Some professional news: After two years producing it, I'm now the host of the Best Music of the Month podcast from NPR's All Songs Considered! Basically, I gab with NPR Music staff and contributors at the end of every month about the "best" — no, I don't like that word either, I'm working on different framing devices — albums and songs released within the past 28-31 days. It's not quite the long-dreamed-of Viking's Choice podcast, but I've been wanting to stretch myself for quite some time, so this is a significant foot in the door. You can listen to my debut as host on NPR-dot-org or wherever you do podcasts — some of y'all may have even heard the episode carried on your public radio station!  

Some personal news: It's my birthday, and I planned to take the day off to catch a matinee in a theater and laze about, but my kid got me sick, so now I'm gonna watch a movie on my iPad and sleep. I'm also off social media (Twitter, in particular) for at least a week — need to regather my mental wellbeing after a rough few weeks from the world being as it is. Take care of yourself and others, y'all. —Lars Gotrich

Viking's Choice 6-Pack

The situation in Ukraine changes day to day. Like so many, I watch with worry and heartbreak. I don't pretend to write about things I don't know or understand, such as international politics, when I have NPR colleagues literally reporting from bomb shelters and train stations crammed with families trying to cross the border. But I have seen the resilience of Ukrainians, the support of neighboring countries, and protests from so many Russians — from all walks of life, but especially from Eastern European musicians I follow on Instagram. This I understand: Music communities uplift each other in crisis. Or at least they should. 

It's easy to feel helpless in situations like these, so here's a start: an open-sourced spreadsheet of Ukraine-based artists and labels, with tabs for charity and community support. (For what it's worth, I don't own or maintain the spreadsheet... hence, open source.) Buy an album on Bandcamp, share the spreadsheet, stay informed. 

A side note: Not to make one thing about another — and, hey, it's me writing about things I only sorta know (but feel strongly) about — but I do wish I'd seen this level of engagement around Syrian refugees by American media, community groups and churches. I was aghast, though not surprised, at the racism then and at the double standard now. To be good stewards of humanity, let's learn from this time and apply going forward. —Lars Gotrich

Greatest Blashyrkh wait for me your deepest realms I'll find / With songs that sound eternally for you my call is ever so strong

Winter does not agree with my summer chooglin disposition; I require sun and sweat to function. So, in an effort to combat my seasonal glumness with grimness, I have spent many mornings with Immortal. This is Norwegian black metal that ravishes in frostbitten fantasy with a cartoonish energy. Immortal's photo shoots? Bare- and barrel-chested. Immortal's music videos? Silly poses, pointy hats, fire breathers. Immortal's riffs? A blaze of fire and ice, especially in the early years, but given to epic tales as the years wore on. 

Diabolical Fullmoon Mysticism, Battles in the North and At the Heart of Winter, in particular, were my constant comrades during long stretches of 20-degree weather and gray skies that blot out the sun. I figured if Immortal can face the winterdemons of the Blashyrkh realm to wrestle the brutal isolation of Bergen, then I could blastbeat my way through the wet, bitter cold of Washington, D.C. And thanks be to Abbath, Demonaz and Horgh — or whatever the lineup when the band isn't bickering — I survived and thrived another winter.

I am, by no means, a comics expert — I barely know the major story arcs of Marvel and DC from the last decade, and, in fact, find most of them tedious! But after I put the kiddo to bed, my wind-down includes about 30-60 minutes of digital comics on the iPad. In lieu of Bandcamp finds this week, consider this the Viking's Choice 6-Pack: Comic Book Edition!

DIE by Kieron Gillen and Stephanie Hans (Image): When it comes to gaming, I've always been more the observer than the player — I am far too nervous to react on the spot, and would rather experience the story through more capable hands/minds. I did one year-long D&D campaign with friends over dinner and drinks, but it did not prepare me for this beautiful, bleak and ultimately human world transported to an all-too-real fantasy land. The Wicked + The Divine's writer and illustrator re-team up to wrench out the essential means and meaning of RPGs — I'll be thinking about DIE's final question for some time. 

