Playlist - April 2026
What I've been spinning at home, work, and everywhere else lately...
April 26-May 1, 2026
- Jah Wobble — Redux: Anthology 1978-2015
- various artists — CJ's Playlist (compiled by Tara)
- various artists — She's Dawning On Me (playlist recreation of old CD mix)
- Burt Bacharach — Make It Easy On Yourself
- Burning Spear — Marcus Garvey
- Culture — Two Sevens Clash (The 30th Anniversary Edition)
- Psychic Temple — Plays Music For Airports
- Peter Tosh — Legalize It
- Peter Tosh — Equal Rights
- Lee "Scratch" Perry & The Upsetters — Lee Perry The Upsetter presents Roast Fish, Collie Weed & Corn Bread
- Lee "Scratch" Perry & The Upsetters — Super Ape
- Lee "Scratch" Perry & The Upsetters — Return of the Super Ape
- Yabby You — One Love, One Heart
- Lee "Scratch" Perry — Scratch Attack!
- Red Hot Chili Peppers — The Uplift Mofo Party Plan
- Red Hot Chili Peppers — Mother's Milk
- Lee "Scratch" Perry & Mad Professor — Black Ark Experryments
- Lee "Scratch" Perry & Mad Professor — Experryments at the Grass Roots of Dub
- Yabby You Meets Mad Professor & Black Steel — ...In Ariwa Studio
- Red Hot Chili Peppers — Blood Sugar Sex Magik
- Jane's Addiction — Nothing's Shocking
This is what happens when you've forgotten to catalog the last days of April 2026. I should start keeping track in a notebook from now on. Been really heavy on the reggae lately, which makes sense since most of what I've been listening to in the past few weeks has been heavy on the bass. The playlist my wife made me was done as a sort of request/challenge as she had been discussing making one for me for sometime, seeing how on the drives to work I'd be sitting in the passenger set making playlists on my phone.
April 25, 2026
- Swans — The Seer
- Redd Kross — Teen Babes from Monsanto
- Burning Spear — Marcus Garvey
April 24, 2026
- Red Hot Chili Peppers — The Uplife Mofo Party Plan
- Red Hot Chili Peppers — Red Hot Chili Peppers
- Bob Dylan — Infidels
- Gang of Four — Entertainment!
- Gang of Four — Yellow EP
- Gang of Four — Solid Gold
- Gang of Four — Another Day, Another Dollar EP
- The Nutley Brass — Ramones Songbook As Played By The Nutley Brass
- The Nutley Brass — Fiend Club Lounge
NOTES:
At this point, I think it's safe to say I've been listening to a lot of music this past week or so at least because of the bass playing == hence this period where I've been diving into the RHCP catalog for at least a few albums at a time, some of them more than once in the past few weeks. The bass thread continued first with the Dylan album (my second favorite after Highway 61 Revisited) which has as its rhythm section drummmer Sly Dunbar and bassist Robbie Shakespeare! Sly and Robbie prove to be a very versatile bass-and-drums team: the only typical reggae rhythm they play is on the album's opening single, "Jokerman"! Then a move to early Gang of Four (the period represented by their 77-81 box set from 2021). The divergence was to the Nutley Brass, which is really a clever keyboardist/arranger taking to his synth arsenal and asking the musical question, "What Would Esquivel or Herb Alpert Do?" Apparently, research has turned up two outher Nutley Brass albusm that aren't on Apple Music so that makes for two more albums to hunt for, even if the contents of one of them (a collection of covers of artists on the Shimmy-Disc label) isn't one I'm entirely familiar with beyond the first Gwar album and a couple of Daniel Johnston releases.April 23, 2026
- Tommy February6 — Tommy airline
- King Crimson — Three of a Perfect Pair
- The Police — Ghost in the Machine (Alternate Sequence Edition)
- Burt Bacharach — Make it Easy on Yourself
- Defunkt — Defunkt
- Ramones — Ramones (2016 mono mix)
- Stanley Clarke — School Days
- Swans — Cop / Young God
April 22, 2026
- Red Hot Chili Peppers — Californication
- Red Hot Chili Peppers — I'm With You
- Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66 — Look Around
- Red Hot Chili Peppers — The Getaway
- John Frusciante — Niandra LaDes andd Usually Just a T-shirt
- John Frusciante — The Empyrean
- Morning Musume — Platinuum 9 Dash
- John Frusciante — To Record Only Water For Ten Days
NOTES: More RHCP binging and repeat spins of Look Around and To Record Only Water For Ten Days.
