I remember hearing De La Soul’s Buhloone Mindstate for the first time.

I was a year out of high school, living in a cramped dorm on a college campus in Maine, the furthest I’d ever lived from my suburban Boston home. This may come as a surprise to you, but I didn’t get the most comprehensive hip-hop education growing up in a Massachusetts suburb. I loved DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, and felt a giddy excitement when I heard Straight Outta Compton and Eazy-Duz-It in high school. I followed N.W.A. as they splintered and couldn’t get enough of Ice Cube’s The Predator. But that was about it. Ask me about A Tribe Called Quest or Gang Starr and you’d get a blank look. (I found them both later, the latter through Guru’s awesome Jazzmatazz project.)

And De La Soul? I’d heard 3 Feet High and Rising and wasn’t sure what to make of it. I’d heard a little of De La Soul is Dead and wasn’t thrilled. (I love it now, calm down.) So I had no expectations when I hit play on their third album, the one with the weird title. And 48 minutes later, I was a fan for life. Part of it was the fantastic production, more intricate and slippery than any other rap record I’d heard. Part of it was the guest spot from Maceo Parker, whose contributions made “I Am I Be” my favorite De La Soul song instantly. But a big part of it was the clever and interesting ways Posdnous, Mase and Trugoy wove their rhymes about race and inequality and the dangers of not speaking your mind. This was a whole new world for me, hip-hop that took itself seriously and considered itself art.

As anyone more educated in this area could have told me, there’s plenty of artistic hip-hop. But I’m not sure I could have chosen a better entry point. De La Soul, for nearly 30 years, has been one of the most creative and interesting groups in hip-hop, never settling for the typical, always aiming smarter. I struggle with some of their mid-period work – the still-incomplete Art Official Intelligence trilogy isn’t all it could be – but when they’re on, as Pos and Trugoy (now Dave) were on 2012’s delightful First Serve, and as the full group was on their last proper album, 2004’s The Grind Date, they’re still impressive.

De La Soul’s disappearance in 2004 had as much to do with money as anything, and their absence has left a hole in hip-hop. You can draw a straight line from socially conscious rappers like Kendrick Lamar to the early days of message-conscious rap – he cites Tupac Shakur as his biggest influence, but the cut-and-paste jazz framework that makes up much of his brilliant To Pimp a Butterfly comes from De La Soul and A Tribe Called Quest, and anyone with a penchant for think-about-it wordplay certainly owes a debt to Pos, Mase and Dave. They’re legends, and like a lot of legends, they’ve seen their sales decline and their output shrink as the world moved on.

But if the members of De La Soul were worried that they had been forgotten, or that people would not recognize their impact, they shouldn’t have been. Like many long-running acts, they turned to Kickstarter last year to fund their new album, asking for $110,000. They got $600,874, which secured their future as independent artists. I love Kickstarter for so many reasons, and one of the big ones is its ability to revitalize the careers of artists who may not have any other way to make new music and get it out there. Like many well-known entities, De La took some heat for turning to crowdfunding – and I should point out that I did not contribute to this particular campaign – but if this is what it took to bring them roaring back, then it was absolutely worth it. And I hope they felt the love.

If not, I’m about to shower them with it. De La Soul’s just-released eighth album is called and the Anonymous Nobody, and it is without doubt their finest hour since their first immortal trilogy. It finally recaptures what I love about this group – their unpredictability, their willingness to go just about anywhere. For a record that is remarkably chill, the band that made it sounds revitalized, ready for anything.

Part of what sets this record apart is the way in which it was made. Sampling has always been a part of what De La does, and they came up before clearing those samples was a legal responsibility. Had they been forced to pay up front for 3 Feet High and Rising, it never would have come out, so dense are its multi-layered samples, and that’s part of the reason you won’t see early De La albums on streaming services. Knowing this time that sample clearances were out of their reach, financially speaking, the three De La Soulers did the only thing they could do: they hired musicians. Dozens of them, in fact. And then they recorded those musicians jamming on various moods for hundreds of hours.

And then they used those hundreds of hours of jamming as raw material, sampling it as they normally would and crafting the album out of those samples. Then they brought in a host of fascinating guests – it’s actually remarkable how much of this album is given over to the guest stars – from the expected (Jill Scott, Snoop Dogg, Usher) to the bizarre (Damon Albarn, Justin Hawkins, David Byrne, Little Dragon). The result is all over the place, and yet it hangs together like a suite. It’s one of the few recent hip-hop albums that feels like a journey, like you’ve been someplace when you finish listening to it.

