Sounds of Summer.

As we creep towards the summer solstice, the new season demands a totally different sonic palette where I find myself bypassing the sleek, pristine modern presses and reaching for records that sound like they've been sitting in a sunbaked trunk of a car. We're talking buzzing garage rock, cinematic analog grooves, and beautifully weird pop.

Here is a handful of vintage-feeling, high-energy essentials currently taking over my turntable as the days start to come in hot. Sizzle sizzle…

Warm, analog, and perfect for a lazing on a sunny afternoon….in the summer time.

1. The Kinks —Face to Face (1966)

A blueprint for summer lethargy if there ever was one. Ray Davies’ music-hall style and lazy, descending basslines capture that exact feeling of being too hot to move, lounging in a backyard while the world drifts by. I love to listen to this one outside, swinging in the wicker egg chair I bought myself one year for Mother’s Day while sipping a can of flavored sparkling water.

Favorite Tracks: “Dandy,” “Sunny Afternoon,” and “Holiday in Waikiki”

2. Jenny Lewis — Joy’All (2023)

A more modern-day pick, this album is all-summer, all the way. The indie-pop veteran and iconic songwriter—who has been handed her 40s in a margarita glass—decamps to Nashville. There, she channels classic 70s country with an album packed full of her signature razor-sharp wit and mid-life insight. Trading the gritty, emotional bite of her earlier work, Lewis gives us smooth, laid-back Americana grooves instead, making it such an effortless and now iconic summer listen.

Favorite Tracks: “Psychos,” “Joy’All,” and the midlife anthem “Puppy and a Truck”

3. Wilco — Cruel Country (2022)

This album brings me right back to taking my son to his first-ever concert. When he was seven, we took him to see his heroes, Wilco, at a legendary club near Toulouse called Le Bikini. The band opened with “I Am My Mother” while I held my small guy—wearing his padded headphones—in my arms. It will forever be our song.

As for the rock nerd stuff: Cruel Country is sprawling, organic, and deeply rooted. Because it’s a double album recorded mostly live in the studio, it has a loose, front-porch breathing room that pairs perfectly with mid-summer road trips as well as that lonely end-of-summer lull.

Favorite Tracks: “I Am My Mother,” “Cruel Country,” “Falling Apart,” “Hints,” and “Story to Tell”

4. The Cardigans — Life (1995)

Even though lead singer Nina Persson is in an ice-skating outfit on the cover, this album has all the ingredients of an ultimate summer record. It’s less desert-dusted blues and more of a lush garden party where the Prosecco goes straight to your head. Infectious, bubbly, and deceptively sophisticated, the music blends sun-dappled 1960s lounge-pop hooks and jazz-tinged guitars with Nina’s sweet, whispery vocals. And why not throw in a killer, swung-out cover of Black Sabbath’s “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath”? (I read the Swedish band actually started out as metalheads before pivoting to pop). I bought this album in the summer of ’96 on a whim with one of my very first paychecks simply because I liked the artwork, entirely unaware that they were about to completely explode a few months later with “Lovefool” on the Romeo + Juliet soundtrack. But hype shmype—Life is my forever Cardigans go-to and remains a classic in retro, breezy, avant-garde pop, which felt deliciously counterculture in the ‘90s.

Favorite Tracks: “Daddy’s Car,” “Sick and Tired,” “Gordon’s Garden Party,” “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath” and “Fine”

When the heat index rises and the music needs to get a little weird, fuzzy, or hypnotic.

5. Thee Oh Sees — Floating Coffin (2013)

For me, it’s not summer without catching Thee Oh Sees (or in modern-day parlance: Osees) on their annual tour through Europe. We’ve seen them in Orléans, Paris, and this year will be in Lyon, and every single time it is a guaranteed calorie-burning, damn fucking good time. Floating Coffin sits right at the steering wheel of that pure, relentless garage-psych energy I crave in the warmer weather. It’s the sound of a sweaty, packed venue where you move your body in ways you haven't all year. I usually need a big meal afterwards.

