Atwood Journal is worked up to share our Editor’s Picks column, written and curated by Editor-in-Chief Mitch Mosk. Each week, Mitch will share a set of songs, albums, and artists who’ve caught his ears, eyes, and coronary heart. There’s a lot unbelievable music on the market simply ready to be heard, and all it takes from us is an open thoughts and a willingness to hear. By our Editor’s Picks, we hope to shine a light-weight on our personal music discoveries and showcase a various array of latest and up to date releases.
This week’s Editor’s Picks options Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Idea, JayWood, Trip Manor, Mumford & Sons, Dreamer Isioma, and Blind Pilot!
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Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Idea
by Sharon Van Etten
Sharon Van Etten describes Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Idea as “a gathering of the minds and a sonic belief fall.” Talking to a captive viewers this previous Monday evening at Woodstock’s Bearsville Theater, she defined how, for the primary time in her profession, she and her bandmates wrote and recorded the whole lot collectively till they’d a full album’s value of fabric – and the way this collaborative spirit resulted in a artistic freedom she’d by no means felt earlier than.
You may inform when a file is an “artist” album versus a “band” album – and Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Idea is unmistakably a band album via and thru. The mixed skills of Van Etten, Jorge Balbi (drums, machines), Devra Hoff (bass, vocals), and Teeny Lieberson (synth, piano, guitar, vocals) are on full show from when the spellbinding “Reside Ceaselessly” takes flight, to the ultimate moments of “I Need You Right here.”
The songs are daring, brash, experimental, and exhilarating – simply Van Etten’s most numerous murals in her 15-plus yr profession – and but, there’s a cohesion to the expertise that makes Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Idea as memorable as it’s mesmerizing. Catchy pop-structured songs like “Hassle” and “Afterlife” – two of the file’s singles – put Van Etten’s cathartic, contemplative songwriting on full show, whereas tracks like “Indio” (which employed various scales) and “I Can’t Think about (Why You Really feel This Manner)” seize the band’s ingenious spirit and originality – a aptitude that units them aside, not simply from previous Van Etten works, however from most modern rock artists.
As if the album expertise weren’t sufficient, the band’s reside present is one other beast totally. On stage, the four-piece ship a soul-stirring, shiver-inducing efficiency that defies definition. Bits of indie rock, new wave, math rock, storage, post-punk, psychedelic, and extra shine via the haze as, with Van Etten’s breathtaking vocals on the helm, the group ship a dizzying, dynamic rock present that faucets into the core of human expertise. It’s a rush, a reckoning, and a uncooked reflection of the place we’re at in 2025.
“BIG TINGS”
by JayWood ft. Tune-Yards
A soulful ray of sonic sunshine, “BIG TINGS” is an anthem for all of the dreamers and believers on the market to maintain combating the great battle and gathering that wool. JayWood’s first single of the yr sees him collaborating with Merrill Garbus and Nate Brenner of art-pop duo Tune-Yards on a music that blurs (and breaks) musical boundaries, all whereas capturing the magic of hope and the human spirit. “Operating outta steam for a residing, no givin in. Chunk again, you possibly can see me like this, or like that.” JayWood sings on the prime, his voice calm, head within the sport as within the background we hear, “Huge tings coming, coming, coming our means.”
And so they positive are.
Ridin on a dream for a life-style
Deterring my deathstyle
Deterring my deathstyle
You may see me like this? Or like dat
You may see me like this? Or like dat
So while you’re feeling excessive
Throw dem palms as much as the sky
I bought massive tings
coming down the pipe so what
So what. It’s onerous
“I truthfully don’t even know once I grew to become such an optimistic particular person!” JayWood tells Atwood Journal. “More often than not I really feel like I’m moody or miserable, however then I see what I select to jot down about, and I assume that adjustments my view a bit. I feel the music to me actually is nearly trusting the method and leaning into the unknown trigger you by no means know what you’ll get from that have. I wanna consider that as a lot as life or a scenario is likely to be onerous or tasking, it solely implies that higher issues are to return your means. So I hope that any listener can take a little bit of hope from the monitor and discover a technique to create their very own reference to optimism and destiny.”
Hope is a tough factor to return by, particularly in a world that appears to benefit from beating us again and hitting us after we’re down. JayWood has all the time been a charismatic character – particularly in his artwork – and in “BIG TINGS,” it’s a seductive pressure of hope that shines a light-weight on him and all listeners, illuminating the trail ahead.
It’s an all too excellent technique to kick off 2025 – beginning the yr off by diving headfirst into the longer term’s highly effective potential.
“There’s lots happening on the earth proper now,” Jaywood reflets. “It’s not onerous to see that. I feel individuals attempt to discover an escape from this present actuality inside artwork and connections with different individuals so by placing this monitor out initially of the yr I hope to make a bridge inside that have.”