The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl: Squirrels Just Wanna Have Fun by Will Murray, Ryan North, Zac Gorman and Erica Henderson (Marvel): Ever since the 2015 reboot, Squirrel Girl has been such a refreshing change of pace — not just as a wholesome counterpoint to the doom and gloom of most Marvel titles, but especially as a fully-rounded superhero who wrestles with goodness not as a flaw but as a character trait in flux. 

Y'all ever lost a dog? It is exhausting. Physically. Mentally. Emotionally. Our 12-year-old pup Cocoa Bean slipped out a gate on Saturday, confirmed by a neighbor's backyard cam. We hung signs. I called animal shelters. We knocked on doors. My wife heard a dog barking that sounded exactly like Cocoa Bean, assumed the worst and made awkward conversation with the owner. I kept it together until we crossed our home's threshold at the end of Saturday night. We slept in the living room just in case Cocoa Bean came back and scratched on the door. We felt lost. 

Cocoa Bean can be sweet, and can be an asshole, but – as the saying goes – she's our asshole. Her grumpy-old-lady disposition has gotten to the point where friends and family request that she stay home when we visit 🙃 But our neighbors showed up, laminating signs, texting and posting on nearby neighborhood groups, dropping off sympathy cookies. Feel extremely blessed by how quickly our little community rallied around us. 

Thankfully, this story has a happy ending: We got a phone call on Sunday morning from a family in Maryland (we live right on the D.C./Maryland border) who found Cocoa Bean! She'd wandered off, almost got hit by a car just down our street, and jumped into a different car of a sweet family who just wanted to help. Tears of joy were shed, treats were had. You can see a blurry photo of our reunion at the bottom. So happy to have our Cocoa Bean home. –Lars Gotrich

Never thought I'd become a tea cocktail guy, but I have recently taken to putting cereal milk in black tea and, y'all, it's glorious. Cheerios milk in my own Earl Grey/hazelnut blend. Fruity Pebbles milk in The Black Lodge, the smoky banana black tea from August. It's a little treat in my afternoon cup. – Lars Gotrich

Viking's Choice 6-Pack

Follow my Bandcamp collection. Stream the BNDCMPR playlist!

It's been a minute, but I wanted to say thanks for subscribing to the Viking's Choice newsletter! It's a constant work in progress! And it's going to look a little different in 2022! Slimmed-down introductions! The Bandcamp 6-Pack is now the Viking's Choice 6-Pack! There's still a weekly playlist, but it won't feature descriptions of every song because that takes too long! More essays and Q&As! Commissioned graphics for regular features! Other exclamation points!

Anyway, thanks for reading. I hope to make this newsletter somewhat weekly – or at least semimonthly – again. Life and work demand most of my hours, but I never stop digging for music. – Lars Gotrich

Viking's Choice 6-Pack

I have measured my life with bootleg tees purchased online.

Didn't read many books, but predictably cried to Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner. Didn't watch much TV or movies besides toddler-friendly fare (Bluey and Yo Gabba Gabba!), but got sucked into the MCU vortex despite my best intentions (WandaVison, Loki) and giggled as Fast & Furious went to space (F9). Digital comics are my most accessible form of media right now, so here's some favorites old and new that I read: Witchblood by Matthew Eman & Lisa Sterle; The Incal by Alejandro Jodorowsky and Moebius; Hawkeye by Matt Fraction, David Aja, Javier Pulido; Luisa: Now and Then by Carole Maurel; Invincible by Robert Kirkman; Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin by Kevin Eastman, et al; Revival by Tim Seeley; The Carter Family: Don't Forget This Song by David Lasky and Frank Young; Undiscovered Country by Scott Snyder and Charles Soule; Ultramega by James Harren and Dave Stewart; Beta Ray Bill by Daniel Warren Johnson; Resident Alien by Peter Hogan. I'd like to read more comics written and/or drawn by women and non-binary folks if y'all have good suggestions.

