listening | friday oct 2 2026
It’s new music Friday the day that we listen to new music or at least music that is new to us.
First up it’s the new UPSTATE album “Abalone” exclusive to Bandcamp (for one month)(. I really liked the closing track, “Being.” Abalone, by Upstate - I know these are parents and I really liked the lyrics and themes of navigating the individuality of songs amidst the sacrificial lifestyle of parenting.
Days are long but time is a thief It’s clear my body’s not just for me
It reminded me also of this quote from The Dispossessed:
…he felt that sense of being necessary which is the burden and reward of parenthood.
Next up, “Feels like Forever” from Vulfmon/Evangeline.
I will forever love the collaboration and also love the pace of releases we get from them. Evangeline’s soft voice just really works with the scratchy and compressed organic instrumentations that Jack puts together.
I really love Jack Stratton’s sort of workmanship lifestyle towards musicking. It seems like he’s just always working on something, always releasing little things, not really bound to album cycles. That’s the sort of musicianship I’d like to emulate.
Still in the world of New Funk (my name for this phenomenon, it does feel like they all know each other so something more specific feels more apt… more on this another time), we have the new single from Sammy Rae & The Friends: “Sleep On My Couch.”
Sammy Rae has been releasing new music for the last few years but I’ve only been checking in sometimes. The problem is that the first 2 EPs from this group were so perfect and spun so hard upon my discovery in 2022 that it was hard to accept new things from them. That said I really dig this track and it’s making me think I need to go listen to more of their recent stuff.
Speaking of fatal singles, I’m also listening to the new Noah Kahan single to promote the new Hunger Games movie “Draw You Out” - this is a little more upbeat than I expected given the movie it’s associated with. I’m a little lukewarm on the acoustic-pop sound that Kahan has buiilt his success on, but I do appreciate where he’s putting his money -> fronting a movie soundtrack full of folk-acoustic-artists (traditionally), so from a community aspect I have to tip my hat. But then, a lot of the enduring music for me from those soundtracks were from The Civil Wars or Punch Brothers so, maybe selection bias.
Some music that isn’t new that I’ve been listening to this week:
- Avalon by Julian Lage & Chris Eldridge
- a record I heard early on in my love affair with folk/bluegrass music. I really do think it’s an evergreen album, and so perfectly executed with its pure humble artisitc intentions. The reason for revisiting, though, is that the little one is joyfully obseesd with “Open up the Window, Noah” which honestly? Great song for teaching verse/chorus and slow/loud variations. I’d like to teach him the guitar chords someday because he loves to sing it.
- The Planets by Gustav Holt and played by the Berliner Philharmoniker
- The reason why is just that this is one of my favorite classical classics to revisit (though I don’t have a particular preference of performance, this is just what comes up first on Spotify). This is my current running music, which is something I’ve been agonizing a bit over lately as I’ve been running more often. I used to feel strongly about upbeat dance-y music, but then as I started running at like 5 in the morning, I would just do podcasts to avoid choice, but I’ve found that spoken word audio sometimes turns my runs more into walks. Instrumental music, especially long-form stuff, has proven to be an exciting opportunity.
J 🎧 G