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Albums of the Week (12.07.25 - 12.14.25)

Back again. Not so much a Daily Eclectoid as a When I Feel Like It Eclectoid. That's okay.

I logged every album I listened this week. Kind of. Each day, I wrote down every album I listened to. If I listened to half an LP one day and finished the following day, I didn't log it. If I listened to something on separate days, I logged it twice. That didn't happen this week, but it will.

I'd like to log Mondays to Sundays, but I started last Sunday, so you get a bit of everything. I'm making this up as we go.

Here's Sunday 12.07 to Sunday 12.14:

Sunday, December 7, 2025

  • In Nigeria (1985) - Yusef Lateef
  • Ella & Louis Christmas (1960) - Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong
  • Butterfly 3000 (2021) - King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard
  • Give Love At Christmas (1980) - The Temptations
  • Poppy Seeds: An International Benefit for Mutual Aid in Gaza (2025) - Various

 Monday, December 8, 2025

  • Club Nostalgia (Special Edition) (2024) - Minuit Cafe
  • Groove Memories (Japanese Edition) (2022) - Minuit Cafe
  • Shapes and Forms - Single (2025) - Eddy Current Suppression Ring
  • viagr aboys (2025) - Viagra Boys
  • Christmas Songs (2013) - Bad Religion

Tuesday, December 9, 2025

  • Cave World (2022) - Viagra Boys

Wednesday, December 10, 2025

  • Girls on Bikes (2017) - Open Science Collective
  • First Aid Kit (2023) - Big Blood
  • Clay (2025) - Momoko Gill, Matthew Herbert

 Thursday, December 11, 2025

  • High Bias: Music from the Book (2023)
  • Paradigms (2025) - Hotel Pools & Brothertiger

Friday, December 12, 2025

  • Vaarallinen (2014) - Sosiaalinen Kontrolli
  • ARTIFACTUAL RHYTHM (2024) - Alexander Flood

 Saturday, December 13, 2025

  • Christmas Cookin’ (1964) - Jimmy Smith
  • Red, Hot, & Ra: SOLAR - Sun Ra in Brazil (2023) - Red Hot Org
  • TEN: The Story Goes On (2025) - TWICE
  • Solar Bridge (2008) - Emeralds

Sunday, December 14, 2025

  • Weak Speed (2025) - Speed Week
  • Nebulout (2025) - The Natural Yogurt Band & The Oracle
  • Ummh + Ummh Version - Single (2025) - The Juks
  • Drop Dead (30th Anniversary Edtion) (2015) - Seige
  • LOS CRUSTÁCEOS / NO COMPLY Split 2022 (Thrash#7) (2022) - LOS CRUSTÁCEOS / NO COMPLY
  • MARVELOUS - ''BARENO!!!" EP (Thrash#14) (2023) - MARVELOUS
  • San Francisco (1971) - Bobby Hutcherson
  • ICED MERLOT - Single (2025) - JW Francis & Paul Cherry
  • Pure Grooves Vol. 1 (2023) - Paul Cherry
  • A Grand Exclamation of GO!-ing (Japan Tour 2019) (Thrash#6) (2022) - Sick Burn
  • W.F.O EP (Thrash#10)* (2023) - WIPES
  • Don't Back Down Demo EP (Thrash#18) (2025) - WHOREFIED
  • Nasgino Inage Nidayulenvi (It Started in the Woods) (2024) - Agalisiga

What have we learned with this first go-around? I listen to a lot of shit on Sundays, and this Sunday was all over the place, though you'll see some patterns.

Also, 'tis the season for Christmas songs, and my favorite Christmas album made the list: Bad Religion's Christmas Songs, a short record of (mostly) traditional Christian songs reverently treated, which is shocking (for obvious reasons) and beautiful (for not-as-obvious reasons). When you approach these songs non-ironically and lovingly, it's hard not to love them. BR tacks on a killer mix of "American Jesus" to punt any warm feelings out the window, though. It's a great palate cleanser.

Jimmy Smith's Christmas Cookin' is full of songs that'll make you forget halfway through they are a Christmas standard. It goes places. Quite fun. It's also an album that made me realize my wife hates organ music of any variety.

As for Give Love at Christmas, you're not listening for the "This Christmas" cover, you're listening for the best rendition of "Silent Night" you're ever going to hear.

Lots of cassette listens this week. High Bias: Music From the Book makes me 1) want to re-read the book and 2) want to listen to more Cop Funeral. There's one copy of lo quality self-value left on Bandcamp. I don't dabble much in noise, but "Do Not Disturb" in its slow build of clanging rhythms makes me want to.

Related (kind of, not really) is Emeralds' Solar Bridge. I hadn't listened to any Emeralds prior to this week, and I think I'm in love. Fell asleep to them at a time when insomnia was clutching my brain. More of this, less of everything else.

Speaking of everything else, nothing I listened to this week was bad. I loved most of it. I could leave ICED MERLOT, but it did cause me to throw on Pure Grooves Vol. 1, a lovingly tongue-in-cheek exercise in smooth jazz, complete with radio call-in skits.

The Juks' retro reggae jazz cover of Bobby Hutcherson's "Ummh" led me to Bobby Hutcherson's San Francisco, which I'd never heard. This brand of jazz fusion brings the literal vibes, and I need more of this in my life throughout the rest of 2025.

Notice the shit ton of powerviolence and thrash thrown in for good measure. PV is quite the microgenre. I didn't expect much from genre progenitor Seige's Drop Dead, which is their complete discography. I certainly didn't expect a 7 MINUTE SONG and a SAXOPHONE on what is supposed to be the hardest of the hardcore. This shit ripped. So did Trash Tapes' LOS CRUSTÁCEOS / NO COMPLY Split. Both sides are very different, but both sides will peel the paint off your wall. They go hard but maintain the fun, especially the former band with all the samples from (I'm guessing) TV. Might throw this on repeat this week. Might listen to every Thrash Tapes release. Feels great to get the head banging in the midst of the cheeriest season.

Finished it off with Agalisiga's Nasgino Inage Nidayulenvi (It Started in the Woods), a soothing country-folk album sung in Cherokee. It's gorgeous. It's the perfect album to end the week. What more could you ask for?

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