My family’s very first computer was a Commodore SX-64, which — at a mere 23 lbs — was considered a portable computer. I spent many an hour on it playing video games like F-15 Strike Eagle, Summer Games, Knight Games, and Temple of Apshai. And of course, imagining that I was an intrepid hacker breaking into top secret government systems à la Matthew Broderick in WarGames or Ricky Schroder in that one episode of Silver Spoons.

Just to be clear, in case any government agencies read this, any hacking that I might’ve done was purely a figment of my imagination. But to this day, there are still times when I like to imagine that I’m firing up my trusty ol’ Cray and jamming with the console cowboys in cyberspace.

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Last month’s playlist, titled “Bring on the Sun,” was intended to offset the incoming February chill. As it turns out, though, it might’ve worked a little too well. Here in Nebraska, at least, we experienced some decidedly un-February-like weather, with temperatures frequently in the 60s and even 70s — with one notable exception being a sudden snowstorm in the second-to-last week. But even that disappeared after just a few short days.

That surprise of a snowstorm notwithstanding, it just felt wrong to feel so warm in February of all months. So March’s playlist is aiming for the opposite, with a dozen songs specifically chosen to lower the mercury and bring on some true chills before Spring lifts its pretty little head.

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I often think that I have a sort of reverse SAD. Whereas many of my friends find chilly temperatures, gray skies, and early nights overwhelming and depressing, I say bring them on. Maybe it’s because I was born in February — and got used to having birthday parties canceled because of the weather — but I typically prefer winter’s chill to the oppressive summer heat, especially here in Nebraska where the heat comes with bucketloads of humidity.

I realize, however, that many of my subscribers probably aren’t like that. They prefer the warmth and the sun, and so this month’s playlist is for them.

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On January 9, Netflix will begin streaming Depeche Mode: M, a concert film chronicling the synth-pop icons’ performances in Mexico City during their 2023 world tour. Thus, it seemed only fitting for January’s playlist to highlight some of the best songs from the band’s extensive catalog, which spans 45 years and 15 studio albums, not to mention numerous live albums, compilations, and singles.

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During the ’60s and early ’70s, a group of West German musicians sought to liberate themselves from both American influence and conservative German culture, which they considered to be tainted by the nation’s Nazi legacy. Inspired by Frank Zappa, Pink Floyd, and The Velvet Underground as well as Miles Davis, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Terry Riley, these musicians sought to break free from anything that smacked of tradition. Blending jazz, funk, and psychedelia along with electronic instrumentation, they created what is now commonly referred to as “krautrock.”

A subset of these musicians also drew inspiration from cosmic themes and space exploration, and employed analog synths to create vast soundscapes evoking the interstellar reaches. Not surprisingly, this music came to be called kosmische musik (lit. “cosmic music”) and eschewed pop and rock music conventions for long, meandering compositions filled with endless arpeggiation and ambient drift.

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I don’t know what it’s been like in your neck of the woods, but summer lasted far too long here in Lincoln, Nebraska. It wasn’t until mid-way through October that the temperatures finally dropped below 60°F, the skies finally got a little grayer, and the leaves finally began to change color.

Naturally, that put me in the mood for music of the autumnal variety. Therefore, this month’s playlist is a soundtrack for cooler temperatures, gloomier skies, and leaves slowly falling to the ground. (Or, in the case of the trees in my yard, plummeting to the ground in droves.)

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Along with Velvet Blue Music, which I previously spotlighted in January 2025 and April 2021, Philadelphia’s Burnt Toast Vinyl is probably one of the best indie labels you’ve never heard of. Launched in the spring of 1996, BTV’s original goal was to highlight regional bands. But over the years, the label’s grown more ambitious, releasing music from around the nation, and even the world.

