What's Good (Week of 2/1/26 - Bandcamp Friday Edition)
First What's Good of the month, and the first Bandcamp Friday of 2026, welcome on in. This week we've got:
New Albums
- Charlotte Day Wilson
- The Expert
- Mandy, Indiana
- Puma Blue
- Silversun Pickups
- Sleep Sinatra & Heather Gray
New Singles
- Chris Crack
- Dua Saleh
- Ecca Vandal
- Mitski
- MX LONELY
- NAHreally
And a whole lot more. Like a LOT lot. If it's your first time rocking with us, or if you haven't subscribed, please consider doing so. As soon as I hit publish on a blog, it goes straight to your inbox.
Before we get into the new drops this week, I wanna highlight a few Bandcamp Friday specials, and remind y'all about my charity giveaway one more time.
Bandcamp Friday Deals and Special Offers
Just like always, since Bandcamp's waving their revenue share, some labels and artists will be offering limited time deals or upping exclusive joints to the platform. Here's just a few:
- Sankofa: Sankofa's upcoming Monster Factory 2 is available for preorder, and if you cop it on CD today those orders will ship out immediately.
- WEWANTSOUNDS: They're offering 15% off all purchases with the code wewantsounds (I'd recommend Loving You George by the George Otsuka Quintet if you're into Japanese jazz.)
- RRC Music Co.: If you're up for a a game of chance, RRC's selling a Mystery Box of Tuff Kong vinyl, 5 records for €50.
- devin music/Dot Dev fka Pink Navel: Performed last night, Dot Dev uploaded their live set from the Lilypad in Cambridge MA to their Bandcamp page.
- Brainfeeder: Brainfeeder's celebrating the life of their friend Austin Peralta by offering the deluxe edition of their label's first jazz release, Endless Planets, 25% off on vinyl and PWYW digitally.
- Tab One: Tab One's offering last year's I'm Going for a Run PWYW digitally.
Charity Giveaway Reminder
Do remember! I'm giving away a copy of Mercy by Armand Hammer & The Alchemist to one lucky reader.
All you have to do to get in on the action is make a charitable donation to any of the following:
- Trans Youth Emergency Project: A project from the Campaign for Southern Equality, offering logistical and financial support to families affected by laws restricting or banning care for transgender children across the United States
- Al Otro Lado: An organization providing legal and humanitarian aid for immigrant communities in the U.S. and Mexico, with litigation services, family reunification, and a number of other programs.
- The Women's Foundation of Minnesota's Immigrant Rapid Response Fund: A fund directing resources to organizations across the Twin Cities metro area and Greater Minnesota that provide basic needs, urgent legal services, and advocacy resources for communities impacted by immigration-related harm.
And fill out this Google form with proof of your donation. I'll close out the form on 2/28/26, then I'll contact a randomly selected one of you for an address to send the record to.
Now let's get into the music.
Playlists
TIDAL
TIDAL: What's Good Playlist - Week of 2/1/26
YouTube
Bonus Beats
Squadda B's The Greatest Producer I Know—part autobiography, part music producer's guide—is available now, both on YouTube and Bandcamp.
Check out The Expert and NAHreally talking BLIP and Vivid Visions around the time of release of the latter. (The Expert's Extra Visions is out exclusively on Bandcamp today, and NAHreally's new album Extra Cheese is in preorder today as well. Both are featured in the drops this week.)
Kassa Overall upped the entirety of his performance of selections from CREAM at Cubes Rotterdam to his YouTube.
Digable Planets set it off at Noochie's Live From the Front Porch.
Elmattic
Elmattic wrote about Donuts for the almighty Passion of the Weiss on its 20th anniversary.
If sampling is a musical time machine that can bend, warp, stretch, compress, reach forwards and back, Dilla stops the clock. Donuts begins with an outro and finishes with “Welcome to the Show.” Time is warped and inverted. The end of that last track loops right back to the start – a temporal möbius strip, infinity brought to bear.
