Pickled Priest 2025 New Music Mixtape #6: "A Cooler World is Possible"

It doesn't have to be this way. By that, I mean music. It doesn't have to be devalued down to a monthly cost in exchange for the right to stream almost every piece of music ever recorded. It doesn't have to shortchange artists with miniscule royalty payments to fuel some business model that treats music like a commodity to trade on the open market. It doesn't have to lose its physical presence in people's lives. So bless the boys in Hotline TNT for pulling their music from Spotify this week and inspiring our mixtape's title, which states the not so obvious, that "a cooler world is possible." We all need to find that world somehow. Some place where music is truly appreciated for what it can offer you. Which is, to begin with, everything.

SIDE A

INTRO: "You Don't Exist" | Mechatok

It's like you don't exist...

I find it's always wise to start a mixtape with an existential drink thrown in your face. Whether you deserve it or not is beside the point—it still puts you in your place on some level. Mechatok, a German electronic producer schooled in Berlin's vibrant club culture, has likely witnessed this scene countless times over the years from his vantage point above the crowd. Is it a bit harsh? Yes, but in a way not existing is also almost a relief. It really depends on your perspective.

01 "Julia's War" | Hotline TNT

We reward NYC's Hotline TNT with the first slot on our latest mixtape because their vision for "a cooler world" at the very least includes their new LP, Raspberry Moon, a record to own and savor in full and not from within a mass of 'recommended' music generated by some profit-minded algorithm. The title may sound like a sub-par, late-period Prince album, but it's actually an accessible shoegaze album for people who like to look up rather than down. It's an album that deserves and rewards your undivided attention. "Julia's War" is best described by lead-everything Will Anderson: "You’ve never heard a TNT chorus this straightforward — when we stress-tested it during the writing process, the “try not to sing along challenge” came back with a 100% fail rate." My reaction will not jeopardize their perfect record. And consider me on board with the band's proposal for a new cooler world order.

02 "Life Signs" | Water From Your Eyes

Water From Your Eyes titled their new record It's a Beautiful Place to highlight how deeply flawed beauty can be. In reality, our world is deeply fractured, almost irredeemably so. Is it too late for humanity to win out in the end? Frontwoman Rachel Brown tells us of our sad dilemma on "Life Signs," delivering detached lyrics in a casual monotone cadence as guitars surge around her. It's a disorienting, but oddly thrilling juxtaposition that makes the song and the rest of the band's music consistently compelling.

03 "Priestess" | Cass McCombs

If you think I'm not going to put a song titled "Priestess" on one of my new music mixtapes, you got that wrong. We've been regularly checking back in with Concord, California's Cass McCombs (say that ten times real fast) since we followed a tip from a record clerk at Berkeley's legendary Mod Lang Records (now in El Cerrito) and picked up his debut record, A, way back in 2003. At best, a B+, however. Over twenty years later we likely have his best album ever in our paws and does it ever drift smoothly from our newly resurrected house speakers (final part sourced on eBay!). McCombs is a Californian through and through, so his record is a laid-back singer-songwriter affair with some sun-baked texture and a calming folkie aroma. And did I take notice of a light simmering groove at times? Yes, I did. He's a crafty lyricist, too, here making references to Ella Fitzgerald, John Prine, and the devil himself along the way. Perhaps a priestess was needed to conjure them all up with some magic spell.

04 "Firefly on the 4th of July" | U.S. Girls

Chicago's Meg Remy took off for Toronto at some point, which now seems like a smart move, and since then she's produced some of the most interesting pop music of the last decade, never settling for long on a particular style or sound, but never forgetting to make songs you can dance to in some way. With her latest, Scratch It, which was recorded in Nashville, she's off again in a new intriguing direction, incorporating that country/soul hybrid you'll find when you head south on I-65 for an extended stretch. It has been compared to Cat Power's The Greatest, which is high praise around here. Scratch It does offer up a similar patient groove, but substitutes Meg's girlish vocals that sound imported from a pop single circa the late-60s. The album is like a prescription more than anything, a cure-all for a generic, lazy weekend day. I've chosen a song to represent, but there's nothing, really nothing to turn off.

05 "Tree" | Chance the Rapper (ft. Lil Wayne and Smino)

Chance, by most accounts, has been on the creative decline recently, and I'm not sure his new album, Star Line, will change that or not. I know nothing of these things, especially when it comes to rap, but to me it sounds like it is pretty close to a return to form. "Tree" reminds me favorably of his song "Sunday Candy" from his feature with Donnie Trumpet & the Social Experiment from way back in 2015 (that was a decade ago already) and that's a good thing. "Tree," about growing local and snubbing that "government weed," definitely benefited from a few bong hits prior to recording. I mean rhyming "Jenny Craig" with "Winnipeg" doesn't happen without a little help, does it? There's a playfulness to the track that indicates Chance can still loosen up when he wants to. Especially when his blunt looks like he "rolled up a rug" in his hand. Whatever it takes, dude.

