Great Grandpa – Patience, Moonbeam | Album Review

Run for Cover Records

Back in January, I told my partner that 2025 needed to be a year of deliberate change in our lives. We’d been living together for more than a year, and while we were comfortable, there was a complacency creeping in that neither of us were ready to accept. A string of events during the last quarter of 2024, ranging from personal reckonings with identity and loss to constant political anxiety, made me realize that something had to change, and our routines were all we had power over at that moment. I began applying to different day jobs again, they started making art in their free time, I rekindled my love for creative writing, and began the arduous process of teaching myself how to play the acoustic guitar that has been burning a hole in our wall. Now, even as many of our surroundings are the same, we are different. 

If there’s one thing that Great Grandpa would know about, it’s metamorphosis. The Seattle five-piece began in the mid-2010s by playing the brand of grungy indie rock synonymous with their hometown, but their first two studio albums saw them gradually sanding the noise off their sound. What was uncovered was a dynamic band whose tastes spanned all of indie rock, with 2019’s excellent Four of Arrows running the gamut from fuzzed-out emo to misty-eyed folk, all tied together by Al Menne’s ever-expressive voice. Then the pandemic hit, and all of that was put in jeopardy. It was unclear if Great Grandpa would still exist as lockdown sent its members on diverging paths. After years spent apart and some beautiful solo records, the quintet came back together to record starting in 2023, with Menne plainly stating upon the release of lead single “Kid” last year: “Time passed, and I missed my friends.” Patience, Moonbeam sounds exactly like what it is – five people who love each other dearly, reconnecting and bonding for the first time in years. It’s a fun, unpredictable, and bold exchange of ideas that reflects the experience of each contributor. 

There is a new sense of sharing the load that makes the record refreshingly light on its feet. While songwriting has always been a collaborative process for Great Grandpa, guitarist Pat Goodwin contributed the lion’s share of the lyrics on previous records, particularly Four of Arrows. Patience, Moonbeam, by comparison, features a few songs written entirely by Menne and drummer Cam LaFlam in addition to Goodwin’s own contributions, and it gives the songs a freewheeling feeling even as darkness looms in the background. Synthesizers, strings, banjo, and walls of electric guitar all play their role under the paradoxically cozy and adventurous alt-country umbrella that many of these songs fall under. 

“Ladybug,” the first side’s playful high point, puts every bit of that spirit on display. Menne’s hook is warped by vocal effects and a thick synth lead before settling into a jangly jaunt full of winking pop culture references. It’s easy to imagine Menne beaming as he sings “Father of the ladybug, dressed like Donald Glover on the GQ cover” in the playful pre-chorus. Even in moments where it’s clear the band are having a blast, they’re never afraid to let their guard down. The levity of “Ladybug” sells the yearning in the bridge harder than straight-laced melancholy ever could, turning it into something of a thesis for Patience, Moonbeam. As everyone sings, “Semitones are the distance between lines / All I think about is you sometimes, all the time,” I can hear just how much these five friends missed making music together. 

Immediately after, “Kiss the Dice” uses its brief runtime to send up the shifting perspectives that come with lived years. “I used to kiss the dice and roll / Now I’ve got a steady word,” hums Menne, relapsing into uncertainty as the outro fills out, “Do you think that that is worth something?” Even as he’s learned to take charge and lean into the changes life brings, that sting of anxiety never fully goes away. For as morose as their previous album could get, there’s a weariness to moments on Patience, Moonbeam that can only be the result of how much the five-piece has grown up over half a decade. The quiet strings in the intro of the opener, “Never Rest,” echo the nighttime air on the cover art, with the moon parting clouds as the song begins to evolve. First, the drums ground the dreamlike piece in a lush acoustic ballad before slowly erupting in an electric finish. 

European treks and phone calls in the track’s lyrics make meaning feel elusive until Pat Goodwin’s own voice chimes in with Menne’s for the last line: “Coming son, the winter has its dark hum, how can I retain some sight?” The doubt hanging over the track stems from his and bassist Carrie’s new role as parents – after all, how good will your guidance be when you’re actively figuring this life thing out yourself? “Junior” picks up that thread, painting a scene of a family feud and troublemaking between farm boys. Pigs are maimed, dogs are shot, and “light crimes” are committed, all from a concerned but compassionate father’s perspective. Menne dips into his lower register many times throughout the album, but nowhere is it as striking as the way he embodies the titular Junior’s reckless antics in a distinct twang.

He went swinging with a young man’s wiles
I saw him twirling and punching wild

For all the wonder and wisdom Patience, Moonbeam offers in the first half, the most powerful revelations lie in side B. “Doom” acts as a sort of centerpiece, drip-feeding tech-induced anxiety with images both dystopian and apocalyptic. “Violent screens,” “cardboard meals,” and “stocks on a good deal” are contrasted with the thrills of connection as the band alternates time signatures in the verse and chorus. The record’s most cathartic release comes in the reprise of a hook from an earlier song, “Emma,” complete with a titanic riff that gives any other song in their catalog a run for its money. All the elaborate scenery is abandoned for the blunt, spit-out observation, “It’s funny how I need you, damn / It’s perfect when I leave you, damn.” 

These twists and turns mimic life’s own trajectory. I said at the start that I was taking more action in my own life, and while it has been productive, it’s also quite difficult! For every little victory, there’s a backslide or regression - a moment of frustration with practicing guitar where you wonder if it’s even worth it, an exciting opportunity that disappears almost as quickly as it emerged – but this, too, is part of the process. Great Grandpa understand this all too well as Patience, Moonbeam ends with the single that ushered the band’s return, “Kid.” It’s a power ballad complete with heart-wrenching piano, a soaring guitar solo, and plenty of strings, but it’s the lyrics that drive everything home. Written in the aftermath of the loss of the Goodwins’ first pregnancy, mourning hangs over every inch of scenery, making the mirrored conclusions in each chorus come off as not just sincere, but genuinely life-affirming.

All good things in time define their meaning
And fold sweet ends into their mouths

All dark things in time define their meaning
And fold sharp ends into their mouths

Grief, growth, and change: these are not one-time events, but a constant process that we are always undergoing. We can choose to struggle against the ebb and flow and be lost, or look for patterns and ride the current to safer waters. In Great Grandpa’s case, they were lucky enough to be led back to one another. “Task,” a seemingly autobiographical tale of reunion and cooperation, sums that gift up perfectly. It opens on the line, “Saw you at the party we called you by your new name / You had changed, but the heart of you was still the same,” sweetly and succinctly supporting Menne’s gender transition before getting to the heart of the band’s bond. He sings about several “perfect kind(s) of song” before his bandmates join in for the outro of, “Won’t you tell me what my task is?” Sometimes, a little help from your friends is all you really need.

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Wes Cochran is a Portland-based writer, worker, and music listener. You can find them @ohcompassion on Twitter, via their email electricalmess@gmail.com, or navelgazing their way up and down South Portland.

