They Might Be Giants have always been great.

The longer they’re around, the more a statement like that means. I was eight years old when Johns Linnell and Flansburgh formed the band, and a wee lad of 12 when the video for “Don’t Let’s Start” captured my adolescent fancy. These guys were weird, no doubt, but even then, I knew a good melody when I heard one. I was 16 when “Birdhouse In Your Soul” and “Istanbul Not Constantinople” briefly made TMBG household names. I remember several sing-alongs to “Why Does the Sun Shine” my sophomore year of college. I was 30 when I named The Spine one of the ten best albums of 2004. I was 38 when I finally saw the band live for the first time.

I’m 40 now, and the band is 32. They Might Be Giants have been with me for almost all of my life, and I can count on one hand the times they’ve disappointed me. They have always been great. Even so, once in a while, they create something that I love even more than usual. Last time that happened, as I mentioned above, was with The Spine in 2004. And now they appear to have done it again with their 17th (!) album, Glean.

What makes me love a TMBG album more than other TMBG albums? For me, it’s when the Johns are able to harness their natural quirkiness into solid, catchy, grown-up pop music. There’s a tendency to write off TMBG as a novelty band, and while I would never want them to curb the inspirations that lead to things like “Fingertips” or “Insect Hospital” or “Wicked Little Critta,” I’m overjoyed when they put together a collection that shows unequivocally what great pop songwriters they are. One listen to the tight and consistent Glean and that fact is undeniable.

I was honestly expecting something a lot more haphazard. Glean is a collection of songs written for and debuted on TMBG’s resurrected Dial-a-Song service – a new song each week that you can hear by calling a phone number. (The modern innovation is a Dial-A-Song website that lets you scroll through previous tunes.) It’s surprising, then, how much Glean sounds like a focused full-band effort. Longtime cohorts Marty Beller (on drums), Danny Weinkauf (on bass) and Dan Miller (on guitars) are here, lighting fires under Linnell’s wonderfully distinctive voice, and there are horns and strings and clarinets aplenty.

But it’s the songs that count, and these 15 quick little numbers whoosh by in a flood (ha!) of hummable ideas. Nothing overstays its welcome – this is an album on which the epic “Music Jail Parts 1 and 2” finishes up in 3:10 – and everything works. Some of these songs are silly, like “I Can Help the Next in Line,” which is literally about assisting customers. But some of them, like the tough “End of the Rope” and the clever-sad “Answer,” are unique looks at adult relationships, and as serious as this band gets. “Answer” is fairly dark – “It may take an ocean of whiskey and time to wash all the letdown out of your mind, and this may not be the thing you requested but I am the answer to all your prayers…”

Nestled among these tracks are some of the catchiest pop songs you’ll hear all year. The crunchy opener “Erase” is one, exploring the benefits of wiping one’s mind of bad memories. “Button marked erase, when darlings must be murdered, when your heartbreak overrides the very thing you cannot face…” The hero of “Unpronounceable” cannot connect with the elusive object of his affection, her name “distorted and illegible.” I love the bridge that sounds like the CD is skipping, and I love this lyric: “Now I spend my days and nights looking at a depression on the sofa, and over time it flattens out, but I am still depressed…”

The lyrics to “Hate the Villanelle” are, of course, in that form: “Don’t hate the villain, hate the villanelle, with these picky rules and odd jigsaw rhymes, curses, these verses are my prison cell…” “Aaa” is simply yet aptly titled, its horror-movie hook a wordless cry of alarm. And “Let Me Tell You About My Operation” returns to the theme of removed memories over a Dixieland beat. Right up to the brief closing instrumental title track, They Might Be Giants never put a foot wrong here.

I want to be sure I’m clear. When I say that Glean is the best TMBG album in a decade, I don’t mean to imply that the others produced since 2004 aren’t worth your time. They absolutely are. (Nanobots in particular was excellent.) But this one rises above even their usual high standard. It wraps everything quirky and unique about They Might Be Giants into 39 minutes of sterling pop music, proving once again that they’re more than people think they are. This album is dynamite.

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Shall I admit that I was initially underwhelmed with the new Josh Garrels album?