06 "Ace Trumpets" | Clipse

I'm no expert to say the least, but I think I know a killer rap record when I hear one, and Clipse's Let God Sort Em Out is brilliant front-to-back. Pitchfork gave it a 6.5, which must mean it's great. That said, if there's one genre where critical opinions mean little to me, it's rap. I like what I like, and this new Clipse album has everything I want, excepting the John Legend cameo, in one place. That I could do without, although the song featuring it is the most moving song on the record ("The Birds Don't Sing"). Suffice it to say, brothers Pusha T and Malice can fucking rap, something long known by just about everyone, but now proven once again. It's rare for me to find a rap record with no skips, but here's one of them. It is pretty close to a masterpiece, the best rap album I've heard since Billy Woods' Golliwog, and we'll likely find the two battling it out for Pickled Priest's Best Rap Record of the Year. Not a distinguished award to say the least, even less meaningful than a Grammy.

07 "Kill Me" | Hayley WIlliams

Instead of a new record, Hayley released seventeen singles at once this year. Fans have been calling the collection Ego, assuming an album version wouldn't follow. They were wrong. It's coming out November 7th and it is titled Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party. So the fans weren't far off! So far, I'm not in love with all of it. However, she's such a great pop singer and songwriter that she's incapable of not giving us a few gems. "Kill Me" is my personal favorite from this bunch. Maybe the rest will grow on me.

08 "Moment By" | Nadia Reid

This voice. How it soothes me so. After a superb full-length LP earlier this year, Enter Now Brightness, Nadia dropped a two-sided single on us just recently, so we have her second mixtape appearance this year. For me, the more Nadia the better and this song is a perfect 10.0 (70's Olympic gymnastics reference intended, but poorly executed). Both songs are special, but "Moment By" had me hanging on her every word. It's her voice, obviously, but also her word choice, her phrasing, her melodies. She's the musical equivalent of comfort food.

09 "This is Not the Place I Belong" | For Those I Love

And when I pass on to the other side

Carry me down the road I played on as a child

High drama in Dublin. David Balfe, known creatively as For Those I Love, is a significant voice in Irish music, a troubled poet struggling to reconcile the love of place with the desire to leave it. It doesn't take long to figure out where "This is Not the Place I Belong" falls on that axis. With every indictment of a decaying city comes a memory of youth or family, sometimes both at once, as we find Balfe "mourning a place I've never left" throughout the song. For the final dramatic minute the push and pull gets stronger and stronger, the eventual outcome predetermined. Breathtaking.

10 "A Moment Longer" | James Yorkston

Oh my, the innocent charm of this song. It makes me feel like we're living in an alternate reality where the holding of a hand means everything, just like it did when the Beatles asked for it in 1964. Domino Records mainstay James Yorkston (14 albums with the label and counting) has joined forces with the Cardigans' Nina Persson and First Aid Kit's Johanna Söderberg on his new collaborative record, the aptly titled Songs for Nina and Johanna, and if you're looking for a little old fashioned discretion, look no further.

11 "Who Wants" | Jade Bird

Another Brit singer/songwriter who does Americana better than the Americans, Jade Bird (her given name) even titled her first EP Something American back in 2017. Her music isn't tied to any location, however; it's tied to human emotion, which is pretty much the same everywhere you go. In "Who Wants" she finds something new to say about the dissolution of love, opting to sit in the dark in lieu of turning the lights on and facing the day. A viable way to avoid confrontation, but by the sound of her voice, she still can't escape it.

12 "Everybody Dies" | Superchunk

In 2018, my #1 song of the year was Superchunk's "What a Time to Be Alive" and in a little under eight years, we've now arrived at "Everybody Dies," from their new album Songs in the Key of Yikes. Even the album title, alluding to Stevie Wonder's Songs in the Key of Life, seems to be pessimistic about our current (and future) state. Somehow, no matter what Mac is singing about, it always comes out with a borderline joyous undercurrent, which is helpful, because the state of the union is on fire right now.

13 "Little Black Bat" | Jonathan Richman

We end side one with the open-hearted, unabashed, and sometimes downright goofy Jonathan Richman, bless his little heart. I don't quite know what this song is or what it's about, but "Little Black Bat" makes me happier than most other songs released in 2025 so far. Do yourself a favor and invest in his new album, Only Frozen Sky Anyway as well. It's the album you need right now.

