Atwood Journal is happy 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 may be a lot unimaginable music on the market simply ready to be heard, and all it takes from us is an open thoughts and a willingness to pay attention. By way of 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 Bon Iver, Japanese Breakfast, Samia, Michael Marcagi, spill tab, and Djo!
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Bon Iver’s music has at all times had soul, however by no means fairly like this. With SABLE, fABLE, Justin Vernon and firm channel love, therapeutic, and human connection right into a radiant, revelatory, and radical reinvention. Steeped in heat and non secular renewal, the band’s fifth studio album is a soulful, hopeful, and heartfelt odyssey – a luminous tapestry of intentionality, candy sound, uncooked intimacy, and fearless, boundary-pushing sonic exploration. Achingly tender and breathtakingly stunning in and out, SABLE, fABLE marks a definite, dramatic rebirth for the Bon Iver mission, now in its 19th yr. Without delay intimate and expansive, it displays on the place we’ve been and imagines the place we would go, bathed in golden gentle.
I can see the place you’re coming from
I obtained time, I may give you some
I simply adore it once you name me “Child”
Although it’s taking place much less recently
I can match
I can match all of it
Nothing’s actually improper so
Any longer
The songs of SABLE, fABLE really feel much less like compositions and extra like choices — vivid expressions of presence, compassion, id, and catharsis that radiate with light grace and emotional immediacy. A mantra of conscious existence wrapped in glowing harmonies, “every part is peaceable love” shimmers with quiet pleasure and soft-spoken gratitude, whereas “there’s a rhythmn” pulses with kinetic power and an undercurrent of awe, balancing intimacy and abstraction in basic Bon Iver style. “day one,” a collaboration with Dijon and Flock of Dimes, swells with marvel and renewal, its swirling textures and expansive melodies evoking the very feeling of a contemporary begin.
Don’t let it hassle your thoughts
Simply take my love in your time
No have to hurry
Give me your fear
We are able to simply hold it right here for now
But when there’s one track that feels just like the album’s emotional core, it’s “from” – a quiet masterclass in empathy that leans into love not as spectacle, however as regular presence. A panoramic collaboration between Vernon, mk.gee, Jacob Collier, Tobias Jesso Jr., and others, “from” elevates Bon Iver’s sound into new emotional terrain as Vernon delivers a soul-stirring meditation on perspective, gratitude, and self-worth formed via love. “I can see the place you’re coming from / I obtained time, I may give you some,” he sings over mk.gee’s distinctive guitar tones, his uncooked voice a beacon of unfiltered honesty and care. There’s no rush, no strain – simply house, softness, and belief. “Don’t let it hassle your thoughts / Simply take my love in your time,” he croons, backed by a refrain of spellbinding harmonies, providing consolation with out situation. mk.gee’s signature textures mix seamlessly into Bon Iver’s sonic world, including rhythmic nuance and atmospheric depth to a observe that seems like a wealthy, heat exhale. “from” doesn’t simply converse to like — it embodies it, in all its persistence, presence, and quiet grace.
After I known as you from the resort
You mentioned you had been doing effectively
However I might inform
Simply final Could there was confetti within the automobile
And now, it appears we’re far aside
However I’m prepared
Don’t you’re feeling me?
Don’t you’re feeling compelled?
Oh, you now can simply be your self
Any longer
On this musical second of stillness and give up, Bon Iver remind us that love – actual, grounding, transformative love – could be each compass and remedy. “from” could also be one observe amongst many, however it captures the soul of SABLE, fABLE in its purest kind: Affected person, beneficiant, and deeply human. Because the album weaves via meditations on presence, perspective, and emotional renewal, this track stands out as a quiet, shimmering reminder of how far just a little softness can go. It’s the form of track that etches itself into your coronary heart and stays there, not simply as a favourite from the album, however as one among Bon Iver’s most timeless and tender choices. For me, it already seems like eternally.
