Mike Richmond: Small Southern Towns

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Of all the pioneering bands to emerge from the college rock scene in Athens, Georgia, Love Tractor might be among the most underrated. Appearing alongside peers like the B-52’s, R.E.M. and Pylon, they played a key role in growing the city’s music scene from 40 Watt Club beginnings to global prominence — without quite making that leap themselves.

I first encountered Love Tractor through the massively influential (for me) documentary Athens, GA: Inside/Out. Their somewhat introverted, largely instrumental presence — complete with clarinet, if I’m recalling correctly — didn’t hit as immediately as the more visceral Kilkenny Cats or Flat Duo Jets, but it marked the beginning of a long and lasting relationship. Over time, Love Tractor evolved into a more song-oriented outfit, with a run of smart, distinctive albums culminating in 1988’s Themes from Venus. They called it a day soon after that release, but various reunions and side projects have followed in the years since.

Fast forward to 2026, and we get the first taste of co-founder Mike Richmond’s debut album, Without An Audience. The LP was recorded in Athens with a group of friends including pedal steel maestro John Neff, bassist David Barbe, drummer Joe Rowe and more, from bands like Drive-By Truckers and Sugar.

“Small Southern Towns” is not only a return to a scene or an era, but a deeper dive into Southern mythology. It plays like a love letter to the region, and maps what Flannery O’Connor called “Christ-haunted,” with Mississippi stops at William Faulkner’s Rowan Oak and Elvis’ birthplace in Tupelo.

And most important of all, it’s a beautifully crafted song — somewhere between jangly rock and lush Americana, delivered by a seasoned storyteller exploring the South in all its glorious contradictions.

Ed O’Brien: Blue Morpho

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Photo: Steve Gullick/Transgressive

Following his first solo album as EOB in 2020, Radiohead guitarist Ed O’Brien retreated from the spotlight, grappling with a period of intense depression. As he struggled to navigate emotional trauma and life’s turbulence, he found a spiritual guide in the Kentucky-based novelist and poet Wendell Berry, using his phrase “To know the dark, go dark” as a compass for what would become a long journey toward faith and recovery.

Gradually, O’Brien rediscovered a sense of peace in nature, his surroundings, and himself. This music is the result of that journey. He emerges from the darkness with a body of work that feels as healing and spiritual for the listener as the process that shaped it.

With support from key collaborators including Adele producer Paul Epworth, composer Tõnu Kõrvits and flutist Shabaka Hutchings, O’Brien has crafted something truly special, and quietly beautiful. Four years in the making, the first single, “Blue Morpho,” carries the promise of a new dawn with its welcoming sound of birdsong, lush string arrangements (performed by the Tallinn Chamber Orchestra) and soft touches of psychedelic delight.

Ed O’Brien found light in the darkness — inner peace and an appreciation for the beauty of the world around him. This is the personal soundtrack to that spiritual odyssey, but it speaks to us all.

The Delines: Can You Get Me Out of Phoenix

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Photo: Paolo Brillo

The Delines write songs like short stories. Or maybe it’s the other way around — actual short stories set to music.

For nearly 15 years now, the Portland, Oregon, band has created gorgeous music at the crossroads of folk, Americana and soul, but most of all they serve as a vehicle for Willy Vlautin’s cinematic, slice-of-life storytelling.

Vlautin, formerly of Richmond Fontaine and an acclaimed author, has a keen eye for the outsiders and down-and-outs among us. The forgotten and invisible ones, far from flashy headlines and glitzy commercials. People working double shifts to make ends meet. The untold stories from thousands of motel parking lots. The quiet hardships as portrayed in recent films like The Florida Project and Nomadland.

Their new album, The Set Up, is out now, another collection steeped in down-to-the-bone realism. They’re all great, but this week’s pick goes to “Can You Get Me Out of Phoenix.”

Did I tell you my dad died in his car?
Had a heart attack
In Lee’s Liquor parking lot
A row of thousand-dollar suits
Hung from a back seat pole
In his trunk was everything else he owned
And underneath the spare, we found twenty grand
My mother took the money and put his ashes in the garbage can
But later on I got them out

Now that’s a piece of poetry and music you should spend some time with.