The Best of Q1 2025

In 2025, I think it’s become clear to pretty much everyone how nefarious the tech industry is. All the major social media platforms are owned by oligarchs, actively pushing narratives that benefit them, silencing dissent, and forcing users into isolated echo chambers of a uniquely hellish making. AI-generated slop has proliferated every corner of the internet, from braindead comment-generating bots and nonsensical recipe introductions to a snowballing quantity of deadening content designed to keep you scrolling forever and ever. Every move is being tracked, reported on, and sent back to some advertiser who’s going to try to squeeze another couple of pennies out of you for a new-and-improved dish soap tailored specifically to you and your ideals. 

In a way, it’s a hell of our own hyper-customized making, but also one we’re utterly helpless to as the current of technology transfers power further and further up. It’s fascinating and frustrating to have watched the internet evolve from this place of wonder and near-limitless potential to an ad-sponsored wasteland where only the rich and the stupid survive. 

To that end, I’ve never found it more important to log off and experience the real world. To touch grass and stare at water, to keep my nose in a book and my head on the positives. When I am logged on, I try my best to seek out things made by real people. I’ve found great comfort and camaraderie in newsletters, music, and the carefully considered creations of friends. It’s never been more important to be intentional about the things you interact with. To question the recommendations of the algorithm and ask, ‘Who is this benefiting?’ because, more often than not, you’ll find that it’s something terrible if you follow that chain for long enough.

Jesus, I didn’t mean for this to be such a bummer. This is all a long and slightly dour way for me to say that I see a great deal of worth in genuine recommendations from real people, and that’s exactly what this round-up offers. Part of me dislikes that I instituted a quarterly cadence for recapping our favorite new releases because it makes me sound like a dumb business bro. Stocks were down in Q1. Feeling bullish on alt-country. Sell all your ownership in shoegaze. That’s just not how music works. The title of this article might seem silly, but honestly, it’s just a way for us to make a case for our favorite releases of the year so far in hopes that you find something new to enjoy. 

Sure, we’re only a few months into 2025, but the dedicated crew of music geeks that make up the Swim Team have found no shortage of records to love. It’s a fast-moving world, and we want to help you keep up by giving you something new and fresh to obsess over. Every Friday, I find about a dozen new records I want to listen to, and I almost never get to them all, but that ever-elusiveness is part of the game. You find a bunch; you love a few. What follows are 18 recommendations from 18 of our writers. That’s 18 records made by real people that are worth your time and effort and money and love. 

Fuck your algorithm, trust your heart. Thanks for being here. 

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Anxious – Bambi

Run For Cover Records

It feels like whenever I’m writing a Swim Into The Sound “Best Of” entry, it’s for some band on Run For Cover. I'm still not sure if Bambi is my favorite record of the year (the new Cloakroom, Spiritbox, and Art d’Ecco are fantastic), but it's certainly the one I've gone back to the most, thanks to its unique blend of indie-rock and emo inspirations. It's hilarious to listen to this mostly melodic record and think about how, just five years ago, I was watching Anxious open for Knuckle Puck and had to actively avoid stage divers and crowd killers. That's not to say you won't find those in 2025, but with songs like “Some Girls” and my personal favorite, “Jacy,” in a tracklist like this, nestled alongside “Head & Spine,” you get the best of all worlds. This is the sound of a band maturing, and not in a bad way.

– Samuel Leon

Caroline Rose – year of the slug

Self-released

When I think of Caroline Rose, I picture the cover of LONER, which depicts a vacant-eyed Rose staring off into the middle distance with a mouth crammed full of cigarettes like that one file photo of Homer Simpson. That album was one of the best releases of 2018: a red-washed indie rock release packed with wildly inventive songs, fun music videos, and an excess of personality. I liked 2020’s Superstar a fair bit, but by the time The Art of Forgetting came out in 2023, it felt like something had been lost in the equation. 

year of the slug scales things back in the most wondrous way, reminiscent of that free-ranging invention I first fell in love with back in 2018, even though it sounds much different. Self-recorded entirely through Garageband on their phone, most of these songs are sparse and simple, featuring only guitar, vocals, and Rose’s uncanny knack for uncovering a melody. There’s some ornamentation: the occasional multi-tracked vocal, drum loop, or piano dirge, but in comparison to Rose’s previous albums, everything is paired back in a way that’s striking and remarkably catchy. 

When announcing the album, Caroline Rose posted something of a mission statement, outlining their desire to live life more slug-like. Through these constraints: self-recording, self-releasing, avoiding streaming services, exclusively touring independent venues, and pairing things back to the absolute bare minimum, Rose has created an immaculate and inspirational collection of songs that stand on their own as a testament to pure, artistic creativity. Thank you, Uncle Carol.

– Taylor Grimes

Cloakroom – Last Leg of the Human Table

Closed Casket Activities

When our editor put out the call for Swim’s Q1 roundup, I ran to claim Cloakroom’s Last Leg of the Human Table as fast as my fingers could type. This moving, variegated album has had me and my colleagues buzzing since its release – its vast emotional depth and intensely satisfying density have proven that Cloakroom just keeps getting better. The opening track, “The Pilot,” is a soaring and spacey anthem that I unabashedly claim as my favorite off of the album. Heavy without being overwhelming or cluttered, I’m calling it now as the song of the summer. Though Last Leg of the Human Table stays true to the band’s shoegaze-y, self-described “stoner emo” sound, the album also proves Cloakroom’s range with the thoughtfully strummed “Bad Larry” and the wistful interlude “On Joy and Undeserving.” When I need a hit of pure dopamine, I’ll be cranking Cloakroom at max volume with the windows down.

– Britta Joseph

Coheed and Cambria – The Father of Make Believe

Virgin Music Group

When it’s a Coheed and Cambria release year, I tend to make the joke that no other album stands a chance. This is mostly because Coheed has been my favorite band for well over the last decade, and that’s just the expectation at this point, but there is always the fear in the back of my mind that this will be the album of theirs that doesn’t resonate for me. Fortunately, this is not the case with the band’s (somehow) eleventh studio album and the third act of the Vaxis saga, in which Coheed comes back stronger than ever, delivering possibly my favorite of the three. The hints were all there, but realizing this was secretly a third Afterman record not only satisfied the part of me that loves referential themes but produced some of my new favorite Coheed experiences like this album’s acoustic slow burn “Corner My Confidence.” The Father of Make Believe reminds me exactly what I adore about this band, specifically in bringing back their epic, album-ending suites, as well as continuing to lock in their tried and true formulas, arresting rhythm section, and grandiose, operatic sequencing. Despite alluding to the eventual ending of the band in their new pop ballad “Goodbye, Sunshine,” I truly hope Coheed continues to produce these kickass, sci-fi epics for as long as possible. 

– Ciara Rhiannon 

Denison Witmer – Anything At All

Asthmatic Kitty

I really hope Denison Witmer finally gets his flowers. Witmer’s been making thoughtful and contemplative folk songs for almost 30 years, and I’ve been a fan for almost 20. I saw him play the student center at my Christian college in the year of our Lord 2005; he played simple solo folk songs about sleeping, dreaming, and longing, and I was never the same. 

