Wristwatches and Trees

Hello and welcome to another edition of the Spins. For this week of October 10, 2025, I’m aiming to keep it brief. I have not been sleeping well, and there have not been a ton of music things running through my head. So, with that said, let’s begin with the Obsessions.

The Obsessions

“Wristwatch”

I highlighted MJ Lenderman’s Watching Fireworks in my first dispatches of this newsletter, which were the two parts of the best albums from 2024. While there are a number of excellent songs on the album, “Wristwatch” has come back into my mind over the last few days. The particular line is “And I’ve got a wristwatch that tells me I’m on my own.” Why has this been popping up? Who knows, but it is certainly a good song to return to. With the current stream of rocking Americana artists going right now (e.g., Ryan Davis, Sam Freeman, Wednesday), it’s a good time to return to this song and its off-kilter majesty.

My Obligatory Take on The Taylor Swift Album as a Person Who Writes About Music

So, unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that Taylor Swift released The Life of a Showgirl last week. The typing intelligentsia has spent a lot of time considering this album, as Taylor Swift is a multigenerational pop star and a cultural juggernaut. We only have to remember briefly that her Eras Tour made billions and set off seismometers around the world. The streets were hyped when they found out that Swift had gotten back with Max Martin and Shellback to release a concise album of only 12 tracks, running around 40 minutes. The result, as you also may have read, has been mixed. Some people think it’s OK. Some people think it’s actively bad. Many of those two just see it as an act of greed.

The reality is that the last part is true. The release of multiple variants along with the movie, which was just a music video and people talking about the creation of the album, is just plain capitalistic greed. This isn’t too surprising as Swift has always been about getting the bag. With regard to the music, there is some extremely bad writing on this album. I only need to point you to the entirety of the song “Wood,” which is a (at absolute best) thinly veiled song about Travis Kelce’s penis. There are songs that air out petty grievances, which is something that Swift, a star that no one can touch, should not be doing on an album that she wants people to take seriously. But, in the grand scheme of things, these are small potatoes.

The larger, more pressing problem with the album is that it is boring. It is deathly, deathly boring. When you have a songwriter like Swift, who, when she is trying, can tell a lovely story or express a cutting sentiment with a couple of lines, paired with the genius duo of Max Martin and Shellback (who helped her create bangers on Red, 1989, and Reputation), the result should be good. Martin and Shellback, to their credit, do their job well. The production is professional and rock solid. It sounds like they took their time and worked to create a high quality album. Unfortunately, as I noted above, Swift’s writing does not rise to the requisite level.

As a result, you’re left with an album that starts off pretty well with “The Fate of Ophelia,” “Elizabeth Taylor,” and “Opalite.” When we get to “Father Figure,” things get shaky, but it’s not terrible. The train has started going off the rails at “Eldest Daughter,” a clunky piano ballad that just does not work. It kills the momentum, and the album never truly recovers after that. There are songs with dancy beats that are trying to raise the tempo again, but time and time again, Swift’s writing fails to rise to the task, making listening a chore. By the time you get to the last track, which is the title track that features Sabrina Carpenter (whose steez Swift tries—and fails—to steal earlier on the album) doing laps around Swift, you’re thankful that the whole thing is going to be over soon.

If you know a young person who is trying to convince you this album is good, look them dead in the eye, tell them it is not, and then hand them a copy of Lemonade, Purple Rain, Body Talk, Body Language, or What’s Your Pleasure?, among many other better written, more engaging pop albums. They will look at you and ask how they are supposed to play a piece of physical media. Tell them to talk to their parents.

The Recommendations

Night Tapes - portals//polarities

If you forget what it is like to drift through the magic that is the nighttime, with its thrill of possibility and mystery, this album is a good way to remember it. The London-based trio produce dreamy, propulsive music, using the voice of Iiris Vesik as a guide for a variety of explorations into freedom and love, among other things. Indebted to dream pop, synth pop, trip-hop, and deep house, it is a good album for just chilling or when you’re transitioning into the night.

