2023 is in full swing and here at BUST we sure have been listening to some great music this Winter. As Spring is quickly coming up we wanted to share some of our favorite tunes we’ve been blasting all Winter long that will help set you up to have the most dance-inducing, heartwarming, head-bopping playlist to listen to all year long.
Margo Price
Strays
(Loma Vista)
Margo Price toyed with classic rock sounds on her last album, 2020’s That’s How Rumors Get Started, but on Strays, she channels the psychedelia of the 1960s and ’70s, with a dash of outlaw country. The album kicks off with the blistering “Been to the Mountain,” where Price tells critics—and the world—to “take your best shot” over a stomping beat threaded with trippy guitar and synth licks. Price has never shied away from tough topics in her lyrics, and Strays is no exception.
On “Lydia,” she steps into the shoes of a woman weighing the decision to have an abortion, and on “Hell in the Heartland,” she guides listeners through a dark night of the soul inspired by her own decision to quit drinking. There are still moments of (somewhat more) lightness, though: “Radio,” a shimmering bop with vocals from Sharon Van Etten, and “Light Me Up,” a raucous banger about craving an orgasm. It all adds up to a thrilling step forward in a career that’s already made Price one of the most intriguing voices in music. –eliza c. thompson
Breanna Barbara
Nothin’ But Time
(Fuzz Club)
On the follow-up to her 2016 debut, Mirage Dreams, Breanna Barbara channels Cat Power by way of Wanda Jackson to create a new brand of psychedelic rock for these tryin’ times. “Me Too” is a moody Delta blues anthem aimed at dismantling toxic masculinity, while “Weight of the World” is a rabble-rousing rockabilly ode to bodily autonomy. “My body, my choice,” she shouts over a galloping drumbeat, “go back to your church.” On closer “Weaning,” she wails for forgiveness over a wall of distortion. It’s a friendly reminder: no matter how much time you have, it will never be enough. –shannon carlin
Christine and the Queens
Redcar les adorables étoiles (Prologue)
(Because Music)
No two Christine and the Queens albums sound the same, and the experimentation only continues on Redcar les adorable étoiles (Prologue). Now using the alias Redcar, the French project plays with slinky funk beats on album opener “Ma bien aimée bye bye” before testing out ’80s electronica on “Tu sais ce qu’il me faut” and airy dream pop on “Mémoire des ailes.” One of the standouts, however, is “Rien dire,” a gorgeous, fluttering ballad about the power of communing without words. That’s something Redcar excels at: even if you don’t have an English lyric translation handy, the yearning in these songs is impossible to miss. –eliza c. thompson
Nina Hagen
Unity
(Grönland)
German punk icon Nina Hagen returns after an 11-year hiatus with Unity. Ever the activist and promoter of diverse culture (before it was fashionable), Hagen enlists help from friends like P-Funk’s George Clinton on opener “Shadrack,” Sir Bob Geldof on the bluesy “It Doesn’t Matter Now,” and her old collaborator Lene Lovich on the feminist anthem “United Women of the World.” Musically eclectic as ever, Hagen is in top form here, incorporating sounds ranging from reggae-dub to electro-rock to dance-pop; she also covers Bob Dylan’s classic “Blowing in the Wind” and Tennessee Ernie Ford’s working man’s lament “16 Tons,” making them uniquely her own. Unity is a supreme musical collection that fans both old and new will thoroughly enjoy. –michael levine
Connie Constance
Connie ConstanceMiss Power
(PIAS)
Nigerian-British singer/songwriter Connie Constance steps out stronger than ever on her second album, Miss Power. Tracks like the raucous “Kamikaze” explode with gleeful riot grrrl war cries (“They want me to be pretty/and they want me to be clean!”) referencing bullshit industry experiences (like being told, “We don’t know how to market you with braids”). The title track is equally oppositional in its lyrics but delivered with a more subtle jab, hearkening back happily to big rock anthems of the ’80s with its Pat Benatar roar. It’s hard to listen to the buoyantly catchy “Mood Hoover” and not think of the Cure, but the nod—like all of Miss Power’s homages to indie rock, folk, and punk—is stellar. –camille collins
Elysian Fields
Elysian Fields Once Beautiful Twice Removed
(OJET Studios)
N.Y.C. duo Elysian Fields’ new album was inspired by traveling through the U.S. and composed during the isolation of the recent pandemic. “Road Trip,” “Gone South,” and “Alone in the Desert” tell of the various experiences and people encountered during their journey. Oren Bloedow’s guitar strikes the perfect balance between ambient and razor sharp; vocalist Jennifer Charles sings in a soft and seductive voice but knows how to deliver a punch with lines like “Another corner café/Where life and death had it out” from the track “Elegance to Forgetting.” With Once Beautiful Twice Removed, Elysian Fields provides gorgeous music that soothes the mind and nourishes the soul. –michael levine
Frankie Cosmos
Inner World Peace