April 18-21, 2026
- Red Hot Chili Peppers — Stadium Arcadium
- Red Hot Chili Peppers — Red Hot Chili Peppers
- Beat Happening — Beat Happening
- Beat Happening — Jamboree
- Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66 — Look Around
- Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66 — Herb Alpert Presents Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66
- Dot Hacker — Inhibition
- Einstürzende Neubauten — 2x4
- Slayyyter — CRANK (single)
- Red Hot Chili Peppers — By The Way
- Red Hot Chili Peppers — One Hot Minute
- The Poliice — Zenyatta Mondatta
- Richard Lloyd — The Radiant Monkey
- various artists — "Your Essentials" playlist (Apple Music)
- Mort Garson — Mother earth's Plantasia
- Guns n' Roses — Appetite For Destruction
- Guns n' Roses — G N' R Lies
- Red Hot Chili Peppers — The Uplift Mofo Party Plan
- Red Hot Chili Peppers — Mother's Milk
- Red Hot Chili Peppers — Bloodsugarsexmagik
- Sun Ra & His Myth Science Arkestra — Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy
NOTES: This particular playlist covers the entire weekend up until yesterday and I think there will have been quite a few repeats (read: albums I returned to after a day or two) in this list over that time period. Usually I compile these lists from looking at my Apple Music history plus relying on my memory; I should start writing them down every goddamn day.
April 17, 2026
- Oysterhead — The Grand Pecking Order
- Red Hot Chili Peppers — Mother's Milk
- Government Issue — Make An Effort EP
- Government Issue — Joy Ride
- Fear — Astronomy Domine (single)
- Fear — A Hard Day's Night (single)
- Fear — Ramblin' Gamblin' Man (single)
- Fear — Trash (single)
- Fear — Honky Tonk Women (single)
- Fear — For Right And Order
- Fear — The Last Time
- Fear — More Beer
- King Crimson — In The Wake Of Poseidon
- Maasaki Suziki & Bach Collegium Japan — Bach: Mass In B Minor
- Red Hot Chili Peppers — The Uplift Mofo Party Plan
NOTES: I could think of worse ways to soundtrack a Friday at work. This was only my second tme listening to the Oysterhead album; the first was when I bought the CD and took it home (I don't get rid of CDs, so I should still have it somewhere). Did a bit of catchup on Fear's recent releasesl Lee Ving sounds real good on the cover versions.
April 16, 2026
- Swans — Leaving Meaning
- Ataxia — Automatic Writing II
- MiniMoni — MiniMoni Songs 2
- Fugazi — Repeater + 3 Songs
- Grey Matter — Take It Back
- Dag Nasty — Dag With Shawn
- The Faith — Subject To Change Plus First Demo
- Youth Brigade — Complete First Demo
- Government Issue — Boycot Stabb (Complete Session)
- S.O.A. — No Policy
- S.O.A. — First Demo 12/20/80
- The November 3 — "I Fucked A Republican"
- Jello Biafra & The Guantanamo School of Medicine — "Blunder Blubber"
- Jello Biafra & The New Orleans Raunch and Soul All-Stars — Walk On Jindal's Splinters
NOTES: This playlist actually started very early in the morning with the Swans album (played low volume while I was settling in for a decent few hours sleep). The work day itself started with more early-PiL channeling from Atraxia before going on to the second MiniMoni album and a slew of Dischord classics, closing out with a couple of recent digital singles from Alternative Tentacles (The November 3 is actually Jane Wiedlin of the Go-Go's; the Biafra/GSOM single is their anti-tribute to hate-radio icon Rush Limbaugh) and the document of the time Biafra flexed his vocal chops on a variety of New Orleans-associated soul and garage tracks.