Garrels is an Indiana songwriter with a powerful voice and an even more powerful talent. His new one, Home, is the follow-up to 2011’s Love and War and the Sea In Between, and to be fair, pretty much anything Garrels did after that would be underwhelming in comparison. Love and War was easily one of the best albums in a very good year, a tour de force that nimbly skipped between folk, rock, rap and orchestral grandeur. It even culminated in a six-song conceptual suite. It’s a remarkable, ambitious album, and I guess I was looking for something similar from this new one.

Instead, Garrels has stripped back and made a slighter, prettier collection, one that stays moored to a few touchstones. It took a few listens to figure out that I do indeed like it, and to understand why. Where Love and War is a battle cry, the work of a man in turmoil, Home is an often deliriously contented record – there are songs of confusion bordering on despair, but they’re early on, and they’re surrounded by so much love and peace and joy that they feel like temporary backslides, quick stumbles. Home shines its light brightly, and it chases out what darkness is there.

I don’t want to discount that darkness, because it fuels some of this record’s best tunes. “A Long Way” is a song of farewell – it’s almost certainly about death – and “Leviathan” is a Jewish hymn of pride falling before the might of God. Best is “The Arrow,” with its acrobatic falsetto and splendid dirty groove. “How on Earth did it all go down like this, I’ve got no words to make sense of it, my shield, my fight for righteousness could not protect me from myself…”

But that’s it. For the rest of its running time, Home – a deeply religious record – is about love, both heavenly and earthly. Most of it sounds like a Ray Lamontagne album to me, with its soulful grooves and horns buoying Garrels’ arresting voice. “Colors” even dips into that Motown sound. And once you’re past “The Arrow,” the album turns fragile, acoustic and pretty until the end. “Morning Light” is about opening the windows and letting the joy in, “Always Be” drops the record’s one electronic beat over a gorgeous harmonized mantra about “singing for thee,” “Home at Last” is a jazz-inflected lullaby about coming back to the Lord’s house, and “At the Table” continues the theme of children returning home to their father.

The album ends with “Benediction,” a quiet and contented blessing. “When the way is rough and steep, love will make your days complete,” Garrels sings, completing a cycle of his most peaceful compositions – this is music for lying out in the sun, for drinking in life, for being thankful. Garrels has traded in the ambitions of his last record for a stillness that sounds well and truly earned. I can’t fault him for that, even if the resulting record is not quite as striking. Home is pretty and bright and joyful, though, and while it’s playing, that’s enough.

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Seeing the Eels live has become something of a tradition.

My good friend Jeff Elbel is an Eels superfan, and whenever the band plays Chicago, we make the trek to see them. We’ve done it three times now, most recently last year on the Cautionary Tales of Mark Oliver Everett tour. That show was a delight – a low-key chamber-pop stroll through some of Everett’s slowest and loneliest songs, the band buttoned up in suits and ties. I love Everett in disheveled rocker mode, but I also love him in lonesome troubadour mode, and this show was an extended visit with that guy.

What a treat, then, to pick up the new Eels live album and DVD, Royal Albert Hall, and find very nearly the exact same show preserved for posterity. Eels songs are generally simple things, and usually either about Everett watching his life fall apart or starting to put it back together. The songs he strings together for Royal Albert Hall are an even mix of both, performed on piano or nimble acoustic guitar with strings, horns and pedal steel. Everett jokes throughout about the downbeat set – “This one’s another bummer” – but no one seems to mind.

I certainly don’t. Taken as a whole, this live record is Eels at their most transcendent. The new songs (“Parallels,” “Lockdown Hurricane”) sit nicely next to songs I am coming to think of as classics, like “Fresh Feeling” and “It’s a Motherfucker.” Things do pick up by the end, with the sprightly “I Like Birds” and “My Beloved Monster” livening up the proceedings, but the encores return to the spare and the quiet. The second encore is a particular treasure, Everett turning in swell versions of “Can’t Help Falling in Love” and Nilsson’s immortal “Turn On Your Radio.”

My favorite moment might be right at the end, though, when Everett finally gets to play that massive Royal Albert Hall pipe organ. He jams out the riffs to “Flyswatter” and “The Sound of Fear,” and even on the CD, you can hear him grinning like a little kid. If Eels albums and tours are essentially cycles, taking Everett through his mania and his depression, then he’s on his way back up. I’m looking forward to a louder album, a louder tour, and another great night with Jeff and the Eels.