(Sub Pop)
Frankie Cosmos shaped its fifth full-length, Inner World Peace, from a selection of 100 songs the prolific Greta Kline wrote during her pandemic hiatus. The music—harmonies, and hues of ’70s folk, psych, ambient, and a delightful nod to early-2000s indie—collaborates beautifully with Kline’s soft, poetic stories of perception and personal evolution, skillfully speaking with her, beside her, or as call-and-response. Patient layers (like on the sway-inducing, five-minute-plus “Empty Head”), melodic punctuation (the dreamy, dusky single “One Year Stand”), and irreverence-wrapped introspection (the head-bobbing “Magnetic Personality”) make Peace the band's strongest work yet. A fantastic story, told both in conversation and unison. –carlee mcmanus
Ladytron
Time’s Arrow
(Cooking Vinyl)
Known for defining synth pop since 1999, Ladytron’s seventh studio album embodies the band’s signature style and makes evident its monolithic influence on bands like Chvrches and Metric. For fans, Time’s Arrow delivers some beloved consistency, while new listeners might critique a lack of variety. Vocalists Helen Marnie and Mira Aroyo are haunting and atmospheric. But while the synth is strong and steady, songs never quite reach a poignant climax. “The Night” attempts to reinvigorate the album, but ultimately falls back into the previous tracks’ pace. The title song wraps up the album with more cheek and novelty than all the other songs combined; but it feels a bit “too little too late." –kelli ebensberger
Weyes Blood
And in the Darkness, Hearts Aglow
(Sub Pop)
“Oh, we don’t have time anymore to be afraid,” Natalie Mering (aka Weyes Blood) bellows on the snap-happy dirge “Children of the Empire.” It’s why the follow-up to 2019’s Titanic Rising is full of cautiously optimistic torch songs that contemplate how we move beyond irrevocable loss (apocalyptic strummer “The Worst Is Done”), hyper isolation (doo-wop tearjerker “Hearts Aglow”), and our collective narcissism (space-age aria “God Turn Me Into a Flower”). “We’ve all become strangers, even to ourselves,” she laments on the wistful opener “It’s Not Just Me, It’s Everybody,” a bittersweet symphony for an unpredictable world. –shannon carlin
Dawn Richard & Spencer Zahn
Pigments
(Merge)
New Orleans R&B/electro-pop vocalist Dawn Richard pairs with producer and composer Spencer Zahn for their debut collaboration, Pigments. Song titles like “Sandstone,” “Vantablack,” “Cerulean,” “Saffron,” and “Umber” usher the listener from one movement to the next, a seamless and spacious composition that feels part meditation, part mantra. Reeds, guitars, electronics, and strings unspool and join their threads to form the fabric of Richard’s story until the timeless work closes with Richard stating her intentions: “I’m gon’ climb this mountain/’Til I reach the top.” –erin wolf
Sneaks
The Eva EP
(Merge)
On The Eva EP, minimalist post-punk/pop ace Sneaks (D.C.’s Eva Moolchan) conjures the mental image of someone wizarding raw, fragmented dance beats in her apartment on a weeknight: “I still wanna dance/Like it’s 3 a.m. in France” she repeats in her distinctive talk/sing style, transporting herself to a Euro club. The five tracks never stray too far from the experimental thrill of Moolchan’s recent LPs (2019’s Highway Hypnosis, 2020’s Happy Birthday), channeling elements of early Grimes, M.I.A., and ESG. This EP plays like a straight-up late-night nugget; a house party of one, but the neighbors are totally invited to eavesdrop. –erin wolf
Viagra Boys
Cave World
(YEAR0001)
The Viagra Boys throw food for thought at the wall and leave behind a sick stain with Cave World. For the band’s third album, the brash Swedish post-punk quintet deconstructs the cushy comforts modern darkness provides and gives its rowdiness room to bloom. Cathartically absurdist throughout, the boys take a nonchalantly plagued approach to what it means to be a man, then and now; “We climbed down from the trees and learned to speak,” Sebastian Murphy sings on “The Cognitive Trade-Off Hypothesis.” Transfixing and prophetic, this hypnotic and hell-raising record will lure you into its seething profundity like quicksand, but you won’t be sitting still. –rachel reed
Winter
What Kind of Blue Are You?
(Bar/None Records)
Winter’s sixth album is a dreamy confection of fuzzy guitars, otherworldly vocals, and layered walls of sound. What Kind of Blue Are You? wears its ’90s inspiration heavily: “Atonement” cops the searing guitars of My Bloody Valentine, “Lose You” sounds like an homage to the Cocteau Twins, and “Sunday” could be passed off as an unreleased Slowdive song. The album features collaborations with Hatchie and Sasami (both artists who also work with ’90s sounds) and is beautifully produced, but the best moments occur when Winter gets experimental, like on “Good.” –sarah c. jones
Meera Becker is a recent graduate of the University of California, Santa Barbara with a major in Sociology and a minor in Applied Psychology. Post-college she is still living in California and exploring different passions and interests such as writing for BUST!