Don’t let it hassle your thoughts
Simply take my love in your time
I’m prepared, run from worry
I’m from someplace removed from right here
So inform me when the coast is evident
Wanna kiss you ear from ear
Can I take one other yr?
Should I be so rattling extreme?
From the valley to the pier
I’m beset with what we might turn into
Inform me you prepared
I can see the place you’re coming from
I’m holding regular
We are able to simply hold it right here for now
“Image Window”
by Japanese Breakfast
Tright here’s a quiet, comforting devastation to Japanese Breakfast’s dreamy “Image Window,” a track that feels prefer it’s always exhaling grief and gathering it again in once more. It’s light, celestial, and achingly current – an ambient meditation on reminiscence and loss, wrapped in a softly seductive haze of synths and spectral harmonies. The observe finds singer/songwriter Michelle Zauner reckoning together with her personal inside demons as she lives her life along with somebody much less weighed down by those self same worries and fears; in distinction to her associate’s lightness, she carries the load of what’s been misplaced – and that dichotomy brings its personal emotional terrain to navigate.
My child loves a port city
And a shuffle
Solely cries on Ferris wheels
This child’s on the verge of
If she misplaced him, would most actually be dedicated
Are you not afraid of each waking minute
That your life might go you by?
But it’s the refrain that lands with breathtaking weight:
“However all of my ghosts are actual… All of my ghosts are my house.”
In a single line, Zauner captures the haunting familiarity of ache – the best way sorrow can settle into us, not as one thing to conquer, however one thing to stay with. It’s not only a lyric; it’s a worldview; one which doesn’t flinch from the presence of grief, however folds it into the self. Heard casually, “Image Window” would possibly float by as merely upbeat, melodic, and heat – however linger a second, and the ache units in. That visceral repetition of “my ghosts” turns into each confession and acceptance: a recognition that the previous, regardless of how heavy, is a part of who we’re.
Coronary heart breaking like a punch card
Retains his mouth shut
Retains his thoughts fastened and effectively hidden
You dream sufficient for 2, pricey
Image window
Looking at someplace else
“Since I used to be younger, I’ve struggled with intrusive ideas of family members dying in horrible methods,” Zauner shared earlier this month. “My thoughts jumps to the worst-case situation, a reflex solely intensified by actual experiences with loss. Loving somebody who doesn’t share that very same sense of fear could be each a reduction and a problem.”
“Image Window” doesn’t seek for decision – it merely lets us sit inside the sensation. It’s a track about trying outward via glass whereas nonetheless being tethered to every part that lives inside. And in that pressure, Japanese Breakfast presents one among their most quietly profound statements thus far – a glowing centerpiece on her newest album, For Melancholy Brunettes (& unhappy ladies), the place grief, reminiscence, and love coalesce in mushy, beautiful concord.
Do you not conceive of my loss of life at each minute
Whereas your life simply passes you by?
However all of my ghosts are actual
All of my ghosts are actual
All of my ghosts are my house
All of my ghosts are actual
All of my ghosts are actual
All of my ghosts are my house
“Gap in a Body”
by Samia
“A little loss of life goes a good distance.” Samia delivers the road with such disarming straightforwardness, you may not suppose too deeply about it. However you do – she makes positive of that, her voice deliberately lingering on each phrase simply lengthy sufficient for its full weight to choose the soul. On “Gap in a Body,” one of the crucial stirring and surreal songs off her upcoming sophomore album Cold, this lyric acts as each emotional thesis and existential mantra – a recognition of how even the smallest losses, slips, or ego deaths can ripple via our lives with outsized drive.
Nothing goes the way it was gonna
You miss the boat, you gotta swim
However I don’t need to let you know that
Tulsa, Oklahoma, gap in a body
Sid was vicious
And the drywall cracked
Like an autograph
That endlessly appreciates
Just a little loss of life goes a good distance
What does it imply, to expertise “just a little loss of life”? In French, la petite mort is usually a euphemism (go look it up), however in Samia’s world, the phrase carries a distinct kind of weight. It evokes the numerous tiny disappearances we endure – of selves, of illusions, of certainties. The loss of life of a model of you that not suits. The quiet ending of one thing unstated. A realization that modifications the course with out asserting itself.