Ultimately, the tales and the tragedy loom larger over the album than the work itself, because it’s hard for regular listeners to understand how he created these sounds, and why they sound so radically different. Dilla’s innovations break the rules around time, sampling, and drums; they re-humanized music in the age of mechanization.
Hip-hop producers make machines operate in wholly new ways (they run the record back and forth on the turntable, make records from snippets of older wax). Dilla took it up to a higher echelon. Anyone can learn to scratch or sample, but he managed to do it in a unquantifiable and inimitable way.
Will Schube
Also over at Passion of the Weiss, Will Schube sat down with Zilla Rocca and Disco Vietnam (aka Barry Schwartz) to discuss their excellent album Fast Eddie, and their influences for the site's Above The Influence feature.
Will: What do you think is the difference between being able to cook up one tremendous beat versus being able to carry that through an entire album?
Barry Schwartz: There is no difference. If you make a banging beat, you want it to have like 11 cousins, you know? The philosophy when we started this album was all bangers. Zilla sent me a version of “Fifties and Hundreds” with Defcee and Reef the Lost Cauze. It was one of my beats and it was fine. It was good, but the beat wasn’t a banger. The rhymes were great, but we needed to find a better home for it. He re-recorded the song on another beat I sent. I was like, ‘I don’t know man. Let’s see if we can get a better one.’ I sent him a beat from like five tapes ago that he’d never heard. He was like, ‘This is incredible.’ That’s the beat on the record. You have to have that patience to say ‘Hold on, is this the best we can do?’
Will: Barry said a lot of his beats span many, many years. Is that similar with your raps, or were these written with Fast Eddie in mind?
Zilla Rocca: Did you play baseball?
Will: Yeah.
Zilla Rocca: Okay, when someone like Greg Maddux was pitching, he was always trying to steal outs. He won, like, 18 Gold Gloves because he was like, I can get two or three easy outs of balls back to the mound. When I’m doing records, we’re all excited, everyone’s pumped up. You knock out the first three, four songs, you’re all juiced up. You’re trying to impress the producer and engineers, whoever, and then you hit a lull. Then you come back, you make a couple more, and then by the time you hit 10 songs, you’re like, I need to get some easy wins, some easy outs. That’s when I start going through my notebooks and voice memos, and I’ll find stuff that I wrote down, stuff I started and didn’t finish or something I put on a beat before a project changed.
Jonny Auping
The homey Jonny Auping also wrote about Dilla in his excellent My Time Back newsletter, reviewing Dan Charnas' Dilla Time, also taking the opportunity to remember Michael "5000" Watts.
What J Dilla did was not overtly political, except it was. He was essentially making music that went against Western orthodox concepts of what music is. Before J Dilla, you could not teach or articulate what J Dilla did. You barely can now. There has to be a standard that makes sense to measure things against. To deviate from that is not supposed to sound good. For as many people as you see wearing J Dilla’s face on t-shirts, you will hear people discredit what he did. They won’t mention his name, because they will never bother to learn his name. There’s an intensity to knowing that something will make people feel good, but that thing is too different to be OK. That’s the definition of radical.
Natalie Weiner
Queen Natalie Weiner of the illustrious Don't Rock The Inbox let the chopper sing at Jelly Roll and the continued conflation of country music with conservatism/the right wing, thanks to the craven disposition of some its most popular artists.
At the Grammys, his ambivalence (or aloofness, in his own words) stood out among artists across genres, from Joni Mitchell to Billie Eilish to Bad Bunny, who spoke or wore statements explicitly against ICE. But, for those artists and most everyone watching the show, in that difference it was predictable — more or less how they'd expect a country singer to respond, if a little more diplomatic than the meme-worthy Travis Tritt or Charlie Daniels variety of political takes.
