I spend a lot of time chasing whatever just came out, but crate digging never takes a day off here at The Wax Museum. Some of the best records I’ve heard this year were released decades ago, and a few of them have already become all-timers in my personal rotation.
This batch spans 1972 to 2023, from forgotten funk and Midwest emo to Japanese jazz, trip-hop, shoegaze, and plenty of stuff in between. Some were embarrassing blind spots, some came through reissues or compilations, and others were random discoveries that sent me straight down a rabbit hole.
So here are my 13 favorite new-to-me albums of 2026, in chronological order. Better late than never.
Aphrodite’s Child - 666 (1972)
Stream: Spotify
Get Vinyl: Red | Black
Genre: Batshit Progressive Rock
We’re not easing into this list, we’re getting weird right off the bat.
I must have been living under a (prog) rock to have missed 666, the sprawling double album from Greek band Aphrodite’s Child, composed by Vangelis as a loose adaptation of the Book of Revelation. The concept alone is insane: a circus stages the Apocalypse of St. John while the actual apocalypse is happening outside the tent, until the performance and reality start bleeding into each other.
Recorded in 1970 but held back until 1972 because Mercury looked at this thing and said absolutely not, 666 is a sonic riot of psychedelic rock, Greek folk influence, extended noise, narration, chants, and full-blown prog excess. By the time Vertigo released it, the band had already broken up.
I don’t know what was in the water at the end of the ’60s (it was acid), but it produced some wonderfully unwieldy records like this behemoth.
Father’s Children - Who’s Gonna Save The World (1973)
Stream: Bandcamp
Get Vinyl: Black
Genre: Funk
Here’s one courtesy of Chicago gem-finding institution Numero Group, who rescued Who’s Gonna Save the World from obscurity in 2011 after the album sat unreleased since 1973. It’s filthy, sunny, spiritual funk loaded with fuzz guitar, bubbling percussion, shimmering keys, and stacked harmonies that make every chorus feel communal. It’s a gold mine for samplers, with Kanye lifting “Dirt and Grime” for The Life of Pablo’s “Facts.”
The Chameleons - Script of the Bridge (1983)
Stream: Spotify
Get Vinyl: Blue and Orange
Genre: Post-Punk
Another entry in the increasingly embarrassing “where has this been all my life?” file. Released 43 years ago this week, Script of the Bridge is an hour long debut with no dead air, all chiming guitars, cavernous reverb, and huge melodies that sound absurdly current. Play that opening riff from “Don’t Fall” for someone with no context and you could convince them it’s a new Turnstile single.
My favorite moment comes a few songs later, when “Monkeyland” suddenly bursts open into that enormous, euphoric chorus, which is why it ended up on this summer’s Patio Grooves playlist.
The Lazarus Plot - Something Good Has Got To Come Out Of All Of These Goodbyes (1998)
Stream: Bandcamp
Get Vinyl: Red | Black
Genre: Female-fronted Midwest Emo
I first got hip to Illinois four-piece The Lazarus Plot through Numero’s Sequoia box set, which landed on my 2025 Gift Guide for Physical Media Lovers, and I finally got around to digging through their complete recordings.
Something Good Has Got To Come Out Of All Of These Goodbyes collects their brief two-year run into one sweet, deeply melancholic blast of Midwest emo, with Laura Laurent’s vocals giving all the twinkling guitars and emotional wreckage a softness that guts you. “Charmed, I’m Sure” is my favorite of the bunch.
Mojave 3 - Out of Tune (1998)
Stream: Spotify
Get Vinyl: Black
Genre: Alt-Country
I liked Mojave 3’s debut Ask Me Tomorrow, the album Neil Halstead, Rachel Goswell, and Ian McCutcheon made in the ashes of Slowdive, but for whatever reason I stopped there. This year I finally went down the rabbit hole, and Out of Tune is the one I keep coming back to. By album two, the band had expanded into a five-piece and gone much deeper into pedal steel and country rock.
For a bunch of English musicians recording in Glasgow, Out of Tune sounds hilariously uninterested in England. As you can tell by the album art, this thing has its head somewhere on the California coast, but more Neil Young than Beach Boys, full of sun-faded folk-rock.
All five Mojave 3 albums were finally reissued on vinyl this summer, so now is a very good time to make the same overdue deep dive I did.
Marc Leclair - Musique pour 3 Femmes Enceintes (2005)
Stream: Bandcamp
Get Vinyl: Black
Genre: Ambient
Marc Leclair, better known as Akufen, made Musique pour 3 Femmes Enceintes (Music for 3 Pregnant Women) while his wife and two close friends were all pregnant, structuring the album around stages of pregnancy with tracks like “64e Jour” (64th day), “150e Jour,” and “236e Jour.” The result is 70 minutes of beautifully textured ambient, glitch, microhouse, and field recordings that slowly shift from hazy ambience into something more physical as the album moves toward birth. It’s the most relaxing record on this list, and after spending two decades trapped on CD, it finally made its vinyl debut this summer.