Lyrically, this album is a strong argument for De La Soul’s legacy, and in large part serves as a thank you to the thousands of people who made it possible. Jill Scott’s opening monologue, called “Genesis” and delivered over sumptuous strings, begins with the line “I couldn’t be nobody but myself,” and posits that the time to love something the most is when “it’s reached its lowest and you don’t believe in it anymore and the world done kicked its tail enough that it lost itself.” The message couldn’t be clearer: the support of the fans has brought De La Soul back from the brink, and this album is a reward.

And man, it sounds like it. “Royalty Capes” comes swaggering in on a horn fanfare, sliding into a chill beat with some jazzy saxophone. Dave takes aim at modern rappers and their reliance on technology: “Androids read raps off of iPhones, I choke the blood out of felt tips.” “Us three be the omega like fish oil” is a purely Posdnous kind of line, a clever way of saying they’re the last of the old-school hip-hop royalty. Much of this song is the braggadocio you’d expect, but delivered in such an understated and witty way that it never comes off as arrogant. And the fact that it slips into “Pain,” an absolutely relentless groove with oodles of that De La Soul positivity and a great verse by Snoop Dogg, only makes it better.

For a while, it feels like De La has made a low-key beats-and-rhymes record. “Property of Spitkicker.com,” a reference to the Art Official Intelligence days, is a long, slow crawl with a verse by Roc Marciano, and “Memory of… (Us)” brings the strings back and enlists Estelle for an old-school hook that feels lifted from a soul song.

The first surprise comes with the brief “CBGB’s” and its seven-minute successor, “Lord Intended.” Both feature full rock bands, seemingly recorded live, and while “CBGB’s” is a minute-long powerhouse, “Lord Intended” is a full-on rock opera. For about half its seven-minute running time, it sounds like Rage Against the Machine on downers, Pos and Dave dropping strange references to Megadeth (a deep cut, in fact) and Black Sabbath. Then, in the second half, the pianos take over and Justin Hawkins of the Darkness takes center stage, and the song achieves a ridiculous sort of orbit, choirs of singers repeating the refrain “fuck everyone, burn everything.” I honestly have no idea what to make of it, but I love it.

From there the surprises keep on rolling. David Byrne turns the off-kilter “Snoopies” into a Talking Heads track: “In a hundred years from now, we will not recognize this place, the dollar store is filled with love, the parking lot is full of grace.” It’s one of the most successful mash-ups of style here. “Greyhounds” brings Usher in for a fairly typical story of a young girl chasing her fame in Los Angeles, but its glossy R&B is so unlike anything else here that it stands out. The bass-driven shimmy of “Trainwreck” segues into “Drawn,” which for most of its run time is a nearly ambient showcase for Little Dragon. When Pos slips in a verse near the end, it’s almost jarring, but it contains one of his best lines here: “Two words, I’m mortal, but the fans lift ‘em both together and remove the apostrophe.”

I’m a huge fan of “Here in After,” the stuttering indie-rock anthem featuring Damon Albarn, and it marries a tremendous verse about saying goodbye to loved ones with a web of electric guitars before Albarn drives it home. “We’re still here now,” the De La boys sing, and no message could be more joyous. The album ends with “Exodus,” which, as Dave sings, is “an outro that’s also an intro.” “We are the present, the past and still the future,” Pos says at the album’s conclusion. “Just common contributors hoping that what we create inspires you to selflessly challenge and contribute. Sincerely, anonymously, nobody.”

If this is it, if this is the capper on an outstanding body of work, then it couldn’t have ended any more perfectly. and the Anonymous Nobody is an album that celebrates the legacy of one of the finest hip-hop groups ever by (ahem) kickstarting them into the future. It is an album unlike any they have ever made, and unlike any hip-hop album you’re likely to hear, a sublimely confident stroll through unfamiliar sounds made wholly De La Soul. I hope this isn’t the end of their road. I hope it’s the start of a renaissance, and I’ll be first in line to help fund whatever they do next. and the Anonymous Nobody is a wonder, a reintroduction and a leap forward in one, a De La Soul album for the ages, and one of the best things I’ve heard this year.

Next week, a rare retraction. Be here. Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook here.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

Am I the only person in the world who doesn’t get Frank Ocean?

I’ll admit up front that my usual allergy to hype applies here. I’m struggling to think of an artist who deserves that hype less than Ocean, though. Channel Orange was passable, even if long sections of it felt like an aimless meander, and yet it was hailed as some kind of new-soul masterpiece, and Ocean declared the savior of modern music. All that for a record that I would describe as, you know, fine. Now four years later we have his follow-up, Blonde (or Blond, depending on if you believe the iTunes listing or the album cover), and the hype machine is in overdrive again.

