We’re staring down the barrel of another October, but before we take our first step down the staircase to the crypts, I thought we’d take one last look at a bevy of excellent new releases that have come out this week.

The National put out their second album of 2023 last week, a companion to this spring’s First Two Pages of Frankenstein. The record is called Laugh Track, and right down to the guest stars, Swiftie production sound, and variant album cover, this feels like Frankenstein’s twin brother.

Already we’re dancing in the fallout from Olivia Rodrigo’s juggernaut GUTS, and coming soon are what promise to be great releases from Slow Pulp, Armand Hammer, Lilts, Sampha, and L’Rain. Check out these cuts from the fall’s most promising.

Again, I’m celebrating Dragon Con with a playlist of phonk, the coolest nerd music on the market today. This is the realm of the self-proclaimed prodigies, of autodidacts and blue-collar futurists. Welcome to the new age of fingerless gloves, the soundtrack to the getaway drive.

This month, we’ve had a new song by Sufjan Stevens that harkens back to Carrie & Lowell; a Zach Bryan album that might sell stadiums and speak human at the same time; another fuzz-and-buzz single from MJ Lenderman; and a Julie Byrne masterpiece, the most cauterizing grief album since the aforementioned by Sufjan.

Typical of a great researcher, the songs and composers Jon Bois finds are ripe for reappraisal. These are great songs by massively prolific composers who never got to get their due, master songwriters who pumped out track after track for the good of art and storytelling at large.

Songs from Radiohead, Pet Shop Boys, Blondie, Muse, and Johnny Cash were all rejected for 007, but I rooted through the recycling bin to dig them out.

A collection of the best songs from these first several months, featuring Gia Margaret, Jessy Lanza, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, JPEGMAFIA, Danny Brown, Wednesday, ANOHNI and the Johnsons, Jess Williamson, and more.

Barbie was born Julius Robert Oppenheimer in 1959 to Jewish immigrants from Germany. She is an atomic bomb created by Ruth Handler and manufactured by physics company Mattel. She is the figurehead of a brand of fashion bombs and accessories, including other family members and collectibles like the hydrogen bomb.

Back in April, Underground Atlanta hosted an edition of the Boiler Room, the renowned U.K.–based DJ event series that highlights local and upcoming artists for people to dance to and discover. Enjoy these local Atlanta musicians that were featured on the lineup. Stay cool out there—all things must pass eventually.

A walk in the woods should be done with as little aural distraction as possible—nature’s symphony and all. But for the moments you can’t run to the nearest woods, this playlist is filled with songs of the towering oaks.

Hackers is a 1995 film about hackers. Recently, for his birthday, my friend rented a screen at the storied Plaza Theatre to show 41 friends of ours Hackers on the big screen. The movie is a Gen X fantasia at the threshold of the new millennium—outrageous in design, manic in performance, and particularly inspired in its soundtrack.

The crest of summer is here. It’s hot, it’s smoggy, we shoot rockets at the moon. What can I say? It’s a holiday. We just need music to play while we swim or sit on the porch. Put this one on, float downstream, go fry an egg on the sidewalk.

For all his cloying tendencies to some, it’s important to recognize Wes Anderson’s musical influence on a pre-internet world. He practically invented the 21st century needle drop. Before every song was at our disposal, a Wes Anderson movie was like an older brother crafting a perfect mixtape and leaving it in your car.

Last Saturday, I attended the most beautiful wedding, full of friends. One, who oversaw an important music cue, had a brief crisis of confidence under the pressure and couldn’t think of the right song to play before the first would abruptly end.

Twelve cities—Atlanta, Columbus, Nashville, San Francisco, Dallas, New Orleans, Boston, D.C., New York, Chicago, L.A., and San Diego—will all be seeing the same acts on one stage over three days, with sets full of special guests each headliner brought themselves.

There’s a genre I included on last week’s summer pop playlist that I decided to dive deeper into today: Japanese city pop. This wave of what would best (if reductively) be described as “Japanese Steely Dan” was like a sister to the American yacht rock of the 1970s and 80s.

Slide off your hammock and into the waves. Submerge and you’ll hear the tinkle of pearls. Sink farther to reach that ancient orchestra—the Sunset Philharmonic Paradise Symphony, nestled in the belly of time.

Music was baked into the franchise from the beginning, but Ocarina of Time was the game that fully embraced it as part of the world and mythos. Not many games revolve around an ancient wind instrument, and in later entries, players can noodle on guitars, bagpipes, bongos, and even a conductor’s baton.

One of indie’s most reliable engines has been chugging away in the middle of America, whether you knew it or not. Saddle Creek Records, a 50/50 split profit sharing label in Omaha, has for 30 years now been home to some the underground’s big hitters.