Staff Picks

2025? Did that happen? It sure did and now we are a month deep into 2026. Time for the mandatory look back on the year past and to pick out a few of our highlights.

I think I can speak for everyone here by saying that this hasn’t been an easy task this year. I am struggling to find positives in a long year of horrors. However, as the saying goes, life goes on, and there were still a lot of cool and interesting things happening in the world of music and the arts in general. I’m going to stick to the music for my best of the year round up. To make things simpler, I divided my list into a few categories. I’ll give you my top pick and one or two notable runners up. As with any of these types of things, it’s all subjective. I know I have forgotten loads. In fact, whilst looking over releases for the year I found several albums by artists that I like that I had not even known about. Shame on me. And I work in a record store. LoL. Just shows that no matter what you know, there is still way more that you don’t.

Favorite New Artist

The Cords: S/T LP – There comes a time when you must let the younger generation just get on with it, but it is always nice when a record comes out that has cross-generational appeal. The Cords are a couple of young ladies from Scotland who have made an enjoyable pop record. On Slumberland Records, which has a whole roster of bands in love with the sound of UK DIY and C86.

Honorable mentions:

Annie Achron: Never Paradise LP. Cool synth-pop.

K9: Thrills LP. Post Punk, jangly, lo-fi from Richmond.

Autocamper: What Do You Do All Day LP. More C86 and 80’s Scottish pop inspired indie from Manchester.

Puppet Wipes: Live Inside. LP. Lo-fi post punk from Canada.

Added Dimensions: Jane From Preoccupied Europe LP. More cool lo-fi indie post-punk from Richmond.

Favorite New Record from an established artist

Pulp: More LP. Sheffield’s finest (there’s stiff competition for that title) return after twenty-four years since their last studio album with a banger. Touring and playing shows like it’s 1995 all over again. Jarvis for president/prime minister.

Honorable mentions:

The Lemonheads: Love Chant LP. Everyone’s favorite rogue pop star Evan Dando returns with his Lemonheads and a new album. Like hearing from an old friend after many years.

The Liminanas: Faded LP. The French psych duo return with a great record aided by some friends, including Bobby Gillespie from Primal Scream.

Gruff Rhys: Dim Probs LP. Welsh hero and Super Furry Animal main man delivers another fine solo album. Clever, witty pop of the highest order.

Lady Wray: Cover Girl LP. Her third album and another produced by Leon Michels for Big Crown Records. Great mix of retro-inspired soul and R & B with modern pop and hip-hop influences.

Stereolab: Instant Holograms On Metal Film LP. Another fine return from a group that has been out of the spotlight for some time. The ‘Lab came out with an album that sounds just like vintage Stereolab from the 1990s. Really good. John Scott went to see them when they came to North Carolina and said they were ace.

Best single.

Psychoactive: S/T 7”. L.A. punk featuring members of Rough Kids, who Sorry State released records by. Two blistering, classic old school punk blasts. Limited single, but there was a second pressing. Get one.

Best cassette tape.

The Ancient Pulse: S/T Totally brilliant horror soundtrack-inspired music. If you dig John Carpenter, then you owe it to yourself to get a copy of this cassette. For added authenticity, the same keyboard used by Carpenter was utilized for these recordings. Up there for release of the year in my opinion. I had this on repeat over the Halloween period.

Honorable mention:

Canned Snakes: Live At Budgetcan. Local supergroup of sorts casually releases a cool tape. Hard to put a tag on it, genre wise. Indie/post punk/rock? I don’t know. We liked it around here.

Best compilation.

All The Young Droids LP. Terrific compilation of synth-pop and post-punk, mostly from the U.K. and released between 1978-1985. A well put together comp with great liner notes and information. You’ll discover a lot of new favorites on this one. Highly recommended.

Honorable mentions:

Chiswick Records 1975-1982 Seven Years At 45 RPM LP. Nicely put together collection of punk, pub rock and pop singles from the great Chiswick Records label.

Secret Superstar Sounds LP. Cool compilation from the folks at Soul Jazz Records concentrating on more obscure British DIY, punk, power pop and new wave singles released between 1977 and 1980.

Best Live Album.

Johnny Marr: Look Out Live! LP. The coolest guitar slinger out there gave fans another fun live album taken from his more recent solo career outings, but with some Smiths songs for good measure. Highlight of the autumn, if not the year, was travelling to Norfolk, Virginia to catch the man play live. He did not disappoint. An absolute legend and so cool and friendly.

Reissues and rarities from older artists.

Dennis Bovell: Sufferer Sounds LP. Top-notch U.K. reggae and dub from the late 1970’s. A brilliant-sounding collection of prime-period productions from Dennis Bovell. A must-have for dub fans.