I wrote the liner notes to a vinyl reissue of Sixpence None the Richer's This Beautiful Mess, and word has slowly trickled back from the band members how much they loved my words, which means a lot. Produced 18 live events for the Listening Party series on NPR Music, including conversations with Julien Baker, Dawn Richard, Robert Plant & Alison Krauss, Brandi Carlile on Joni Mitchell's Blue and roundtable discussion (featuring Bonnie Raitt!) for the 50th anniversary of John Prine's debut album. Left Substack out of protest, bought my own URL for the newsletter. Got vaxxed/boosted. Met with folks a bit more freely. Some dear friends left D.C., but we make time to see each other anyway. My daughter's turning into a loving, chatty, goofy kid who loves tea like her papa. Saw a total of 4 concerts: Irreversible Entanglements outdoors at Rhizome, go-go band Proper Utensils in a local park for my D.C. neighborhood's annual reunion, Art Sorority outdoors at Comet Ping Ping, Sweeping Promises indoors at Comet Ping Pong. 

If I could, I would write a 300-album year-end list. Music consumes my every day: from checking my Bandcamp feed in the morning to emails from artists/publicists to tips from friends IRL/online to living room turntable spins and (more frequently) CDs jammed in the car on errands/road trips. It can be all-consuming, too – even though it's my day job, when music becomes an obligation, I become a shell of myself, lost like a little kid not knowing where to go or what to do. (Usually, I just regress to my teenage years as a '90s Christian punk.)

But know that if I bought a physical (or digital) copy of your album, it's in the year-end list of my heart. That's corny as hell, but true. Out of retail therapy or enthusiasm or stupidity, I think I bought more music than I have in years; for many of the same reasons, I couldn't keep up with it all (see also: toddler). So how do I put together a reflection of a blurred year gone by? Mostly just the music that stuck, or a single experience that continues to ripple outward. 

Because I like to write a little something about each album, let's do this in two parts, and divide everything into categories. Not by genre or theme, but how the albums resonate with my favorite lyrics of 2021. There are links out to Bandcamp where available, and a BNDCMPR playlist of songs from the list, where available. 

Metal is life's blood...

... drunk from horns and tallboys, screamed from pits and home office chairs – well, more of the latter than the former these days. Like everyone else, I miss shows, but especially the raucous throng of live metal, punk and hardcore. Feels like I missed out on that short window where shows could happen again, especially at Atlas Brew Works here in D.C., and now I'm back to headbangin' all by my lonesome to slam metal CDs in the Subaru! But I had copies of Decibel, Noxious Ruin and the Headsplit newsletter to keep me company, not to mention a stack of heavy metal cassettes. 

About a decade ago, I regularly wrote up year-end metal lists for NPR Music both to the celebration and consternation of the scene. I had a predilection for transcendence in doom, black and extreme metal – you could call it trendy, but I'll be damned if Agalloch's Marrow of the Spirit, Panopticon's Kentucky and Cloud Rat's Moksha don't retain their power more than most. Still, though, the gatekeepers of all things tr00 called it "NPR metal" – never quite figured out what was meant by that, only that it wasn't a compliment. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

In the spring of 2021, I had a revelation.

Fingerstyle guitar dared itself to transform. To grow beyond its presumed roots and sprout beautiful, perhaps even unsightly – yet truth-telling – limbs. I found this thrilling and, for me personally, transformative in how I approached the solo guitar as a listener, fan, critic. This is the music I'd put on to unwind and open up, but increasingly, musicians gave challenge to that notion – not to sit idly as background, to merely be a vessel for a "cosmic" experience. 

At the same time my wheels started turning – with emails written back and forth between editors and musicians to poke at a possible piece for NPR Music – Grayson Haver Currin went ahead and, just, published the story for the New York Times. This is the collective unconscious of music journalists, especially those with niche interests that intersect folk traditions and the avant-garde: We see movement and piece the puzzle together. I admire Grayson's writing and have had the joy of editing his work from time to time, but dang, I was crushed to see that story (executed with such care and craft) live somewhere else. (Still, though, I highly recommend… Grayson's got a knack for pulling humanity out of presumably rigid music scenes.) 

“We Three Kings” played on sitar? King Diamond? Amy Grant? Yup, I’m hosting a holiday music marathon dubbed the Viking’s Choice Holiday Special from 12-8 p.m. ET today, Dec. 23. All live, no archive. Hope y’all come by! Know it’s been a while since the last newsletter; I’ll have some year-end writing soon.

Welcome the last (?) Viking’s Choice Guide to Bandcamp Friday!

