a stream of conscious approach. It blurs between the breaths of a dream, jangling softly through baroques one minute, folk softness the next. bit.ly/482Boif

Now with an early sneak peek of the video!

RSTB faves The Mellons return with a new single co-produced by Glenn Brigman of Triptides. The band retains their sunshine pop sway, dipped in layered harmonies, beautifully buoyant strums and a steady beat, balancing Wilson/Boetecher touches with a bit of The Hollies’ cheekiness. bit.ly/4p7gLbt

A slightly different side of Wendy Eisenberg today on a standalone single that leans into Americana. Honeyed sighs and slow-amble pacing lace the song with a melancholy air, giving it a beautiful late-summer sway. bit.ly/4oHGnvQ

Another '00s psych-folk treasure gets its due. Autumn Records reissues Kurt Weisman's 2nd solo LP. Orange offers an aura of solitude; a hideaway from the world that radiates warmth, humor, and a humble positivity. Full of songs that sail on soft breezes, that slalom the tall grasses. bit.ly/4nPu0wB

A hallucinatory froth that mirrors the ‘from all sides’ attack of daily life halfway through the rotgut of the ‘20s. Black Eyes seems to understand that the only reasonable recourse is to spit acid and crush riffs into dodecahedral shapes. bit.ly/4owHy13

Abronia return! “New Imposition” catapults off of the band’s Eastern-angled psychedelics, hung heavy with the pound of percussion and charred by low-slung guitars and driving sax lines. The song has a haunting desperation to it, cold sweat abated only as the song simmers to a close. bit.ly/3LtuqeF

Following up her 2023 album, a new single from Leah Senior echoes her captivating live show. A spare and pared back song that centers on Senior and her haunting lyrics before a steady pulse and sea-legged guitar give the song some shading. bit.ly/43u6cHg

Tune in tonight from 8-10 pm for the November edition of Crawl Out From The Fallout, Raven’s monthly radio show. A ton of new singles in the show tonight with a few classic faves on WGXC. wavefarm.org/wf/archive/d...

A potent alchemy of psych, prog, jazz, and post-rock, the record thrums with rhythm, roiled riffs, and brass stabs. The band burrows deep from the first moments of their new album, Sommermørket, sinking their teeth slowly into the listener with tactile skill. bit.ly/4oY6bDA

RSTB faves Torn & Frayed have worked up a late-year contender for the reissues list. A collection of demos from Country Funk songwriter Hal Paris is steeped in lonesome, yearning hours, finding the Paris adrift between coasts. Even in his demos, Paris shines with bittersweet charms. bit.ly/3WKGWbZ

SML severs the terrestrial anchor, levitating above the vortex of jazz, electronic, psych, No Wave, & Prog they’ve been surfing through the past few years. A headphone record of the highest order, the LP plunges the listener into turbulent textures that grind the ego into a fine paste bit.ly/47EaH4B

“Major Highway” aches with long distance loneliness, sweetened by strums and saturated with the sound of pedal steel. Hobby blossoms into stacked harmonies that yearn for the West Coast classics, a perfectly pitched beer-bottom weeper that reclines well into its heavy heart. bit.ly/4qOwnlT