SIDE B

14 "Archetype" | The Eel Men

Where's John Peel when you need him? The Eel Men are the kind of London band you'd have found him gushing about on Radio 1 back in the day. Just the right amount of edgy post-punk energy so common on his annual Festive 50 lists. The Eel Men have delivered a sub-30:00 record titled Stop It! Do Something. and it is packed with two- and three-minutes singles, just the way we like them. Short and sharp. I ordered a vinyl copy before "Archetype" ended and it's only the fourth song on the record. This is the kind of single for which I live and breathe.

15 "What It's Worth" | Dragnet

Melbourne's Dragnet (named after the 50's cop show, I hope) sees the Eel Men's ten songs in 26-minutes and raises nine songs in 19-minutes on Dragnet Reigns!, their new EP length LP. How's that for post-punk efficiency? They're a band with such confidence in their future that they pressed a full 150 vinyl copies of the album worldwide. I suggest you get one now before people catch on. Interestingly, built right into the cover is an "autograph panel" where the band will sign the record for you if you order now like I did. That shows some positivity, doesn't it? Mine adds the Sharpie-written comment, "You are keeping this band alive by buying this album" alongside signatures from the band. A genius marketing idea and I'm more than happy to do my part because this is right up there with my favorite 20-minutes bursts of Gang of Four-esque post-punk so far this year. Well worth the steep postage costs from Down Under, I may add. I picked the first song because why wouldn't you listen to this all the way through anyway? You don't got 20-minutes to spare, bigshot? Put down the Tik Tok and focus.

16 "Pulse" | Yass

More noise, glorious noise from this German band, as if one listen won't tell you where they're from. The easy out is Kraftwerk if they were an underground noise rock band and a heavy metronomic thrust is present throughout to provide some predictability to these wildebeest tracks, which provide no rest for the weary, no quarter to the meek. They titled their album Feel Safe, but I don't think so. This is not the sound of a mind at ease. Songs like "Pulse" are menacing, thrilling at top volume but even loud at half that, able to rattle your cage on any terms. I like a band that makes me feel a little peril.

17 "Blake's Tape" | Dragged Up

One of the meanings of "dragged up" is to be raised poorly and without discipline, which translates well to very few careers, but thankfully a rock band is one of them. That's good news for Glasgow's Dragged Up. On their brawling debut album from last year (High on Ripple, a recent discovery for me), they titled a song, "Young Person's Guide to Going Backwards in the World," so they know what they're on about. The band has been getting some prime opening slots lately playing with The Hard Quartet and Water Damage, but they soon should be touring solo because I wouldn't want them opening for my band, that's for sure. A tough act to follow. Singer Eva Gnatiuk has a swaggering presence on these tracks and she needs it because behind her is a raw and nasty guitar, bass, drums attack that brings the fuzz and the thump with authority. The band released a single earlier this year and it's a good one, with "Blake's Tape" more proof of the band's promise. It's based on the "found footage" horror movie, The Andy Baker Tape, from 2022, which I haven't seen yet, but the main point here is you might be hearing more from this band soon.

Ed. Note: The only audio of this song I could find was this "Radio Edit" from YouTube, which is comical because this song in any format doesn't scream radio play at all. I recommend you seek the full-length version on Bandcamp or buy the physical single outright. There's really no need for an abbreviated version in the world for any reason.

18 "Debt Forever"/"Boycott Everything Everywhere" | Charm School

Not to be confused with San Francisco's Chime School, Louisville band Charm School is a totally different animal. And a broke animal at that. They've got myriad gripes all done with the attitude of a punk band and the ferocity of a feral rock band. We'd thought we'd give you a double-dose of the band here since both songs are about three minutes combined. The title track of their debut record is a frustrated ripper about being smothered by debt and the impractical, tariff-solving "Boycott Everything Everywhere" is a 62-second scream therapy session for a fraction of the cost. The real promise follows, however, as they become a real rock band later and the album keeps getting better as it goes. But why start at the end? Just power through the whole thing.

19 "No Idea" | CLAMM

Yet another stop in Melbourne, a place where I now want to retire based on the number of great bands operating there. CLAMM's new record is a raw slice of barking rock-punk (in that order) with one of those choruses that sounds like it's already a cult classic after being yelped in seedy Australian basements for years.