That attitude, that this is simply what all country singers are and have always been, is pervasive among those who aren't fans of the genre. "What's the point, they won't change" tends to be the response when people like Marissa or I ask mainstream Nashville country artists to do better, or express disappointment when they don't — as Marissa did in her great piece about country, guns, veterans and Alex Pretti last week. Most people who are not conservative assume all country artists are — that Music Row is politically a lost cause. But that hasn't always been the case, and it's not the case now even if the MAGA factions are getting louder and louder. I don't hold any particular affection for Lee Brice and Gabby Barrett, but they have had enough success that I'm still disappointed they feel their best bet lies in participating in the Turning Point USA "alternative Super Bowl Halftime show."
Thelonious Martin is back with a new season of beattapes, starting with Episode 1: The Variety Show. Listen to/watch it on YouTube, and cop it exclusively on Bandcamp.
Music
al.divino - Ultraviolet feat. The Hidden Character (Out now, YouTube loosie.)
Chris Crack - Hurt Feelings Over Wasted Time (From Too Late To Start Following the Rules Now, out on 2/13/26. Preorder: Bandcamp | Qobuz, Stream: Tidal | Apple | YouTube Music)
TERAVADA - The Grand Impasse (From T90 GYRO, out now. Purchase: Bandcamp | Qobuz, Stream: Tidal | Apple | YouTube Music)
Charlotte Day Wilson - If Only (From Patchwork, out now. Purchase: Bandcamp | Qobuz, Stream: Tidal | Apple | YouTube Music)
TYE Harris - No Better Feelings & Michael Corleone feat. Hashi Senjoo (From Pushing Keys (Deluxe), out now. Purchase: Qobuz, Stream: Tidal | Apple | YouTube Music)
Mandy, Indiana - Sicko! feat. billy woods (From URGH, out now. Purchase: Bandcamp | Vinyl via Sacred Bones | Qobuz, Stream: Tidal | Apple | YouTube Music)
Kelly Moonstone - Day 1's feat. Pink Siifu (From New Moon, out now. Purchase: Qobuz | Other retailer, Stream: Tidal | Apple | YouTube Music)
billy woods & August Fanon - Funny Games feat. Fatboi Sharif (From gowillog, out now. Purchase: Bandcamp | Digital, physicals, and short film on VHS via Backwoodz Studioz, Stream: Watch the short film for a limited time at Vimeo)
Mitski - I'll Change for You (From Nothing's About To Happen To Me, out on 2/27. Preorder: Bandcamp | Physicals, digital, and merch via Mitski's Official Store | Qobuz, Stream: Tidal | Apple | YouTube Music)
Dua Saleh - Flood feat. Bon Iver (From Of Earth & Wires, out on 5/15/26. Preorder: Bandcamp | Physicals via Ghostly International | Qobuz, Stream: Tidal | Apple | YouTube Music)
MX LONELY - Anesthetic (From ALL MONSTERS, out on 2/20/26. Preorder: Bandcamp | Physicals via Julia's War Recordings | Qobuz, Stream: Tidal | Apple | YouTube Music)
Puma Blue - Mister Lost (From Croak Dream, out now. Purchase: Bandcamp | Phyiscals and bundles via Puma Blue's Official site | Qobuz, Stream: Tidal | Apple | YouTube Music)
Stove God Cooks - Welcome To My Garden (Out now. Purchase: Qobuz, Stream: Tidal | Apple | Youtube Music)
Boldy James & Nicholas Craven - Offerings feat. Ransom (From Salvation for the Wicked out 2/12/26. Preorder: Qobuz, Stream: Tidal | Apple | YouTube Music)
Los Retros - Doves feat. ひかり (Out now. Purchase: Bandcamp | Qobuz, Stream: Tidal | Apple | YouTube Music)