Midlake - The Trials of Van Occupanther (2006)
Stream: Bandcamp
Get Vinyl: Opaque Marigold
Genre: Indie Folk Rock
I have no good excuse for missing The Trials of Van Occupanther for nearly 20 years, especially when opener “Roscoe” sounds like a song genetically engineered for my taste. Midlake takes ’70s soft rock and woodsy folk, then piles on flutes, piano, and thick harmonies, anchored by Tim Smith’s warm, wispy vocals. Major Veckatimest vibes, which came a few years later. It’s cozy shit, and one of those records where I knew about three songs in that I’d be living with it for a long time.
Lamp - Yume (ゆめ) (2014)
Stream: Spotify
Get Vinyl: Black
Genre: City Pop
Lamp have some of the prettiest melodies I’ve heard in a damn while, and Yume feels like 50 straight minutes of them showing off how effortlessly they can make one. Yusuke Nagai and Kaori Sakakibara’s dual vocals glide over bossa nova, city pop, lounge jazz, and harmony-heavy pop without ever crowding out the real MVP here: these ridiculously lush arrangements, full of warm guitars, synths, flutes, and harps. Instant mood enhancer.
Uyama Hiroto - Freeform Jazz (2016)
Stream: Bandcamp
Get Vinyl: Clear (going in and out of stock)
Genre: Nu Jazz
Keeping the good vibes going, Uyama Hiroto’s Freeform Jazz absolutely oozes style, with beautiful, expressive jazz built around head-nodding beats and ridiculously good percussion. It’s atmospheric without ever fading into the background, and perfect music for a house party. Even better, the album turns 10 this year and is finally getting a vinyl reissue after the limited original pressing was fetching over $500 resale.
Amber Mark - 3.33am (2017)
Stream: Spotify
Get Vinyl: Black
Genre: Alternative R&B
I came to Amber Mark through Franc Moody’s disco remix of “Lose My Cool,” which has gotten plenty of spins on my SPRITZCORE playlist, and eventually figured I should probably hear the record it came from. Glad I did.
3.33am is elevated R&B with gorgeous summer energy, full of airy production, rich harmonies, and Mark’s ridiculously smooth voice. Somebody desperately needs to repress this on vinyl, because the cheapest copies are currently around $300.
A Beacon School - Cola (2018)
Stream: Bandcamp
Get Vinyl: Black
Genre: Dream Pop
A Beacon School is the project of New York multi-instrumentalist Patrick J. Smith, and his debut Cola has a way of putting you into a flow state. It runs on loops and steady pulses, especially on the six-minute “It’s Late,” which locks into a trance-y beat and rides it out. It’s easy on the ears, but there are enough grooves, electronic textures, and surprises buried throughout to keep it from ever feeling too sleepy. Now I’m curious to jump into 2023 follow-up yoyo and hear if/how much the sound evolved.
What Is Your Name? - The Now Now and Never (2022)
Stream: Bandcamp
Get Vinyl: Red and Blue Splatter
Genre: Post-Rock
Where my Parannoul heads at? Dive into this one with me. The Now Now and Never takes that same maximalist approach to shoegaze, stacking crescendos on top of crescendos until the whole thing feels ready to explode. The production is crunchy, lo-fi, and ridiculously dense, with blown-out guitars, glowing synths, chopped vocal samples, and post-rock builds fighting for space. It’s noisy as hell but still beautiful and nostalgic. Give the opening title track a spin and blast off.
a.s.o. - a.s.o. (2023)
Stream: Bandcamp
Get Vinyl: Black
Genre: Trip-Hop
Inject this into my veins! The self-titled debut from Berlin duo Alia Seror-O’Neill and Lewie Day takes the early-’90s Portishead/Massive Attack template and gives it a beautifully modern polish: skeletal drums, dusky basslines, noir guitar, hazy synths, and Seror-O’Neill’s breathy vocals. A front-to-back run of downtempo bangers, and about as convincing a modern take on classic trip-hop as I’ve heard. When’s the follow-up?
Hey friends, thanks for digging with me. Lemme know the best old record you’ve discovered lately. I’m always hunting for the next rabbit hole.
And if this wasn’t enough, there’s plenty more record-mendations coming tomorrow. Paid subscribers get a new edition of The Weekender every Friday, my grab bag of albums, movies, shows, books, longreads, and assorted internet detours worth carrying into the weekend.
Basically, I spend all week digging around for good shit so you don’t have to.
Upgrade here and I’ll see you in your inbox tomorrow,
Jared
And this is why Substack is still good and not dying. Thank you.
The Chameleons are a fantastic band. I've been a fan since their debut album. I have Pandora and the algorithm constantly surprises me with "new" bands with songs from a decade or so ago, such as Twin Tribes, Drab Majesty, Beach Vacation or Washed Out. But I love the discovery even if I'm late to the party.