The Friday Refrain: A bit of what's new in music...

It's all Winnie the Pooh and Records around here right now. The wee one turned 2 yesterday, and we are having a family party on Sunday with the theme of Winnie the Pooh and Records. Now that you've rolled your eyes and just put me in that "Oh one of those moms pinteresting parties to feel in control and give a shine to life." Well it's not like that. When i was little, my family only did one big party with friends - when you turned 5 - but that didn't mean that I didn't dream and plan and flip through my mom's book of "Celebrations" looking for decor, food and game ideas. This is in my blood. I love party planning. Also - every year my mom made me an amazing cake, until I took over in 5th or 6th grade. Those were cakes of lore. Not always perfect, I woudl make them perfect. With as many toothpicks as that required. We couldn't even cut the cake one year due to all the toothpicks. And funny enough, I am listening to the perfect song for this diatribe, "Perfect" by gobbinjr. Throwing that on the playlist.

All right people, let's all pick ourselves up by the Pooh Ear Party Hats and shake this week off. This is a rough year - especially in music. I'm not a huge Leonard Cohen fan, but I do like his music and I would be completely oblivious if I didn't know the impact of him on the music I do obsess about. And that is a large vacuum left in the fabric of our modern music scene. Again. For the billionth time this year. Speaking of people it sucked to lose this year, A Tribe Called Quest released We Got It From Here... Thank You 4 Your Service. Electronic noisey fun Sleigh Bells released Jessica Rabbit. We have a set of old recordings being released today: Leon Redbone, Long Way From Home; Bob Dylan, The 1966 Live Recordings; and Pink Floyd, The Early Years 1965-1972. You have to look up the Pink Floyd one. It's crazy - 36 discs or something, there's Blu-ray and audio, it's all packaged in this boxset that looks like their tour bus. Seriously, that's crazy. And amazing. All right and to round out our releases today, we have a bunch of solo albums from people know for work in other things: Kim Gordon's Body/Head (yes, Sonic Youth is no more but still including it) released No Waves; Notwist frontman Markus Archer, A Beat of Silence; Tame Impala/Pond member Jay Watson's GUM, Flash in the Pan; Foo Fighter Taylor Hawkins, KOTA; Here Go Magic frontman Luke Temple, A Hand Through The Cellar Door; and Speedy Ortiz's Sadie Dupuis is Sad13, Slugger.

The List previously of The List.

I think these go together, theme: reluctance?

Cameron AG, Homeward Bound - this is the most optimistic of the group I think, but still some relunctancy to the groove, namely on "In Repeat"

Covenant, The Blinding Dark - This is the moodiest of them all with a low male vocal and all

The Darcys, Centerfold  - so this has more pop to it and upbeat, but I  picked the song for the playlist that best represents my thought processs

Fwar, Sanctuary - Keeping that upbeat feel but with that twinge of something's not right to it.

Junk Son, Beginning, Ending, Pretending

Lambchop, FLOTUS - You know I'm dedicated to the topic when I listen to an autotuney track. "Howe" best fits the groove of the list

Slow Hollows, Romantic - this gets a little more 90s alt rock scene than all the others, but still has that forlorn or reluctant feel to it. Somehow optimistically sad at the same time to my ears.

So there's the list, I'll pile a bunch of other songs that caught my ear this last week on the Spotify playlist, but it's headed up by my picks for the Reluctancy List above. And now, party planning time. It's party heaven here. Winnie the Pooh and Records on Sunday, next Saturday is PreThanksgiving, and then it's actually Thanksgiving, and then it's another birthday party, and then.... Well you get the idea. PARTY. It's more the gathering of it all that I love. Community. It's a good thing. Anyway, we're also not too long from the Christmas Album List for this year. I'll put that up first week of December and update it as needed. There are some goodies this year... Until next week, Happy Listening!