Around the beginning of every month, I try to journal about the albums I've been bumping on repeat recently.

Instead of keeping that locked up in my journal, why not post about it here?

If you're looking for something new to listen to, here's what I would recommend right now¹:

The Rezillos - Can’t Stand the Rezillos

Probably a top 5 favorite album at the moment, been on the list for a while, it's so great. It's great British punk/new wave.

The B-52s - Time Capsule

Heh, I threw this greatest hits album on as a lark, and I couldn't believe it. Turns out I'm a B-52s fan? They remind me of A Flock of Seagulls and The Rezillos; a bit new wave-y/punk-y in their early years, eventually landing on a delightful early 90s alternative rock sound. They've also got some of the weirdest lyrics and riffs I've ever heard ("Where's my umbrella? Where's my umbrella?").

System of a Down - Toxicity

I’ve been jonesing for some music to be angry at authority with, and this fits the bill.

Nirvana - Nirvana

I came across a last.fm stats website the other day and played with the race chart for a solid 15 minutes. Watching Nirvana climb the charts as it approached current time made me so happy. I love this band. It’s okay to like basic things, right?

Movements - Feel Something

This came across shuffle the other day and it scratched my recent itch for emo music.

Emapea - Dreaming Zone

Still the GOAT for helping me get into flow. Sort of lo-fi, but also sort of jazzy instrumental?

The Beths - Expert in a Dying Field

Another top 5 favorite album, slotting into the spot that at one point in my life was dominated by Rilo Kiley. It's smart and emotionally-rich indie rock.

Pynch - Howling at a Concrete Moon

Also a top 5 album. Whenever I'm feeling lonely, this album puts its arm around my shoulder and tells me it's gonna be alright.

NewJeans - Get Up

More music to get into flow. A great backing track when cleaning the house.

Blink-182 - One More Time

Sometimes, you need some pop punk, man. Anthem Pt. 3 is my anthem for 2026.

Bonny Light Horseman - Keep Me On Your Mind / See You Free

Another top 5 album. I learned this week that Anais wrote Hadestown, and I also learned our local high school is performing it in the spring. I can't begin to express how pumped this makes me.

The Linda Lindas - No Obligation

Moar good punk. Makes me so happy to hear such excellent music from the youths.

Kupla - Dragonfly

I’m not 100% sold on this one, but I do like having it come across shuffle when I'm working. If anyone has any recommendations for lo-fi artists, I’m all ears.

Mumford & Sons - Rushmere

When we went to volunteer at Feed My Starving Children this past week, Shan threw on Mumford & Sons’ essential tracks, and both of the kids said they loved this band. That really made our week. We also got tickets to see them in the summer, which means my wife gets to see her favorite band twice in a single year!

The Beths - Straight Line Was A Lie

New albums from bands I love always worry me because it takes me multiple listens to get used to them doing new stuff. I’m officially past that phase with this album; it’s incredible and perhaps even better than Expert in a Dying Field.

The Cords - The Cords

Within the first 15 seconds of hearing this album, I bought it on Bandcamp. Totally brings me to happy times around my college years. It’s an instant jangly indie rock classic.

Pynch - Beautiful Noise

Much like Straight Line Was A Lie, there was a moment this past month where this Pynch album finally clicked for me. I still prefer Howling at a Concrete Moon, but I am sold. I dig this album.

Ted Leo and the Pharmacists - February 2026 Double A Side

I came across this two-track release and felt like Ted Leo was speaking directly to me at the moment, so I picked this one up from Bandcamp as well. Definitely looking forward to hearing more from him in the coming year.

Mumford & Sons - Prizefighter

Still need to bump this a bit more, but there are several songs on here that the kids absolutely love, which makes me happy that we’ve got an album we all agree on that isn’t by Huntrix.

New Found Glory - Listen Up!

Brand new release from these dudes. You know what? They still slap.

Oh, and in case anyone's curious: I'm still working on Lunara. I tried building a custom crossfade engine to replicate how songs transition in Plexamp, and it's causing way more issues than I anticipated.