I absolutely reserve the right to bring back this monthly-ish list of new albums dropping on Bandcamp Friday at any given moment, but it’s time to refocus Viking’s Choice. As you may have noticed, the newsletter has become more infrequent — October, in particular, was pretty rough for my family. We’ll be OK, but like and , the stress and time consumption has made me reconsider how I want to spend my hours. 

Welcome the last (?) Viking's Choice Guide to Bandcamp Friday!

I absolutely reserve the right to bring back this monthly-ish list of new albums dropping on Bandcamp Friday at any given moment, but it's time to refocus Viking's Choice. As you may have noticed, the newsletter has become more infrequent — October, in particular, was pretty rough for my family. We'll be OK, but like Tone Glow and Gold Flake Paint, the stress and time consumption has made me reconsider how I want to spend my hours. 

Bandcamp Friday has been a power-up in how I search for new music, forcing me to dig into unknown corners to find artists like Yikii, 小本生灯 xsgacha and Lassie. (Pro-tip: enter this search term into Google and change the date site:bandcamp.com "releases November 5, 2021" ... it doesn't work perfectly, but helps me get out of my standard discovery mode.) But it's gotten to the point where Bandcamp Friday was my only excuse to write about music here, which was never the intention. I want to feature more essays and weekly-ish Bandcamp finds, less obligatory lists and playlist descriptions. 

Every day is Bandcamp Friday if you toss in a couple extra bucks.

I've said this before, but it bears repeating. Anyway, if you're new here, hi! Bandcamp Friday is when that platform waives its revenue fees so that artists/labels can pocket the change. I churn out 20+ short recommendations of albums/EPs released on or around Oct. 1, categorize them by silly/obscure ideas instead of genres, and then y'all spend a stupid amount of money on new music.

I don't believe in guilty pleasures…

… but there are some songs that I only share with close friends. Songs that demonstrate certain qualities intrinsic to understanding my taste — how it's changed, how it hasn't, and what early influences remain part of what I look for in music.

And then there's "Hamburgers."

This is not the artwork for Sixpence None the Richer’s This Beautiful Mess.

An oolong brews differently than a white peony than a pu-erh than a jasmine. And even within those varietals, soil and air give them distinct personalities from their region (and, thus, another way to approach preparation). Like collecting records, tea is a ritual that comes with a certain amount of research and love… know where your leaves come from and how best to experience them, and the tea leaves will reward your palette and sense of being

But this is not how to make a cup of aged Liu Bao.

I steeped way too many leaves of this funky, fermented Chinese black tea for far too long and in the same vessel that I brew my daily pot. I could tell a nutty, woody flavor was lurking under that deep red drink, but all I got was watery mud.

Buying trash snacks with your partner is romantic as heck.

We scanned the chip aisle of our corner store, recently under new management (they now sell shisha behind the counter!); it looks like they're about due for a restock: missing were Takis, plain Utz potato chips. But in quarantine, with a toddler, you take 20-minute dates when you can, debating the finer points of Pop Tart flavors (them: brown sugar, untoasted; me: cookies & cream, frozen) and why Lays just doesn't cut it anymore.

So that's the theme for the 9th edition of the Viking's Choice Guide to Bandcamp Friday: trash snacks & music pairings. Bandcamp Friday, for those who don't know, is when that music platform waives its revenue fees for 24 hours so that musicians can pay their rent (and buy snacks) during the pandemic. Bandcamp Fridays took a break for most of the summer, but now they're back until the end of 2021.

The first time I told a girl that I (platonically) loved her, she kicked me out.

This was my mid-20s, which I have come to call the second coming of my teenage years. Everything sucked, nothing made sense, relationships held on by a thread, drinking was fun (but also wasn’t) and I had no freaking idea what was to come. The future (and present) was terrifying, but sort of exciting because it’s one drama after another (hey, I watched a lot of Bravo reality shows in those days).

Summer’s usually got me in three modes:

“Children love the meat tank.”

“It’s been a wild ride, motherfuckers!”

Camae Ayewa (aka Moor Mother) opened Irreversible Entanglements’ set with an exclamation. Over a sprawling improvisation that pushed at the edges of the free-jazz band’s ’60s-inspired fire, Ayewa spit without her book of poetry in-hand, shouting and growling about time, isolation, the Sisyphian task of “building wreckage,” survival. Could’ve been about the past five days, five months or 500 years.