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Next week, probably Built to Spill and Passion Pit. I’ll be posting that one from Montreal, where I will be for my first Marillion Weekend. Three nights, three shows, thousands of fellow fans. I’m rather looking forward to it, and I’ll be sure to report back here. Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook here.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

Because of the nature of a weekly column, I always find myself writing about records at the extremes.

If I’m moved to write about it, generally I either really like it or I strongly dislike it. Those are the two conditions under which I’d have the most to say. But that covers maybe 20 percent of my listening experience. Most of the time I’m indifferent to the music I hear – it doesn’t leave a mark one way or another. Quite often I reservedly like something. And quite often I’m just a little let down, slightly disappointed.

This week, in the interest of equal time, I have two records that left me with that slightly empty feeling, that sense of mild unhappiness. I don’t hate either of these records, but I don’t love them either, and my listening experience tended more toward the negative. In both cases, I think some more time immersing myself could improve my initial impression. And maybe someday I’ll do that. Right now, here’s how I feel.

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I’m never going to hate Brian Wilson.

This goes without saying, but the man is a legend. He created an entire sound, and then ditched it to create an even grander one. Pet Sounds is still one of the very best albums you’ll ever hear. When he finished his great lost masterwork, SMiLE, in 2004, it was like a miracle. That, too, is one of the best, goofiest, most astonishing albums you’ll ever hear. And when he followed that up with That Lucky Old Sun, a song suite that can stand toe to toe with his ‘60s and ‘70s work, it was like lightning striking twice.

Since then, Wilson’s been doing pretty well, by my reckoning. His Gershwin and Disney albums were both better than they had any right to be, and the Beach Boys reunion album, That’s Why God Made the Radio, was at least half-great. Wilson is 72 years old now, and I don’t know what we expect from him. He still arranges vocals like no one else on the planet, and his records still sound like his records, even if there’s always a question of how much he’s really participating in them. I’m happy to support whatever he puts out – he’s already given me enough joy for one lifetime.

But that doesn’t mean I have to like it much, and I don’t really like No Pier Pressure, his tenth solo album. I mean, it’s fine, and it’s certainly better than the dross he used to churn out (remember Gettin’ In Over My Head?), and overall it beats Mike Love’s contributions to the last Beach Boys record. But I have a lot of problems with it, and chief among them is the endless parade of guest stars. I’m good with Al Jardine and David Marks making several appearances – many of these songs were written for a new Beach Boys record, so they belong here.

The rest, though? I’m not sure how many of these people Wilson asked to work with, and how many were just brought in by producer Joe Thomas. Has Wilson had a burning desire to duet with Nate Ruess of Fun., for example? Or Zooey Deschanel? Or Peter Hollens? Or Sebu, who makes the first guest appearance on the horrifying dance-pop disaster “Runaway Dancer”? I have no proof, but I sort of doubt it. Several of these guests have spoken about these sessions, and they say Wilson was active and engaged and having a great time. I hope that’s true. The finished product is kind of a hodgepodge, though, and the guests make Wilson seem even more removed.

The songs, by and large, aren’t bad. The ones intended for the Beach Boys, including “Whatever Happened” and “The Right Time,” are right in line with what you’d expect – pleasant grooves, wood blocks, harmonies. The instrumental “Half Moon Bay” is nice. And there are several songs that feel like Wilson was truly invested in them, most notably “I’m Feeling Sad” and the swell closer, “The Last Song.”

But others just feel like things Brian wouldn’t do in a million years. I already mentioned “Runaway Dancer,” the worst offender. Kacey Musgraves co-writes and sings a country ditty called “Guess You Had to Be There” that, until those Wilson harmonies come in, sounds like it’s from a different album entirely. “On the Island” is like a parody of Wilson, with its Jimmy Buffet feel and Deschanel’s disaffected vocals. The synth-heavy “Sail Away” is embarrassing, the Ruess-starring “Saturday Night” only a little less so.

As usual, it’s the vocals that keep this feeling like Wilson. When he takes lead, he sounds energized and engaged, which is great. There are harmonies everywhere, many of which he also sang, and there ain’t nothing like a Brian Wilson harmony. There are strings and muted trumpets in places where Wilson would put them. This is a pure pop record, full of kitschy and stupid lyrics, but Brian generally wouldn’t have it any other way.