Sister Nancy: One, Two LP. Reissued for Record Store Day, this is the much in demand reggae album that includes the classic Bam Bam. Always tough to find, so nice to have available again.

Vince Guaraldi: You’re A Good Sport, Charlie Brown OST LP. We’ve been loving the Charlie Brown TV special soundtracks that have been getting released recently. All filled with cool, mostly unheard music from the great Vince Guaraldi. This one was released as a zoetrope record, so you get to see Lucy pulling the ball away from Charlie Brown and other animations as your record spins. Nice.

Longineu Parsons: S/T LP. Rare and hard to find funky and righteous jazz originally released in 1980 and never fully reissued until now. Another good Record Store Day release.

Best used record score.

Eugene McDaniels: Headless Heroes Of The Apocalypse LP. Saving the best and most special one to the end. I have known about this jazz grail for decades and have had a reissue LP and CD to keep me satisfied over the years, but finding an original copy in the wild has proved tough. In the stores that I have worked at, it has come in once or twice and I have seen it for sale at record shows, but either the price or the condition wasn’t right. Finally, in 2025, a beautiful copy still in the shrink with the lyric sheet came into my possession. How, you ask? Well, whilst rummaging through one of our dusty storage lockers looking at mostly junk records, Daniel found this one and a few other decent titles that we could easily sell at the shop. When he saw how hyped I was over the Headless Heroes record, he simply gave it to me. Wow! Amazing. That’s the sort of thing our Doctor D does. He is the best boss, the best friend and best person ever. If you aren’t familiar with this record, do yourself a favor and go check it out. You’ll recognize some of the sounds, as they were sampled by, among others, A Tribe Called Quest. Total banger of a record and just as meaningful and relevant now as it was fifty years or so ago. Thank you, Daniel.

Okay, that’s a small sampling of highlights of the year for me. Loads missing and still more I need to hear and catch up on. Fun homework.

Thanks for reading, thanks for supporting our store, thanks for ordering from us and thank you to all the artists and bands that made all this fantastic music for us to love and enjoy. 2026 might well be a shit show in the making, but let’s hope we’ll all be here this time next year to review the top sounds and good things that happen this year. Fuck you know who.

Cheers - Dom

What’s up everybody? Thanks for clicking on our newsletter this week.

Well, I don’t think you needed to be Nostradamus to predict that this year would not be a great one, but who had America starting a war with our NATO allies on their bingo card? Crazy, man. So, with the threat of WW3 and the collapse of the world order imminent let’s talk about music. Yeah!

January has been dubbed a month to appreciate all things jazz music by the internet, and indeed the radio station that I am on, The Face Radio, has been celebrating “Jazzuary“ as much as possible. I’ve certainly had fun spinning jazz records on air this month and thought I probably should pick one for y’all here. However, with the way of the world and my mood, it couldn’t be too straight. Therefore, my recommendation for you this week is to listen to Gil Scott-Heron’s 1981 album on Arista called Reflections. Yes, I know the 80s aren’t considered prime jazz years, but GSH was still pumping out bangers, and this record, although concentrating on the political situation of the Reagan era and before, is just as relevant today as then. Perhaps even more so, considering our current situation. We all need the righteous poetry and words of GSH spoken over good music. Don’t we?

Gil does more than just provide the words and voice for the record, though. He plays a variety of instruments, keyboards, and horns across the album. He’s assisted by a strong band, including Kenny Powell on drums to name one musician, and fine background vocals from the Waters family. Should those names mean anything to you.

The songs are all fire, although for me, perhaps the weakest is the opening song called Storm Music. The words and meaning of the song are fine, but the music is a sort of reggae-inspired groove everyone had to inject into their music back then. Bob Marley, Jamaica, and reggae music were boss then, and everyone had to have a reggae song on their record, even GSH. Not that the song is full-on reggae or that bad, just not the strongest start to the album in my humble opinion. However, I would never dream of criticizing a legend, and when you listen to the lyrics, it makes sense why an element of reggae and World music would be in the song. The side continues with a Bill Withers song and one that literally asks, Is That Jazz Music?

The real heat on the record comes on the second side. Beginning with an updated cover of the Marvin Gaye classic Inner City Blues, which is great, and then followed by a song titled Gun, the message is clear, and sadly still applies to today as much as it did then. The masterpiece of the album, though, is the closing cut, “B” Movie, a twelve plus minute monster of a groove and spot-on commentary from GSH. It’s a must-listen-to song. The other week whilst on our radio show Worldy, my partner Matt played it, and it went down very well with the listeners. His version was taken from an Underworld compiled compilation for the Back To Mine series. Apparently they sourced an even longer version of the song than the album version with more music at the end of the track. They might have given the song a little sonic polish also, as it sounded great. Either way, the power of the song still comes across. I am curious to get hold of the 12” single version at some point, though. I’m not entirely sure where the Underworld boys got their version from, but it is out there. Maybe on a UK-only 12”? Answers on a postcard, please. Regardless, it’s the words and the message of the song that count, and GSH delivers one of his best with “B” Movie. Go check it out here. Cool album cover art too, with Gil’s sunglasses reflection showing us different aspects of life in America.