In addition to putting out their own releases by such indie stalwarts as Ester Drang, Jetenderpaul, and Denison Witmer, BTV has often partnered with other labels including Sounds Familyre and Tooth & Nail to release and reissue albums on vinyl, as befitting their name. To that end, they’ve played a role in reissuing the likes of mewithoutYou, Roadside Monument, Scaterd Few, Starflyer 59, and Unwed Sailor (to name but a few). They’ve also released some of the earliest music by J. Tillman (aka, Father John Misty) and Christian Wargo (Scientific, Fleet Foxes, Poor Moon).

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No one can ever accuse James Clements of being a slacker. In a career spanning nearly three decades, the California-based British producer has released a staggering amount of music under various monikers including Comit, Intex Systems, Mindspan, and most famously, ASC. (And that’s to say nothing of the work he’s done running the Auxiliary label and its various sub-labels.)

According to Discogs, Clements (as ASC) has released over 220 albums, EPs, and singles, either solo or in collaboration with the likes of Ulrich Schnauss, Synth Sense, and Aural Imbalance. Add to that numerous remixes and production credits, and it’s hard to know where to begin — even if you’ve been listening to his music for years.

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2025 is more than half over, and I know this because our family is currently in the throes of “back to school” planning and purchases. Indeed, as I type this, my oldest is at their school getting registered and signed up — and I have the credit card charges to prove it.

But since we’re more than halfway through 2025, now’s the perfect time to reflect on the year’s musical offerings to date. As its title suggests, this month’s playlist highlights some of my favorite songs of 2025 so far — and it’s a pretty eclectic batch.

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Generally speaking, I love living in Nebraska. Some might dismiss my home state as “flyover country” or complain about its flat landscapes. But I love it from east to west, from the Missouri River to the Sandhills, from Omaha to Lyman. I’ve never really wanted to live anywhere else.

That said, if there was something that could drive me away from the Cornhusker State, it’d be our summers. The months of July and August are nigh-unbearable here in eastern Nebraska thanks to ungodly amounts of humidity caused in part by “corn sweat.” People talk about seasonal affective disorder during the winter, but I’m pretty sure I experience it during Nebraska summers, when the heat gets oppressive and stepping outside your house for even just ten minutes can turn you into a dripping mess.

During these months, all I really want to do is sit in the air conditioning. That, and listen to music that’ll put me in a cooler, chillier state of mind. As its title suggests, “To Chill the Air” contains over 80 minutes of ambient and atmospheric music intended to lower the temperature and make the summer months a bit more bearable.

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After a too-long absence (15 years!), Stereolab — everyone’s favorite space-age music group — has returned with a new album titled Instant Holograms on Metal Film. Since their formation in 1990, Tim Gane, Lætitia Sadier, and their many collaborators have perfected an eclectic and nigh-seamless blend of classic pop melodies, krautrock rhythms, jazz experimentation, and vintage synth noodling.

The resulting catalog is delightfully timeless in the sense that you can imagine Stereolab’s music playing in both the swingin’ clubs of 1960s-era London and 25th-century discothèques drifting through space. And the band’s lyrics, which include the occasional far-left critique of capitalism and materialism, add a further layer of intrigue, especially when delivered in Sadier’s French coo. (On “Ping Pong,” for example, she sings of capitalism’s dehumanizing cycle: “It’s alright, ’cause the historical pattern has shown/How the economical cycle tends to revolve/In a round of decades, three stages stand out in a loop/A slump and war, then peel back to square one and back for more.”)

At the same time, the group’s catalog is quite extensive — eleven studio albums plus numerous compilations, singles, and B-sides — which can make it difficult for Stereolab neophytes to know where to start. This month’s playlist distills 35 years of music into 22 songs and 100+ minutes, with examples from nearly every stage of the group’s existence.

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On March 31, Asthmatic Kitty Records announced plans to release a tenth anniversary edition of Sufjan Stevens’ heartbreaking 2015 album Carrie & Lowell. The reissue will be a double album that includes previously unreleased songs and demos, a 40-page art book, and a new essay by Stevens himself.

In light of this news, it seemed only fitting to offer up a celebration of Stevens’ considerable and inimitable catalog of music.