Acantha Lang - Til I Get Right (Out now. Purchase: Bandcamp | Qobuz, Stream: Tidal | Apple | YouTube Music)
Whitney Johnson, Lia Kohl, Macie Stewart - dawn | pulse (From BODY SOUND, out on 3/20/26. Preorder: Bandcamp | Qobuz, Stream: Tidal | Apple | YouTube Music)
addy - peel (From fire, fire, out now. Purchase: Bandcamp, Stream: Tidal | Apple | YouTube Music)
Apollo Brown - Night Moves (Out now. Purchase: Bandcamp | Qobuz, Stream: Tidal | Apple | YouTube Music)
Tab One - Just Go (Out now. Purchase: Bandcamp | Qobuz, Stream: Tidal | Apple | YouTube Music)
Ecca Vandal - BLEACH (Out now. Purchase: Bandcamp | Qobuz, Stream: Tidal | Apple | YouTube Music)
Bandcamp New & Notable Jun 26, 2013
Anwar HighSign - FEB 4 Freestyle (Out now. Purchase/Stream: Bandcamp)
Smoking Word (Tajai and Myke Millen) - First Issue (Out now. Purchase/Stream: Bandcamp)
Bandcamp New & Notable Mar 30, 2022
Satchel Brown - lastamount (Out now. Purchase/Stream: Bandcamp)
Darko the Super & MF Grimm - Beware of Bob / Prom Queen (From Beware of Bob, out on 2/24/26. Preorder: Bandcamp, Stream "Prom Queen": Tidal | Apple | YouTube Music)
Chat Pile - Masks (From the Masks 7", out now. Purchase: Bandcamp | Digital and vinyl via Sub Pop Mega Mart | Qobuz, Stream: Tidal | Apple | YouTube Music)
Son Raw - Canadian Bacon (From G. RAWmsey Vol. 2: Lunch Money, out now. Purchase/Stream: Bandcamp)
DøøF - じんじゃとじいn (From DøøF Luh Japan V1, out now. Purchase/Stream: Bandcamp)
Sleep Sinatra
Sleep Sinatra & Heather Grey - Fangs feat. Stik Figa (From Strange Fires, out now. Purchase: Bandcamp)
RZA - Lolita feat. Craig G & Makin' It Home feat. Grand Daddy I.U. (From Bobby Digital Presents: Juice Crew, out now. Stream: Tidal | Apple | Youtube Music)
Silversun Pickups - Au Revoir Reservoir (From Tenterhooks, out now. Purchase: Vinyl and CD via Silversun Pickups' store | Qobuz, Stream: Tidal | Apple | Youtube Music)
Gwen Bunn - Extra Mile (Out now. Purchase: Qobuz, Stream: Tidal | Apple | YouTube Music)
Carlos Niño & Friends - Elysian Invocation feat. (From the Elysian Invocation/"Pollen of the Earth" single, out now. Purchase: Bandcamp | Leaving Records | Qobuz, Stream: Tidal | Apple | YouTube Music)
2 Mello - trinity (From rhythm pools 01 - naissance, out on 3/6/26. Preorder: Bandcamp | Digitally via 2mello.net, Stream: Tidal | YouTube Music)
NAHreally - Umpteen (From EXTRA CHEESE, out on 3/27/26. Preorder: Bandcamp)
Bandcamp New & Notable Apr 26, 2024
The Expert - crimescene feat. Norm Regular (From Bandcamp exclusive Extra Visions, out now. Purchase: Bandcamp)
Ol' Burger Beats - Ella G (From Piano Pieces, out now. Purchase: Bandcamp | Qobuz, Stream: Tidal | Apple | YouTube Music)
Mythical Motors
Mythical Motors - In Her Second State (From Tremolo On The Punchline, out on 4/10/26. Preorder: Bandcamp)
Elaquent - Fantasy Finale (From This Little Game of Ours, out now. Purchase: Bandcamp)
Bandcamp New & Notable Feb 2, 2026
Onry aka Milipede - Door Down (From 𝐁 𝐚 𝐥 𝐭 𝐡 𝐚 𝐳 𝐚 𝐑 , out now. Purchase: Bandcamp)
AJ Suede - Lefted Alone (From Psydeye , out now. Purchase: Bandcamp | Qobuz, Stream: Tidal | Apple | YouTube Music)
That does it for this week. Thank you for tapping in with me, and if you enjoyed it or discovered anything new, be sure to pay it forward by telling a friend about my blog. Have wonderful weekend, fuck ICE, take care of each other, and make good choices.
Comments ()