April 15, 2026
- various artists — P.E.A.C.E./War
- John Frusciante — To Record Only Water For Ten Days
- John Frusciante - Shadows Collide With People
- Red Hot Chili Peppers - Californiacation
- Jane's Addiction - Ritual de la Habitual
NOTES: P.E.A.C.E/War was one of many punk compilation albums — this one a double LP with a worldwide artist list and a general anti-war/anti-corporatist slant, including a rare poltiical track from Butthole Surfers. Another trip into Frusiante's To Record... and SCLP albums; I should really get myself a physical copy of To Record... one of these days. Californiacation was the album PHCP was touring behind when I saw them in 2000 with my then-girlfriend; the set list was mostly either the new album or Bloodsugarsexmagik with one song from One Hot Minute ("Pea", a rare Flea lead vocal) and, if I remember correctly, only two songs from their EMI America days, "Me And My Friends" from The Uplift Mofo Party Plan and their cover of Hendrix's "Fire". Haven't listned to Jane's Addiction's second album in a long time; the last time was when I got the nice clear double vinyl reissue in 2020, a format that served its vinyl edition much better than the original vintl had done in 1990 when someone thatought it would be a good idea to cram the last foour songs of the album onto a single side running 32 minutes; then again by 1990 most copies sold in stores were on either CD or cassette. Even then, the cassette edition appears have ten minutes of blank space on side A and no indication on the packaging that there was such a gap (I checked Discogs before I even wrote this.)
April 14, 2026
- They Might Be Giants — The World Is To Dig
- They Might Be Giants — They Might Be Giants
- They Might Be Giants — Lincoln
- They Might Be Giants — Flood
- various artists (Ralph Records) — Frank Johnson's Favorites
- Absolute Body Control — Figures
NOTES: Discovering that the Two Johns dropped a new album — which slaps, by the way — had me go backwards to their early Bar/None and Elektra catalog. When my AirPods decided to warm me of low battery as I first started to listen to Lincoln, I switched to my DAP and my wired earbuds for the Ralph Records comp (another vinyl transfer from my library) and the Absolute Body Control album.
April 13, 2026
- Mike Oldfield — Tubular Bells II
- Mike Oldfield — Tubular Bells III
- John Frusciante — To Record Only Water For Ten Days
- Thom Yorke — The Eraser
- yeule — softscars
- Ataxia — Automatic Writing
- John Frusciante — The Will To Death
- Iggy Pop — Blah-Blah-Blah
- Sergio Mendes & Brazil '66 Herb Alpert Presents: Sergio Mendes & Brazil '66
NOTES:
Found myself wanting to theck out some Mike Outfield's other Tubular Bells installments, neither of which I listened to before (I'd only listened to the 2003 remake of the original before this). The Thom Yorke album came up as a recommendation from Google Gemini when I asked about albums not dissimilar to To Record Only Water For Ten Days. Funnily enough, it also recommended Nat Ćmiel's third magnum opus to me, as if I needed an introduction to that, let alone a reason to listen to the album again. Ataxia is basically Frusciante and Fugazi's Joe Lally channeling first album PiL — therefore it meets with my approval. The Iggy Pop album is an old favorite. Listening to Sergio Mendes yesterday led me to pull up his A&M debut.April 12, 2026
- Rush — Fly By Night
- John Frusciante — Shadows Collide With People
- Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66 — Look Around
- Glenn Gould — The Mozart Sonatas, Vol. 5
- John Frusciante — To Record Only Water For Ten Days
NOTES: Music to code this website by. I don't listen to Shadows Collide With People or To Record Only Water For Ten Daysenough but both albums sure sound like the solo album I'd want to make. The Sergio Mendes album is another album familiar from my mother's collection — I'm not 100% sure, but I think she got it in her introductory box from Columbia House when we were living at a house on Thirwell Avenue. Hearing Glenn Gould play Mozart is nice but not what he's usually known for (Bach) and I think from what I've read, he was kind of over Mozart by the time he was recording this particular album.
April 11, 2026
- Sleep — Dopesmoker
- Monolord — Rust
- Electric Wizard — Dopethrone
NOTES: A short diversion into doom/stoner metal for my Saturday late morning/early afernoon.
