Mid-Year Music Roundup

Two podcast check-ins, and a Take Five forecast

[Jack Nicholson voice]: Let’s talk about records, shall we? (WRTI)

At the top of the new episode of The Late Set, Josh Jackson and I briefly marvel at the fact that we’ve somehow made it past the halfway point of 2025. “It’s a miracle, Nate,” Josh says. “I mean, look at the world today.”

“I’d rather not, thank you,” is my reply. “I’d rather just listen to some music. That has been one of the few unmitigated great things about this year, is our listening.”

Maybe that setup sounds willfully oblivious. The fact is, I’m doing what a lot of folks are doing at the moment: managing the intake, filtering the toxins, trying to find an equilibrium between civic engagement and soul nourishment. A few weeks ago, pianist

Aaron Parks

wrote a searching post about this quandary from the vantage of a creative artist; he called it Origami in a Burning House. The same impossible balancing act holds true for a critic — for any listener, really. For all of us.

So we’ll focus here on great music. Not out of blindness, but in service of beauty. I mentioned a new ep of The Late Set; here’s the link again, which will lead to our show page and “subscribe” buttons for Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and any RSS feed. We also put this episode up on YouTube, so if you want to watch me bantering with Josh over our album picks, have at it. (Due to hair-trigger copyright protections on YouTube, the video version doesn’t have any music clips.) Shout out as always to our producer, Alex Ariff, and student production assistants Delia Joyce and Melanie Spiegel.

While we’re talking podcast endorsements, today also saw the drop of a fresh episode of the All Songs Considered podcast, hosted by Robin Hilton. Periodically the show features “The Contenders,” a running list of the year’s best songs.

I’m on this episode, and brought two tracks you may recognize from past coverage here at The Gig: “Paradise,” by The Westerlies, and “Beyond the Reach of Our Eyes,” by Brandon Woody. Robin brought singles by Upchuck and Just Mustard. (Again due to some finagling around licensing, we had to cut the segment of the show featuring “So Be It” by Clipse, another of my picks. I guess the title says it all.)

We had a lively and relaxed conversation; check out the show and hear for yourself. Between All Songs and The Late Set, it’s a lot of me endorsing new music on the mic, which I hope you’ll enjoy. I thought this also presented a good opportunity to endorse still more music in print, so I’m devoting the remainder of this post to a mid-year edition of Take Five, my semiregular roundup of unmissable new music. If you’re a paid subscriber, scroll down to hear and read about those curated picks, which I’ve assembled from mid-to-late summer release window. Happy listening to all.

Take Five: Mid-Year Forecast

June 24, 2025

Tyshawn Sorey, Linda May Han Oh and Ambrose Akinmusire, who are heard together on Oh’s Strange Heavens, due out Aug. 22. (Shervin Lainez)

Linda May Han Oh, “Portals”

Bassist Linda May Han Oh has separate histories, each musically profound, with trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire and drummer Tyshawn Sorey. She featured the former on her 2009 debut, Entry, and plays alongside the latter in the Vijay Iyer Trio. Now these three exceptional musicians have convened under Oh’s leadership for an album titled Strange Heavens, due out Aug. 22 on Biophilia Records. Starting tonight, they’re also in residence at The Village Vanguard. (Yes, you should go.)