And this one really, truly sucks. Save for a few tracks, it’s devoid of even Channel Orange’s charms. Ocean built this album out of formless acoustic guitar moods and directionless singing, and the result sounds like he worked it up in four days rather than four years. It’s honestly a mess, so I can’t quite understand the four-star reviews and nine-out-of-ten scores it’s been racking up. I’ve even seen people praise Ocean’s “innovative” technique of using pitch-shifters on his voice to sound like different characters, as if Prince hadn’t been doing that for 30 years. Blond(e) might be a particularly personal statement from its author, as some have said. But it’s a chore to get through.

If this were the future of soulful pop music, I would despair. But I know it isn’t. There are much stronger examples all the time of musicians who take the soul template and send it new places. Hell, I’m not the world’s biggest Blood Orange fan – Dev Hynes tries a little too hard to sound like Prince without writing songs like Prince did – but he’s leagues better than Ocean. I have a pair of other examples this week, both British singers who have taken their basic cues from old-school soul-folk music but have put their own distinct stamp on them. And as further proof that this column lives and dies on recommendations, I wouldn’t have heard either of these records without the kind assistance of friends.

It was guitar player extraordinaire Noah Gabriel who turned me on to Michael Kiwanuka. At the tender age of 29, Kiwanuka has landed on a sound that is heavily indebted to Otis Redding and Marvin Gaye, yet thoroughly lush and modern. His second album, Love and Hate, is a massive leap in ambition over his first, yet it still centers on that phenomenal voice, deep and rich and conveying decades more experience than he has. Considering Noah’s recommendation, I wasn’t surprised to learn that Kiwanuka is a very good guitar player, but it’s his ability to transform the old Motown framework into new shapes that truly impresses here.

There is no better example than the opening song, “Cold Little Heart,” which stretches past 10 minutes. It opens with an extended orchestral introduction, building and building, adding in choirs and Kiwanuka’s searing lead guitar, until you might be forgiven for thinking that it’s an instrumental. But it isn’t – about three minutes in, the music crashes down, the acoustic guitar strums and Kiwanuka sings. And when he sings, he’s a commanding presence, taking charge of the intricate tower of sound he’s built as if it’s no big deal. Some singers might be too intimidated by the expanse of orchestral grandeur to take the reins, but Kiwanuka makes it sound effortless.

If you’re worried that there won’t be anything to dance to on this album, fear not. The first single, “Black Man in a White World,” is next, and it’s a relentless stomper. Over funky chords and a handclap beat, Kiwanuka spins a misfit tale with a socially relevant edge, the title phrase repeating like a mantra while disco strings glide in and out. Most of this album, though, is mid-tempo, allowing Kiwanuka to let loose vocally. “Place I Belong” is a Marvin Gaye-style stunner with big strings and unconventional percussion, but the core is Kiwanuka himself on piano and voice. When the high-voiced choir comes in, it’s surprising and beautiful.

Kiwanuka worked with Danger Mouse on much of this album, but you’d never know it. None of the producer’s usual tricks are here, and the album remains gloriously organic from start to finish. Danger Mouse (whose momma calls him Brian Burton) co-wrote several of the best songs here, including the lush title track. Oddly, he had nothing to do with the most Danger Mouse track here, the driving “One More Night,” with its tripping beat and tasty horns. The back third of the album is particularly impressive, beginning with the powerful “Rule the World,” sliding through the simple yet compelling “Father’s Child” and concluding with the sweet, bluesy “The Final Frame.” All of these songs pile on the arrangements, but Kiwanuka’s strong voice rises above them and elevates them, and he gets a chance to solo with abandon in the album’s final minutes.

Love and Hate is a powerfully confident piece of work, a second album that shoots for the stars. Michael Kiwanuka has remained true to his roots, but has used those roots to feed a towering tree, one that expands on and opens up his old-school sound, taking it new places. It’s impressive, and it will stay with you.

Also making her second album is Laura Mvula, who is only one year older than Kiwanuka. I owe Kevin Munday for tipping me off to Mvula’s awesome first album, Sing to the Moon, three years ago. Mvula’s unique style took soulful boomers like “Green Garden” and “That’s Alright” and brought a new worldview to them. Her style is fussy and intricate, yet still full of feeling. I will admit, though, to being initially underwhelmed by her sophomore effort, The Dreaming Room. I found it more fussy and less emotional than I wanted. It came out in June, and it’s taken me this long to review it, which is rarely a good sign.

