What We’re Listening to This Week (6.25.26)

Archive:

What We’re Listening to This Week (3.1.26) · What We’re Listening to This Week (3.11.26) · What We’re Listening to This Week (4.2.26) · What We’re Listening to This Week (4.15.26) · What We’re Listening to This Week (4.23.26) · What We’re Listening to This Week (5.4.26) · What We’re Listening to This Week (5.12.26) · What We’re Listening to This Week (5.22.26) · What We’re Listening to This Week (6.13.26)

Gather Your Resilience: Medicine for Liberation by Ríomas

Did I expect to be listening to this album on a hot Tuesday evening? Nope. My little paragraph about an album doesn’t really do this album much justice, because the entire record Gather Your Resilience: Medecine for Liberation is a sprawling collaborative piece. Even if the collaboration is not always literal in the production , the record carries a collective spirit.I think Ríomas’ words will be better suited to this: “While the album is meant for anyone, it carries a particular intention to support the liberation of people who have been historically oppressed, especially due to race, ethnicity, gender identity, and sexuality. The vision is one of ‘liberation’ from the inside out: undoing oppression within ourselves so that we can develop resilience, clarity, and psychological freedom that no system can easily take away.”

The standout track for me is Doesn’t Mean (Track 4).

Sons of Aethyr – Live Set – Cyberpunk Disco 13

Yes, yes, I’ve already reviewed this live set by the Sons of Aethyr (Production Unit Xero & Enzo Caselnova), but now I’m able to hear it again in a different way. You know … a recording of it. I stand by my original notes:  From the depths of some hidden portal, where love and magic bind themselves in a trembling covenant, the Sons of Aeythr emerge from another world – at the stroke of midnight no less. Just nothing but love and shattered drums resurrected into coiling spirits sifting through the darkness and old world melodies flashing through the smoke like ghost-light over a forgotten yesterday and a spoiled future.

Such a great set.

UNLOCKED by Luis Ocasio

I think 2026 has been a bumpy vessel, but thank goodness for all this new jazz I keep finding in the wreckage. Holy shit, this is a captivating record. Apparently, the album came out of a spontaneous composition session, with a group of musicians gathering in a studio to interpret a late autumn day in Portland, Oregon. I mean, that sounds like a good day to me. The production is gorgeous – just out of this world and crisp. I think I listened to Torn (track 1) about three times in a row. I didn’t feel there was any way to proceed with this record until I did that.

Wild Rubber by Cube

Another intense release from Universal Broadcast Network. Sometimes listening to their releases feels a little bit like unfolding a lawn chair that’s been rusted shut. It’s challenging at times, but you know it’s going to be worth it. That chair always opens in the end and the comfort is just as awkward and otherworldly as a lawn chair can be in that crispy hot summer air. Cube’s work is a nice mixture of techno’ish industrial noise with quite a few gas lighting breakbeats. It’s harsh and fun, but ultimately really good stuff – give it a listen.

Los Ríos Invertidos by OCTONICLE

I went down a Bandcamp rabbit hole and arrived at Los Ríos Invertidos by OCTONICLE without a shred of expectation. But, I went in that hole and got lost for a bit. The place where the conies sleep can seem dark at first. A burrow always does from the outside. Then you crawl in far enough to see it for what it truly is: a shelter from dangerous elements – small hidden architecture of warmth and a place to gather close to whatever living thing is keeping watch beside you. This is a fantastic experimental ambient album.