Hiding Places: One Hand

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It’s a great time to be alive for those of us with a soft spot for artists seesawing between slacker Americana and fuzzy guitar rock. Wednesday, MJ Lenderman and Sluice come immediately to mind. Hiding Places can easily be included in the list. Beyond a shared musical sensibility, they all have roots in the same fruitful North Carolina scene. Their EP Lesson was produced by Colin Miller (Lenderman, Indigo De Souza), they’ve shared stages with Wednesday, and they’ve been touring with Sluice. Now based in New York City, Hiding Places seem to have found just the right combination of their rural Southern roots and urban Northern roughness.

“One Hand” is a reflection on long-distance relationships driven by a dirge-like beat, one-riff acoustic guitars and the dreamy voice of Audrey Keelin, all constantly under threat of being swallowed whole by surging, distorted six-string attacks. This push and pull between tender softness and the untamed beast creates a quietly hypnotic tension. Embrace it with both hands.

Dinosaur Jr: Green Mind @ 35

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My second-ever gig was sneaking in to see Dinosaur Jr. at a tiny, packed club in 1991, a show played at such a punishing volume that my ears rang for weeks afterward. At one brief moment between songs, someone in the audience shouted from within the guitar mayhem, “J, we can’t hear your voice!” To which J Mascis simply replied, “Good.” Then he fired the cylinders right back up. Needless to say, it was a life-changing experience.

Alongside staples like “Freak Scene” – only a few years old at the time – the set leaned heavily on their then-new album, Green Mind. The band’s fourth release, it was a transitional record, and arguably one of the great guitar albums of the ’90s, complete with one of the decade’s most iconic cover designs.

Following their self-titled 1985 debut, the Amherst, MA trio released two stone-cold classics: 1987’s You’re Living All Over Me and 1988’s Bug. Both were on the legendary underground label SST. Three years was a long gap between releases back then, and they returned without bassist Lou Barlow, newly signed to a major label — right in the middle of the post-Nevermind bidding-war era — and with a subtly refined take on their quintessential slacker sound.

Green Mind softens the attack with acoustic guitars, but without sounding more polished. The usual bedlam is dialed back just enough to let the melodies breathe, resulting in a looser, more focused record that never sacrifices edge. In many ways, this is Mascis’s project — as songwriter, producer and primary performer — with just some additional contributions from original drummer Murph, Jay Spiegel, B.A.L.L.’s Don Fleming and engineer Sean Slade.

From immediate standouts like “The Wagon,” “How’d You Pin That One On Me” and the title track to mellow stoner favorites such as “Water” and “Thumb,” Green Mind strikes a near-perfect balance between ramshackle mumbling and epic, Crazy Horse-style guitar anthems. Dinosaur Jr. would go on to make more classic albums in a career that’s been nothing short of remarkable, but Green Mind was one they grew into. It still blows my mind today.

Tanya Donelly and Chris Brokaw: Novus Annus Adiit

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The last time I encountered Chris Brokaw, I was lying in the middle of the road after a sudden faint. Brokaw was staying at my flat at the time, and his worried face was the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes. “I think you should go to the emergency room,” he said.

I was a bit bummed, having looked forward to an in-depth chat with one of my musical heroes. After all, he co-founded the pioneering slowcore band Codeine and the criminally underrated Come, while also lending his guitar capabilities to roughly 600 other artists. So it made sense to see him join forces with a fellow Bostonian — and another personal favorite — indie mainstay Tanya Donelly (co-founder of Throwing Muses, the Breeders, and Belly).

But the musical direction of their collaboration came as a (pleasant) surprise.

The aim of their new project is to reimagine centuries-old medieval music for a modern audience, partly inspired by the Norwegian vocal group Medieval Trio. Their first single, “Novus Annus Adiit,” is strangely hypnotic and deeply captivating, as if they’re carefully peering into an abyss of ancient mystery — something that has existed forever — only to give it new life. The track is a vivid reminder of Donelly’s radiant voice and Brokaw’s gift for creating ethereal soundscapes. Perhaps this is exactly what we need in an age defined by unrest and chaos.

And I did manage to catch up with Mr. Brokaw after a brief hospital check-in, though medieval music never came up.