It is in this case, though. The Dreaming Room is certainly a weirder and less immediate work than its predecessor, and it took time to sink in. The key, for me, was Nina Simone. Specifically, finding out that Mvula had hosted a BBC show about Simone, detailing her favorite songs. Once I knew what an influence Simone had been, everything fell into place. Mvula’s sound is nothing like Simone’s – the jazz great used pianos and organic instruments, while Mvula prefers electronic sounds and thick production – but her songs bear Simone’s fingerprints.

Mvula’s vocal melodies are all over the map, rising when you expect them to fall, jumping intervals, never doing what you think they will. That makes them less accessible, especially on this album, which Mvula co-produced herself. But listen to a song like “Lucky Man” and imagine Simone singing it at the piano, and it clicks. Ignore the waves of synth and the off-kilter percussion and listen for the song. It’s Nina Simone. This time Mvula has even taken to heart Simone’s tendency to be unsettling, to deliver songs that leave you unbalanced. Some of the tunes on The Dreaming Room, like “Let Me Fall” and the first single “Overcome,” are more straightforward. But songs like “Bread” and “Angel” don’t follow those rules, and it takes time to understand why they made sense in Mvula’s head.

Once this album takes hold, though, it stands up with her debut nicely, and even outdoes it in places. She opens things with a brief intro in which she declares her intention to be herself and do what she wants, and she certainly sticks with that throughout. Very few of these songs do what you think they will, but once you have the map of them in your mind, even stranger ones like “Kiss My Feet” (which starts in near-silence and explodes into a percussive flight through mid-air) come alive. “Show Me Love” plays like a hymn for most of its six-minute running time, its chorus shooting for that high falsetto at the strangest moments, and then it slides into an extended playout, Mvula scat-singing over glittering strings. That originally felt to me like unnecessarily extending what could have been one of the songs people gravitated to, but in context, that decision makes perfect sense.

Given all this, perhaps her strangest choice is to place the album’s one straight-arrow pop song, “Phenomenal Woman,” at the very end. On first listen, it felt like a reward for making it through 35 minutes of off-axis, off-kilter music, but now it feels like a planned release. Mvula sequences it after a brief phone conversation with her grandmother, who is clearly the inspiration for the song, and it sends the album off on a positive, danceable note. On an album with very few of those, “Phenomenal Woman” is a treat.

But I don’t want to downplay the rest of the album, which does a lot to define just who Laura Mvula is and will be as an artist. Like Kiwanuka, she’s taken her template – the one laid down by the great Nina Simone – and reinvented it. Now I realize what a beautiful record The Dreaming Room is, and I’d encourage anyone who recoils from it at first to give it a few spins and let it work its magic. You can keep Frank Ocean. This is the future.

Next time, De La Soul. Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook here.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

My girlfriend really loves Needtobreathe.

I mean, she really loves them. Has called them her favorite band. Has already bought tickets for both of us to see them live in October. (To be fair, I’m making her go see Marillion with me the night before.) Knows all the lyrics, sings along with every song. Can wax eloquent about the deeper meaning behind songs like “Difference Maker” and about which album struck her the most, and why.

As an obsessive music fan, I love this. I can’t get enough of her excitement. I’m finding as I grow older that I don’t need to love what other people love to enjoy their love for those things. I’m also finding value in music I had unfairly dismissed. Thanks to my ever-patient girlfriend, I’m listening more to what she likes and finding what I like in it. (Nickelback would have been a deal-breaker, though. Just saying.)

So it’s because of her that I gave Needtobreathe’s sixth album, Hard Love, more than a cursory listen. In fact, I followed the whole journey of the record, listening to singles as they came out, most of them surprising me. I think the most interesting thing about Needtobreathe is that they seem to comfortably inhabit that space that plagued the 77s for their entire career on Christian labels: they’re too radio for church and too church for the radio.

Considering how much I love the 77s, obviously I think that’s a fine place to be. Most of the music coming out of that corner of the industry these days is simplistic and made for church worship bands to play. But you’ll never hear a church band play “Feet Don’t Fail Me Now,” for instance, or other songs off of NTB’s last record, the raucous Rivers in the Wasteland. And that goes double for most of the tunes on Hard Love, their most adventurous album. In fact, this one errs pretty hard in the other direction, eschewing the band’s Kings of Leon-style guitar-rock for big keyboards and big production.

And they pull it off, mostly. Perhaps the greatest divergence from their usual sound comes on the title track, which kicks off the record. It’s driven totally by synthesizers and electronic drums, much like the recent Tegan and Sara albums, and it reaches for the anthemic: “Hold on tight a little longer, what don’t kill you make you stronger…” It contains the first oblique reference to spirituality, Bear Rinehart singing “a part of you has got to die to change” and “you gotta burn your whole self away.” Save for one song, this is as church-y as the record gets.