But on the plus side, I didn't write any of this damn code so I am totally on board with having multiple conversations with Claude to get it whipped into shape for me.

My favorite feature that I added since I last posted is a digital gardening assistant. From any album or artist, I can tap a "🌱" button and it pops up a new screen. On this screen, I can type in a quick description or tap a button with preset actions ("Delete", "Fix album art", etc.). This information, along with the album and artist, get sent up to an admin section that I can use to prune my library when I'm back at my laptop.

I've got two Bandcamp habits that I've adopted this past year which bring me so much joy that I wanted to share them here.

First, whenever I come across a pre-order for a band I love, I buy it right away. What happens is that I inevitably forget about it until I get the "your purchase is ready for download" email. It's like giving a gift to myself.

Second, whenever I come across an album I want to buy, I leave a reminder for it in a separate list on my reminders app. Once Bandcamp Friday comes along, I go through that list and buy them all.

It's an easy way to make sure these artists that I dig end up with a more reasonable share of the money they deserve.

Anyway, here's the gems I picked up yesterday:

Work Wife – Parade

RIYL: alvvays, smart melodic indie pop

Samiam – Astray

RIYL: early 2000s melodic punk, emo

Sessa – Pequena Vertigem de Amor

RIYL: modern tropicália, samba-jazz, cosmic soul, brazilian indie (you probably haven't heard anything quite like this, it's dope)

Kupla – Dragonfly

RIYL: emapea, lo-fi hip-hop, chillhop, downtempo, mellow beats

Lofi Girl – Christmas 2025

RIYL: lo-fi hip-hop, ambient, chillhop, holiday-themed mellow beats

I remember finding a ton of inspiration (and incredible music, of course) from this collection last year. The artistry on display is exquisite.

I’ve been listening to a lot of Donald Lawrence and the Tri-City Singers lately. Big, powerful gospel choir music feels pretty dang good right now.¹

This gospel choir-fueled version of the U2 hit is something else.

By many peoples’ standards, I don’t actually actually own a lot of books. But, of the books I do own, I’ve probably read only about 70% of them. And of that 70%, I can’t even admit to reading each book in its entirety. This is intentional. I like cultivating a “home library,” which I believe must include an inventory of unread books awaiting future serendipitous re-discovery. I’m not alone in this. In Reading Well, Simon Sarris describes a similar personal philosophy:

You should buy books on a whim, whenever possible, enough that you start to forget about them. You shouldn’t know the whole contents of your own shelves. If you create a home library it should act as one: It is there for you to discover and rediscover, to get lost in.

For me, it’s a library, but for music.

I was thinking today about how I feel like I’m in a rut with my music library. I’ve spent an hour or two every day for weeks now cultivating my collection of music that has followed me for decades.

And I’m tired. All that weeding is hard work, even if it’s “just” carefully adding ID3 tags and the highest album art you can possibly find for each piece of music you have.

But the payoff is that I have an amazing garden, a well curated selection of tunes that provide answers to many of the questions I ask that can’t be specifically answered by books.

I also enjoy the Whim concept that Sean describes here. As I’m finding my attention being drawn away from the music (or, if I find my attention is drawn back into the music in a non-harmonious way), I pull it from the garden.

After all: if an album was meant to fit into my life somehow, it’ll find its way back in there.

When I returned home from this morning’s run, Jilly asked how far I ran.

“I’m not quite sure,” I told her. “I ran through the woods for about an hour and fifteen minutes, so that’s maybe six or seven miles, but I don’t know for sure.”

She didn’t quite understand why I would run if I wasn’t paying attention to how far I ran.

I think all of this boils down to the phase of life I’m currently in. I’m getting older and I’m okay with that. I’m not chasing paces anymore. I’m not chasing mileage volume. I’m not putting pressure on myself to progress at all costs. I don’t get upset if life gets busy and I don’t have time for my daily run. There are no ultramarathons on my docket.

Things are different now.