“My hope this yr for my music is to create a group and fanbase that cares to dive deeper into the artwork I make in addition to simply taking a little bit of a step again from the whole lot happening round them and simply having a secure chill house to go for a bit. In hopes to make the realities of life a bit simpler even only for a second – [laughs] – there I’m going once more with this random ass optimism.”
A sun-soaked, smile-inducing revelry, “BIG TINGS” is an enormous, daring, and delightful dose of sonic inspiration – and a mainstay of my weight loss program for months to return.
“January (Over & Over)”
by Trip Manor
Without a doubt, January bought the brief finish of the ‘month stick.’ It’s chilly, it’s darkish, and it has to observe the “most great time of the yr.” There’s no getting back from that – and to that finish, I really feel I’ve discovered a kindred spirit in Trip Manor’s “January (Over & Over).” The emotionally charged lead single off the Virginia duo’s upcoming Again to City EP (out Might 15, 2025 through Nettwerk) aches with the desolation, the isolation, and the sheer bleakness of my least favourite month – and it does so with a strikingly seductive various warmth.
January discovered you in your mattress
Wishing you have been some other place as a substitute
After they all made resolutions
It began messing together with your head
Now January’s bought you standing on the sting
Standing on the sting
Considering you struck out
Wishing you can come down
Just like the lights went out
Again and again, time and again
Again and again
Because the band explains, this music got here from emotions of top-of-year exhaustion and vacancy. “I keep in mind I positively felt a way of being overwhelmed, questioning the place some contemporary inspiration was going to return from,” Nathan Towles, who performs in Trip Manor along with Cole Younger, tells Atwood Journal. “I simply wanted to jot down a music about that and get it off of my chest. It offers with emotions of insecurity or comparability when beginning a brand new file.”
Dwelling within the second’s not so unhealthy
However now it’s gone and it was all you had
You slept proper via the Winter
And forgot in regards to the Fall
Now residing via the second’s
Obtained you residing on the еdge
You’re residing on the еdge
Considering you struck out
Wishing you can come down
Just like the lights went out
Again and again, time and again
Again and again
A golden-hued pop-rock reverie, “January (Over & Over)” is a bona fide come-up from the comedown: A dreamy, dramatic outpouring of catchy and cathartic sound right here to remind us that we’re not alone in our distress: Everybody hates January. It’s the way it’s all the time been, and it’s the way it will all the time be. Perhaps it has to do with the December’s unfiltered vacation excessive: That dopamine rush that comes with closing out the yr with numerous festivities. You have a good time and ring all of it in, solely to seek out you must do it another time. “January (Over & Over)” is a welcome balm – a heat and wondrous reverie, right here to supply slightly gentle within the darkness.
There’s nobody standing up in your means
But it surely’s really easy accountable
It’s regardless of of time
And it’s no use ready ’til the whole lot feels proper
Considering you struck out
Wishing you can come down
Just like the lights went out
Again and again, time and again
Again and again, and again and again
Again and again
“Rushmere”
by Mumford & Sons
Britain’s unique “stomp and holler” band is again and sounding higher than ever: With the discharge of “Rushmere” in mid-January, Mumford & Sons not solely delivered their first music in a yr’s time (since Jan. ‘24’s “Good Folks” with Pharrell), however additionally they introduced their first studio album of the 2020s: RUSHMERE, the long-awaited ‘follow-up’ to 2018’s Delta, will come out on March 28th through Glassnote.
Don’t you miss the breathlessness
The wildness within the eye?
Come residence late within the morning gentle
Bloodshot goals beneath streetlight spells
A reality nobody can inform
And I used to be nonetheless a secret to myself
A folk-rock fever dream that feels a contemporary because it does timeless, “Rushmere” is a surprising homage to the band’s roots – each musically and metaphorically. It was round Rushmere Pond, on Wimbledon Frequent in southwest London, that Marcus Mumford, Ben Lovett, and Ted Dwane determined to kind a band.
And what higher technique to honor your origin story, than by returning to the sounds that first impressed you? Informal listeners could be forgiven for mistaking “Rushmere” as some long-lost monitor off Sigh No Extra, the band’s multi-platinum debut. There’s an instantaneous kinship between the brand new music and now-‘traditional’ hits like “Little Lion Man,” “The Cave,” and “I Will Wait.” Sixteen years on, the acoustic guitars are nonetheless jangling, the banjos are nonetheless twanging, and Marcus Mumford’s rustic voice nonetheless aches with an undeniably uncooked ardour, angst, and craving.
The band discover each a musical and an emotional launch within the refrain – a dramatic, cathartic climax that’s as nostalgic and wistful as it’s grounded within the second. Mumford & Sons transport as again to the start, reminiscing fondly whereas harnessing that very same power that drove them onward of their earliest days. It’s upbeat, intimate, exhilarating, and superbly human:
Mild me up, I’m wasted at the hours of darkness
Rushmere, stressed hearts in the long run
Get my head out of the bottom
Time don’t allow us to down once more
That is folks rock at its most interesting; a nod to Mumford & Sons’ previous, embedded with their DNA, that nonetheless feels just like the thrilling begin to a model new chapter – which it most definitely is. All informed, “Rushmere” is the proper reintroduction to Mumford & Sons – a reminder of why the world first fell in love with them practically 20 years in the past, and a testomony to their enduring skill to seize our ears and our hearts.