Intriguingly, the band’s most mainstream-influenced effort contains several songs about the perils of chasing money and fame. Hell, they even call one song “Money and Fame,” and it’s a horn-driven swagger about finding “the bottom from the top somehow.” “Happiness” is nearly inscrutable, but I think it’s a half-hearted apology from a man choosing riches and security over his loved ones. “Be Here Long,” one of the most successful here, is about grief and realizing that we’re only here for a short time, and we should appreciate it. In a lot of ways, that’s what the lovely “Let’s Stay Home Tonight” and the massive closer “Clear” are about too – living for love, in the smallest and largest moments, and leaving everything else (like money and fame) behind.

In the midst of this there are several songs that are just a good time. “When I Sing” is a slinky piano-pounding love song that makes me bob my head in spite of myself. “Great Night” brings aboard folksy duo Shovels and Rope for a big ol’ rock song about dancing. “Don’t Bring That Trouble” is the most rocking thing here, Rinehart singing about the burden of carrying someone who won’t help themselves. One thing you’ll find about Hard Love is that it’s quick: aside from the single speed bump, the bitter acoustic interlude “No Excuses,” it fires like a bullet and moves like a freight train.

The one nod here to modern worship music is “Testify,” which sounds a lot like the pseudo-Mumford stuff coming out of Nashville. But it would never pass muster – it doesn’t mention Jesus once, using language like “there is a peace, there is a love you can get lost inside” and “mist on the mountain rising from the ground, there’s no denying beauty makes a sound.” I remember a time in the CCM industry when being so oblique – merely pointing in the direction of the answer – was enough to get your album dropped, and coupling that with lines like “we don’t even need to put clothes on” from “Let’s Stay Home Tonight” would have caused a scandal.

It’s clear that Hard Love is an attempt to reach a wider audience, and I hope it works. It’s a solid, well-crafted, fun record that obviously took a long time and a good deal of money to make. But what I like best about it is that, while it is definitely a change toward a more crowd-pleasing direction, it still feels like the album they wanted to make. I’m interested to see where they go from here, and gratified that there still are bands walking that line between radio and church, and doing it as well as they are.

* * * * *

If there’s a band that knows all about walking that line, it’s Switchfoot.

Named after a surfing term for changing directions, Switchfoot started off in the Christian market in the late ‘90s before earning some mainstream success in 2003 with their major-label debut The Beautiful Letdown. Over the next five albums they proved to be masters at the somewhat-spiritual pop song, never writing anything for the worship band but never letting go of their roots either. Their last album, Fading West, was the emptiest and poppiest thing they had done, a clear example of falling off the balance beam.

I’m happy to report that they’re right back on it with their tenth long-player, Where the Light Shines Through. Produced by the band, this one has them sounding more like five guys playing in a room than they have in some time. There’s still a sheen to it, and a bunch of electronic elements, but more of a rock edge than we’ve heard from them in several albums. The pop single, “Float,” is one of the most interesting they’ve given us. It’s in 7/4, an odd time signature, but it’s so well-constructed that you won’t notice.

Much of the rest of the record is made up of strong rock tunes. The title track is a loud anthem of brokenness: “Because your scars shine like dark stars, your wounds are where the light shines through…” “If the House Burns Down Tonight” skips ahead on a double-time beat and a rebel love: “If the house burns down tonight I got everything I need with you by my side, so let the rest burn…” “Looking for America” is a real surprise, a socially conscious state of the nation featuring rapper Lecrae. “The doors are locked where they once stood open, a wound of fear where we once stood hoping…”

There are certainly low points. “Bull in a China Shop” probably shouldn’t have seen the light of day, and “Live it Well” is pretty boring radio fluff. But overall this is a very strong Switchfoot record, and leader Jon Foreman seems to have been emboldened by the material. Foreman is always more ready to frankly discuss his faith on his solo albums (of which he has many), but he’s right up front on this album, singing about his conversion on “The Day That I Found God” and what it all means to him on “Hope is the Anthem,” the closer.

There’s an honesty to it that I love – the band is on Vanguard Records, so no one is making Foreman sing about his faith. For a band that lives in both worlds, though, it’s interesting to hear Switchfoot tackle spirituality in such a forthright way. Not that they’ve avoided it in the past, but their last few efforts seem even more hollow in comparison to this one. Where the Light Shines Through is my favorite Switchfoot album in ten years, and hopefully the start of a new string of good ones.

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Unlike both of the above artists, Kevin Max has Christian rock bona fides.