Rochelle Jordan - Through The Wall

As I have been saying in this newsletter, R&B is having a massive moment right now. There are a lot of women who are sitting in the traditional wing, with slow ballads and beautiful voices. There are also a lot of women who are expanding the boundaries of what R&B can be, such as newsletter favorites PinkPantheress, Erika de Casier, Yaya Bey, and Kelela. Add Rochelle Jordan to this list. Her album Through The Wall is R&B filtered through late-night house music. Some of the beats bang, but a lot of the beats simmer, humming with a smooth intensity. Jordan’s voice is smooth, and she sounds like the best house diva, giving legends like Crystal Waters a run for her money. I have listened to this album a few times already, and it gets better with each subsequent listen. It’s a lovely addition to this golden era of progressive R&B.

The Cords - The Cords

Give two young ladies a copy of C86 and the catalog of Sarah Records, and then put them in a studio. The result will be this album. While this might sound like it’ll be derivative, it’s not. The Sisters Tedeschi, Eva and Grace, take all of that source material and synthesize it in their own way. Their debut album features songs that concern modern issues like creeps and shitty dudes over instrumentation that is both sharper and more primitive than their source material, as it is only the two of them with a guitar and a drum kit. Some songs jangle, some songs buzz, and all of them charm. In addition, they understand the indie pop brief. The album is thirteen songs of killer pop hooks in a half-hour. A real delight of an album.

Say She She - Cut & Rewind

Do you like three-part harmonies? Do you like disco and funk? Do you like ESG? If you can answer yes to at least one of these questions, you should listen to this album. The three ladies at the center have excellent voices and they are accompanied by a crack set of musicians who always know how to create an excellent groove. I was a fan of their previous album, Silver, so it was great to hear that they followed up on it with an equally excellent set of modern disco/funk tracks.

Phoebe Rings - Aseurai

Hailing from New Zealand, Phoebe Rings takes a novel approach to dream pop, a genre I’m constantly talking about in this newsletter. Rather than just turning up their amps and making their guitars scream, Phoebe Rings get jazzy with it. They take that core dream pop sound (soft vocals, fuzzy guitars, languid bass lines) and stir in some jazz, disco, and city pop. The result is a new approach to an old friend, one that reminded me of why I still like dream pop.

Folk Bitch Trio - Now Would Be A Good Time

I came because I heard that this Australian group has lovely three-part harmonies. That is certainly true. I stayed because the writing is excellent, and they are very good at atmosphere. Sometimes, the instrumentation is simple, others more complex. In all cases, the songs are a little weirder than you would expect from a folk group, but that is a good thing in my book. If you have been listening to the Americana albums that I’ve been talking about here, you should put this one in your queue as well.

Big Thief - Double Infinity

It took me a while to get to this one, but I’m glad that I did. If you know the folkier Big Thief and love them, you will be in for a bit of a shock here. The band takes a jazzier, psychedelic approach to their music this time around. The music pulses a bit more; it is a little more uptempo. While you can hear the old band still poking around the edges, the new form is quite different. Adrienne Lenker’s voice still brings everything together, but at times, she’s in Elizabeth Fraser mode, using her voice as an instrument rather than a conveyance for lyrics. I really liked this album quite a bit. It took me on a rather interesting journey through time and space, and I would not be mad if they wanted to continue on in this mode for a while.

Bitchin Bajas - Inland See

Bitchin Bajas have been a part of the underground psychedelic scene for quite a while now, inhabiting a similar kosmiche/krautrock space as Sun Araw. Their tracks float and groove in interesting, dynamic ways. While they can skirt ambient, there is too much going on for it to fall truly into that genre. The highlight of this album is the 18-minute track “Graut,” which mutates around an Autobahn-esque beat. It’s absolutely stunning. If you have been interested in the psych space but don’t want to listen to a bunch of screaming guitars and dudes yelling about nothing, this album is for you.

Automatic - Is It Now?

The L.A.-based Automatic play music that exist somewhere in the continuum between ESG and Luscious Jackson. Clearly rooted in cool post-punk, their music grooves hard. The deep bass lines are accompanied by a variety of synth lines and funky drums as well as dark lyrics about our current post-capitalist hellscape and absolutely terrible men. While the words were not always the most upbeat, I had an excellent time listening to this record. I think they’re really locked in, and that’s a hard place for a band to get to.

While there are a couple more things I think I could put in here, this feels like a natural place to stop. Next week’s dispatch will be about something. What exactly? I have no idea. We’ll see when I have to actually start writing it. Until then, be kind to yourselves and each other.