Negril - Negril Sea Sunset [1975]

Noted New York jazz & session guitarist, Eric Gale, falls in love with a seaside village in Jamaica and records a one off album there of prime roots reggae with Peter Tosh and Aston "Family Man" Barrett of the Wailers, Paul Douglas of Toots & The Maytals, among other luminaries of the scene. The results on this track are particularly interesting to me, as it feels like it takes whatever my emotional state is and shows me the other side. In the grooves here, there's both peace & tension, bliss & sadness, focus & relaxation, and it always seems to reflect back the one I'm lacking at the time. A special little cut.

Perez Prado - Sexomania [1970]

One of my absolute favorite things in music is popular musicians of an older style trying out the new sound. While very often it's just a captivating jumble of fumbles, every now and then you come across a hidden stunner. The 50's King Of Mambo giving 70's funk a spin is one of those stunners. Adding a hot little Catfish Collins-type guitar lick and some manic drumming to his music makes it sound like James Brown himself is gonna jump in at any moment, but Perez's adeptness at punctuating with guttural exclamations fits the role perfectly. A brief moment in his discography, but for me a real high point.

Enrique Mateu de Villavicencio - El Cometa [1987]

Coming out of the wonderfully reverberating El Cometa De Madrid record series, which were united by Luis Delgado's loving production, this track radiates that sort of coastal contentedness that I'm always looking for. The guitar seems to run up and down the beach as we sit back and let our thoughts take us wherever they might want.

And come on, look at that picture. That's a b-shot from the album's cover and I don't know if anything could make me pick up an album faster than someone sitting at a bank of old ass computers holding an electric guitar.

Carlos Maria Trindade - Guiar [1991]

I have to get to the Iberian Peninsula. I keep coming across shimmering guitar music from there that sets me off tumbling on a breeze. I don't know what it's like there, but based on this lovely piece, I have a feeling one breathe of their morning air will make it all make sense.

Arthur Russell - "Instrumentals" Volume 1 (Part 1) [1975]

I floats with this one. Arthur Russell and his little chamber band bring an airy wistfulness that never settles, propelled by its improvised mutations. The musicians, which include Rhys Chatham, Peter Gordon, Ernie Brooks (Modern Lovers), Andy Paley, and others who I'm sure too look deeper into in the near future, seem to do more than simply play the music, instead finding something of their selves inside it and playing that instead.

serpentwithfeet - bless ur heart [2018]

A lot of singers reach dizzying heights, and I love hearing them do it, but what separates serpentwithfeet is that before he reaches those apexes we're used to, he shows you the struggle to get there. I've yet to catch a song of his that does anything less than give me a complete emotional journey through pain and peace, and with this as the first release from his upcoming debut album, soil, I don't know that I ever will.

Peter Michael Hamel - Organum Part 1 [1986]

I love music I can get lost in. The other night, I turned off all the lights in my little apartment, sent this into my little earphones at a nice high volume, and closed my little eyes for the full hour it lasted, all so I could see this music at the massive scale it was meant for. A swirling whirlpool of Terry Riley-esque organ that took me deep inside myself, all the way down to where we stop being just ourselves and become part of everything.