Anything At All was recorded and produced by Witmer’s longtime friend and collaborator, Sufjan Stevens. Sufjan is only credited as a featured artist on two of the ten songs, but his voice and musical fingerprints are everywhere. Witmer’s writing seems to focus mostly on the intersection of the mundane and the divine: trying to be a good dad and husband, working in the garden, planting trees, dealing with self-doubt, questioning what sort of life we’re living and what sort of legacy we’re leaving, reconciling the smallness and the existential largeness of middle-aged domestic life. Maybe it’s the fact that I turn 40 this year, but honestly, these are the sort of songs my soul longs for. It’s good shit! If you like Anything At All, check out 2020’s American Foursquare and 2005’s Are You A Dreamer?

– Ben Sooy

Fust – Big Ugly

Dear Life Records

In a world full of new artists that you NEED to know about, the simple solution to the glut is to look to North Carolinian photographer and musician Charlie Boss, who seems to be best friends with some of the most important musicians of our day. Charlie’s work introduced me to the Durham, NC band Fust, and for that, I am forever thankful.

I only moved to the South three years ago, but gah-lee, if Fust’s Big Ugly don't make me feel like I was born with a Mountain Dew in each hand. Aaron Dowdy’s writing about the South spoke to a newcomer like me in ways that caught me off guard. Big Ugly guides me down through kudzu-covered hollers and helps to remind me just how beautiful it is down here. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about “Spangled,” the lead single and lead track of the album, which takes you soaring down dotted highway lines and over dilapidated buildings, all while the structure of the song itself steadily turns into an Appalachian free association. Big Ugly goes on to oscillate between Springsteen-style power ballads and sharp songs of yearning. It is an album of beauty, humor, and truth-telling. If I could have any superpower, it might be to have whatever Fust band leader Aaron Dowdy has. It might just be better than flying.

– Kirby Kluth

Jaye Jayle – After Alter

Pelagic Records

Evan Patterson is already underway ruling my first quarter listens in 2025, most recently with Power Sucker, the new Young Widows album and the band’s first in eleven years. On top of that, there’s After Alter, the latest offering from his solo project Jaye Jayle, which kicked off the year with a thunderous punch back in January. It’s a heavy and dynamic release that continues Patterson’s tradition of recontextualizing sludge metal into the singer/songwriter realm, channeling the more intimate moments of artists like Nick Cave, Neurosis, and Swans. The rhythmic drones of tracks like “Father Fiction” and “Doctor Green” are emotional and entrancing, dark ballads for doomful druids. After Alter’s final moments are introduced with a seven-minute rendition of The Beatles’ “Help!” done in a way only Jaye Jayle can do and doesn’t sound out of place with the rest of the record at all. It’s one of Patterson’s finest works to date in an already prolific catalog worth celebrating.

– Logan Archer Mounts

Men I Trust – Equus Asinus 

Self-released

I think a lot about how Christopher Nolan had Clémence Poésy, who appears in one sequence of Tenet to “explain” the time-bending mechanisms of the sci-fi spy masterpiece, tell the Protagonist and audience: “Don’t try to understand it. Feel it.” Tenet is a vibes movie, one to ride with and luxuriate in, one to let the craft wash over you and feel it rip you away.

Men I Trust’s albums are vibes records. They lure you in with sultry, lounging grooves, but on Equus Asinus, the songs are full of aching. Aching to feel like you did before, aching to return. These aren’t the sweet dreams that earned dream-pop its genre tag; these are the dreams of Twin Peaks. So close to being reality, but with one glaring, off-kilter element that knocks you off balance. It’s in the warm creak of the piano on the closer, “What Matters Most.” In “All My Candles” questions of what our time even amounts to. In the mud, we come with and come from. In the melodramatic instrumental on “Paul’s Theme,” which would fit perfectly over Shinji psychically breaking in the back half of Neon Genesis Evangelion. One set of lyrics repeatedly asks in French: “Little man, what do you want?”

You feel it too, don’t you?

– Lillian Weber

Midcard – Sick

Self-released

Growing up in a no-stoplight town in Montana, my world was saturated with the podunk culture of rural life in the American West, so I denounced country music on principle, opting for my version of things that felt rebellious (pop-punk, metalcore, screamo, etc.). It’s only been in the past several years that I’ve had a redemptive journey with twangy music by way of country-tinged emo rock, and Midcard from Austin, TX, is one of my favorite bands doing it. I’ve been a fan since “BMI” made me cry real tears in 2023, and this new EP is my favorite thing they’ve done. The southernness is apparent, but there’s not even a hint of affectation in these indie punk songs that land somewhere between the last couple Hotelier records, early Manchester Orchestra, and 90’s alt-rock in the vein of Everclear. What hits especially hard for me are the lyrics, tender and pissed off in equal measure, often flirting with cynicism, with plenty of wit and passion to cut the acid. There are gang vocals, tappy emo riffs, dudes yelling, “Woo!” before guitar solos, panic chords, an all-time great diss about “very publicly misunderstand[ing] The Catcher in the Rye,” and none of it feels anything less than earnest. Rock music.

– Nick Webber

Oldstar – Of the Highway

Self-Released

Back in February, Oldstar’s Zane McLaughlin posted on the band’s blog about recording Of the Highway and said, “Oldstar went Hi-Fi, is what the critics will say, all three of them.” Well, I’m a critic, and I am here to say they went Hi-Fi, and it’s fantastic. 

Even with a full band, a new home in New York City, and a real-deal recording studio, the melancholia of Florida’s Oldstar still weaves through the album. The band deals in lyrical storytelling, with McLaughlin recalling conversations or tall tales, all over songs that lean into a country twang (“Wake Me”), alt-rock fuzz (“Nail”), or blend both seamlessly (“Alabama”). Oldstar is a band that I wanted to make a huge album, and I am so happy they did. It’s getting warm again, so go find a chair outside, crack a beer, watch the sunset, and listen to this. 

– Caro Alt

Pink Must – Pink Must

15 Love

Pink Must, the collaboration between Mario Rubio, aka more eaze, and Lynn Avery, two of the most delightfully eclectic musicians in American experimental music, is straightforward. Well, in a way. What started as a process of sending demos back and forth, trying to make a grunge album, eventually clicked into place once both relocated to New York City. Two specialists in pulled-and-stretched compositions united to craft an album of AutoTuned alt-rock songs. What sets Pink Must apart from potential pastiche is total commitment and earnestness. Exploratory tendencies aren’t sanded down; they are poured into the space permeating these songs, surrounding warbled poetry, guitar riffs, and mirage-like full band grooves (everything was recorded and performed by Rubio and Avery). Six-minute lead single “Himbo” unfolds into ambiance and guitar strums, only slightly hinting at its creators’ oeuvres. Pink Must is one of the year’s best rock albums, inverting tropes, sounds, and expectations and making something special, making something unique.