As one-third of DC Talk, Max lived through the stricter, more ridiculous ‘80s and ‘90s in the Christian music industry. DC Talk is best known for a very silly, yet irresistibly singable album called Jesus Freak (and for shedding their hip-hop skin as grunge came along, morphing into a loud guitar band with surprising success). Since the trio’s breakup, Toby Mac has become a terrible Jesus-pop superstar and Michael Tait has stepped in as lead singer of the awful, awful Newsboys.

But Max was always the more artistically driven of the group, and his solo career has been a strange wonder to behold. His voice was always the most interesting of the three, channeling Simon le Bon and other ‘80s new romantics, and over eight surprising records, he’s carved out a fascinating little niche. His latest, Playing Games with the Shadow, dives full bore into Duran Duran territory, and fully explores his ambitions.

And I never would have expected it, but Max has entered that rarified group of artists who grew out of the CCM industry and have transcended it. Much of this record is abstract, preferring to leave snatches of lyric open to interpretation. Plenty of it could be called spiritual, but you have to dig for it and puzzle it out. Max has allied himself here with musicians like John Mark Painter (Fleming and John, Steve Taylor’s band), Steve Hindalong (The Choir) and Lynn Nichols (Chagall Guevara), and while it’s possible he draws inspiration from them, this is the most Kevin Max album yet – he wrote every song and played many of the electronic instruments.

And songs like “Girl with the Tiger Eyes” and “Election” are the best he’s given us. “Election,” especially, is a winner – it stomps along confidently, spinning its tale of insiders and outsiders. “I’d rather hide out in bars with the misfits and ghouls than pretend I’ve found a home in that social club with robotic and judgmental fools,” Max sings, putting quite a fine point on it. He writes a song for William Blake that rivals the one Terry Taylor wrote in 1985, digging into the poet’s tendency to see visions. “Muzick is Magic” sounds like Franz Ferdinand, Hindalong kicking up a storm on drums.

“Panic Button” is the only nod to his Jesus-rock past, with its chorus of “push the panic button, let go and let God in.” But even that is a delightful disco romp, one of the best melodically, and miles away from what you’d find on CCM radio. I have a strange soft spot for this corner of the music world, and for its survivors. I’m gratified that Kevin Max is one of them, and that he’s free to follow his vision. Playing Games with the Shadow is a genuine surprise, a full-blooded, totally weird album from a guy I hope keeps making them.

Next week, more music. Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook here.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

This is my 800th Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. column, and I have nothing special planned.

That’s kind of fitting, though, I think. When I started this silly music column back in November of 2000, I didn’t even think I’d still be doing it six months later, let alone nearly 16 years. I’ve never had a life plan, never really thought things out too far beyond the year I’m in. There are certainly flaws in that philosophy. I could be saving more for retirement than I am, for instance. But having no plan has led me on a fascinating journey so far, culminating in my current job as part of the communication team at the country’s biggest and best particle physics laboratory. Be honest, those of you who knew me when: could you ever have predicted that? Me neither.

In fact, the area of my life for which I do the most advance planning is music. I have a cultural calendar that stretches out a couple years, full of albums and concerts I’m anticipating. I started keeping track as a way to stave off depression – “Look! Tori Amos will have a new album in September! Don’t be sad!” While it still somewhat serves this purpose (though I don’t need it to nearly as much as I used to), now it’s a series of milestones I look forward to. (There are other non-musical things on there as well. Doctor Who returns in December, for example.)

In the absence of any other plan for this column, I figured I’d take a look at that cultural calendar and point out some things still to come this year that I’m excited about. For me, that’s what this is still about – staying excited about music. I promised some time ago that I would never turn into one of those old people who only listens to the music that made him feel good at 17. Granted, I still do listen to a lot of that, but I’ve kept my vow to try new things, to stay as close to the curve as I can, to listen without prejudice.

And yet, the records I am most looking forward to before the end of the year are mainly longtime favorites making long-awaited returns. That’s just the way the calendar has shaken out. Here are six upcoming albums that have me doubled over in anticipation, counting the days until I can hear them. Here are six upcoming albums that I hope will be good enough to make it to my list in December. Here are six upcoming reasons to love life.

De La Soul, And the Anonymous Nobody, Aug. 26

You can keep your Drakes and your Kanyes. The hip-hop album I am most looking forward to this year heralds the return of the daisy age. Posdnous, Mase and Dave are always worth hearing – even their most fallow records, like AOI: Bionix, sport some strong rhymes and some creative production. This new one, though, promises to be something special. Funded through Kickstarter, this album represents a new lease on life for the trio, and the songs I’ve heard are remarkably weird, jazzy and interesting. When they’re at their best, De La is unstoppable. Here’s hoping And the Anonymous Nobody finds them at their best.

