Laufey – A Very Laufey Holiday: I’m not a fan of holiday music but I couldn’t let 2025 pass without playing this one. The first three standards were unremarkable interpretations that left me feeling grinchy. When Laufey’s original “Christmas Magic” came on, though, it made my heart grow three sizes. The next three tracks are sweet and charming versions of not-so-common Christmas standards, and the set closes on a lovely highlight, with a Laufey/Dodie reimagination of Benny Goodman and Peggy Lee’s “Winter Weather” called “Love to Keep Me Warm.”
HAAi – HUMANiSE: Every review I’ve read about HUMANiSE notes the album’s overarching ebullience and positivity, but that’s just not what I hear. I hear sadness and longing beneath these tracks, the sound of seeking—and maybe even finding—positivity during difficult times, the sound of remembering that joy is not an emotion as much as an intentional state of mind.
Gracie Abrams – The Secret of Us Live from Radio City Music Hall | Alice Coltrane – The Carnegie Hall Concert: Two women performing at two venues in New York 50 years apart, and the recordings capture two very different types of thrilling performances.
Big Brave – A Chaos of Flowers: I love how A Chaos of Flowers juxtaposes so many things that don’t normally sit together. I want to dig into this record and unpack everything it holds.
Big Brave – OST: I did not have a great reaction to their latest release, OST. Despite being constructed of interesting and often beautiful sounds, the core compositions fall into the minor-keys-and-scary-noises tropes that I hate about experimental music. They composed it as a soundtrack for an as-yet-created film, and this is the kind of soundtrack that makes me wince because it is so predictable in how it sets the mood of the scene it accompanies.
George Winston – December: Driving alongside Rock Creek on the Tuesday before Christmas with a canopy of grey clouds overhead and bare trees in the foreground, December was the perfect soundtrack.
Old friends who made it into rotation this week: Gracie Abrams: The Secret of Us; Japanese Breakfast: For Melancholy Brunettes (and Sad Women); Pretty Girl: Fabric Presents Pretty Girl.