– Aly Eleanor

Pyre – This Is How We Lose Fullness

Self-Released

I, like many of us, have been waiting for the album of 2025 that feels like it will help me soundtrack all this absurdity. Cloakroom certainly has done a great job, but when I finished my first listen of This Is How We Lose Fullness, a very frantic energy that had been pinging around my bones and muscle finally seemed to have dissipated through and out of me like Hawking radiation, but for bad vibes. Pyre’s potent blend of screamo, hardcore, and emo mechanics create an invisible latticework of gyres and pulleys, riffs seizing guitars, vocals drawn to bass thrums, drums propelling gang vocals like a moonshot. Force as we know it and (barely) understand it exists in This Is How We Lose Fullness; its inexorable pull, push, and grasp all feel so physically present that you’d think the album was actually shaking you. From the vile clarion call of the album opener to its final quieting death rattle, Pyre have nailed the feeling of our current doomscrolling existence while you urgently battle your growing need to claw at your face from the madness of it all. But hey, you know what they say: A body for the pyre, pile it on and get on with it.

– Elias Amini

Rose Gray – Louder, Please

Play It Again Sam

This one’s for all my fellow pop princesses out there. My brats, my partygirls, my club rats. Lovers of all things Charli XCX and Tove Lo. 

Rose Gray’s Louder, Please honestly had me at the album cover – something about the harsh lighting, the face-melting scream on Gray’s face, the beach, the red hair. She charmed me even before the first song. I was then pleasantly surprised to see that the image on the cover completely matched the vibes of the music upon hearing the thumping club banger opener “Damn.” The East Londoner (and Harris Dickinson’s long-term girlfriend? Okay queen, go off) channeled her underground rave roots throughout her sophomore album, mixing EDM and dance-pop with anthemic hooks to create a record that feels like one big, whirlwind night out. B-side sleeper “Everything Changes (But I Won’t)” is already primed to be my top song of the year. Gray’s vocals are the perfect mix of detached and all-consuming, making her songs that much more enticing. And she was certainly citing her sources: songwriting credits include the guitarist for Cobra Starship, Ryland Blackinton, on “Angel of Satisfaction” and synth-pop “Pop the Glock” queen Uffie on “Just Two.” The season change makes this the perfect album to add to your hot summer rooftop pregame playlist.

– Cassidy Sollazzo

Saba and No I.D. – From the Private Collection of Saba and No I.D.

From the Private Collection, LLP

I’ve listened to many great albums this year, but none had me running it back over and over and over again like this one; I probably listened through the full thing about six times the day that it dropped. When people talk about No I.D. these days, a lot of focus is put on the way he’s mentored and influenced other artists, and though that is a huge part of his legacy, I feel like more needs to be said about the fact that he’s still one of the best producers in the game. The beats on this record wrap themselves around you; you can live in them, and they stand up alongside almost anything else in his impressive body of work. Pair that up with Saba, one of Chicago’s greatest storytellers, laying down some of his best verses since Care for Me, and the result is just a beautiful record. The features are all great too, particularly MFnMelo on “Westside Bound Pt. 4,” an absolute gem of a track. I know that I mostly write about emo music, and the people reading this are probably primarily emo listeners, but even if rap isn’t something you listen to regularly, I’d implore you to check this one out (that goes double if you’re from or live in Chicago). Anytime two titans like this link up, it’s a blessing, and though it’s still early, it’s tough for me to imagine anything else coming this year that can top this one. So happy that we have this.   

– Josh Ejnes 

Tobacco City – Horses

Scissor Tail Records

Chicago’s Tobacco City is alt-country in look alone, with mustaches, rattails, and arms full of tattoos, but when the music starts, they deliver pure Conway and Loretta. They are as swingin’-doors a saloon band as Merle Haggard’s Strangers. There’s nothing really “alt” about it; their country sound is authentic and captivating, and their melodies and instrumentation are as unique as they are antique. Horses, their second LP, is more distilled country than their first, and the band has built on that original sound. The songs are airtight, and the lyrics are true 21st-century Americana—strip malls, late-night diners, and struggle. The heroes of the album, without question, are the dual harmonies of bandleader Chris Coleslaw and Lexi Goddard, as well as the pedal steel stylings of Andy “Red” PK. Coleslaw has a classically deadpan-style country voice, like Waylon Jennings or Jay Farrar. Goddard’s heavenly voice laces and loops around like Emmylou Harris or Miranda Lambert. When their voices meet in harmony, they reach a truly ethereal plane. Red lays down pedal steel somewhere between Jerry Garcia on Workingman’s Dead and Lloyd Maines on Anodyne—and he joins Wednesday’s Xandy Chelmis as a titan of the Pedal Steel Moment.

– Caleb Doyle

The Tubs – Cotton Crown

Trouble In Mind Records

The best export to come out of Wales since Gareth Bale, jangle pop quartet The Tubs have created an album that has already made a permanent home in my rotation for 2025 and further. The songs are packed to the brim with energetic, uptempo guitar strokes to circumvent the melancholy, glum lyrics of vocalist Owen Williams. Williams’ deep, love-scorned voice is a soothing siren that comforts you while he spills his guts out about lost relationships and the tragic, untimely death of his mother. Cotton Crown is a fascinating case study in successfully masking the deeply personal lyrics of Williams that oftentimes venture into darkness with a bright, sunny disposition of music. “Narcissist” and “Strange” will have you feeling like Otto Rocket while surfing on nonstop waves of jangle pop guitar strings. Cotton Crown doesn’t possess a dull moment in its brief twenty-nine-minute runtime. The Tubs have the energy of a spiked Celsius drink with the passion of a grief-stricken poet, making this an instant favorite of mine. 

– David Williams

wakelee – Doghouse

Self-released

Brooklyn indie-emo trio wakelee appeared to me in a particularly ferocious doomscrolling session on TikTok. The band’s video snuck in a substantial three seconds of screentime before I swiped up to feed my ever-insatiable brain rot. However, in those three seconds, the unit introduced some of my favorite music of the year thus far. Doghouse, released on February 7th, is the band at their most confident and commanding.

Ironically, the song that piqued my interest during that fateful doomscrolling bout was track one, “mildlyinteresting.” Starting inquisitively with a hazy arpeggio, the jarring, fat guitar chords kick in before the captivating opening verse strikes. The track explicates vocalist/guitarist Alex Bulmer’s (and clearly my) noxious dependence on being online. The song will not only have you returning for an ungodly amount of repeat listens but also dwelling on all the times you shut the blinds and sought strangers’ advice on Quora. 

Equally as catchy but largely less upbeat is the ensuing track, “Bangkok.” Following the same arpeggiated intro as the initial track, it’s here that wakelee takes a much more reclusive and introspective route. Driven by melancholic vocals and guitar melodies, the track paints pictures of leaving relationships with wounds. Hemorrhaging and haunting, Bulmer musters, “It’s not fair, I wish that you could be here.” The rest of the EP is just as fantastic – from more delicate, pensive tracks like “Doghouse” to the alt-rock-dunked anthem, “Gary’s Outcome.” Combining aspects of acts like Remo Drive, Pinegrove, and oso oso, wakelee’s Doghouse is required listening in 2025.

– Brandon Cortez

YHWH Nailgun – 45 Pounds

AD 93

It’s rare to find a new release that genuinely opens your mind, expanding possibilities of what’s viable within a genre, but YHWH Nailgun do just that on 45 Pounds. Between Sam Pickard’s frantic drumming and Zach Borzone’s delivery that falls in a liminal space between whimpers, grunts, and screams, the rest of the band is left to inject whatever jagged pieces of melody they can. The result is 20 minutes of some of the strangest punk music I’ve heard in my life. Guitars and synthesized noise echo in response to each hollow drum fill, like sheet metal crumpling in response to the hits of a hammer. The individual components sound mechanical, but together, they twitch in ways that feel disturbingly lifelike. As Borzone sputters out seemingly every fear, delusion, or revelation that crosses his mind, a soul makes itself known. Is it pretty? Almost never. Do I dare look away? Not on your life.