April 10, 2026
- Tommy February6 — Tommy Airline
- Tommy February6 — Tommy February6
- Tommy Heavenly6 — Tommy Heavenly6
- Tommy February6 & Tommy Heavenly6 — February & Heavenly
- Tommy February6 — Tommy Candy Shop Sugar Mix
- Rush — A Show Of Hands
- Slit Throats — Joshi Noise Worship: Women's Most Violent
- Mike Oldfield — Tubular Bells (50th Anniversary)
NOTES: I haven't listened to Tomoko Kawase's work as either Tommy February6 (her synth-pop side) or Tommy Heavenly6 (her pop-punk side) in full in a while. Tommy Airline was the first album of hers I got my hands on. After giving spins to her first February6 and Heavenly6 albums, I decided to play a bit of catchup and gave time to her two most recent albums. Then a return to Rush for what I think was the last live album of their Mercury era. I'm guessing that Geddy Lee may have recut a lot of his lead vocals in the studio because his pre-song intros and closing goodnights sound like they were recorded in the distance (and/or from the mics used to capture the audience). It's been a while since I spun any harsh noise and went for one of Roman's first efforts devoted to Japanese female wrestling. Tubular Bells was calling my name to close out the work day.
April 9, 2026
- Buffalo Springfield — Buffalo Springfield
- Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young — Déjà vu
- Rush — Signals
- Rush — Power Windows
- Public Image Ltd. — The Flowers of Romance
- Rush — Grace Under Pressure
- Tuxedomoon — Holy Wars
- King Crimson — Beat
NOTES: Started off mellow with the Springfield and CSN&Y, then a little binging through some of Rush's synth-heavy 89s albums with an interruption from the PiL album that was so blatantly uncommercial yet was the band's first to hit the Billboard Top 200 Album Chart - go figure. None of this stull was a first-time listen for me, but the Rush albums were the ones I'd listened to the least out of the bunch listed here. My experience with Beat goes all the way back to my birthday in 1982.
April 8, 2026
- Tuxedomoon — Desire
- Tuxedomoon — Half Life
- Yeule — Serotonin II
- Yeule — Glitch Princess
- Primus — Tales From The Punchbowl
- Primus — Pork Soda
- MX-80 Sound — Crowd Control
- Dead Kennedys — Plastic Surgery Disasters/In God We Trust, Inc.
- Black Flag — Damaged
NOTES: Today was the day of random threads. Started with Tuxedomoon's first two albums in reverse order (Desire was the first one I bought, direct from Ralph Records the year it came out. Then, some time with my homegirl Nat Ćmiel's first two albums, before progressing to two Primus albums — one that I hadn't listened to in a while (Tales From The Punchbowl and one that I never listened to until now (Pork Soda is a rather dark album. Back to Ralph Records land with Mx-80 Sounds' second album (bought in the same order as Desire as well as FDred Frith's Speechless) and closing out with two old punk favorites that need no further introduction.
April 7, 2026
- Glenn Branca — Symphony No. 3 (Gloria)
- Free Kitten — Nice Ass
- Sonic Youth — Experimental Trash, Jet Set and No Star
- The Velvet Underground — White Light/White Heat
- The Stooges — Fun House
- Butthole Surfers — Independent Worm Saloon
- Primus — Sailing The Seas of Cheese
- Primus — Frizzle Fry
- Primus — Miscellaneous Debris
- Primus — Rhinoplasty
- Glenn Branca — Symphony No. 1 (Tonal Plexus)
NOTES: Seemingly all over the place on this day. Started off with a close listen of Glenn Branca's third symphony, followed by the first album from a Sonic Youth side project that's been a favorite of mine since 1994, followed by what is most definitely one of my favorite SY albums. Then switching gears with the VU and Stooges albums, both of which I went on hunts for as soon as I read Henry Rollins' essay about them in Spin magazine. The VU album wasn't too hard to find because Polydor had just reissued their first three albums and dropped the VU outtakes album. The Butthole Surfers album here wasn't one I was familar with beyond "WHo Was In My Room Last Night?"; crazy to think that John Paul Jones was the album's producer. Then a bit of a Primus marathon to close things out. The final Glenn Branca album I had put on later in the day when I was relaxing after dinner, but I nodded out (thank you, food coma) in the middle of it.