20 "Deceiver" | Dax Riggs

I guarantee you that Dax Riggs' electric bill is lower than yours. The guy is the living embodiment of darkness, from his voice to his lyrics to his music. ln the sludge metal world, his name means something. He fronted a band named Acid Bath, which meant nothing to me until I found out about his solo work, but I'm glad I did. I like a little foreboding doom in my life now and then. I think it's healthy to not have sunshine blown up your ass all day every day. His new record, 7 Songs for Spiders, is a solo affair and it's bleak in a Mark Lanegan kind of way. A high compliment. Ominous, but in a midnight reaper kind of way. It's heavy but not metal. It's also not devoid of melody or structure. Dax has one of the best voices in the darkness business and his songwriting approach fits his vibe perfectly. "Deceiver" sums it all up perfectly, "I don't know where I end and the darkness begins." I'll tell you this much, it's riveting to listen to him figure it out.

21 "Luther" | Iron & Wine & Ben Bridwell

I'm not one for ironic covers. You know the kind; Metallica goes bluegrass and annoying shit like that. But in the hands of Sam Beam (Iron and Wine) and Ben Bridwell (Band of Horses), Kendrick Lamar's "Luther" is transformed to the point it could easily stand on its own terms if nobody was the wiser. It's from the duo's new EP, Making Good Time, which also features songs by Foreigner, boygenius, Roxy Music, and, you've gotta be kidding me, U2. After the success of their last covers project, 2015's Sing Into My Mouth (yuck), they opted to give a few more songs the Beamwell treatment. Kudos for thinking out of the box here. It totally works.

22 "Bound to Rain" | Ken Pomeroy

This is the one song on this entire mix that got an [Explicit] warning affixed to it (fuck dropped), the pottymouth. Ironically, she's one of the tamest singer/songwriters on this list. Also, the most affecting. Her simple, stripped songs can be peacefully devastating, turning on a single lyric. This is her second mixtape appearance this year alone which further cements her as one of my new favorite Americana artists. And when I say Americana, I mean it. She's Native American. Cherokee, to be specific. "Bound to Rain" sounds like a song that's existed in the soil for a while, waiting to escape. I'm glad it did; it's another subtle beauty from Ms. Pomeroy.

23 "Hyperglyph" | Chicago Underground Duo

I wonder how much Mui Chung paid for their prominent ad placement on the album cover of the Chicago Underground Duo's latest record for International Anthem. And when they say Chicago Underground, they mean it. They're so underground that Mui Chung is located in Philadelphia. Go figure. I suppose if they make a killer Moo Goo Gai Pan geography goes out the window. The CUD is the project of the ubiquitous Rob Mazurek (trumpet/synths) and percussionist Chad Taylor, two guys know for their own brand of avant-garde jazz. Don't bother to classify it, I say. The title track to their new recording, 'Hyperglyph," incorporates a little of everything that makes the pair special. Just when you think you've got the track sorted, they're off in a new direction. Following their path may be a challenge, but it's a rewarding one.

24 "Head in the Sand" | Sean Thompson's Weird Ears

Along with M. Ross Perkins, Sean Thompson is a bit of a throwback 60's hippie-rocker with a touch of the vapors. His head isn't quite on straight and I like him a little cockeyed. I'm not in for all of it, but the title track from Head in the Sand is a peculiar little earworm I've found myself playing often. I've long prided myself on not having my head in the sand when it comes to new music, but all is forgiven if you have. This album is a safe haven. A little odd, but still accessible. Keep music weird.

25 "Oneida" | Tyler Childers

The morning sun, when it's in your face, really shows your age

But that don't worry me none, in my eyes you're everything

—"Maggie May," Rod Stewart

The age-old tale of age-old women attracting younger men continues on Tyler Childers' new song, "Oneida" from album Snipe Hunter, a record that's been converting me piece by piece. "Oneida" was my entry point, an immediately striking song with great lyrics sung clear as a bell for maximum impact. I liked it so much, the indie double-vinyl edition was mine at a much-too-high price point (we've all gone mad). I'm also sad that I already made my Best Album Covers Featuring Dogs list, because this is a damn good one.

26 "Rein Me In" (Live at London Stadium) | Sam Fender & Olivia Dean

l'm not on the Sam Fender bandwagon still, but this live version of "Rein Me In," his duet with Olivia Dean from his album People Watching, is an exception. It's a showstopper. The biggest reaction from the crowd, justly, is saved for Olivia and she sounds amazing during her verse. Without it, just a good song; with it, a great song. The crowd's enthusiastic response makes me want to love him, it really does.

OUTRO: "In the Pub" | Echolalia

We ended a mixtape last year with "Quality Pints" by The Bug Club, and that worked out so well, we're back a year later with Echolalia's "In the Pub," which has the same level of soused humor and love for the perfect pint, only this time a shot of Jameson follows. The rest of Echolalia's album sounds nothing like it, not in the least what I expected, but I'm glad it was interesting enough to make me stay around for last call or else I would've missed this frothy pour near closing time.

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You don't have to love any of this, but keep an open mind. That's all I ask!

Cheers,

The Priest