And of course, there is “The Last Song,” written to close what would have been the final Beach Boys record. It’s remarkably pretty, Wilson’s tender voice sending chills, and it revolves around a sentiment this album makes me feel: “There’s never enough time for the ones that you love.” That’s why I’m sad when Wilson makes an album like this – everything he does might be his last. I don’t hate No Pier Pressure – the worst thing about it is its title – but I won’t be playing it very often, either. At times here, Brian Wilson is still Brian Wilson, and that is always a joy to hear. I just wish this album contained more of those times, because I want as many as I can get.

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Similarly, you have no idea how much I wanted to like Kintsugi, the new Death Cab for Cutie album.

This one’s the death knell. Founding guitarist Chris Walla, who has been responsible for sculpting the band’s sound since 1998, announced his departure after Kintsugi was completed. This is the first one Walla did not produce – that honor goes to Rich Costey – and the last one on which he will appear. It’s been a rough road for Death Cab lately, as they’ve dropped a notch with each album since 2005’s Plans. 2011’s Codes and Keys was, until now, the worst Death Cab record, flirting with electronic sounds but remaining pretty lifeless.

So with Walla’s departure and singer Ben Gibbard’s public divorce from Zooey Deschanel, one might hope that the personal stakes for this new album would have been raised. Instead, everyone involved seems bored. This is the most inert-sounding record the band has made – the whole thing is almost completely devoid of inspiration, and while it’s pleasant enough, it just sits there, unmoving, for it’s whole running time. Gibbard even sounds disinterested, singing the lines but not injecting them with any emotion at all, and he’s off his game lyrically to an almost laughable degree. He seems genuinely proud of couplets like “why do you run, for my hands hold no guns” and “when you’re so far beneath the floor, everything’s a ceiling” – he made them the centerpiece thoughts for their respective songs.

The first three songs are the strongest, in descending order. Opener “No Room in Frame” fires a bit of snark to Gibbard’s famous ex-wife (“Was I in your way when the cameras turned to face you? No room in frame for two…”), set to a skipping beat. “Black Sun” has a nice melody and some nice guitar tones, and the chorus of “The Ghosts of Beverly Drive” is the only moment on Kintsugi that almost comes alive. The rest of the record is just… there. “You’ve Haunted Me All My Life” is a pale shadow of “I Will Follow You Into the Dark,” “Everything’s a Ceiling” and “Good Help is So Hard to Find” try on those ill-fitting dance beats again, and you’re better than I am if you can remember anything about “Ingenue.”

“El Dorado” tries to inject a little life near the end, with its double-time beat and thick, reverb-y guitar tone, but it’s too late. Things peter out with the piano dirge “Binary Sea,” a song whose last line is its most ironic: “There’s something brilliant bound to happen here.” That’s the last phrase you hear on an album on which nothing brilliant does happen. Kintsugi is named after the Japanese technique of fixing broken pottery in a way that makes the breaks part of the art. I wish the record were that interesting. I wish you could hear the breaks. All I hear is blandly pleasant music made without much care.

* * * * *

Next week, definitely some music I like more than this. Let’s see, I’ll have Josh Garrels and Passion Pit and They Might Be Giants and Built to Spill and a killer live record from the Eels. So some of those, I expect. Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook here.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I’ve mentioned here before that I’m a big fan of Kickstarter and crowdfunding in general. My money is definitely where my mouth is there, and I think I’ve contributed to more crowdfunding campaigns in the last month or so than I ever have.

I’ve already talked about Birds, a new full-length record from manic pop genius Bryan Scary. He’s recording this now, and keeping us pledgers apprised of his progress. I also recently supported the second album by Mike Roe and Derri Daugherty as Kerosene Halo, a comeback album from the extraordinary Fleming and John, a long-awaited vinyl pressing of the Prayer Chain’s masterpiece Mercury, and most recently, the first full-length by one of my favorite discoveries of last year, Marah in the Mainsail.

(A couple of those campaigns are still going – Fleming and John and the Prayer Chain have met and surpassed their goals, but Marah is hoping to raise another few thousand, so if you’re so inclined to check them out, please do.)

I’m certainly not the typical music buyer, but this signals to me an uptick in the use of crowdfunding to make art. I think that’s fantastic – I wholeheartedly believe that all of the projects listed above would not exist without the ability to pre-sell them like this. And I want projects like these to exist. As of this writing, 243 people have kicked in to make a vinyl pressing of Mercury possible. This is an album that sold only a couple thousand copies in the mid-90s, and the audience for a double vinyl remaster is, clearly, pretty small – so small that the band likely couldn’t justify paying for it the traditional way. Thanks to Kickstarter, this is going to happen, and it’s going to make a few hundred people like me very happy.

