While we're on the subject of wrapping up 2020, I would be remiss to not point out all the good work done over at We Own This Town, the podcast network I run. We posted 221 episodes over 171 hours of podcasts. It's kind of a lot! I know there are a ton of podcasts out there but we seem to be finding an audience for ours, so we keep going.

Much like the struggle of celebrating music releases, promoting podcasts during a good chunk of the year felt quite frivolous. People being evicted, bars and restaurants shut down, music venues on the constant brink of closing.. it was (and continues to be) daunting. Fortunately, resources like Nashville Free Store sprung up to help - literally - give away aid to communities and we did our best to promote and support endeavors like that.

I wrote a big lengthy We Own This Town Wrapup if you're interested. I'm happy with the progress we have made and hope to figure out a way to make it more beneficial to the community in 2021.

It’s time for yk Records to go into a short hibernation as we prepare for 2021. As the year winds down, it’s always good to look back and take stock of all the great releases from the prior trip around the sun. So, let’s do that! 

It goes without saying that 2020 was a complicated year (with a difficult road still ahead). Bands couldn’t tour, venues couldn’t have shows and while we adjusted to quarantine, it felt wildly inappropriate to even promote music at all. 

As we adjusted to the New Way of Things\u2122 it became easier to release music and it even (hopefully) served as a respite for the weirdness of the year. You may find yourself still in need of such a break and I hope you’ll give some YK Records releases a listen for such a salve. We’ve always had a troublingly eclectic roster and that’s showcased quite well this year.

You can find all these releases on Bandcamp or streaming on Spotify or YouTube Music. Below you’ll find a little insight on each.

The Medium - “Sugar Shark / Fade Away”
Two of the bands oldest songs finally recorded in their proper form. Had 2020 been different, The Medium woulda toured like crazy. Instead, we get these two fantastic new tracks.

Andrew Brassell - Singles
Previous output from Brassell was released as Slowmotions but he embarked into the world under his own name with “Imposter Syndrome”, “Habits” and “Blissed Out” - three shiny psychedelic pop songs with a distinctly unique Brassell bend to them.

Meadownoise - Threeve / Cliff House Kids
Released in collaboration with Pets Musical Park, Meadownoise creates pop songs that defy description. They’re often catchy and memorable but can feel like they’re transmitted from another planet. Sometimes meditative, sometimes challenging, always rewarding.

Black Bra - Black Bra
Beth Cameron previously performed as Forget Cassettes for years and years. She has enlisted a new band and a new, dark, psych experience. It’s both vulnerable and empowered. The Nashville Scene called it the Best Rock Record of 2020; we tend to agree. 

DM Stith - Waving 1-4
The vocal qualities of DM Stith have always been haunting and ethereal. This is showcased in unparalleled fashion with this EP of vocal compositions. These pieces consume the listener, completely.

The Prudish Few - The Eagle Has Left the Building
An exercise in juxtapositions. The songs sound simple but contain a number of atypical time signatures. They are shiny pop songs but their lyrical content is about the oppression of politics and nostalgia. It’s a delightfully fun listen that yields real insight and weight once you dig in.

Coupler - The Rhythm Method
When performing live, Coupler would often eschew their tranquil ambient styles and decimate the crowd with a “Bangers Only” set. This EP contains three of those bangers and it delivers in spades.

Spencer Cullum - Spencer Cullum’s Coin Collection
Know for his pedal steel work in a number of Nashville bands and as half of the instrumental duo Steelism, Spencer Cullum enlisted a number of his talented friends to weave a record that is equal parts psych, folk and kraut. It’s a nod to the past but entirely timeless. A proper classic.

Tower Defense - In the City
I constantly call these songs “bombastic” because there is no other word for it. They are songs fueled by troubled dreams about the future of Nashville, mixed with feverish visions of pop culture. It’s also an incredibly fun record.

Coupler - The Forgotten Openness of the Closed World
An EP of long form ambient pieces specifically designed to give pause and reflection on your own conscious self. It’s a quarantine record that reminds you that the outer world may be off limits but your inner worlds are open. Just pay attention.

I've got a rundown of the yk Records 2020 releases but that only covers the new releases throughout the year; not any additional promotional pieces for previously released albums. So, here's YouTube playlist of music videos released in 2020. I suggest you play it on Shuffle for maximum enjoyment.

I've known Mac Burrus for almost 20 years and been a fan of his musical output for the duration. He writes / plays in Self, he's a music producer on Jimmy Kimmel Live and has always had several of his own musical irons in the fire but never releases them. Until now!

Under the name The Gros Michel over on Bandcamp, he and Justin Tapp have released a great little Christmas song, "This Christmas." It's a wonderfully melancholy little ditty and I'm happy to hear it out in the world.

It's an odd thing to admit but I sorta love a kitschy Christmas album. This Mouth Trumpet Christmas Album is as kitschy as it comes and I've been listening to it for eight years, never once tiring of that version of "Jingle Bells."