Favorite Tracks: “I Come From the Mountain,” “Toe Cutter,” “Maze Fancier,” and my son’s favorite, the summer slow jam “Minotaur”

6. The Brian Jonestown Massacre — Their Satanic Majesties' Second Request (1996)

One of the greatest rock t-shirts I own simply says “Eat Shit” on it. It’s my Brian Jonestown Massacre shirt, and it gets major side-eye every single time I wear it—even here in France. Little do the onlookers know, that shirt is a celebration of the absolute musical freedom of this band. A little off-kilter, a little unhinged, and extremely insulting, it encapsulates them perfectly.

Their forth studio album, Their Satanic Majesties’ Second Request is a droning psych masterpiece. Taking the paisley-tinted blueprint of 1967 rock, they roll it in a thick layer of 90s indie grit. It’s a massive, 75-minute swirling vortex of sitars, tambourines, and hypnotic acoustic guitar jangle that sounds best when the midday heat makes the air shimmer. Listening to it feels like stumbling into a beautiful, slightly trippy late-60s commune where time ceases to exist and the music guides your emotions.

Favorite Tracks: “All Around You,” “In India You,” “Feelers,” and if they ever had a “hit” it would be “Anenome” and rightfully so, this track is perfection.

7. Panda Bear — Person Pitch (2007)

If Brooklyn in the early aughts had a counter-album to MGMT’s Oracular Spectacular, it would be Person Pitch by Panda. How do I know? Because I was one of those early aughts assholes living in Brooklyn. Eight hundred bucks in Southside Williamsburg with a roommate named Claire. We had roaches. We had boy problems. We had a slumlord. We had Panda Bear. This looping, urban beach party completely made up for our lack of air conditioning and the fact that we were too broke to go out. So we drank wine coolers in front of a box fan, listened to these neo-Beach Boys harmonies, and survived to tell the story.

Favorite Tracks: “Comfy in Nautica,” “Take Pills,” “Bros”

Upbeat, eccentric, and guaranteed to get people moving (or hoola-hooping) at a summer gathering.

8. Beck — Odelay (1996)

I’ve shared the summer importance of Odelay! here in an earlier newsletter, and how it never ceases to transport me back to my first job at fourteen, slicing bread at a bakery in New York City. I remember those first paychecks, my first sips of iced coffee (talking myself into liking it), and the absolute freedom of blasting this then-brand-new release on my Walkman down Seventh Avenue from Penn Station. Beck’s magnum opus is the ultimate genre-blending 90s block party. Packed with junk-shop beats, slide guitars, and classic cut-and-paste samples, it is pure kinetic energy from start to finish making it my first even summer album.

Favorite Tracks: “Hot Wax,” “Derelict,” and “Ramshackle”

9. The Black Keys — “Let’s Rock” (2019)

The Black Keys remain a constant in our house with their straightforward, high-octane, no-frills garage blues. In fact, they were the primary inspiration for the early-aughts two-piece band in my novel Lost on Long Island. I always wondered what The Black Keys would be like if Dan Auerbach were a girl, so I wrote a book about it—a story that eventually spun off in its own direction with characters who became their own people, though the inception started with this Ohio duo. This specific album is a glorious return to basics: no heavy synths, just massive guitar riffs and anthemic hooks meant to be turned up way too loud.

Favorite Tracks: “Shine A Little Light,” “Lo/Hi,” “Fire Walk With Me,” and the 70s-inspired sun-soaked “Breaking Down”

10. The Flaming Lips — Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (2002)

I have to borrow this record from my son’s personal collection now, because he fell in love with the exact same shimmering, psychedelic sci-fi pop that captivated me the first time I heard it while sitting in my car on Sunset Boulevard back in 2004. This is an album that feels completely expansive, layering bright acoustic guitars underneath massive, booming electronic beats to make the whole record sound incredibly vibrant, colorful, and visually alive, feeling a lot like the great outdoors.

Favorite Tracks: “Fight Test,” “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Pt. 1,” “In the Morning of the Magicians,” and of course, “It’s Summertime.”

I can honestly keep going because I have so many records that feel like summer but for later posts, my friends. After all, the summer hasn’t even begun. But now that I’ve shared the heavy rotation currently melting my turntable, I want to hear what’s spinning on yours. Drop a comment below and let me know your ultimate, go-to summer albums for the lazy, hazy days ahead.