“‘Gap in a Body’ is a couple of fascination with disappearing and the facility of absence,” Samia shared. There’s consolation in vacancy right here—not a void, however a form of clearing. An invite to step out of focus, to un-be for a second. She’s not lamenting these vanishings a lot as learning them, perhaps even discovering refuge inside them. That line – repeated like some sacred textual content by the top – transforms from lament to liberation.
There I’m the place I shouldn’t be
Clearly, I purchased the ticket
and took the trip
Pissing within the wind and
Making an attempt to bypass your
line of imaginative and prescient from stage proper
Like {a photograph}
Of the final time I got here
Just a little loss of life goes a good distance
The track itself drifts like a reminiscence, all mushy corners and elliptical phrasing. From Tulsa, Oklahoma to cracked drywall and stage proper, Samia builds a collage of pictures that sparkle and fade like overexposed movie. There’s no narrative, simply snapshots: Fractured, stunning, and half-submerged. Just like the “gap in a body” she references, we’re left to take a seat with what’s lacking.
In the long run, “Gap in a Body” doesn’t give solutions – it leans into absence. And in doing so, Samia captures one thing that feels oddly hopeful: That there’s energy in slipping away, peace in being momentarily undefined. Just a little loss of life goes a good distance – and perhaps that’s the purpose.
It’s raining, I’m straying from the border
what they are saying
in regards to the child and the coroner
Perhaps I used to be born for this
Dying to myself
Whilst you maintain the onus
Will you maintain the onus?
Just a little loss of life goes an extended
Just a little loss of life goes an extended
Just a little loss of life goes an extended
Just a little loss of life goes a good distance
“Midwest Child”
by Michael Marcagi
“Midwest Child” is an anthem, a homecoming, a reckoning — however greater than something, it’s a reclamation. Michael Marcagi’s first single of the yr and the title observe off his model new EP (out right now through Warner Data), “Midwest Child” is the form of track that wears its coronary heart — and its hometown — on its sleeve. It’s not only for these raised amongst cornfields, rust-belt cities, or huge sky plains; it’s for anybody who’s carried a chunk of their previous into the current. Anybody who’s ever longed for easier occasions, for entrance yards and childhood laughter, for one thing that felt like security — even when it by no means actually was.
I wanna get misplaced within the ocean
The place nobody is aware of my title
And all of my confusion
Can wash out in a wave
I wanna return to my entrance yard
Simply laughing like a toddler
The solar over my heat pores and skin
Haven’t felt that for some time, for some time
“It’s in regards to the place I used to be born, raised, and nonetheless name house,” the Cincinnati, Ohio native explains. “It’s about beginning this loopy new chapter of my life whereas navigating and sustaining the relationships I’ve with family and friends in my hometown. I’m very pleased with the place I’m from, and I hope to hold that with me eternally.”
There’s a rawness to “Midwest Child” — emotionally and sonically. Over driving guitar strums and a gradual beat, Marcagi blends nostalgia with vulnerability, singing of sleepless nights, buried secrets and techniques, and the ache of not being believed. “I’m simply one other damaged, messed-up Midwest child,” he repeats within the observe’s charged chorus, turning a second of self-doubt into an immediately memorable rallying cry. The lyric hits like a confession, however it additionally seems like solidarity — an acknowledgment that brokenness and delight can coexist. That house can each wound you and be your anchor.
And all my fears
I can’t let go
And I’ve been holding on
For method too lengthy
And also you don’t imagine me
You by no means did
I’m simply one other damaged
tousled midwest child
“I wanna return to my entrance yard, simply laughing like a toddler,” he sings, reaching for one thing simply out of attain. And isn’t that the guts of it? The craving to be seen. To return. To maneuver ahead with out letting go of the place you got here from.
