Audio Deacon

This week I’m spending time with Phoebe Bridgers’ Lost Weekend, a haunted and personal folk record shaped by grief, romantic devotion, family relationships, and the longing to make peace with the past. Bridgers surrounds these stories with ghostlike vocals, static, distortion, and moments of startling beauty, creating an album that feels simultaneously immediate and out of reach. I also consider the Christian hope that answers the album’s yearning for love, reconciliation, and glory. Happy li...

This week I’m spending time with The Arcadian Wild’s Make It Out Alive, a warm, intricate folk record full of friendship, family, childhood, mortality, beauty, and jubilee. The band continues to expand its sound with rich harmonies, thoughtful arrangements, and little instrumental flourishes tucked into nearly every corner, while keeping the songs rooted in the real world and the glory of ordinary life. Happy listening. Featured Artist & Album The Arcadian Wild — Make It Out Alive - Apple...

This week I’m bringing you two records that approach time and memory in very different ways. I begin with The Mountain Goats’ Days, a characteristically sharp and personal record from John Darnielle, full of old bands, cultural artifacts, half-remembered moments, and the strange scraps that make up a life. Then I turn to Dan Deacon’s National Geographic: Time and Water, a spacious instrumental soundtrack built from pulsing electronics, strings, piano, and slowly unfolding soundscapes. One rec...

This week I’m spending time with Charley Crockett’s Clovis, a cinematic country and western record full of dusty landscapes, outlaw tales, dangerous young men, and hard-earned wisdom. Crockett draws deeply from the great western singers of the past, but the record never feels trapped in nostalgia. It is gritty and loose when it needs to be, graceful and carefully crafted when the songs call for tenderness. Happy listening. Featured Artist & Album Charley Crockett — Clovis - Apple Music | ...

This week I’m bringing you two records that move in very different directions. I begin with Office Dog’s Prime Corner, a punchy and lived-in indie rock record full of jangly guitars, garage-band energy, and lyrical images of light, dust, dirt, fault lines, embers, and ash. Then I turn to Roger Eno’s Without Wind, Without Air — Rarities, a moving companion EP that gathers piano, strings, orchestra, and electronics into a beautiful space for reflection. One record sounds like a band cranking it...