Monthly Picks | May 2025
Sining Shelter
AJ'S PICKS
Box for Buddy, Box for Star
ALBUM | This is Lorelei
this was an album that came out of nowehere for me. with nate amos' stuff under this is lorelei (also his contributions to water from your eyes), you never really know what you're in store for. but his unpredictable, disjointed approach to his music feels a lot more cohesive and dare i say "locked tf in" on this album. i'm always such a sucker for organized chaos and this album really scratches that itch for me.
Ajai
ALBUM | Serengeti & Kenny Segal
recently revisited this concept album recounting the story of a man who's just way too fashionpilled for his own good. jokes aside, so much in this album works so well. from serengeti's lyricism making you feel for a dude destroying his entire life through fashion overconsumption and his versatile flow blending seamlessly into every song to kenny beat's amazing and immediately recognizable production (arguably some of his best work is on full-display here). so much to say about this that won't fit here but i love everything about this album.
HABIBI'S PICK
The Snowball Effect
SINGLE | onewaymirror/Kiowa/I Promised The World
Emotional metalcore has been on the rise ever since the curtains of the lockdown fell. Every individual forced into an unwanted seclusion that drove many into devolving psyches. The youth, always alienated and outcasted. During that time, trends drawing from aesthetics and practices of subcultures have circulated, diluting its DIY essence for performative peacocking and consumerism. This isolation, however, has ignited a hunger from the youth. A hunger to connect to something real and genuine, and not just hauntological consumerism and ostalgie. Those who felt that hunger strong enough crawled out of the cesspit and looked for the soil that cultivates: their own promised land. The post-pandemic emo rennaisance drew many of these teenagers and young adults into cultivating their own scenes, building their own bands, and finding their own place in the DIY world. This collaboration, a split between three bands, bring about an interesting culmination of this rennaisance, its own Snowball Effect. Hardcore, mince, emo, and many more have seen an influx of young people who all got shit to say and will take on the entire world just to make their point. I don't see this scene dying anytime soon, so why should you?
NOMAR'S PICK
Trick
ALBUM | Alex G
album good
INIGO'S PICKS
Decent Man
SINGLE | Goon Lagoon
This is the sound of a band reaping the benefits of their live act: sounding more brutish and uninhibited than ever before. As a pandemic bedroom musician, this must be the train's final stop, finding a studio and the further refinement of the craft in an environment that does nothing but breathe for the inhabiting band. Goon Lagoon have made the jump, and more bombs will fall.
Scientist Wins the World Cup
ALBUM | Scientist
To start, this is one of the coldest album covers of all time. I’ve been on a massive dub kick for around the past year: segmenting entire conversations with the mention of tape echo (sorta being incessant about it), dictating the spiritual air quality of car rides and other daily affairs. Discovering “World Cup” felt like a moment of when I was 16 again, a time underlined by scouring and combing through morally-corrugated forum posts and delineated internet minutiae, seeing what stuck to the back of the mind after occupying it with other, more or less, valuable things. I love it because I think I get it, and I think I get it because of what Scientist and other dub legends have given–there’s plenty of reasons as to why there’s always been a soft smattering of backbeat dub and reggae enveloped into our local music atmosphere.
Live at Brixton Academy 1999
ALBUM | Atari Teenage Riot
On the other hand, things haven’t been the best recently. Difficult, laborious, taxing, name it. The human spirit is a huge and indomitable thing, and a little can go a long way. I think this is why I gravitate towards this sort of music in times of distress–this blaring and nearly-incoherent narrative tornado is absolutely something worth appreciating, belonging more to feeling (or rather, numbness) than reason. Also, this will look hilarious on the playlist.