– Wes Cochran

Free Range – Lost & Found | Album Review

Mick Music

In baseball, one of the most critical roles on any team is the utility player. If you find someone like that, you hold on to them like grim death. The best quality of the utility player is their versatility – they are plug-and-play athletes who can move to almost any given position at a moment’s notice. A name that instantly comes to mind is Ben Zobrist, whose contributions led to back-to-back World Series titles for the Kansas City Royals and Chicago Cubs. He is a player who is willing to give whatever is possible for the betterment of the team.

Sofia Jensen is one of those unique utility players in the Chicago indie community, but instead of a bat or glove, Jensen carries a wide array of musical instruments and crafts heartfelt indie rock under the name Free Range. It’s no exaggeration to say that Jensen has Swiss Army Knife-like versatility. Need someone to play guitar? How about someone who can sing backup vocals while also playing the harmonica? What about video recording your show at a historic concert hall? Jensen can do all of that and then some. So when the time comes for them to enter the spotlight on their sophomore record, Lost & Found, it should come as no surprise to hear that Jensen has their jack-of-all-trades skills on full display.

When I think of the Americana genre, I envision bright sunny days, driving solo on the freeway without a care in the world, and the flat plains of the Midwest. So when I listen to this specific type of record, I want the music to transport me, like when Happy Gilmore goes to his Happy Place. Lost & Found hits all the beats I look for in an Americana album: the weepy pedal steel, twangy strummed guitars, and melancholy songwriting are the recipe for a great listening experience. “Storm” is the poster child for this definition, even going so far as to sing about trains, coastlines, and car trips. I listen to the song and immediately feel like I’m road-tripping through the middle of Wisconsin or Iowa (this is a compliment, I swear). 

As a humongous Elliot Smith fan, Jensen strives for a similar level of intimacy in the lyrics, treating the songs as acoustic guitar confessionals, almost like a sonic diary. Listening to this collection of tracks, the subject matter gives me the impression that Jensen has a wise, shy, and reserved personality out in the real world. Displaying their signature hushed tone on the exquisite title track “Lost & Found,” Jensen sings, “Show me all your doubts / I tell you all of what I was singing about.” One track later, the emotionally complex “Chase” strikes down on a self-destructive person who’s alienating the ones closest to them. The songwriting feels honest and sincere, coming from someone who wants to find a place to belong.

Self-discovery is a prominent theme across Lost & Found as we hear someone in their early twenties trying to find their place in the world. On the tender guitar-plucked “Faith,” Jensen softly sings, “It’s not like I choose my fears / but there’s nothing worse than running from a mirror.” Who a person is at ten years old is different when they are twenty than at thirty and so on. That’s the beauty in life: finding the maturation of the years aged by growing into the person we are meant to be. Living up to your potential can be a struggle, and not everyone has the opportunity to accomplish this goal, but it feels to me like Jensen is meeting it head-on, and we are hearing a person grow up right in front of us.

At the record’s midpoint, the songs “Hardly” and “Concept” instantly stood out to me. Each song is fleshed out with the added power of the electric guitar and a full arrangement of the band with Jack Henry (Drums), Bailey Mizenberger (Bass), Andy Pk (Pedal Steel), and Tommy Read (Guitar). Jensen’s delivery still flows as smoothly as ever, even when the music is turned up a couple extra decibels. I think of artists like Squirrel Flower, Waxahatchee, or Rosali as trailblazers of this ethos, working toward the same true north that “Hardly” and “Concept” are pointed toward. Both are examples of the exciting spaces that Free Range could explore on future albums and are sure to explode to life in concert.

My favorite storytelling is the heartfelt tale of a love interest, “Conditions,” where the protagonist is unable to express their feelings: “You tell me to be honest / and that’s what I find the hardest.” The feelings of longing, infatuation, and self-doubt hit like a ton of bricks, especially for people coming of age. Jensen’s lyrics have an honesty to them that would lead me to believe this originated from a seasoned veteran artist well into their career. There’s a certain beauty within the pain of maturity; the biggest obstacle is knowing life will hurt but continuing to put yourself out there. Lost & Found is a deeply personal journey of self-discovery someone who is willing to take on countless risks, no matter the costs.

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David is a content mercenary based in Chicago. He's also a freelance writer specializing in music, movies, and culture. His hidden talents are his mid-range jump shot and the ability to always be able to tell when someone is uncomfortable at a party. You can find him scrolling away on Instagram @davidmwill89, Twitter @Cobretti24, or Medium @davidmwms.

Bill Orcutt – How to Rescue Things | Album Review

Palilalia

Over a decade after the dissolution of his legendary noise trio Harry Pussy, Bill Orcutt re-emerged as a dark horse contender for preeminent interpreter of traditional American music. Armed with little more than recording equipment and his trusty four-stringed guitars, Orcutt breathed new life into old songs, filtering rumbling blues through the atonal improvisations of Derek Bailey. These albums often expanded into meta-commentary on the idea of the “American” song; their tracklists would mix spirituals, Disney songs, Tin Pan Alley, and more, all unified by how Orcutt would obliterate the basic structure of his selections. 

Orcutt’s self-titled 2017 release opens with a rendition of Ornette Coleman’s “Lonely Woman.” In the 50s and 60s, Coleman reframed the American music of his own time, leading a groundbreaking jazz quartet with no piano, untethering the music from a tonal center. He’s a clear forebear for a musician like Orcutt, whose interpretations are even further ungrounded from their source material. But Coleman notably rejected playing standards from the outset of his career, opting to compose all the tunes on his records at a time when even his most talented peers were putting their spins on Rodgers and Hammerstein. Coleman’s brilliance yielded exactly one elevation into “standard” territory of his own: the aforementioned “Lonely Woman.”

How to Rescue Things, released late last year, is Orcutt’s third solo album of originals in as many years. It’s also the most melodic music of his career, wedding his searing leads to dulcet strings pilfered from an RCA easy-listening collection. These sweeping arrangements have historical precedent in jazz, too: think Charlie Parker with Strings or maybe Lady in Satin. But those albums used strings as accompaniments, extra tonality, and shorthand for feelings already being evoked by the soloist. Orcutt is operating from inside these arrangements even as he often soars above them. His improvisatory approach has the effect of foregrounding the chord changes under him; it’s as if he is accompanying them.

On “Old Hamlet,” for instance, Orcutt slowly builds up to a wail over plucked harp, as if his guitar were deep in existential thought. Suddenly he recedes, quietly but insistently strumming each note several times, blending his instrument’s timbre with the background, almost pleading. Several tracks later, the weeping orchestra of “Requiem in Dust” is too loud to be drowned out, so Orcutt wages war from within, building to a long stretch of repetition wherein he completely abandons the harmonic structure in a moment akin to running up a down escalator. 