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Now that we’re firmly in 2025, let’s take a quick look back at 2024. This month’s playlist is an eclectic blend of songs that I blogged about on Opus, that flew under my radar until now, or that I somehow missed when making my year-end mix.

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I’ve never made any attempt to hide my appreciation for Bandcamp. More so than any other service, including Spotify and Apple Music, Bandcamp has expanded my musical horizons and helped me discover countless new artists — and even better, support them financially.

Bandcamp has also led to more than a few posts and reviews on Opus, but for every artist or release that I write about, there are dozens that fall through the cracks simply because I don’t have enough time to cover them all. This month’s playlist is an attempt to address that imbalance, with nearly two hours of songs from my Bandcamp catalog and wishlist.

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When shoegaze first arrived on the scene in early ’90s Britain, it was initially a term of derision for those musicians who spent their time onstage staring at their effects pedals rather than interacting with the audience like proper rock stars. And then, for a brief time, the British press fell all over themselves praising bands like Slowdive, Ride, and Chapterhouse — only to turn on them when Oasis and Britpop began storming the charts.

(In one infamous review, Melody Maker’s Dave Simpson dismissed Slowdive’s Souvlaki — now considered a shoegaze “classic” — saying that he’d “rather drown choking in a bath full of porridge than ever listen to it again.”)

But Slowdive et al. were to have the last laugh. Time has been quite kind to shoegaze; the genre has proven deeply influential in the realms of post-rock, emo, indie-rock, and even metal. Furthermore, a quick perusal of Bandcamp reveals that the genre is far from dead.

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There’s been a lot of talk about how the music industry is on the back foot these days due to the rise of AI as well as the impact of streaming services. Apparently, nobody passed that memo on to Jeff Cloud, because Velvet Blue Music is still going strong. And 2025 looks to be just as promising thanks to recently announced releases from Starflyer 59, Fine China, and Slow Salvation — and I’m sure Cloud has a few more surprises up his sleeve for the label’s devoted fanbase.

Launched in 1996, Velvet Blue Music has established a reputation for both scrappiness and diversity, releasing well over 250 titles in indie-rock, synth-pop, shoegaze, post-rock, ambient, garage rock, and whatever S.S. Bountyhunter was.

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Last month, Camp Trash guitarist Keegan Bradford started a Bluesky thread to give his fellow music nerds an opportunity to share the “one band/album they feel like absolutely the only fan of.” Now, I’ve been running Opus for 27 years now, and during that time, I’ve often felt like I’m writing about bands of which I’m the only fan — a situation I desperately want to change, hence all of my blogging.

Or in this case, my subscriber-only playlists.

Thus, December’s playlist serves as a clearinghouse of artists and albums that I’ve written about over the years. Some of the artists have since called it quits, but that doesn’t change the fact that their music deserves any and all attention that it might receive.

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Along with the guitar, the piano might just be the world’s most ubiquitous musical instrument. How many of us can remember sitting through childhood piano lessons, or spending countless hours absentmindedly plunking away at the keys in our grandparent’s house? And if you grew up in church circles? Then the piano probably figured pretty prominently in your childhood; you weren’t going to sing all of those hymns and worship songs a cappella, now, were you?

As a result of this ubiquity, though, it’s all-too easy to overlook the piano and dismiss it out of hand. As the artists in this month’s playlist reveal, however, the piano is an endlessly fascinating instrument, and capable of a rich array of sounds and styles, from jazz and modern classical to ambient and New Age.

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October is here, which means we’re entering the final stretch of 2024 — and that means another roundup of all of the songs that I’ve discovered recently. Many of them are pretty new while others have been rattling around inside my Apple Music account for awhile now — and it’s high time they got some attention.

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Last month, Starflyer 59 released Lust for Gold, their seventeenth album in thirty years — a pretty remarkable feat of consistency. Even better, as I wrote in my review, it’s one of their best albums in recent memory. Which, in my book, just goes to show that Jason Martin might be one of the hardest working guys in the music business.

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