Four Autumn Albums

I wanted to quickly write a recommendation for four albums that fit with Fall. There are countless gorgeous records that compliment this time of year (think Harvest, Tapestry, Bookends, Fleet Foxes, Rubber Soul, Little Girl Blue, etc) but these four are on my mind today. So, here they are, each with a brief write up. I have linked to the Spotify page for each of these in the captions of the album art. Hope you enjoy them.

This record came out when I first moved to Brooklyn. Tessa and I got to see Martin and a handful of talented musicians play through the full album at Brooklyn’s National Sawdust. It was a small low key show, great from start to end, when Martin played a cover of Neil Young’s Harvest Moon and then signed my copy of Many Moons.

Influences for this record include Nick Drake, Jim Croce, and R. Stevie Moore. You can check out more of this record’s influences here.

This record was given to me by my Uncle around my Junior or Senior year of high school. It was signed by the entire band too. I really only knew them because Oh Mandy had been on my very first mp3 player that only held 100 songs. But this record, coming seventeen years into the band’s career, is nearly perfect in my opinion. Each track compliments the others while also standing out. On a drive from Atlanta back to Austin this week, I put this on and remarked that it “had no skips”. The high of the highway may have made me overlook one track, which listening through on a dull Tuesday I now would skip over, but I will let you decide which track that is rather than tarnishing it with my opinion here.

Courtney Barnett and Kurt Vile make wonderful music on their own, and each have music I’d recommend for this time of year (Bottle It In for instance). But this collaboration is my go-to driving record for this season. It rolls and bends with the road, characteristic to both Courtney’s and Kurt’s style. One cool aspect of this collaboration is that Courtney and Kurt both cover a song by the other (Outta The Woodwork + Peepin’ Tom). Check out their NPR tiny desk or their KEXP performance for this record too.

This is the only “new” album on this list, both by release date and because it is new to me. Andy Shauf’s The Party is also a quintessential Fall record which my friend introduced me to back in 2016 or 2017, and Wilds fits the season too. I have only recently been listening to this, but so far am loving it.

Check out my favorite track, Green Glass.