These days I’m chasing experiences – I want a unique one with each outing, and that’s only possible if I am fully present during each outing. These days I’m chasing future experiences and a level of fitness that will keep me on this planet for a bit longer so someday in the not-too-distant future I can be active with my grandkids.

That’s a different kind of ultra, but it’s the one I’m training for these days.

Bingo. This is me, in every area of my life lately.

This morning, I went for a walk immediately after finishing my burpees. I had my Apple Watch on, and it buzzed, letting me know that there’s been a change in my health activity.

I honest-to-god snort laughed, then immediately took my watch off and moved on with my walk.¹ Of course there’s been a change, I didn’t need my watch to tell me that.

Being present is super hard, especially with the internet doing everything it can to draw me towards it. But thanks to myself skipping the internet today, I got the third corner of my garage cleaned! Only one more to go before I can really start making this area dope as hell.²

Another related observation: an interesting side effect of my desire to collect new music means that each new album has the potential to serve as the background track to this current moment in life.

There are many albums which point me to general moments in my life, not so much specific memories.

If I want to remember what it felt like to drive home from a midnight truck at Best Buy, I pop on The Presets’ Apocalypto.

If I want to remember what it felt like in the early days of dating Shanny, I’ll listen to Ombarrops by The Car is On Fire.

It’s kind of cool to see the intersection and synergy of my two collections.

Local man Paul Campbell confirmed Saturday he was raising his daughter Emma on a variety of media carefully selected to help her cultivate an appreciation for artistic quality, a move that will reportedly put the 12-year-old girl hopelessly out of touch with her generation.

Ouch. An on-point Onion article.

Of course, I do not hesistate to bump the music I want to listen to around the house, which will certainly imprint that music into my kids’ brains, but I also am trying to immerse myself in the media that they enjoy.

Recent examples include Minecraft, the TV show Jessie, YouTubers Mikey & JJ, Chappell Roan, and that “Apt” song.

Pretty sure I’ve shared my love for Tony Hawk on this blog before, but it doesn’t hurt to remind myself every once in a while what a stand up human this guy is.

He surfaced today in the form of a YouTube video as part of Amoeba Record’s “What’s In My Bag?” series, where famous people gather their favorite forms of media from around the store and then talk about why it’s meaningful to them.

From this video alone, I wrote down a bunch of albums that I’m gonna try bumping while on vacation next week, including:

• The Cars - Shake It Up
• The Rezillos - Can’t Stand The Rezillos
• Circle Jerks - Group Sex¹
• Big Audio Dynamite II - The Globe
• Kraftwerk - Techno Pop
• Madonna - Immaculate Collection
• Björk - Debut

After asking Henry Rollins if he is still punk at age 64:

I would have to say yes because it’s the ideology that has stayed with me: anti-racist, anti-fascist, anti-homophobia, anti-discrimination, and you know, equality, fairness, decency, all of that. To me, that’s punk rock. And I don’t think that’s bad. If I had a kid, I'd say be honest, you know? Find a slow kid in school and become friends with them because people make fun of them. And when people start making fun of him, you know, stick up for him, man, you’ll be a hero, you’ll lead.

(via Naz)

One thing you’re not supposed to admit to: not enjoying basic activities of hygiene maintenance. I get that it’s suspect. I swear to you I do shower enough, but the whole process (the hair removal! the exfoliation, body and facial! the shampoo-rinse-shampoo-rinse-conditioner-rinsing!) is to me tedious at its core, and I know few enough of you all in real life to be able to admit it here.

So: I bought a Bluetooth speaker that claims enough waterproofness for my own plausible deniability to use it in the shower.

This then opens up an important soundtracking opportunity. What is the right music to propel one through the emotional deadness of a shower1?

Maya goes on to recommend froge.mp3 by piri & Tommy Villiers. Listening to it now, I can totally see myself shaving and washing with this album in the background.

It makes me wonder: what albums do y’all recommend for random every day tasks? Like, what are you bumping when you’re folding socks? Or pulling weeds?