Cherish the Ladies "One & All" (1998)

This is an odd choice & perhaps a cash grab by Green Linnet.  It's a best of collection that only covers 3 albums.  Yeah, I think that's a bit too quick to pull the trigger on a compilation as well.  Regardless, Cherish the Ladies are a wonderful contemporary act, & this is a great collection.

Mercury Rev "Deserter's Songs" (1998)

90s psychedelia.  For me, the closest comparison is probably the Flaming Lips.  There's the same lack of guitar muscularity, but with a real sadness.  This kind of thing seems to really have a certain time & place, & it's hard to listen to this without it being early morning in a cheaply furnished apartment.  I think you know the scene.

Neutral Milk Hotel "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea" (1998)

Where to even start talking about this one?  For an album running under 40 minutes, it's amazingly ambitious.  While there are various elements that are so lofi as to seem amateurish, there is clearly an intentionality to the work itself.  What exactly that intention is is not so clear. 

There's a cult like devotion to this album by people of a certain age.  I can hear influences of it in records recorded years later.

And yet, it doesn't work for me.  There's a lot here, but quite simply isn't engaging enough for me to want to spend the time upacking all that is here.  It's not really suited for anything but close listening, and yet I am not engaged when I do listen closely.

Rose Polenzani "Dragersville" (1998)

It's odd how sometimes music brings up associations with people, even when you don't have a direct connection between that person & the music.  As I was listening to this record, I was struck with how much a distant friend would love this record.  It's beautifully fingerpicked guitar accompanying ruminations on humanity, love, salvation.  It's one of those startling debuts, where you wonder how someone can emerge with this sort of craftmanship.