These string backing tracks on their own conjure up the romanticism of a bygone era: New York City in the fall, a stiff drink in a smoky bar. Orcutt’s additions disrupt the nostalgia but don’t necessarily refute it. Rather, it begs the question, “What exactly are we remembering?” Were these the true experiences of our friends, of our parents, of their parents? Or was it simply a dream sold to them by television programs and glossy magazine ads? Is the American Dream crumbling before our very eyes? Even the idea that one could once live out the Horatio Alger myth grows increasingly shambolic. The building is collapsing, the chandelier in the lobby is about to give way. Perhaps taking a sledgehammer to the foundation is the wisest course.

But listening to the closer “The Wild Psalms” as it descends into a noisy squall over a string sequence fit for Hollywood credits, one gets the sense that Orcutt finds the swaying chandelier in the decrepit old structure oddly beautiful. Perhaps How to Rescue Things is a double entendre: a way to improve upon the schmaltzy cast-off recordings from days of yore, sure, but also a model for finding beauty in a world as it disintegrates. Orcutt has written a fine set of swan songs for the country amidst its death march, and in doing so, he may finally have made his own entry into the American canon.

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Jason Sloan is a guy from Brooklyn by way of Long Island. You can find him on Twitter, Bluesky, and Tributary.

Don't Really Mind These Miles: An Interview with Marble Teeth

For most of my life, I’ve been chasing the high of listening to The Replacements for the first time. It happened back in seventh grade. I was a performative hater of anything modern, and I had a problem: I couldn’t deny that I was starting to enjoy Green Day. Fearing that I might be on the verge of betraying my “born in the wrong generation” aesthetic, I Googled “Old bands that sound like Green Day,” hoping to find a group from before I existed that could scratch the same itch. Through this search, I found “Bastards of Young,” which led me to Tim, which led me to Let it Be, which led me to everything else, and before I knew it, I had developed a burning love for the band that outlived (and helped guide me out of) the pretentious phase which had led me to them in the first place. It totally changed the way I consumed and thought about music. I just had never been into a band like that. I didn’t know there could be a band like that. 

Though I’ve never had that exact feeling again (and likely never will), there are a few bands that have gotten me pretty close. Cloud Nothings come to mind as one example, a band that grabbed me at first listen and totally changed my understanding of the ways melody and fuzz can coexist. Prefab Sprout, who pushed pop songwriting in directions I had never considered, is another. Most recently, I’ve become obsessed with Marble Teeth, the solo project of Decatur, Illinois-based singer-songwriter Caleb Jefson.

I came across Marble Teeth last August when they opened for Retirement Party at Beat Kitchen. Prior to the show I’d never heard of them, but they very quickly had me hooked. Most of what they played that night came from their most recent release, top 10 times i’ve cried, a record that at different points finds itself living in the worlds of alt-country, indie folk, and straight-up Americana. It wasn’t necessarily a sound that I expected to hear at an emo show, but I couldn’t deny that it worked.

Beyond the music, I was fascinated by Caleb as an artist. His merch spread was like nothing I’d ever seen; sitting next to a table with CDs and zines was a portable clothing rack with about 20 Marble Teeth shirts, no two of which were exactly alike. Each one that I flipped through had a new design or was pressed into a different brand/color of shirt, meaning that they had each been individually crafted rather than ordered in bulk from a distributor, truly DIY. 

When I got home and looked more into Marble Teeth, I discovered that this is just how Caleb does things. He handles everything on his records: the playing, the recording, the mixing, the album covers. Beyond the unique shirts, he seems to be constantly learning new crafts and applying these skills to his merch; at different times over the past few months, he’s offered both custom embroidered hats and Marble Teeth branded gloves, all homemade. When he worked with Klepto Phase to put out a vinyl pressing of top 10 times i’ve cried last fall, each record was accompanied by an exquisitely designed lyric zine. He’s an artist in the truest sense of the word. 

As I dug into Marble Teeth’s back catalog, two records I found myself coming back to a lot were Cars and Park, released in 2018 and 2020, respectively. Where top 10 times is clearly influenced by older folk and country music, Cars and Park take their approach more from contemporary bedroom pop/singer-songwriter-tinged emo artists like Slaughter Beach, Dog and Trace Mountains. They’re raw and emotional records with a sound that’s incredibly in my wheelhouse. It was the most I’d been obsessed with an artist since finding Tim; there were whole weeks where those two records were all that I listened to.

A few months after first hearing Marble Teeth at Beat Kitchen, I was lucky enough to meet Caleb at a house show in Chicago where he mentioned that a vinyl pressing of Cars and Park was in the works: one record that would have Cars on one side and Park on the other. This was right around when I was playing both non-stop, so I was ecstatic. That vinyl is now pressed, ready to ship, and up for sale directly through Marble Teeth’s own website. I sat down with Caleb to discuss his creative process, finally getting these records out on vinyl, and how he feels about them five to seven years after their release. Here is that conversation.   

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

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SWIM: To get started, I was curious how you guys came to this decision to put Cars and Park out on vinyl at this point, with their release having been quite a few years in the past.

CALEB: I got the opportunity through a program at the local college here where they were doing a small pressing of something, like only a hundred of them. Honestly, these have been a long time in the making. So, top 10 times i’ve cried was being recorded but not even planned to be put out yet. Neither of those albums [Cars or Park] really had much of a physical release. I did some tapes that were split albums where I had Cars on one side and Park on the other, but it’s been a couple of years. I just thought, given only a hundred, those are old enough that I'm not gonna be pushing them so hard. The people who want them will definitely want them because Cars and Park have their fan base. And then the new stuff has picked up people, but yeah, the day-one fans love those, I think, I hope.

SWIM: So I know you just said you put out some tapes of those two, but in general, with your stuff for physical releases, are you doing just like CDs when you go on a run? Is that more your normal thing? 

CALEB: I've done that in the past where, yeah, I'll just hand-burn CDs. Physical copies are definitely something I've not put a ton of money into. When it comes to band operations and stuff, it really is just me. I have a live band that I play with, but I play all the instruments on the records and do all the recording and writing. So when it comes to financial backing for things, it's literally just me paying for it out of pocket. In the past, I've done the cheapest way possible, generally homemade stuff. I splurged for a couple of runs of tapes before a big tour or something just to have something else that looks nice.

SWIM: Nice. When it comes to vinyl, are you personally a collector or fan?

CALEB: Yeah, yeah, I like vinyl.

SWIM: Do you have any particular records in your collection that are your favorites or mean something to you?

CALEB: My buddy Jacob gave me a copy of Nashville Skyline by Bob Dylan a couple of years ago, and that kind of started it. He was like, ‘This is for your Bob Dylan collection,’ and I only had two of his before that. Honestly, I was a big fan, but I only had a couple that I had found, and then I was like, huh, I didn't even realize I had a collection. After that, I kind of started buying a ton. So that one's special because it kind of sparked that, “All right, I'm just going to buy all these up,” I guess. I'm a huge Dylan head, and he just has so many albums. It's fun to try out the ones I've never listened to before. Just put it on the record rather than trying to get through it on streaming. Sometimes it's way easier to skip around and stuff.

