There’s too much good music to get bored during quarantine. Here’s what’s on repeat for me.

Tracks

• “Window” (Still Woozy, April 17) 
  • Sven Gamsky returns with the first song since his “Lately EP” came last year. It’s a song with watery synth notes, faint guitar strums and sounds sampled from a creaking bed — a perfect pick for anything close to a summer day. 
  • It’s a song about a guy conflicted with his relationship. He knows it’s the right match, knows it’s good, but he makes himself skeptical — and asks his significant other to “pull [him] closer, please” to wipe away his worries.     
  • But the song’s tone fits the narrator’s, who knows he’s happy and that they both fit together in the end.

• “PDLIF” (Bon Iver, April 17)  
  • Justin Vernon re-enters the music scene for the first time since his “i,i” LP last year with a sample from saxophonist Alabaster DePlume, combining it with his own varying vocals and those of Kacy Hill, who delivers a soprano line a few times throughout the song. It all feels like a short glimpse of a few different worlds, especially Hill’s part — all worlds I’d pay good money to visit.  
  • The title is an abbreviation for “Please Don’t Live In Fear,” a declaration and insistence from Vernon in a period when most struggle to not fear the uncertainty of the times. All proceeds benefit the humanitarian organization Direct Relief, so give it a few listens.

• “Leader of the Delinquents” (Kid Cudi, April 14) 
  • The newest single from rapper-producer-rocker Scott Mescudi in years — after releasing a riveting project in “KIDS SEE GHOSTS” with Kanye West, but two mediocre solo projects in “Indicud” and “Passion, Pain & Demon Slayin’” — is the sharpest and simplest he’s sounded in years. But lucky for longtime listeners, he’s just as delinquent.  
  • Cudi’s never been a technical lyricist, which is part of what draws in most of his fan base. But he’s as lyrical as he’s been here, coasting over hard-hitting drums with sprinkled-in piano. He’s boasting, but also self-deprecating, exploring themes like the loneliness of celebrity and his bitter relationship with depression. 
  • And aside from all of that, the track would be worth a handful of listens for the Cudi-humming alone.

• “Kyoto” (Phoebe Bridgers, April 9) 
  • “Kyoto,” the latest single from indie-folk singer-songwriter Phoebe Bridgers, is nearly as good as “Garden Song,” the mesmerizing lead single off her new album landing this summer. 
  • It’s a song about living the life of someone else, maybe one that you don’t deserve to — Bridgers describes a day off from performing in Japan, for fans that somehow are dying to hear from her. 
  • There are flashbacks to peering at jetstreams with her little brother and exclamatory desires to see the world differently — it has you transfixed, energy-filled and emotionally drained all at once.

“Woo!” (Remi Wolf, April 3)

• Just press play, this track’s super fun and you’ll be happier after. That’s all.

• “Dear April (Side A – Acoustic)” (Frank Ocean, April 3)
  • Frank Ocean is notorious for lazy releases and rumors, so it wasn’t a surprise to find two new singles off his presumptive new album with just a couple days of advance notice. 
  • But “Dear April” — the far superior ballad to its released counterpart, “Cayendo” — soars with minimalist chord progressions and light organ notes to prop yet another late-night headphone gem from Frank.   
  • It’s the expected material that surpasses expectations, with Frank speaking from the depths and lamenting a relationship that won’t ever be the same. And it’s reassuring to see Frank back to the basics after two rap-centric tracks in “DHL” and “In My Room.”

• “Washington DC” (Gil Scott-Heron, April 3)     
  • This remastered version of jazz poet Gil-Scott Heron’s “Washington DC” brings a clear mix to a crystal-clear message on the irony of the nation’s capital.  
  • Heron croons of “symbols of democracy, pinned up against the coast” while “citizens of poverty are barely out of sight,” making the contrast between the homeless and the pompous palpable.  
  • He finishes the track with “seems a ball of contradictions, pulling different ways//Between the folks who come and go, and ones who’ve got to say” — furthering his criticism of the politicians that come and go with sessions of Congress that overlook problems that citizens of D.C. face. 
  • It’s a modern mix of a timeless jazz classic, recorded live and made to mull over.

• “I Feel Alive” (TOPS, April 3)  
  • The listener hasn’t ever felt more alive listening to TOPS than on this track. 
  • The guitar riffs feel as likely to come off the guitar of Lindsey Buckingham or Peter Green of Fleetwood Mac as they do from TOPS lead guitarist David Carriere — it’s a song from 2020 that belongs in 1973. 
  • And it’s perfect for any context as long as there’s a sun in the sky.

• “peacefall” (Purity Ring, April 3) 
  • Off a stellar new album, “WOMB,” Purity Ring comes in with a declaration about the importance of appreciating people close to you before it’s too late. 
  • When a friend opens their heart up to you with kind words and thoughts and you’re too distracted to hear it at the time, there’s remorse to face afterward — at least to Megan James of Purity Ring. 
  • “peacefall” is the perfect recognition of the friends you don’t talk to often, but enough to treasure every word spoken.