“Midwest Child” is a track of place, sure — but additionally of personhood. It’s a reminder that id is messy and exquisite and filled with ghosts we be taught to stay with. Marcagi doesn’t faux to have all of it discovered. He simply sings the reality as he is aware of it — and in doing so, he offers the remainder of us one thing to carry on to, too.
And all of the nights that I couldn’t sleep
The secrets and techniques that I couldn’t hold
All of it comes dashing again to me
I can’t escape even in my goals
Oh and all of the nights that I couldn’t sleep
The secrets and techniques that I couldn’t hold
All of it comes dashing again to me,
all of it comes dashing again
And all my fears
I can’t let go
And I’ve been holding on
For method too lengthy
And also you don’t imagine me
You by no means did
I’m simply one other damaged tousled midwest child
Achingly intimate, unapologetically various, and soaked in seductive emotional static, “Angie” is a hypnotic, psychedelic fever dream. The title observe off spill tab’s long-awaited debut album doesn’t ask for our consideration; it pulls us beneath, wrapping our ears – and by extension, our souls – in waves of overdriven guitar, hazy synth, ethereal falsetto, and feverish, unfiltered emotion. It’s uncooked and churning, delicate and damaging — a mushy, shiver-inducing scream into the void, with melodies that sparkle like hallucinations simply out of attain.
I’ve you lined up, up, up
Angie, you’re on my thoughts
(Ooh, oh-oh-ooh, ooh)
I hate you, I don’t, don’t, don’t
Angie, she’s on my thoughts
“I’ve you lined up, up, up / Angie, you’re on my thoughts,” spill tab – aka LA-based French-Korean singer, songwriter, and producer Claire Chicha – sings, her voice barely clinging to the chaos that surrounds it. There’s vulnerability right here, but additionally volatility – a push-pull of need and detachment that unravels over ghostly harmonies and fuzzed-out textures. It’s a track of obsession, frustration, and fractured id, the place longing and loathing collide in a single breath: “I hate you, I don’t, don’t, don’t…”
The track’s dreamlike depth mirrors the story of its creation. “‘Angie’ was began on the high of 2023… I used to be in a bizarre place on the time,” spill tab shares. “I wasn’t feeling impressed… I used to be simply actually struggling to jot down usually.” However surrounded by collaborators John Hill and Jared Solomon (aka solomonophonic), one thing shifted. “I picked up this stunning nylon within the nook and simply began tuning it to no matter method sounded good to me, and the preliminary chords of ‘Angie’ got here out. It was known as ‘BostonNova’ till it wasn’t, and I simply knew I cherished it from day one.”
That spontaneity, that intuitive spark, pulses via the ultimate observe. “Angie” seems like a track pulled from the unconscious – pieced collectively from intrusive ideas, flickering reminiscences, and unstated fears. It performs with absence as a lot as presence; it’s music that haunts greater than it resolves.
Large occasions
However this time I’ll let you know something
Make a idiot of me tonight
Beholden by need
Darling, your title (Ooh-ooh)
Performs on (Performs on)
The again mind (Oh-oh, oh-ooh)
I’ve you lined up, up, up
Angie, you’re on my thoughts
(Ooh, oh-oh-ooh, ooh)
I hate you, I don’t, don’t, don’t
Angie, she’s on my thoughts
Is it a love track? Is it an ode to intoxication? Is it a confessional – an act of unbridled catharsis? Maybe it’s easy heat-of-the-moment abstraction, or perhaps it’s actually the entire above. As a centerpiece of ANGIE, the track embodies the album’s emotional core. “I like this assortment of songs so deeply. They really feel extra trustworthy than something I’ve created in a very long time,” spill tab says of the document. “It’s actually particular to listen to all these experiences on love and loss, rejection and keenness, strolling away and holding on too tight, all coexisting collectively in a single place: A end result of those previous couple of years of my life.”