The Dear Hunter, Act V: Hymns for the Devil in Confessional, Sept. 9

I love surprises. The fact that Casey Crescenzo recorded the fifth act of his six-act story at the same time as the fourth, and didn’t tell anyone, only heightens my anticipation for this thing. If you’re not familiar with the Dear Hunter, mastermind Crescenzo has been telling a long and complex story over multiple albums full of riveting, intricate, lushly orchestrated music. At this point, the story has such a narrative force that I’m almost more excited to hear what happens next than to hear what new melodic wonders are in store. Luckily, Crescenzo has delivered both, if the first two singles are any indication. There’s nothing like the Dear Hunter, and I’m thrilled that we get a new chapter so quickly.

Marillion, Fuck Everyone and Run, Sept. 23

Probably my most anticipated album of the year. Marillion never sits still, and never makes the same music twice. As you can tell from the album title, they’re also pretty fearless, and from all accounts they’ve made a strongly political piece of work here. This album’s five songs stretch to 70 minutes, with multiple movements and sections, and I’m expecting a difficult and bold effort, one that will probably take me several listens to appreciate. (I supported this on PledgeMusic, and the band has already let backers hear the 16:45 “The New Kings.” It’s about the one percent, and it’s definitely taken many listens to really dig into.) Marillion is one of my very favorite bands, and they seem proud of this one, both for the music and for what it says. Very much looking forward to seeing the band in Chicago in October as well.

Bon Iver, 22, A Million, Sept. 30

Speaking of never sitting still, is there another musician harder to get a handle on than Justin Vernon? He started out as a backwoods folkie, tore that image apart with his self-titled album, made a bunch of unlikely guest appearances (he’s on two Kanye West albums), then disappeared for a few years. Now he’s back with the oddly titled 22, A Million (with its even odder tracklist), and the two songs he’s let slip from this project are unlike anything he’s done. Bizarre in an almost off-putting way, yet somehow exactly right, these new songs are barely there, held together by threads. That they’re the first two songs on the record only makes me more curious. I never know what to expect, and that’s thrilling for me.

S U R V I V E, RR7349, Sept. 30

This is a brand new discovery, and I’m not alone, I’m sure. If you watched Netflix’s Stranger Things, you’ve heard S U R V I V E. Their distinctly ‘80s synth score is one of the most important elements of that show, and naturally I’m salivating to hear a full album of this stuff from them. The sounds this band conjures up take me right back to my youth. Like the show, I predict this album will be the surprise hit of my year.

Tom Chaplin, The Wave, Oct. 14

I spoke last week about things I never expected to hear, and this solo album from Keane’s golden-voiced frontman is one of them. Since leaving the band, Chaplin has been drowning in addiction, and after getting clean, he wrote this record to tell the tale. I’ve heard a couple songs, and while they don’t scale the same melodic heights as Keane, they’re dark and memorable pop tunes. Most of all, I missed Tom Chaplin’s voice, and I’m glad he’s righted his ship and given me this chance to hear it again. I expect an emotional trip.

There’s more, of course – I am planning to buy sixty-some new records before the end of the year, and I hope many of them will surprise me. (New things by Suzanne Vega, Devin Townsend, Flock of Dimes and that collaboration between Rostam and Hamilton Leithauser lead the second tier.) There’s always more music, always more hope.

When I started TM3AM, I intended it as a travelogue, a recounting of the journey of an obsessive music fan. I began writing it for me, and I still do. I have a nice comfortable readership, but I don’t do any promotion, and I expect the people who are reading now are the same ones who have been reading for years. I’m immensely grateful for all of you, and for the friendships I have made through writing this thing. While I still think of this as my musical diary, it’s not a closed system, and I wouldn’t have made it through 800 of these things without you. So thank you.

Next week, number 801. True to form, I have no plan. Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook here.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I have a pretty long list of improbable things I expect I’ll never hear.

The Cure’s 4:14 Scream, the “dark” half of their bubblier 4:13 Dream? Probably never happening. Another 50 States album by Sufjan Stevens? Unlikely. Saviour Machine’s Legend III:II? I would bet money that I will never hear that. And until a couple weeks ago, the return of Peter Garrett was on that list.

Like a lot of people, I figured I’d never hear Garrett’s singing voice again. I was an enormous fan of his band, Midnight Oil. I came aboard at the same time most people in this country did: with the video for “Beds Are Burning,” off of their landmark 1987 album Diesel and Dust. I was 13 years old and just gaining an appreciation for a well-written, hard-charging song, and “Beds Are Burning” is certainly that. I didn’t know at the time that it was a calmer piece of work for the band, nor did I fully grasp its political and ecological themes. But the song was great.