• “Murder Most Foul” (Bob Dylan, March 27) 
  • Bob Dylan’s reputation precedes him with anything that comes out these days. At this point, he could drop off without a single commendable song and he’d still be a legend.
  • But at 78, he proves with “Murder Most Foul” his penmanship is as crafted as it was decades ago in a sprawling 17-minute track on the murder of John F. Kennedy.
  • From flowing lines about the Lincoln that carried Kennedy’s body to the 12 million Americans that watched every moment of his death, Dylan takes us back to that long day in Dallas, November 22, 1963 — whether we were alive to see it or not.

• “COVERED IN MONEY” (JPEGMAFIA, March 25) 
  • This track’s just a ton of fun and feels as perfectly thrown-together as most of Peggy’s best tracks are. 
  • After a pulsing track in “BALD!” — which is basically an ode to the trials and tribulations of…bald men  — he provides “COVERED IN MONEY,” which is about exactly what you think it is. 
  • The track flows in two parts, the first over a chanting sample that could’ve come from stomp recordings made in his living room and the second over a light, synthetic bed of sound. 
  • Most of his songs are made in parts, this taking the route of flex-first, humility later. 
  • There’s no telling how it’ll fit in his upcoming LP, “How To Build A Relationship*,” but for now, it’s a perfect single for just about any mood.

• “Persona Non Grata” (Bright Eyes, March 24) 
  • Bright Eyes hasn’t released a song in nine years, so the newest one off their upcoming album had to be good. 
  • Conor Oberst — who’s been active himself, coming off a fantastic LP in last year’s “Better Oblivion Community Center” with Phoebe Bridgers — wails over a steady drum, soaring arpeggios and a come-and-go guitar loop. Then the bagpipes come in. Bagpipes.
  • It’s a song about the necessary and hard-to-reach recognition of the importance of peace in your own mind, which is about as important now as it’s ever been.

Albums

• “Fetch The Bolt Cutters” (Fiona Apple, April 17)
  • This album’s cleverness and stranglehold on the listener projects it to a distance of its own, not remotely matched by any other album on this list. 
  • Exploring themes of the ridiculousness of mundane customs and casting light on the dishonest and disgusting side of society-controllers, it’s a far shot from any other sound — but it’s better than just about anything else, too. 
  • It feels like a scrappy masterpiece, with foot stomps and hand claps littering the background of many of the tracks. 
  • Tracks like “Under The Table” and “For Her” have never been more important to hear. The lyrics are jarring and pointed, demanding your attention and showing you just how screwed up everything is.

• “Rock Bottom Rhapsody” (Pokey LaFarge, April 10)
  • I haven’t been taken aback by how timeless an album feels since…maybe ever? 
  • Pokey LaFarge, who’s known for his folk-soul-swing influence, delivers an incredible album in “Rock Bottom Rhapsody” about moving forward with the heavy weight of self-doubt that belongs in the ‘50s and ‘60s and ‘70s all at once. 
  • As the first spoken track — and probably the most insightful — “End Of My Rope” is about reaching your own peak tolerance of life’s battles and your own internal struggle — “My shadows are breaking, the sun is fading//I’m making light of my misery, shining bright for the whole world to see.”
  • He’s a “long way from normal with not much left to go” throughout the LP, but as it ends with a crowd’s cheers and the slam of a backstage door, he’s left with a bit of optimism.
  • Then again, he still has to head back to the hotel after the concert, dealing with the same old loneliness of fame.

• “Song For Our Daughter” (Laura Marling, April 10)
  • There’s so much despair in this album, but there are equal parts comedy and optimism, intended or unintended.
  • In folk songwriter Laura Marling’s seventh full-length, she draws a gripping picture of a woman longing for an exit from her unhappy life, but it’s an impossible exit. She doesn’t have any control or say in it.  
  • With gems like “Held Down” and “Only The Strong,” Marling furthers her thought-provoking balladry and makes herself a strong case for one of the best albums of the year so far.

• “Lost in the Country” (Trace Mountains, April 10)
  • “Lost in the Country” is the best album that folk project Trace Mountains has put together, and it’s easily one of the most masterful blends of classic instrumentation with synthesizers I’ve heard this year. 
  • The lead track, “Rock & Roll,” tells you exactly what you’re going to get, bringing a set of atonal guitar sections and somehow molding them with hesitant synth notes and searing vocals. 
  • But the album doesn’t lean on modern sound for support the whole time, with more classic folk pieces like “Dog Country” and “Fallin’ Rain” grounding the project.
  • All parts mold somehow to bring a unique album perfect for anything from a long walk to background work music.

• “The New Abnormal” (The Strokes, April 10)
  • For the first time since 2003 — or at least since the first time I heard them around 2008 — once-indie-rock band The Strokes have an impressive new album to tout. 
  • “The New Abnormal” is simultaneously a return to the form of their first and strongest two albums and a venture into new sounds with synthesizers and isolated vocals. 
  • Lead singer Julian Casablancas soars on the album’s most impressive and innovative tracks like “In The Door,” which might be one of the band’s best songs to date. It’s a ballad about a breaking relationship — the band has a million of those — but Casablancas doesn’t have heavy drums or searing guitar leads to hide behind. He cries over climbing synth notes with only a hint of guitar — throughout, he’s ready to sacrifice himself for his significant other, but also confused about how to; “You begged me not to go, sinkin’ like a stone//Use me like an oar, and get yourself to shore.” 
  • With production from the legendary Rick Rubin, it’s a new angle for The Strokes that hasn’t yet been touched. There are certainly gripes, which come with tracks like “Eternal Summer,” which drones on for six minutes without much to say, and “Bad Decisions,” which is essentially a carbon copy of Billy Idol’s “Dancing with Myself.” No clue how they haven’t caught a lawsuit for that one. 
  • But this project is a reassuring and comforting statement to fans that largely saw the band as washed out and ready to move on.