It’s 6:39 a.m.

And I still haven’t written a pithy or emotional or silly intro to this thing, yet, so here’s an assortment of links:

Nature is healing; I went inside a record store.

Among the many things I have missed during the pandemic — shows, hugs, friends, family, browsing nerdy beers at a liquor store — is the time spent flipping through vinyl at a local haunt. So after more than a year (and a second dose of Moderna), I hit up Red Onion Records in Hyattsville, Md., to meet up with Tracy and Kenny visiting from Richmond.

I don't know that the experience was emotional but rather a sudden rush of muscle memory and hesitation: Where do I even start? Are the new-used arrivals still in the same spot? How about the not-so-secret marked-down records that always have at least a few forgotten gems? How are there so many Blank Dogs records and why are they all here? It's not a big store, just well curated, which is typically my speed — more room for chance finds and chance meetings with friends.

"It doesn't even make sense!"

In the dorm rooms and on the streets of downtown Athens, Ga., that was the common refrain about Patrick Dean's Flagpole comic. Maybe you're not supposed to get it, some silly freshman deep-thinker would muse (read: me). "That's dumb. Why would anyone read a comic you don't understand?"

After my high-school years dabbling in Marvel and DC superheroes, the local alt-weekly introduced me to alternative comics, way before I'd hang out at small-print expos or read Big Indie Names like Harvey Pekar. Flagpole's backpages featured T. Edward Bak's Service Industry, sort of a Beat poet dishwasher-punk autobiography with flights of fantasy; Missy Kulick's Tofu Baby, a too-twee four-panel featuring a soybean curd who couldn't pronounce their R's; Tom Tomorrow's syndicated This Modern World; irreverent movie reviews from video store clerks via Flickskinny; and Patrick Dean's strip, which had a different title every week.

I’m still messed up about DOOM.

Few musician deaths have hit me as hard and as long. Scott Walker comes to mind, as does Geneviève Castrée. Each one speaks to a culture, aesthetic and ethos passed down — their creations as totems of taste and outré expression. MF DOOM is not only my favorite rapper, but might as well be my favorite producer, too — his cartoon-y bouncing-ball flow enmeshed in drifts of spider-webbed soul samples and synths. That’s not a knock on other producers who’ve put their mitts to his voice (shouts to Madlib and Jneiro Jarel), just that the Villain knew his dirty deeds best

What started as a way to help out musicians and labels beset by the pandemic (by Bandcamp waiving its revenue fees for 24 hours) has become a monthly tradition of surprise album drops, gratuitous spending and just a whole lotta music nerds sharing their wares online. There hasn't been an announcement about the future of Bandcamp Friday — maybe like everyone else, they're just waiting to see how the world opens back up.

So maybe there's another Viking's Choice Guide to Bandcamp Friday in June, maybe not — in any case, here's the 8th iteration! This month, I'm grouping the recommendations by what I think characters from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles would jam! I've been reading The IDW Collection, a truly engrossing re-telling of the TMNT origins with original co-creator Kevin Eastman at the helm for the first 12 issues (he contributes as the story develops in further collections, too). As someone who grew up on the animated series and the movies from the '90s, these comics not only weave a complex, ancient mythology but also present multi-dimensional characters I'd never seen before.

There are 30 releases here, all released on or around May 7. Follow along my personal Bandcamp collection for more recommendations. Cowabunga, dudes! —Lars Gotrich

I love dumb action movies.

So after my first Moderna shot, I started rewatching the series for the first time in years. In a haze, I took notes on my phone. Names of characters and the actors who portray them are mixed together with no rhyme or reason. I make no apologies for spoilers. Here’s a fast five of the first five, so far:

Music comes to you when it should.

I’ve said something like this, in one form or another, for over a decade now… to young interns and music journalists just getting their feet wet, tentative about their limited knowledge… to friends and peers who didn’t have the same experiences growing up… to folks older than me overwhelmed by the sheer amount of music available within a click. I don’t completely shuck authority out the window — the opposite is actually true, especially when it comes to historical context — but that’s not what drives me when I stumble across a beloved record or artist, often decades after the fact.