Considered one of the holy grails of the “lost” Neil Young album, the deeply-mythologized Homegrown finally sees an official release this summer, since being shelved by Young in 1975 in place of Tonight’s the Night. The alternate timeline here presents an almost, bizarre Ditch-trilogy version of Harvest. A plaintive and fertile country soil sets the stage, soaked in wistful pedal-steel, but populated by agitated demons.

To Cy & Lee is an absolutely gorgeous hybrid, bringing together Ethio-jazz, Britfolk, pastoral/spiritual vibes and more. The mood is somehow both restful and restless as DePlume weaves a rich sonic tapestry. Strings, flutes, guitars, piano, gentle percussion … It feels like springtime is here again.

Recorded shortly after her move to Paris, Nina Simone’s Fodder on My Wings was, for almost three decades, relegated to its obscure 1982 French-only release. Finally reissued for the masses earlier this year, the album opens a window into a previously unknown part of the songstress’ career, exorcising her grief and ghosts through excursions in calypso, jazz, and funk, as well as haunted folk chants and, in moments such as the mystifying title track and a breathtaking stark telling of her father’s passing, fusions of a baroque soul and playful outsider pop. Simone has been historically remembered as aloof during this period in her life, but on these songs she bears her soul naked.

Hailing from Nova Scotia, Jon Mckiel has created one of the great sleeper records of the year. Patching samples from an unknown origin found in a used Teac A-2340 with a wistful cosmic country air, he has made something immediately timeless. As much a Sunday morning coffee record as it is a long, humid summer evening. Lo-fi psychedelic rock, echo-chambers of noise, and bedroom soul converse in an imaginative world where Broadcast and Cotton Jones might have jammed together.

A collaboration between Ryan Jewell and Danette Bordenkircher, the debut full-length from Mosses is a kaleidoscopic trip, encompassing a wide swathe of psychedelia. We’ve got Barrett-era Floyd mayhem, Can-y jams, Espers-esque folk (Meg Baird even drops in for a guest spot), OG Modern Lovers boogies and much more …

The Tokyo-based composer and guitarist crafts an enthusiastically imaginative blend of new age sounds, shaping Windham Hill-inspired guitar compositions with elements of jazz, minimalism, classical music, Japanese gagaku, and ambient textures.

Such elegies make for unintended eeriness in 2020. America, like rock ‘n roll, can be seduced by myths of its own destruction. And yet this is the sound of a band once again living for its music. What Pure X is bearing witness to, unmistakably, is its own will to rebirth.

The first taste from the Irish singer/songwriter’s third long player—the lush “On a City Night”—is an organ and pedal steel-soaked country shuffle. Plaintively furtive in its imagery, the tune plays like a deceptive still life; its characters in a state of suspended animation while the world blurs in motion.