April 6, 2026
- Tuxedomoon — A Thousand Miles By Picture
- Yeule — Evangelic Girl is a Gun
- Rush — Fly By Night
- Pop-O-Pies — Pop-O-Pies Anthology 1984-1993
- MDC — Millions of Dead Cops
- DRI — Dealing With It!
- DRI — Dirty Rotten LP on CD
NOTES: I'd forgotten to charge my AirPods the night before, so while they did so at work, out came my Hidzihs AP80 DAP and my wired IEMs, which is how the Tuxedomoon album above came into play: It's actually a compilation LP that Ralph Records had released when they were reorganizing at the tail end of the Mole Show chaos that had half of the Residents/Cryptic Corporation (Jay Clem and John Kennedy) leave the band and the label, and my files were actually done from my own vinyl copy of the album. All of my Yeule albums along with at least 200 or so others were on the same microSD card, so I played that to give my AirPods a chance to finish charging to 100%. Then back to the AirPods for the last three selections. I'd known of Pop-O-Pies because of the mailings Subterranean Records did while I was on their mailing list (because of Flipper) but never heard them until I did a curiosity search on Apple Music and found this compilation. The Rush albujm is a top favorite of mine from their early period, and as for MDC, that album is just as tight as it is furious, even though it might seem to at first to virrgin ears; it's been a favorite of mine since the mid-80s. Same goes for DRI's Dealing With It, which my spinning of MDC inspired me to spin next. I kept the DRI vibe going with their fiest album and was surprised to hear that the CD was sourced from a vinyl copy as I heard surface noise between the last two tracks; I guess somewhere along the line the master tape was lost. The rest of the workday I devoted to an episode of The Jim Cornette Experience where he dedicated the second half of the shop to memories of the recently passed Dennis Condrey.
April 3, 2026
- Circle Jerks — Golden Shower Of Hits
- Minor Threat — Out Of Step
- Faith/Void — Faith/Void
- Void — Sessions 1981-83
- Artificial Peace — Complete Session November 81
- Marginal Man — Identity
- Rites of Spring — Rites of Spring
- Embrace — Embrace
- Pigmalyon cond. by Raphaël Pinchon - J.S. Bach: St. Matthew's Passion
NOTES: Started off with the Circle Jerks' most underrated pre-Combat album, first released on a label affiliated with Jerry Goldstein's Far Out Productions (yes, the same guy who produced War) and then reissued on CD through the Far Out/Rhino joint venture Avenue Records until the Jerks got the rights back recently and reissued the album this past year through Trust. That version, which I streamed losslessly through Apple Music, sounds incredible. Then it was a deep dive through the lesser non-Minor Threat, pre-Fugazi highlights of the Dischord Records discography. Debate is probably still divided as to who is the real side A on that legendary split LP between the Faith and Void. If you asked me yesterday, I'd probably have said Void/Faith because I followed up with their archival Sessions 1981-83 a;bum. I'm kind of surprised I didn't spin the Faith's Subject To Change between teh split LP and the Void archival album. The Artificial Peace album - the first three tracks of which are probably most familiar to anyone who had at least one copy of Flex Your Head in their collection, is a good example of wondering what else is in the Dischord vault that hasn't been officially issued yet. I'd love to hear if there was anything else recorded by, say Red C (who kick off side two of Flex Your Head and whose drummer went on to be the singer of Beefeater while the guitarist went on to Artficial Peace. Since it was Good Friday yesterday, I decided that one of Bach's Gospels-inspired oratorios was an appropriate way to close out the listening day at work.
April 2, 2026
- Fela Kuti & Afrika 70 — Shakara
- Fela Kuta & Afrika 70 — V.I.P. (Vagabonds In Power)
- Cibo Matto — Viva! La Woman
- Robyn — Sexistential
- Selofan — Vitrioli
- Yeule — Evangelic Girl Is A Gun
- The Cure — Seventeen Seconds
- Gap Dream — Shine Your Light
- Gap Dream — This Is Gap Dream
- Gary Numan — The Pleasure Principle
Kicked off the work day with two Fela albums. Shakara I had first heard via one of Knitting Factory Records' many vinyl box sets of Fela's albums. And the cover is proof that Fela wasn't afraid to have his Queens (his backup singers/dancers) pose topless on his album covers a few years before he released Expensive Shit. V.I.P. is a prime live Fela recording; it should be noted that after a time, he rarely played older material onstage in concert, so if you were going to a concert of his back then expecting to hear some back catalog, you were bound to be disappointed.