I’ve been having a few conversations lately about crowdfunding and its merits, and a few of them have centered around this. This is a wildly successful campaign by De La Soul to fund their first album in 11 years, and a strong argument can be made that De La doesn’t need to crowdfund. They’re worth millions, and could likely afford to create this new record on their own. For the record, I haven’t supported De La’s campaign – I will gladly buy this when it hits stores, which I expect it would have whether or not the funding drive was successful.

But to me, that’s not all crowdfunding is about. It’s a way to build communities around works of art and their creators, and that I definitely support. The people who contribute to De La’s campaign are going to feel part of something – some of the bigger-ticket rewards include spending time with the band and recording a bit for the album – and that’s a pretty cool thing. (As with a lot of things, Marillion figured that out before most people.) Does it justify millionaires asking for your money upfront? I suppose that’s up to you.

I think you have to take the good with the bad, and weigh your contributions carefully. Crowdfunding is an amazing way for artists to find their audiences and create amazing work while minimizing the risk. It is also a great way for those artists to foster community and build trust – a good campaign with a strong end product, delivered when promised, will make me a fan for life, and getting to experience the creation of something special with others who love it as much as I do is worth it to me.

Viva la crowdfunding, I say. And this week I have two more reasons why I think it’s pretty much the best thing ever.

* * * * *

Five years ago, I saw a young harp player named Timbre for the first time.

It was at Cornerstone 2010, on the Gallery Stage, and that show made me a fan. It wasn’t just the harp, although the sight of that ornate instrument on a stage built for rock bands was pretty cool. And it wasn’t just her voice, which is high and strong and almost operatic. Timbre writes fantastic, expansive songs, blowing past traditional lengths and levels of complexity, and then plays them with a band of multi-instrumentalists not afraid to circle around them with their own ideas. Watching her cover Radiohead’s “Like Spinning Plates” was revelatory.

Nearly two years ago, I pre-ordered what sounded like a remarkably ambitious new project from Timbre. She wanted to make a double album called Sun and Moon that broke down the walls between pop music and orchestral pieces, and show how they feed each other. For this she would need to contract a symphony orchestra and a full choir, and compose about two hours of music. This seemed crazy to me, but since I enjoy her work so much, I happily gave my $25. She barely raised the 10 grand she was asking for, which was half the money she needed. I figured it might be a while before this idea saw the light of day, if it ever did.

Last week, Sun and Moon landed in my mailbox, one year and 11 months after I paid for it. And oh my god, she actually did it. She made the record she wanted to make, and it’s magnificent.

True to her word, Sun and Moon runs close to two hours. The discs are separated into songs performed with her band (Sun) and pieces performed on harp with an orchestra and choir (Moon). The first disc is more energetic, the second more elegiac, and together they tell a story that spans from sunrise to sunrise. You’ll feel like the earth has turned and you’ve truly been somewhere when Sun and Moon is over.

The first disc is the more familiar one, for those of us who know Timbre. She writes glorious orchestral pop songs, and the ten that make up Sun are among her most glorious. The album opens with a brief scene-setting instrumental called “Sunrise,” and then launches into the propulsive “Song of the Sun,” strings and percussion surrounding Timbre’s quick harp notes. There are so many great moments in these five minutes, from the delicate violin lines to the wordless refrain to the exultant “I am alive” that concludes things. It’s the best single-song encapsulation of what she does that I have heard.

But wait, there are eight more songs, and they continue in the same vein, if only seldom reaching the mountain-scaling heights of “Song of the Sun.” The patient eight-minute lullaby “Your Hands Hold Home” makes room for a guest spot by Michigan-based collective The Soil and the Sun – they join about two dozen musicians who contributed to Sun, and the result is the most expansive music of Timbre’s catalog. And yet, much of it is quiet and subtle – “The Persistence of First Love” finds Timbre singing over a sustained dirge, and the sweeping “Singing and Singing” drapes its wonderful melody over a harp figure and a toy piano for about half its running time, before the lovely strings swell in.