SWIM: Right, yeah. I know I saw you posted your Bob Dylan spread. It was the size of a quilt.

CALEB: Yeah, I was inspired by some other dude who had me beat by a couple, I think, but just like had them all laid out on the floor of the rug.

SWIM: That's sick. So, back to Cars and Park and putting them out again in your live show. Do you still play many of the songs from these records? Or do you mostly play stuff from top 10?

CALEB: Up until very recently, there were still Cars and Park on the set list. Probably “Funk Track” off Cars was really the only one getting played, and then some Park songs, like “The Park” and “The Neighbor.” Actually, “Quick Stop” off Park, we still do play. If I'm playing a solo set, I have a lot more (from them) I can pull from than the band. With the band, it's kind of just the couple that we've practiced because I record all the parts, and then I’m teaching them to other people and letting them kind of put their flair on it. I've had a couple different lineups of the band. The second to most recent lineup we've had was still playing Cars and Park stuff, but now I think we're just doing “Quick Stop.”

SWIM: As part of this process, when you had to listen back to Cars and Park, was there anything that surprised you about either release? I don't know how often you were thinking about them beyond playing the songs before this, but going back and listening to the recording, is there anything that stood out to you where you were like, ‘I didn't think much of this at the time, but this is something?’

CALEB: Before getting them back, actually, not really, because I just kind of sent all the stuff off. But once I got the test pressings and listened to those, it made the mix really pop. It definitely sounds way better than just listening on a streamer because it was mastered by somebody as well. I didn't originally—Cars was mastered, but Park was exported straight from GarageBand onto the internet, essentially…it's quieter than most stuff on Spotify, so hearing it on the record just makes it sound nice and big. I still have a soft spot for those songs, for sure. It just maybe took me back in time a little bit.

SWIM: I know both records have very similar cover aesthetics, and you said in the past you put them out with the tape, like one on one side, one on the other. When you made Cars, did you have the idea, like, ‘I'm going to make Park, and it's going to be kind of a sister record?’ Or were these songs you had left over, or did it come together over time as being a shared existence?

CALEB: I definitely had the album cover for Cars even before there was much of an album written. There was just this sign by my house that I drove by every day, and I was like, ‘I want to make that an album cover.’ And then the Park sign is just right down the street, and I had already put out Cars before I noticed how good the other one was. I was like, oh my gosh, perfect follow-up–four letters on literally the same road in my town. Sadly, the Cars sign has since been torn down. But the Park one is still standing. I definitely didn't plan to make a follow-up, but thematically, I think it kind of is a follow-up or almost a part two. A before and after.

SWIM: Yeah, because even across the two, I know you have “Runners World” (on Cars) and then “Runners World 2” (on Park), which is a different take on a similar riff. Did you write two versions of that song, or did you get to one later?

CALEB: The original “Runners World” on Cars was just the song, that was the only song I had. Then one time, I was practicing up a live band when I really only had Cars and a couple of Park songs written. We were just trying to figure out what we could do because I had 13 songs back then, essentially. So (we were) figuring out which ones we could do, and I was playing the “Runners World” riff, and Paul, the drummer, started drumming. I had this poem that I had just written up, and I was like, whoa, this kind of sets over it. So that just kind of turned into the sequel. Definitely wasn't planned originally to do that, but that might have been the first example of it… But, well, even on some original Bandcamp stuff—I have two different versions of a song called “High School Football Championship,” that's also on Cars. But that's something I really like in other artists that I enjoy: finding a song that they've done different versions of or different live takes of it.

SWIM: Because I think I saw on one of the Extra Volumes (on Bandcamp), you have one of the songs that ended up making it on top 10 as well. I'm forgetting which one it is now.

CALEB: Oh, yeah, yeah, “the gun.”

SWIM: Yeah yeah yeah.

CALEB: It's an extended version of an Extras song. It's just verse one on Extras, and I think I honestly had had a few verses, it just wasn't— I probably had tweaked the lyrics since then and didn't have the full band vision of it in my head, so I didn't want to milk it. With the Extras I was trying to do short stuff, and it was just recording in a couple of days’ time.

SWIM: Do you try to do much interpolation of other people's stuff? I was listening to Marble Teeth, the self-titled one, and you have that song, “John Jackson.” Is that like a Jack Johnson riff, kind of off “Banana Pancakes?”

CALEB: Yeah, yeah, just playing those chords, they remind me of “Banana Pancakes” and “Upside Down,” but there's definitely the major seven or whatever chord that is…the way the chord sounded made me think about Jack Johnson, for sure. So then, yeah, I just switched it around.

SWIM: Sick. And then there’s one thing I've been thinking about, too, because I listened to Cars and Park a lot before this, and before that, I'd been listening to a lot of top 10 times, and it's very different. The approach on top 10 times feels a lot more rootsy, and I know there are many years in between the records, but I was curious about the change in sound between Cars and Park to top 10 times. Is it that you always wanted to make something that sounds like top 10 times, but you didn't have the equipment, or you were getting around to that songwriting? Is it just your taste has changed over time and this is reflective of what you're listening to now?

CALEB: Yeah, probably a little bit of all of those. I had been in pop-punk-type bands before, so I made louder rock songs. Definitely with Cars or Self-titled at least, because those were the first things I recorded at home. I was definitely going for more of a bedroom pop, softer sound, and since then, I've gotten way more into country and roots and folk. Maybe not folk, but country was something I would actively say that I disliked in high school and younger, but I've definitely come around on it in my 20s just listening to Dylan and Neil Young. Honestly, the American Anthology of Folk Music, this compilation by this dude, Harry Smith, that the Smithsonian put out, just lots of good old-timey tunes on there. That's what I was, post-COVID, listening to a lot more, stuff like that, so I don't know if I would have tried to make something that sounded like that back then, but I definitely was going for quieter at the beginning.

SWIM: For sure, it reminds me a little, the Cars and Parks stuff, of Slaughter Beach Dog.

CALEB: That's definitely 100% what I was listening to. I mean, Motorcycle.jpg and Birdie coming out pretty quickly, one after another, changed my music taste completely. I speak for a lot of people in the scene, probably when I say that, but I think those were a shift for people my age getting into a lot more Americana-type sounds and slide guitar.

SWIM: I was always curious about it because I found out about you over the last year. I first saw you when you opened for Retirement Party with OK Cool, and it seems like whenever I'm on Instagram and I click on an emo or pop-punky band, I see that you often follow them, but then when I see you post music you're listening to, I feel like it's more recently folk stuff or like, Poco-style rock. 

CALEB: Yeah, I'm definitely not listening to much emo these days, to be honest. I mean, there's definitely stuff from my youth that has a nostalgia factor, but I'm not, like, seeking out new stuff in that vein—although the new Hotline TNT album kind of threw me back into the rock and roll world a bit. Yeah, like I was saying, I've been going back in time, just further back, trying to… just the story songs and the banjo and mandolin, those instruments have been really fascinating to me recently. They just sound good. Less abrasive to my ears, too, honestly. I was just getting headaches from listening to a lot of music in the car all the time.

