Now that we’ve made it through Criterion Month, it seems as good a time as any to talk about some music that I was grooving to during July, despite being distracted from listening to music by arthouse cinema.

Anyways, isn’t this a surprise? After spending “a decade playing chicken with oblivion”, as David Berman states in the album’s lead-off track, free from the commitments of his longtime band Silver Jews, the man is back. In the years since Silver Jews broke up in 2009, Berman didn’t seem beholden to the music world, and in fact seemed to have turned his back on it, more inclined to spend his time writing poetry and, reading books, I guess. But in the ten years since the last Silver Jews record, he seems to have gone through a lot personally. Unsurprisingly, his personal troubles (which include a divorce) make for the basis of much of the album, and makes for some of the best material of his career. Continue reading →