On the veteran Swedish outfit’s most pared down and elegant affair, Vidrig Vår showcases Dungen still operating on a psychedelic wavelength not found elsewhere. Built around bandleader Gustav Ejste’s panoramic piano progressions, the ballad-centric record flows with the weightless springtime atmosphere of the band’s organically cinematic orbit.

Hug is music for the small hours, when the world comes in and out of focus, a record that drifts through the mind’s open windows, carrying with it the sublime and resonant hush of a world at peace in its own unfolding. As warm and comforting as the name implies, Hug embraces you like an old friend, holding space for the warmth of the past, the uncertainty of the future, and the solace of the blossoming present.

Antonio Adolfo hated his 1972 solo debut. Intensely. He banned it from his official discography and denounced it whenever it resurfaced online. Yet the slightly off singing may be exactly what gives the self-titled LP its charm: there’s a Robert Wyatt or Scott Walker quality to Adolfo’s naturally dramatic timbre, with little bent edges creating tension against the jazz-inflected solos, basslines and gently cinematic arrangements. The result is a strange, beautiful record its creator wanted forgotten.

On paper, Foxx, whose own Metamatic remains a landmark of British electronic music, makes for an unlikely bedfellow for the minimalist composer. But Foxx had been listening closely: Budd’s 1984 album The Pearl had become a touchstone for his own thinking about sound and space. When they met, Foxx played Budd what he called “primitive imitations” of his music—sketches of where he imagined the sonic world of The Pearl might lead next.

Stunning psychedelic baroque pop meets Latin-influenced west coast jazz. The story of teenage sisters Wendy & Bonnie and their sublime 1969 record Genesis is one for the books, recorded on the Skye label of family friend and vibraphone extraordinaire Cal Tjader and Gábor Szabó. Brimming with gusto and the sisters’ youthful ambition yet confident and chilling sunshine pop harmonies, the duo’s lone album is a maturely stunning accomplishment on several fronts.

I’ve been waiting for a vinyl issue of this 1999 no bullshit hard country record for decades. Well, now it’s here. Worth the wait.

Minneapolis lifer Jim Blaha goes it alone on Hang From A Cloud, a raw, bedroom-recorded set of wistful garage-psych and punk songs that crackle with romantic desperation. From the breathy “Some New Day” to the furious, sotto voce anthems of “D.O.A.,” Blaha distills decades in the underground into something intimate, ferocious, and beautifully unvarnished.

At 80, Neil Young remains gloriously unfinished. Second Song, his latest with the Chrome Hearts, is a weathered, luminous meditation on memory, mortality, love, and the strange passage of time. With shimmering textures, warm harmonies, wandering tempos, and that unmistakably vulnerable voice, Young looks backward without quite letting go of the future. An elegiac, deeply human record from an artist still searching for the song.