Timbre songs already have much in common with orchestral music – they unfold slowly, taking their time, developing themes and building to climaxes. The gorgeous “I Am In the Garden” begins with nothing but strummed harp strings and the lovely tenor of guest vocalist David Ahlen, but over its 7:40 it blossoms like a flower in the sun. Timbre and Ahlen let their voices slow-dance together, and when the strings join them about four and a half minutes in, the effect is stunning. Sun ends with the foreboding “Night Girl: Nycteris Sees the Sun,” referencing the George MacDonald fairy tale, and roughly halfway through the song explodes – percussion, strings and oboes join the harp in a progressive dance that certainly counts as a grand finale.

As much as I like Sun, though, Moon is the big winner for me here. It takes Timbre out of what I previously considered her comfort zone and shows us what she can do with a wider canvas. Moon begins with an 11-minute choral song and ends with a 16-minute orchestral piece, and Timbre proves adept at these more intricate arrangements. “Sunset,” the choral piece that opens things, is remarkably beautiful, rising and falling throughout its running time, and flowing nicely into “Of Cloudless Climes and Starry Skies,” the harp instrumental that follows.

While the harp pieces – including the fantastic eight-minute “As the Night,” a duet with oboist Ashley McGrath – tread somewhat familiar ground, the massive fantasia “St. Cecilia: An Ode to Music” truly gets at what Timbre can do. With a full symphony orchestra and a choir backing up her soprano voice, she creates a world you can sink into. She then ups the ante with the concluding “Day Boy: Photogen Sees the Moon,” bringing the fairy tale full circle with a constantly shifting slice of orchestral grandeur. Themes from Sun make their reappearance here, most notably the hook from “I Am In the Garden,” and the whole thing concludes with the album’s biggest and sunniest passages. The applause that greets the finale – it was recorded live in front of an audience – feels like it is cheering the earth for making another 24-hour revolution, another day and night.

Sun and Moon is a triumph, a work of art well worth the years it took to create. It’s a winding, wonderful journey that proves just how talented the woman at its center truly is. I remain amazed that something this ambitious was created independently, and I’m certain that without crowdfunding, it either would not have been made at all or would have been smaller, lesser, reined in. As it is, I am so glad to have been a small part of something so richly rewarding. And you bet I’m going to support the next one.

You can hear all of Sun and Moon and buy it here.

* * * * *

Riki Michele is a little less ambitious, but I’m no less glad that I supported her new album, Push.

I’ve been a fan of Michele’s voice since her days in Adam Again – while much of the attention that band gets usually goes to the late, great Gene Eugene, Michele’s lovely countermelodies added a sweetness and a soaring quality that Eugene’s songs would have sorely missed. Her last solo album, Surround Me, came out more than a decade ago, so the Kickstarter campaign announcing Push was a most pleasant surprise.

Michele makes lush, ambient pop music, and the ten songs on Push are probably her most lush and ambient pop songs yet. With graceful production by Margaret Becker, Michele creates cloud-like atmospheres and lets her voice swim through them. Sarah McLachlan used to make music that sounds sort of like this, but Michele has always been in her own space to me – no one makes records quite like this anymore, so I’m doubly glad that she’s back.

And the songs here might be her strongest. “Into Peace” is beautiful and subtle, built around a sparse electric piano and some acoustic guitar flourishes. “You took me in and the wind made waves and it all crashed down,” Michele sings as placid oceans of backing vocals and guitar ambience lift her up. “What Would You Say” brings the record’s first uptempo beat, but the song remains subdued, elegantly skipping through verses and wordless vocal sections. “The Sweetness” is a lovely waltz with a melody that reminds me of Jonatha Brooke and the title track shakes and shimmies through a memorable and almost funky chorus while still remaining low-key.

Push is a strikingly confident album – Michele and Becker knew exactly what they wanted, wrote the right kind of songs and marched forward like they had nothing to prove. It’s hard for me to explain why it works so well for me, but when Michele gets to the big chorus of “The Gift (Uwoduhi),” my heart soars. “Can we imagine a life so beautiful,” she sings, and yes, I say back, we can. It’s always great to hear from musicians I admire after long absences, but it’s that much sweeter when they return with something truly worthy, something that reminds me of why I fell for them in the first place. Push is that kind of record, and I’m delighted that it exists, and that I (and 382 others) helped make it possible.

Check it out and buy it here.

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Next week, some records I bought the old-fashioned way.

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See you in line Tuesday morning.