SWIM: So, did you record Cars, Park, and top 10 all at home kind of on the same type of setup, or did you also have an equipment change or upgrade to a different system? 

CALEB: Probably the closest (in recording method) would have been Park and top 10. Cars I actually recorded on an iPad on GarageBand.

SWIM: That's wild.

CALEB: Yeah, oh man. Yeah. I'm just thinking back on it as a mess of cables and converters and stuff. I have recorded a couple of projects that way through the iPad, Self-titled, and then some other projects for other friends. I felt like I was kind of getting good at that, and I liked GarageBand a lot, so then I bought a Macbook, and Park was the first thing I recorded on it, so I was figuring things out. That's why I feel like those two sound kind of different, the vocal and the guitar sounds, at least, just because I was plugging directly in through an interface instead of through an iPad.

SWIM: I know Cars has way more keys and synth than Park, definitely (more) than top 10. Is that just because when you're recording into an iPad directly using some of those direct MIDI software instruments?

CALEB: Honestly, all of those are a... I don't think I have any... there's a drum and a...sorry, I'm so spacey. No, all of those are real keyboards, a little Casio I've got. I've only used a GarageBand drum machine one time on “Lonerisnt” the single. But it was also the last thing I... that was truly the last thing I recorded on the iPad right after Cars. I recorded a single, got the MacBook, and started doing stuff on there. So there's Park, and then Extra was kind of a little more experimenting with the laptop. 8 More was, like, I'm kind of locking it, have to make it sound a little more hi-fi on the laptop, and then top 10 was like, alright, let's EQ this shit.

SWIM: Yeah, because on top 10 you have way more filtering and stuff on the vocals, and it feels like more an artistic choice in the mix than just making it legible.

CALEB: I definitely just spent a lot more time on this one, that's for sure. I mean, when you're doing it yourself especially, it's like every project you do is pretty much a huge learning experience. It's like you work on it, and then you put it out, and then you listen to it, and you're like, ‘I like this, I don't like this, let's try again, use all these new tricks that I just figured out.’ Every song you finish, you're like, wow, I wish I could have done that thing I figured out on every other song I've ever made, but let's keep it going.

SWIM: For sure. So you put out the vinyl of top 10, and now you’ve got the Cars and Park one, does it make you think your next album, you might want to do vinyl at release? Or is it the sort of thing where if the opportunity comes again like this, you would, but otherwise it's not really top of mind?

CALEB: Yeah, I'm so bad at planning ahead.

SWIM: Sure.

CALEB: If I could find somewhere that was really interested in doing that…because I haven't even really started on anything post-top 10. I have songs, but recording-wise, there’s nothing finished. So maybe I should start planning ahead and getting everything together. My problem is once it's done, I'm not waiting on anybody to mix it or anything, so I'm just ‘I want to get this out ASAP,’ and I'd rather promote something that's already out than try and sell people a record (that will) come out in three months.

SWIM: Definitely. On the top 10 release, you did those drawings for the tracklist on the back. Do you like that part of this kind of (physical) production where you get new places where you can do some sort of artistic output related to the old project?

CALEB: Oh, yeah, I mean, it being kind of a one-man operation in that way, I really just get to throw every hobby and craft I encounter at this and try and incorporate it in some way. There's been a couple of pieces I've commissioned out, but pretty much from the beginning, everything I've put out I've made to some extent, and I really like figuring stuff out and getting my own style. It's pretty amateurish, you could say, from recording to drawing or the production side of things, but I think there's a charm that's kind of realistic when you're not trying to curate something to the point where you’re getting the best of the best. This is just my life's work, essentially. I don't have it packaged up underneath.

SWIM: Yeah, no, I get that. So that was the main stuff I had to ask you. I have two really specific questions about lyrics from Park that I've just been curious about, if that's cool.

CALEB: Sure.

SWIM: So I always thought about this line on “The Monkeys” where you say, “We're dancing in the dark, just like that singer you like,” which I think is a sick line. I was always curious if there was someone in your life who liked Bruce Springsteen and you didn't. I mean, it's just a cool way to say that because I feel like a lot of people have dropped Springsteen's name in a song on purpose, and you kind of, whether intentionally or not, avoided it in that way. I always thought it was kind of sick.

CALEB: That's funny. I've gotten that a couple of times, but it is not about Bruce Springsteen.

SWIM: Oh, really?

CALEB: It's about dancing in the literal darkness, like a different singer. I'll just keep it unnamed, but I do like that. I know that's just one of those things about writing lyrics where they totally take on a life of their own, and also, maybe I'm just dumb for not realizing that that's exactly like Bruce Springsteen. So many things where it's like, yeah, I almost don't want to say it because I don't want to change everyone's perception of it. It's whoever you think it is, but it's cool because, yeah, you are not the first person to say that.

SWIM: That's fascinating. And then the other one I was always curious about was in part of the song “The Park,” you talk about not being “allowed to watch this program as a kid” and not getting someone's references. I was curious if there's any specific instance behind that or if it's just something you've run up against when it comes to media.

CALEB: That one I can specify. It was definitely Spongebob. That was my inspiration behind that one. Spongebob or Friends, maybe those are the two that I really imagine in my head when I'm thinking of that. But that one I definitely leave up to interpretation as well. I'd be interested to hear what shows other people were not allowed to watch.

SWIM: Sure. It reminds me of when I was in kindergarten. For some reason, some kids in my kindergarten class were allowed to watch Boy Meets World, but I wasn't. And they would have long debates about Boy Meets World stuff, and I just had to sit there.

CALEB: Yeah, everyone's talking about it, and you're like, hmm. Or just…you're telling them a story, and they're like, oh, that’s like the episode of this thing, and you're like, yeah, I understand. Can I finish my story, please?

SWIM: Yeah, for sure. Sick, that was all I had to ask. Is there anything you would want to add about the vinyl release or the process around it?

CALEB: I don't know. I'm excited to do it. This was supposed to be the first vinyl that I got, but it's kind of just been a long process for various reasons. I'm bad at sending emails and stuff. And I got lucky with Klepto Phase reaching out about top 10. Like I said, these were slated to get produced when top 10 wasn't really finalized or anything yet. I had most of those songs written and somewhat recorded. I'm just excited to get them. It's sweet that people—I mean, it's sweet that you listened to them a ton and were thinking about this, and you were interested enough to want to write about it. Because they definitely sound—I mean, listening back to them, they sound young, but that's just because it's me. It's, like, I love that guy, but he's also me four years ago. So I kind of hate him a little bit, but... 

Yeah, it's sweet that people like those albums, and (those were) the basis of this project. It’s what I was touring on for the majority of when I was getting out there. So it's kind of cool that people still like them, and I appreciate them sticking with me on the new stuff. I mean, I look at the streams, and every album kind of has more than the last, so it feels good as an artist to feel like you're picking up steam and not like, “Oh, you guys only like this old one, now I have to try and recreate that magic or just, like, move on and lose you all.”

The combined vinyl pressing of Cars and Park is available now directly through Marble Teeth’s website.

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Josh Ejnes is a writer and musician living in Chicago. You can keep up with his writing on music and sports on Twitter and listen to his band Cutaway Car here.