Take me again to empty lawns
And nowhere elsе to go
You say, “Come get misplaced in a fairground crowd”
Wherе nobody is aware of your identify
There’s solely sincere errors
There’s no value to a wasted hour
Nicely, gentle me up, I’m wasted at the hours of darkness
Rushmere, stressed hearts in the long run
And get my head out of the bottom
Time don’t allow us to down once more
“Did You Ever Care”
by Dreamer Isioma
It’s the sheer warmth of “Did You Ever Care” that hits first: Dreamer Isioma’s first music of the yr, launched January 31st in tandem with the explosive upheaval “Lifeless Finish,” is sizzling, heavy, uncooked, and raging: A smoldering seduction that aches inside and outside. The primary have a look at Isioma’s new album StarX Lover (pronounced ‘star-crossed lover,’ out this Spring) finds the singer/songwriter embracing a tougher edge, mixing various and rock components into their genre-fluid music for a brand new sound they affectionately name “Afropop rock.”
She has the kind of seems that kill
The kind of seems that
begin a battle for generations
I’ve been ready patiently
For the kiss of dying
I’m such a wreck
Please take my breath away
I simply need you subsequent to me
I simply wanna f* then fall asleep
I simply wanna f* then fall asleep
with you in my arms, oh honey
The result’s nothing in need of breathtaking, as “Did You Ever Care” welcomes listeners into its daring, lush, and cinematic soundscape. All-consuming synths soar, guitars glisten, and drums pulse a sweaty beat – and on the middle of all of it lies a human reckoning with a deeply acquainted, haunting ache. Dreamer Isioma’s vocal efficiency is as sonically intense as it’s emotionally charged as they channel their unrequited love into this sonic fever dream, evoking the fervour, the starvation, and the unrelenting angst they really feel inside.
I’m not your kind and I
What are you into
After I’m excessive on a regular basis
And I don’t know what’s actual life is
My psychiatric care is go nowhere
so that they gained’t stare at me
I want you have been subsequent to me
I simply wanna f* then fall asleep
I simply wanna f* then fall asleep
with you in my arms oh honey
As unapologetic as it’s unfiltered, “Did You Ever Care” captures a damaged coronary heart and soul’s reeling. It’s the product of emotional churn, which makes it an all-too excellent accompaniment to February 2025’s blues. Because the world burns and we really feel helpless to cease it, we deserve music that matches the second – and Dreamer Isioma has delivered in spades.
Begin a battle begin a riot I don’t care
I’m past numb past egocentric
I’m self-aware
F* it
Did you ever care about me
As a result of I like you
Did you ever care about me
As a result of I like you
Did you ever care about me
As a result of I like you
In The Shadow of the Holy Mountain
by Blind Pilot
Hear me out: We Are the Tide stays my all-time favourite, however Within the Shadow of the Holy Mountain is, definitely, residence to a few of their finest music – and simply essentially the most cohesive, cathartic, and well-rounded file of Blind Pilot’s 18-year profession.
The indie folks band’s fourth studio album, launched final yr (and featured on Atwood Journal‘s “Finest Albums of 2024” function), was made with a collaborative spirit in thoughts, and finds the Oregon group dwelling within the depths of human connection, empathy, ancestry, and understanding, whereas embracing the wealthy harmonies and heat acoustic devices which have lengthy been their trademark.
All that it bleeds, all that it takes
Counting off what number of years,
what number of days
Faces of sunshine wait so that you can see
You’re not alone. You’re simply lonely
From the candy revelry of album opener “Jacaranda” and the radiant ardour of immigrant anthem “Courageous” – a fascinating music breaking down borders and constructs of ‘residence’ – to the dreamy heat of “Don’t You Know,” the appeal and churn of “Only a Hen,” the highly effective perspective shift (being alone vs. lonely) of “Faces of Mild,” and the tender, visceral craving and catharsis of album nearer “Consider Me,” Blind Pilot imbue their newest album with each a musical and a religious gentle.
That gentle shined particularly vivid this previous Saturday, because the band returned to Woodstock after taking part in a stripped-down set there simply 13 months in the past – proper earlier than they recorded the album in Josh Kaufman’s studio. Whereas they introduced a plethora of songs from all 4 albums to life onstage, it was the cuts from their newest effort that hit hardest and resonated the deepest. Within the Shadow of the Holy Mountain really is Blind Pilot’s most lovely, colourful, cathartic, and compelling album thus far – and I simply hope extra individuals get to listen to, and really feel, this file’s golden-hued musical magic. “Faces of Mild” and “Fortunate” are private favorites, however in all sincerity, begin on the prime with “Jacaranda” and let the entire thing wash over you.
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