As my experience of the world grew, so did my appreciation for Midnight Oil. They were, unequivocally, one of the best political rock bands ever. Even their more placid material – and there’s plenty of that on Diesel and Dust and its follow-up, Blue Sky Mining – is propelled by an urgency, a sense of purpose, a clear and present message. Much of that urgency is wrapped up in Garrett, their imposing bald frontman, a wild presence with a voice that only works by sheer force of will. It’s a powerful, unconventional thing, cutting through even the loudest din the rest of the Oils made, and really shining in a live context.

I stayed with Midnight Oil past the point where many left them behind, and it was very much worth it. 1998’s Redneck Wonderland is a powerhouse, incorporating the electronic elements in vogue at the time without losing what made the band special, and 2002’s Capricornia took a softer tack, providing a quiet capper on their career. When the band broke up, Garrett became one of the few political singers to truly put his money where his mouth is: he served in the Australian House of Representatives from 2004 to 2013. For much of that, he was the Minister for Environmental Protection, Heritage and the Arts, continuing the environmental work he undertook as president of the Australian Conservation Foundation.

And I figured that was it. Garrett would live the rest of his life in politics, never venturing back into music. As the years ticked by, the possibility of a Midnight Oil reunion or a new Garrett project grew dimmer. The man is 63 this year, and he seemed quite happy with his second act. I couldn’t possibly begrudge him that, no matter how much I wanted new music from him.

So when Garrett dropped his first solo album, A Version of Now, out of nowhere, it was one of the best surprises of my year. I paid import price for it – 25 dollars for 35 minutes – and as Garrett himself sings here, I’d do it again. In fact, I’d have paid that price just for the first song. “Tall Trees” is as swaggering a return as I could have hoped for, Garrett declaring “I’m back” while his crack band (including Oils guitarist Martin Rotsey) sways behind him. It’s loud and abrasive and catchy as hell, and sets the tone nicely for the rest of the record.

A Version of Now was clearly made quickly, in a rush of creativity. Its seven new songs detail where Garrett is now, and they do it loudly and proudly. “I’d Do It Again” serves as a look back at his political career: “While all the glory hunters were basking in fake smiles, twisted egos and ambitions mile after mile, I went to find a quiet place away from the madding mob, to try and make a difference, get on with the job…” “No Placebo” indicates his commitment, his promise not to walk away: “Mixed up nation, no deceiving, high land dry land I’m not leaving…” The punky “Kangaroo Tail” is a love letter to the Blue Mountains in Australia: “So many places I wanted to know, ended up dreaming of you, so many places I happened to see, ended up thinking of you and me…” “Only One” is a clear indication of Garrett’s confidence – it’s a slinky blues, and if there’s anything he’s not known for, it’s being slinky. But he pulls it off.

The album also includes two older Midnight Oil songs that never saw the light of day. The best of them is “Great White Shark,” written with Rotsey and second Oils guitarist Jim Moginie. All of these songs have hooks, but this one has the magic of Garrett’s old band, jumping from one hummable moment to another, wrapped up in biting guitars. Garrett’s voice hasn’t aged a day here – if anything he sounds better, more controlled, and when the gang vocals come in (“I want to be there and I want to breathe, I want to be whole and I want to be free”), it’s very much like listening to a great lost Midnight Oil track. The other, “Homecoming,” doesn’t quite hit those heights, but it’s a swell song that fits in nicely here.

I would be willing to wager that even if this record went through a hundred permutations in its short gestation period, it always opened with “Tall Trees,” and it always closed with “It Still Matters.” The closing anthem is so good, so perfectly Peter Garrett after all this time, that I smiled for an hour and a half after hearing it. The song’s spoken verses restate Garrett’s belief in his environmental and political causes (“Across a windswept open plain some still go against the grain…”) and ties it into a bow in the best way: “There is dignity, there is hope, there is light at the end of the road, and it still matters to me, I hope it matters to you…”

It does, Peter. More than it did when I first heard that voice. I’m pretty grateful for a lot of things this year, musically speaking, but “Tall Trees” and “It Still Matters” may be two of the songs I am most grateful for. I hear now that Midnight Oil may be reforming next year, and as much as I love A Version of Now, that news does my heart good. I’m still in disbelief that I lived to hear Peter Garrett’s voice again, and now I might get to hear the full band? Life is beautiful. Welcome back, Peter. Welcome back.

Next week, my 800th column. Follow Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. on Facebook here.

See you in line Tuesday morning.