• “Heaven To A Tortured Mind” (Yves Tumor, April 3)
  • This is a dream of an album to listen to before you even pay attention to what experimental artist Sean Bowie, a.k.a. Yves Tumor, is saying. 
  • But once you get there, you’ll see it’s an album that pretty much seduces the listener while also yelling at them to go away. 
  • It’s an incredible clash of psych rock and experimental-electronic and alternative that probably belongs in a museum, with tracks like “Gospel for a New Century” and “Identity Trade” showcasing Bowie’s talent for sampling and riding beats. 
  • And when that gets tiring, tracks like “Kerosene!” lighten the load — only to throw you right back in the fire with tracks like “Dream Palette.”
  • It’s an album that demands your attention, and one you should be giving plenty of attention to right now.

• “Under the Munka Moon II” (Alice Russell, April 3)
  • British vocalist and jazz artist Alice Russell returns with an impressive collection of originals and covers in “Under the Munka Moon II,” showcasing vocals that are startlingly good and tastefully empowering. 
  • I’d first learned of Russell in 2013 with “Citizens,” one of the best jazz-piano songs of the decade, in my eyes — and on this project, she hones in the near-perfect siren of a voice she had to both a calculated storm of thunder and rain, and a float-on-the-clouds outpouring of sun. 
  • She doesn’t release music terribly often, but waiting for the next installment might be too much to bear.

• “Forever Just Beyond” (Clem Snide, March 27)
  • Clem Snide delivers one of the best albums of the year here, and it’d be a mistake to not try it out.  
  • “Forever Just Beyond” is a stunning blend of acoustic and heavy folk-rock from Eef Barzelay — which is much less surprising after noting the production comes from Scott Avett, of Avett Brothers fame. 
  • It’s a sprawling but overbearing LP, dealing with extremes of both hope and depression, using a set of anecdotes and declarations to tackle heavy subjects with airy backdrops.
  • That’s no doubt due in part to Avett’s warm production, which invites all ears to listen — to empathize with Barzelay on the not-quite-pretentious “Ballad of Eef Barzelay” and share in his joy in “The Stuff of Us.”

• “Blood Bank EP – 10th Anniversary Edition” (Bon Iver, March 27)
  • Is it cheating to put “Blood Bank” on here? Of course it isn’t, because only Justin Vernon would stir up fans by releasing four live versions of old tracks from his classic 2009 EP.  
  • There’s something strangely renewing in realizing that, yeah, Vernon’s vocals can sound as mesmerizing in a live version as they do in a studio track.  
  • The titular track, “Blood Bank,” is one that draws tears and thoughts from the happiest of people on the happiest of days — but it’s a smiley cry, which is pretty exclusive. 
  • “Beach Baby” and “Babys” aren’t nearly as strong of tracks as “Blood Bank” or the final track, “Woods,” but they’re unique and impressively resonant. 
  • But “Woods” — for those who don’t know, the track was the sampled base of Kanye West’s “Lost in the World” — is a gorgeous live performance that features tag team vocals from Vernon and Mark Paulson, building into a masterful electronic crescendo that shakes the listener to the absolute core. 
  • Listening to “Blood Bank” itself isn’t enough anymore. These live versions are just too good.

• “Aporia” (Sufjan Stevens, Lowell Brams, March 24)
  • This synth-wave instrumental album from the versatile Sufjan Stevens and his stepfather, Lowell Brams, is a testament to the power of the family you choose. 
  • Brams was the opposite of a stereotypical stepparent to Stevens, focusing on him and building him up musically in his youth rather than neglecting him. This was evident in Stevens’ work, “Carrie & Lowell,” a masterpiece on the relationship between his mother, Brams and himself. 
  • Now, Stevens and Lowell team up for a collection of gems from a slew of jam sessions that each tell their own story. It’s the low melancholy of “Determined Outcome,” but also the deep warmth from “Climb That Mountain.” 
  • This is an album that instrumental listeners would love, but more importantly, it’s one that’ll turn you into an instrumental fan.

• “Melee” (Dogleg, March 13)
  • This album belongs in 2003, blasted through the speakers of a chopped-top sedan or a burnt-out garage filled with people longing for a leap into madness. 
  • What started as a bedroom-emo project became Dogleg, and what started with their 2016 self-titled EP was brought to a conclusive and seasoned declaration in their first LP, “Melee.” 
  • It’s a collection of harmed post-punk ballads and asides for the rebel in all of us — and the best of its kind so far this year. 

Listen to the full list on Spotify…