Okay, that’s all I have for you. Thanks for reading and supporting us.

Cheers - Dom

Hello Sorry Staters. Welcome to 2026. It’s already getting a good start on being an even shittier year than 2025. Last year was an awful one for us, as most of you are aware. Grief over tragic loss is never an easy thing to deal with. To all of those who have sent us condolences and had us in their thoughts, we thank you.

It feels weird writing about anything these days with all that has happened and is going on in the world, particularly here in America. These are very troubled and scary times we are living in. It’s hard to enjoy anything when such terrible things are happening all around us. Music, film, TV, sport, you name it, all seems so trivial in comparison. The arts serve a purpose though, and often when times are tough, they come to the rescue when we need them most. Music in particular can heal, soothe, inspire and bring joy. It does for me. We just need to make sure we aren’t allowing “entertainment” to distract us from the fascist takeover that is going on around us. Perhaps we’ll see some serious music that speaks of the times we are in. That would be a good thing. Even pop music can be on the right side of history and let’s hope we see more pop, rock, country and hip-hop stars, among others, using their platform to promote positive messages and to make a stand against the evils of the world.

I thought for my first one of these this year I would try to write about something new, or relatively new. I know I am the king of the oldies around these parts, but every now and then I like to listen to new stuff. LoL. One band whose records I have been digging for the last year or so is Dry Cleaning. They come from London and are on 4AD. I liked their sophomore album Stumpwork, which came out at the end of 2022, and now to kick off 2026 they have a new one out called Secret Love.

The band formed prior to the pandemic and were on the brink of a breakthrough of sorts, but their momentum was halted, just like so many others, when the lockdown took effect. The group is built around a trio of musician friends who had all aged a little and taken full-time jobs and were only viewing playing music as a hobby when they began Dry Cleaning. However, when college arts lecturer Florence Shaw was asked to join them, things got serious quickly. Initially unsure about whether she was the right fit for the job, Shaw was encouraged to just recite her poetry and to talk about whatever came into her mind. It is this dry, talking style that she uses that makes the band different, and it makes them sound cooler than if she were attempting to sing instead. The music palette is that of post-punk. Fans of The Cool Greenhouse, another London group that formed around the same time, might find a lot to like in Dry Cleaning. Critics have bandied around phrases like, “imagine The Fall fronted by Annette Peacock” to describe their sound. They’ve been compared to Magazine also, and certainly on album opener Hit My Head All Day you can hear a nod to them in the guitar sounds, I think. Another name that comes to mind when trying to describe Dry Cleaning is Baxter Dury. Son of Ian, who has been putting out cool and interesting records for a couple of decades now. Those are all big artistic boots to fill for sure, but there is a bit of truth in that comparison. I love The Fall, naturally, and here at Sorry State we also have a lot of time for The Cool Greenhouse, so it was almost a forgone conclusion that Dry Cleaning would appeal to me, but judging by the critical praise the band is getting for this latest record, a lot of others feel the same. In fact, their label 4AD has re-released their debut album New Long Leg, along with a reissue of their first EPs to satisfy the increased interest in the band. Their popularity probably wasn’t hurt by opening up for Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds on that group’s 2024 arena tour. A good choice of support and I am sure many of those attending those shows became new fans.

For Secret Love, the producer’s chair was occupied by Welsh artist Cate Le Bon, whom they had befriended after a meeting in Chicago back in 2022, facilitated by Jeff Tweedy of Wilco, who was recording with Le Bon at his Loft studio there. Cate Le Bon is also credited with various synth and drum machine programming on the new record, and some recording was done in Chicago at The Loft, but they recorded most of the record in France. On this new album, their sound is like previous outings but slightly more polished and Shaw does sing here and there, mostly on choruses. I didn’t see a credit for anyone else providing back-up vocals, so I assume it is her voice we hear singing. Also, not a lot should be made of the dry, talking-singing thing really. It’s not exactly a new style. Go listen to Marlene Dietrich, Nico, Brigitte Fontaine, and Grace Jones, for more examples. Beat poets, jazz singers and rappers will tell you they’ve been doing it for a fair while also. It’s just a style, and it works well here.

If, like me, you are finding boppy, poppy, bubblegum music doesn’t quite fit the mood right now, then give Dry Cleaning a chance. Being on 4AD, their album art is also a big part of the package, and this one, like the last one, tells you that something might be a little different within. Check out Secret Love here.

Thanks for reading and for supporting music and our part in that.

Cheers - Dom