 

Labi Siffre: Far Away

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​​Born in London in 1945, singer, songwriter and poet Labi Siffre is, amongst those who remember his classic 1970s catalog, deeply beloved for his flawless blend of soul, folk, jazz, reggae and funk. And his songs paired warm melodies with introspective, often socially conscious lyrics. A cultural trailblazer, Siffre openly questioned religion and broke barriers for artists of color and the LGBTQ+ community, long before such conversations were regular in popular music.

Though he never became a mainstream star during his heyday, Siffre’s influence has proved enduring, through sampling and covers by JAŸ-Z, Primal Scream, Eminem, Miguel and more (not to mention his recent TikTok resurgence). He’s an unsung hero with a remarkable body of work still waiting to be discovered, and now is a perfect time with his first new album in almost 30 years on the way. Even at 80, his warmth and quiet strength remain fully intact on the gorgeous piano ballad “Far Away,” a moving reminder of a singular voice and a unique and lasting legacy. 

Brown Horse: Sorrow Reigns

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Who could’ve guessed that the finest folk-rock band in recent memory would hail from Norwich? Known mostly for … honestly, I don’t know what they’re known for aside from a sadly mediocre football team competing with neighboring Ipswich.

Well, Brown Horse is just the band you’ve been looking for. They’ve got a couple of really strong albums under their belt, and their new singles are seriously on fire. “Sorrow Reigns,” the second one from their forthcoming album Total Dive (out April 10 on Loose Music), is a standout. If you appreciate the warm, rugged guitar glow of Magnolia Electric Co.; the vocal interplay of Richard and Linda Thompson; ’90s indie; and ’70s country-rock, you’ll have a good sense of the terrain. The result is a beautifully balanced cocktail of rugged Americana and British folk-rock.

This is music for dreaming of endless prairie highways, only to wake up broke and heartbroken in a parking lot outside Tesco. 

Kevin Morby: Javelin

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Sometimes the algorithms get it just right. When I first listened to “Javelin,” it was followed by MJ Lenderman’s version of Jason Molina’s “Just Be Simple,” neatly connecting three of the most preeminent and acute observers of 21st-century Middle America — true masters of the Midwestern blues. Small towns, endless prairie highways and the bleak solitude beneath vast skies.

Morby grew up in Kansas City and joined New York psych-folk adventurers Woods in the early 2010s before building a highly impressive solo career, including modern-day classics like Singing Saw (2016) and his moving reckoning with his father’s death, This Is a Photograph (2022). “Javelin,” featuring Amelia Meath from Sylvan Esso, is the lead single from his forthcoming album, Little Wide Open (May 15), produced by Aaron Dessner (The National, Taylor Swift) and featuring contributions from Justin Vernon, Lucinda Williams and many more.

The tension between world tours and homebound isolation is familiar territory for many musicians, but lyrically Morby stands a head above most of his peers. Musically, he remains irresistible — strikingly confident, honest and vulnerable at the same time.

You know I have been
Traveling
Through the air and down the highway
Like a javelin

Towards this old cow town in the Bible Belt
Remember when they asked us, baby, just how it felt
To be alone in the middle of
Middle America?

There is nothing algorithmic about Kevin Morby, who’s further cementing his position as one of the most original and human storytellers of our time. 

Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever: Sunburned in London

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I’ve always had a soft spot for “down underground” indie rock: the New Zealand Dunedin scene of the Chills, the Clean, and the Bats, alongside Australian greats like the Triffids, Sunnyboys, the Go-Betweens, and the Church. When Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever emerged in the mid-2010s, it felt like a dream for people like me — songs such as “French Press” and “Talking Straight” honored the aforementioned legacy but with a modern twist. A sparkling fire that felt older than it was.

After three excellent full-lengths, they’ve finally returned after four years of silence. And honestly, what else is there to say but: Welcome back, mates!

“Sunburned in London” (wait, what?) stretches close to seven minutes of pure RBCF bliss — dreamlike and jangly, effortlessly catchy, cool and poetically rich. From London to New York, Tokyo, Oslo, and finally Melbourne, they sketch a global travelogue, capturing the vibe and essence of each place just perfectly.

Sunburned in Oslo
Glass towers gleaming
In the brilliant views
Expensive blues
In secret harbours
Teens try mischief
But it gets harder
When the midnight sun
Shines down
Down on everyone

Add that one to the next Joachim Trier movie!