Radio Free California Episode 2625, plus some commentary about a few of the artists.

 

New music this week from Quiet Houses, Haircut 100, Brockhoff, A, Eels, Peter Gabriel, Sparks, The Klittens, Dust Bowl Revival, Mike Nova, Roger Waters with Mona Miari, Nanook, Hana Hope, Kat Robichaud and much more. Enjoy!

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My vote for Best New Artist for 2026 may go to Brockhoff, whose first full-length album "Easy Peeler" is so good that I seriously debated including all 14 tracks in this week's list. This is a solid, consistent and fun album full of hooks, pop and rock and roll. She has released EPs before now so that might disqualify her from the category (the rules about that sort of this are designed to confuse people) but I've owned the album for 24 hours and have listened to it three times now. Do yourself a favor and check it out.

And after months of waiting, the long long awaited album from Haircut 100 has just dropped, entitled "Boxing the Compass". It's like they never left. The album is a worthy successor of all the promise the band showed in their heyday and reminds you just how much fund something like this can be.

You're not going to find many albums that are as full and well-rounded as the latest from Quiet Houses called "We're All In Love". It's not a concept album, but the stories told in each song cover common themes of life and getting on with life, and the flow of the album from song to song is superb. Well worth your time.

What can you say about a band with the audacity to just call itself A? Especially a band that has taken 20 years between albums? Their comeback is called "Prang" and it's a wallop to the face of riffs and hard rock. 

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I had a long weekend and I'm really not up for digging into the political stories, other than to make this comment about The head of the Crime Administration who said, “We’ve had some real problems with Vandalism at the beautiful Reflecting Pool.”

Actually true. Some dumb motherfucker painted the bottom of the whole thing blue.

And #RIP Clive Davis - one of the most influential people in music and a proud Bisexual.

And because I love you, watch Metallica have some fun from a couple of weeks ago.