It’s single digits upstate. I’m here with my son in the freezing cold so he can visit his girlfriend for the day. I have coffee, I have an old tattered hoodie and enough battery power to see if I can get through one book, one movie, and one music review today while they gallivant and find pockets of solitude to do their thing. Happy 2026, let’s hope it’s better than last year. This playlist is what I’m thinking about queuing up as I sit here in my room while the kids have the run of the house. It’s largely older music, a palate cleanser from the month of new music.

• Blues Creation – “Atomic Bombs Away”
• The Olivia Tremor Control – “Hideaway”
• Only Living Witness – “Prone Mortal Form”
• These New Puritans – “Bells”
• Nico – “No One Is There”
• Renaissance – “Ashes are Burning”
• Descendents – “Bikeage”
• Geese – “3D Country”
• Arabs in Aspic – “TV”
• Spooky Tooth – “Prayer”

As far as commentary goes, the chances of my actually getting to all of these albums as actual reviews is unlikely, given my penchant for distraction and new obsessions. I did’t list any Velvet Underground, despite that looking like the next deep dive. Nor any Frank Zappa, even though I just wrote that I plan to get to that series this year. I also have a few more albums from The Flower Kings, and since I spent so much time writing about their discography it would be a shame not to add to it. I’ve also been really heavy into rediscovering my love for the unique spin on black metal Austin Lunn, aka Panopticon has been putting out, and I really want to get some of the older black metal I love represented on this site more.

So who knows if this will hold water or not. Regardless, I wish you all the best you can hope for in the new year.