The Cibo Matto album was the first spin for it in a while for me. I remember when the album first came out and I was shopping at the local The Wall francise when the album was playing over the PA; some asshole was bitching about the music being "terrible", but I think his reaction was a combination of tonedeafness and ignorance. First time spins for the Robyn and Selofan albums -- the Robyn album is heavily electronic and I like that. Then some quality time with the latest from my idol crush turned friend Nat Ćmiel, kicking off a work afternoon of mostly back catalog favorites. This Is Gap Dream is unfortunately still an underwhelming listen and I think it's because it's more guitar-heavy than Shine Your Light. Mo meed to say anything about The Pleasure Principle that hasn't already been said before, except one of these days I'm gonna sit down with a synth and a blank pad of staff paper and transcribe every song on the album.
April 1, 2026
- Faith No More — The Real Thing
- Red Hot Chili Peppers — Mothers Milk
- Red Hot Chili Peppers — The Uplift Mofo Party Plan
- Minutemen — The Punch Line
- Minutemen — What Makes A Man Start Fires?
- Minutemen — Paranoid Time EP
- Minutemen — Joy EP
- Minutemen — Buzz Or Howl Under The Influence Of Heat
- Minutemen — Double Nickels On The Dime
- Brian Eno — Before And After Science
- Gap Dream — Shine Your Light
NOTES: Today would have been D. Boon's 68th birthday - hence the abundance of Minutemen recordings being listened to today. So why did I start with Faith No More and then go on to some Chili Peppers from their late EMI America period? Not sure why, but I do know that the Chili Peppers' first gig was opening for the Minutemen, and that Faith No More, at least early on, took some inflience from the Chilis. The Real Thing, which was most everyone's first FNM album, might seem top-heavy now because the singles -- "From Out Of Nowhere", "Epic" and "Falling To Pieces" -- kick off the album, but the whole album is still solid to this day, even with the CD bonus tracks of "War Pigs" and "Edge Of The World".
I don't have a bad word to say about the Chili Peppers -- my name isn't Michael Beinhorn, the producer of both of the albums listed here; I think it's obvious that his recent claims about Anthony Kiedis being "tone-deaf" are complete sour grapes when you consider that A) Kiedis was already singing melodically since their first album, and was encouraged to do so even more when George Clinton produceed their second album Freaky Styley and coached Kiedis for their cover of "If You Want Me To Stay" on that album.
I have all of the Minutemen's recodings on both CD and vinyl as well as the My First Bells cassette which encompasses everything from Paranoid Time to Buzz Or Howl Under The Influence Of Heat. What Makes A Man Start Fires? was the first Minutemen album I ever bought -- direct from SST Records with the help of a money order for $18 for that album and Black Flag's Everything Went Black, my second time ordering direct from them (the first time was for Black Flag's Jealous Again and TV Party EPs. 21 years later, when I got to see Mike Watt for the first time at the Khyber in Philadelphia, I brought the cover of the album (I left the vinyl at home) for him to sign, and me carrying the cover ended up being an icebreaker/conversation starter with quite a few people in the club (including Watt's drummer in the Secondman, Jerry Trebotic, who told me he wasn't familiar with Watt's music before he ended up playing with him), and I found myself sticking flyers people were handing me that night in the cover (they're still there).
The Eno album here contains what was my first taste of his music -- "Energy Fools The Magician" was the music that scored the laboratory scenes in Rock N' Roll High School and appeared on the soundtrack album of the same name -- and also contains my top favorite song of his, "Backwater" (obviously no relation to the Meat Puppets classic). The Gap Dream album is my favorite of his three albums so far, and I think his best work. His first self-tttled album made me a fan initially, but his third album This Is Gap Dream kind of underwhelmed me after an initial listen; I'll have to give it another spin sometime.