And that’s what “Angie” turns into: Not only a track, however an area the place contradiction lives snug – fragile and livid, lucid and misplaced, painfully current even because it fades. “Angie” is each a weight placed on and a weight lifted — a lush, intensely immersive second of churn and allure we’ll hold returning to, lengthy after the music’s gone.
I’ve you lined up, up, up
Angie, you’re on my thoughts
(Ooh, oh-oh-ooh, ooh)
I hate you, I don’t, don’t, don’t
Angie, she’s on my thoughts
Djo’s “Potion” is mushy magic — a mild daydream of longing, love, and quiet hope. A standout observe off The Crux, Joe Keery’s third album beneath his musical moniker Djo, “Potion” floats in like a breeze via an open window: heat, wistful, and splendidly unusual. Its simple, lulling rhythm feels nearly deceptively easy, however beneath the floor is a world of marvel and craving.
After I get up at 3 within the morning
Witching hour too sturdy
Like a witch, I do know I would like my potion
I, I, I would discover love
I’m in search of it in an alphabet soup cup
I’m trying beneath my thumb
It’s trying like just a little rain cloud loves me
I, I, I…
Anchored by lilting acoustic guitars, delicate percussion, and Keery’s tender falsetto, “Potion” trades the frenetic, technicolor swirl of earlier singles like “Fundamental Being Fundamental” and “Delete Ya” for one thing extra intimate, extra weak, extra stripped-down – extra human. It’s Laurel Canyon by means of dream-pop; delicate and stripped-down, but quietly revelatory. “‘Potion’ is like your favourite pair of blue denims,” Keery shares. “I’d been engaged on Travis choosing after I wrote this track, so it’s form of like if Harry Nilsson and Lindsey Buckingham had a child.”
Lyrically, “Potion” swims in candy surrealism and sentimentality: “I’m in search of it in an alphabet soup cup / I’m trying beneath my thumb…” There’s humor within the metaphor, however a heavy coronary heart behind it — a soul looking out the on a regular basis for one thing extraordinary. For connection. For somebody who’ll keep.
The refrain, feather-light and hauntingly stunning, is the place the observe’s quiet emotional energy blooms:
I’ll attempt for all of my life
Simply to search out somebody
who leaves on the sunshine for me
Leaves on the sunshine for me
Ah-ah
There’s a tenderness in that imagery — the softest type of devotion, of being remembered and held in another person’s world. It’s a hope that doesn’t demand fireworks, only a gentle left on.
With “Potion,” Keery presents not only a track, however a second – a mild pause within the album’s arc, filled with sincerity, vulnerability, and heat. It’s the form of observe you come to when the world feels too loud; the form of observe that doesn’t simply ask to be heard, however to be felt.
Mr Magic and the trapdoor women
Large stroll, no discuss
Glitz and glamour doesn’t age like wine does
I’m countin’ on love
When the guide is within the ultimate chapter
Man, it’s at all times unhappy to go
Whatcha taking from the rightful lender?
I, I, I…
Since first debuting Djo in 2019, Keery has persistently confirmed himself a singular voice and a standout songwriter — and but “Potion,” with its lightness, its humanity, and its fleeting, comforting grace, nonetheless feels contemporary, enjoyable, and revelatory. In its stillness, it presents one thing uncommon: A reminder that even in life’s most unsure moments, there’s magnificence in attempting, and solace within the hope that somebody, someplace, would possibly depart on the sunshine.
Within the sea of 2025’s songs, “Potion” is an immediate standout — tender, timeless, simple to like, and not possible to neglect.
I’ll attempt for all of my life
Simply to search out somebody
who leavеs on the sunshine for me
Leavеs on the sunshine for me
Ah-ah
I’ll attempt for all of my life
Simply to search out somebody
who leaves on the sunshine for me
Leaves on the sunshine for me
Ah-ah
— — — —
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