A Very Omnichord Christmas, Again / An Omnichord for Christmas is a somewhat different beast. It's two albums from Nashville duo Zeke & Ross composed entirely on the Omnichord; a delightfully unique instrument. At forty tracks, there's a lot of ground that gets covered. Some of the tracks are outright absurd while others are heartfelt and only a little absurd. It's not a joke of an album but the two creators are clearly having fun with it. This is well exemplified with the two fifteen-minute "Intermission" tracks where they casually chat with one another about various Christmas ponderings.

I don't suspect this is for everyone but if you're the kind that enjoys a bit of upbeat optimism mixed with a twinge of zany, I think you'll enjoy.

This 2020 Holiday Extravaganza Special from my WOTT Music podcast is an hour of locally sourced Nashville music aimed at providing you with a pleasant little soundtrack for your holiday chores. For no good reason, I decided to go "Full NPR" on the voiceover and keep it as gentle as possible, even though the music within isn't necessarily reflective of that. It's a silly thing but I enjoyed it.

I've been doing this podcast every week for almost two years straight. If my math is right, this is the 103rd episode in a row without missing a week. Maybe that's small potatoes for podcasters but it feels huge to me.

Episode details here, along with the full playlist of links out to even more music if you desire such a thing. This Petty Christmas Album is easily the best hip-hop, Christmas-themed record I've heard, period.

I have yet to listen to all of McCartney III but I feel oddly optimistic about it based on this track? Forty years is a loooong time between conceptual albums but maybe, just maybe, he pulled it off??

I've made a lot of silly websites in my time but it's been awhile since I've put a new one out into the world that actually provided any functionality; no matter how absurd.

The podcast Hott Minute is about "Who's Hot and Why?" - a very loose conceit that gives the hosts, Jamie Bradley and Ashley Spurgeon, an opportunity to flex their pop culture muscles about the insane breadth of zeitgeists past and present they are familiar with. There's a segment on the show where they pull a random name from a literal paper bag and somehow manage to instantly know a great deal about the subject. It's impressive and funny.

With that, I'm happy to announce the Hott Minute Digital Bag of Hotties, a ridiculous website that generates a random name pulled from an episode of the show. That's it! That's all it does. You can tweet at the show if you like but there's no voting, no comments - it just gives you a name. It's actually meant to serve as a means to have a little absurd fun with (socially distanced) friends.

TLDR: Here's a silly thing that you can use as a party game, conversation starter or self-imposed pop-culture quiz.

The Prudish Few released their debut album, The Eagle Has Left the Building, back in August. Throughout the record there are a lot of politically charged songs like "Kinder Climes" but, by and large, the album comes across as a very upbeat listening experience (cut with just the right amount of melancholy).

All that said, "I Am From History" is just pure joy, start to finish. Three minutes of optimism that serves as such a perfect salve to the winter doldrums.

It's also the very first song I heard from the album and reminds me of that moment of spark feeling like "woah, what is this song?!" I'm a fan and I hope you carve out a few minutes of your day to brighten things up with the video.

Filmography Club, the podcast where host Jason Caviness gets to knows movies by dissecting auteurs and talking to cinephiles, just wrapped their second season with an episode all about Mad Max: Fury Road. Host Jason Caviness and guest Will Fox take a deep dive into the insanely long production, the total lack of script and how rewarding the high-octane action of the movie is. More interestingly, they also discuss how well the movie works because it's not just a vapid action movie, it actually contains a number of empowering and poignant messages. The advertising for Fury Road is almost entirely desert races and flamethrowers and extremely masculine energy but it's all a red herring. Yes, the movie is an adrenaline burst pretty much start to finish but it's so much more than that. I'm not sure if the marketing and advertising for the movie was intentionally misleading or just too difficult to really impress upon an audience what it's true goal is.

Long story short, it's a great episode of worthwhile discussion and a reminder to watch the movie - even for a second or third time.

American Standard Time recently premiered this backyard performance of Spencer Cullum with Erin Rae performing the Duncan Browne song "In a Mist" right from Spencer's backyard. It's a quiet, somewhat sad, and contemplative song - augmented by the delicate performance these two give it.

You can hear the original here. I'd say this rendition is pretty spot on.

Spencer sent me this single camera take and I tried my best to edit into something resembling the slow editing of 60's and 70's TV performances. I'm no video editor but I think it turned out well.

Memento Stori is a podcast about the relationship we have with objects left behind by those that have passed. Host, and my fiance, Rebecca Delius does a phenomenal job of interviewing the guests about some totem left behind and what it means to them. It may sound a little macabre but it's incredibly insightful and poignant. The latest episode, The Irish Exit features comedian Chris Crofton talking about a pen and pencil set handed down to him from his grandfather, who he calls his father's father. Crofton is very funny and handles the subject with an affable nature. That said, the episode tackles some really fascinating subject matter - from the personal detachment of a grandfather that was absent and how that impacted generations, to the larger picture of how Protestant oppression of Irish Catholics even led to that headspace in the first place.

You can hear it in the embed above or on the web or Spotify or Apple or wherever. All the episodes are good (very good!) but if you wanted a way to ease-in to a show dealing with heavy subject matter, this is a good one.